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by Vanessa L. France (Author)
Unraveled: A Journey from Breakdown to Breakthrough
If you've ever felt too much and not enough in the same breath - if you've ever tried to outrun anxiety with achievement or quiet shame with control - this book will meet you where you are.
Growing up in the 90s, Vanessa France learned to be dependable and pleasing on the outside while a vigilant nervous system hummed beneath the surface. Over the years, that quiet pressure shaped itself into familiar coping - perfectionism, disordered eating, and a nightly truce with pain. When a global crisis collides with the tender work of hospice and the demands of a young family, the carefully managed life begins to fray. One ordinary-extraordinary moment at home becomes a turning point - not a tidy transformation, but the first honest step toward a different way of living.
Unraveled isn't a flashy before-and-after - it's the slow, real work of returning: to sobriety, to presence in motherhood and marriage, to faith that looks like breath, and to a body no longer treated as a problem to solve. Yoga shifts from performance to practice - from shapes to a way of meeting whatever the day brings with steadiness and care.
Inside, you'll find
- Lived-in scenes and clear language for things we rarely name - anxiety that whispers, shame that masquerades as "standards," grief that shows up as control
- A compassionate map for change - small, repeatable choices that build a life you don't need to numb
- Nervous-system tools woven through story - breath, pacing, consent, and kindness as practical supports
What you won't find
- Moralizing, voyeurism, or quick fixes - no performance of perfection, no tidy bow
- A promise to "hack" your healing - only the invitation to begin again, gently and honestly
For readers who resonated with memoirs of recovery and re-entry - voices like Glennon Doyle, Laura McKowen, and Annie Grace - Unraveled offers a steadier mirror: less spectacle, more truth; less shame, more possibility. It's for parents who want to hand their kids a different story; for helpers who forgot they also deserve help; for anyone ready to trade self-criticism for clarity and control for care.
Come as you are. Turn one page. Breathe. Begin again.
Content note - Includes candid reflections on anxiety, disordered eating, and alcohol misuse, as well as hospice work during a global public-health crisis. The emphasis is on recovery, repair, and hope.
About the author - Vanessa France is a writer, yoga teacher, and co-owner of Zen Yoga & Wellness in central Massachusetts. Before opening her studios, she worked in hospice, accompanying families through life's most tender thresholds. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and their four children.
