The book · February 2026
Part book, part journal, part coaching session. Built on a six-chapter framework: Discover, Understand, Accept, Nurture, Be, Design. It is an interactive space for honest, unvarnished self-inquiry. You do the writing. You find the answers. Tell your story. Design your life.
Why now
First written in Denver in 2012, as social media accelerated, housing crashed, and people lost their footing. Kerry couldn’t find the book she needed on anyone else’s shelf, so she wrote it.
Fourteen years later, the noise grew louder: AI rearranging work, shifting rights, deepening isolation. She rewrote it from Lisbon after running the framework through her own life, navigating relocation, loss, and rebuilding. She rebuilt two chapters entirely to reflect what those questions actually demand.
It won’t fix the world. It pulls you back to yourself so the outside stops running the inside. Same six chapters, written by someone who lived every line.
Start at Chapter One and stay the course. Every layer builds on the ground cleared right before it.
Look at what you are struggling with today, not what you think you should be struggling with. Your feelings are the compass.
Trace your thoughts, fears, and patterns back to their source. Question whether those stories were ever true.
Acknowledge the full story, including the hard parts, and recognize the grit it took to get through them.
Treat daily life like upkeep. Set boundaries, remove what drains you, and protect what matters. Consistency over grand gestures.
Bring your inner reality into your relationships, choices, and routine until the internal matches the external.
Construct a life aligned with who you are: deliberate, steady, and entirely yours.
Most books tell you what to think. This one asks direct questions and leaves space for raw answers. What you write on these pages becomes your baseline.
Wide margins, bold prompts, and blank space. This edition is engineered as a functional workbook, not passive reading material.
Pull it off the shelf during transitions, losses, or hard resets. Re-reading your past answers reveals what you missed the first time, and how far you’ve moved.
Built on twenty-five years of client work, then stress-tested by Kerry herself when rebuilding her life from scratch. The framework exists because it worked when nothing else did.
From the introduction
I see the journey to self as the ticket to freedom. The freedom to finally get to be who you really are without fear of what anyone else thinks of you. The freedom from your past, where those fears and insecurities were formed. And, of course, the freedom to dream and manifest as much as you want, whenever you want.
As a child, I assumed that all adults knew exactly what they were doing in life. When I grew up, I realized that most adults are actually longing for a life on their terms.
Our collective nervous system is worn thin. Too many of us are running on fear, comparison, disconnection and performance. Our identities are shaped by algorithms, our choices by pressure, and our voices? Too often buried…
Kerry Pastine, Take Back Your Self
The whole of chapter one is a free download further down this page, in exchange for an email address.
All of them carry the complete text, every prompt and the whole six chapter framework. The print editions are built for a pen, with wide margins and journal pages throughout. Published by True Self Essentials Publishing, first edition February 2026.
Signed, direct from Kerry
$45Signed, and inscribed to you by name if you ask for it. Ships from Lisbon, worldwide, in five to ten days.
Paperback
$30The full-color paperback, printed and posted inside your own country through Lulu.
eBook
$14.99Full-color PDF, readable on anything, set up for printing and for annotating on a screen. Yours in about a minute.
Book and two sessions
$299 / saves $45.99The signed edition and two 60-minute sessions with Kerry, one to open the work and one to steer it once you are inside it.
Free download
Unsure where to start? Answer six questions to see which phase of the work is calling you today. Pick your answers, see where you land, and take the first step.
I picked it up on a hard night and couldn’t put it down. By the time I finished chapter one I had already written things about myself that I’d been avoiding for years.
It doesn’t tell you what to do. It helps you hear yourself, and what you hear changes everything.
I’ve had Know Thyself since 2013. The new edition is extraordinary, the same heart and so much more alive. Kerry has clearly lived a lot of life since then, and it shows on every page.
Expected 2026 or 2027
The second book turns the same six chapters on love: how people lose themselves inside a relationship, and how they find the way back to themselves while staying in it.
Join the Letters from Lisbon newsletter for updates from Kerry. You will also be added to the waiting list and be the first to know when Take Back Your Heart is released.
Or start with a person
Some people read it first and book the call later. Some do it the other way round. Both work, and the call is free either way.
