Dear Carrie and Danielle,

I found your blog sometime in the last couple of months and got more and more excited as I followed along… I knew I wanted to buy the book but was broke, so I waited, and then I saw that you posted about a couple of contests to win copies so I entered both. A few days later – in the middle of serious self-questioning and transition – I decided that I had to have the book and ordered a copy from Amazon. The day it came I found out I won the Startup Princess contest! A couple days later I found out I’d also won Suzanne Marques’s contest…. I told Suzanne I’d already won a copy (so I have two now, the one I bought and the one I won, and I’m waiting for the perfect moment to give it to someone in my life, just when they need it). Talk about manifesting your desires. (Actually, something similar happened with something else I wanted badly but couldn’t afford – a Bamboletta waldorf-style doll for my daughter – I won two of them! So I have more faith in this “manifesting” thing than I used to.)

I really knew that your book could help me deal with some of the things I was going through in my life - my marriage has been rocky for a long time now. I’ve had this unmoored feeling and the suspicion that a large part of my indecisiveness and general unhappiness was because I had no idea who I really was. I made a lot of choices based on what other people wanted, or what I thought they wanted. I felt like my life had gotten off track somehow. I was having a real identity crisis. I couldn’t decide something as simple as what to eat for dinner or what movie to watch, and if I did manage to figure out that choice, then I had an even harder time voicing it. I felt like this was getting to a real crisis point because I have a three-year-old daughter and if I know anything, I know that I want to be a better role model and help her to have a very strong sense of self. But until your book I didn’t know how I would go about finding it – I’ve been in therapy for ages, have done lots of other “self-improvement” kinds of books and programs, but nothing clicked at a soul level the way your book did.

I took my time going through the book (or, well, I was really excited and wanted to do it ALL the time but I also wanted to stretch it out as much as possible). I knew after doing about half of the questions that “sensual” would be one of my words, probably the creative edge word. I also thought that “designed” or “crafted” would be the foundation word – but somehow, through the last few pages of processing the words, “elemental” snuck up on me somehow. I can’t believe how perfectly this word sums up who I am, what I’m interested in, and what works and doesn’t work in my life. It sums up my fashion sense too but it is SO much more than that. I understand a large, large part of why I have been struggling in my marriage – there has been a lot of wasted time, wasted resources, wasted energy, and so little of it spent appreciating the elemental. I also understood some other issues I’ve had – I have been a little ashamed of the sensual part of me, and have compensated by cutting out sensory pleasures, denying the bodily part of myself. I have a chronic pain condition and I’ve been letting that rule my experience of my body.

Now, feeling that this style statement is so right for me, I feel like I can move forward with confidence. I can make decisions – small or large – and have started to implement some little changes so that I feel like I’m expressing myself with everything I do. I’ve started to purposefully seek out sensual pleasures – candles, scents – and that alone has given me so much more energy. I really am amazed at how much this has changed me already. I am so grateful for your work.

in peace,
Elemental Sensual

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