The debut book by a Sechelt writer and mental health advocate doesn’t mince words: sometimes life stinks, and it takes a plan to plunge through the mire.
Liz Long’s Navigating Sh*tstorms: How to Find Your True Path When Life Gets Rough demonstrates uncommon alchemy. The story begins as a plainspoken chronology of the author’s journey through trauma. It evolves into a constructive roadmap for others whose hurt has earned them citizenship in Victimtown, Long’s allegorical dead-end burg that is bounded by self-absorption.
“It was never one of those bucket list things, to write a book,” said Long. She was in the midst of creating a new business dedicated to real estate education when COVID-19 shut down the trade show and convention circuit essential to marketing her company.
“It just unfolded that way,” she added. “And I also came to believe and understand that all of our past experiences are designed for our true purpose, to not force us but to gently lead us in that direction.”
Long also tells the story to honour Lynda White, a cherished aunt and her regular childhood babysitter. White disappeared in 1968 while studying at the University of Western Ontario. Long was only six years old at the time.
Following White’s disappearance, Long moved into her grandparents’ home and was assigned to her aunt’s bedroom. Five years later, White’s remains were found in a wooded area in southern Ontario. Despite a 2014 true-crime TV investigation, the abduction and murder have not been solved.
The loss of her aunt and estrangement from her brother (who is finally located in Australia after Long hires a private investigator) contributed to emotional obstacles that seemed insurmountable.
“Every single one of us, to varying degrees, is a victim of our childhood,” said Long. “And it’s those beliefs and coping mechanisms and triggers that we drag into our adult life that leads us to the places in Victimtown.”
Long eschews the language of psychological analysis and instead defines the geography of emotional crisis, charting a Pilgrim’s Progress of self-realization. Destinations like the Ego Arena, the Control Factory, and the Sorrow Swampland are plotted with scenes from her own autobiography.
“Naming the places and naming The Boss [her tyrannical proxy for self-criticism] enables us to more readily catch ourselves,” said Long. “The Boss for me was the predominant other voice in my head. She tells us that we can’t be happy until something happens, or that it’s our problem, or that it’s our job to fix other people’s problems.”
The book’s trajectory shifts when Long defines an alternative guide, which she dubs the Heart Voice. “Our heart is our soul’s GPS,” she writes, introducing her strategy for readers to amplify their heart voice while putting the rancorous rabble from Victimtown in their place.
“In the book, I discuss the concept of intrinsic courage, the ability to view every past experience and every current situation and every person involved with compassion and love,” said Long. “The book holds me more accountable to implementing that in my own life.”
The path to Freedomville, the shining city on a hill, is paved with authorial empathy and wry candour. Long’s publisher warned her that a title with a four-letter word would keep it out of airport bookshops unless the book reaches best-seller status. She was firm: the word stays. “People love it,” shes said, “because it resonates. Because it’s true.”
Navigating Sh*tstorms: How to Find Your True Path When Life Gets Rough is available from online retailers and Talewind Books in Sechelt.
