Book
I’ve spent the last few years writing a book, and it is now available to fill a spot on your bookshelf!
The Courage to Go has been released to the public!
Official book cover for The Courage to Go: A Memoir of the Seven Thousand Miles That Healed Me
““There are seasons where comfort and certainty are necessary to help us feel safe enough to enter into growth, and then there are seasons where we must enter into the paradox of leaving everything comfortable and certain so that we might find something to hold onto in the paralyzing ambiguity, of letting ourselves be broken open so that we may be filled up again, of giving into the death so that hopefully, somewhere in the deep dark, light will finally break through.
The only certain thing in my being that day was that my heart was beating, and its rhythm was enough assurance to help me show up to the uncertainty wrapped up in my leaving. I was a twenty-year-old woman travelling alone for the first time, driving across the country, sleeping in my car or in my tent, in towns I had not yet decided. I had no idea who I was, what I believed, where I was going, or when I would come back, but I was going, and that was all that mattered.”
”
As the foundations of her identity crumbled, Emily Dobberstein was left questioning everything. Searching to find life again, she set off on a solo road trip with only one direction in mind—West.
This unpredictable, vulnerable, winsome, and inspirational seven-thousand-mile travel memoir is the story of how one woman found the courage to go, to tell the truth, and to make peace with the shadows in her life that she had been trying to ignore. All she could do was hope that upon her return from wherever the open road would take her, she might be a little more healed and a little more whole.
In the midst of thrilling storytelling of adventures while living out of her car, backpacking, and hiking in many national parks in the Western United States, Dobberstein seamlessly integrates her internal dialogue filled with hard questions, spiritual transformation, and divine transcendence. By sharing her musings on wonder, grief, womanhood, healing, and her Christian faith deconstruction, Dobberstein invites us all to reconsider where we come from and challenges us to plunge forward courageously into our own great unknown.
This book is about seeking mystery, not debating theology.
This book is about making peace with ambiguity, not resisting it.
This book is about the questions, not the answers.
I can only hope that this book leads us all back to the fundamental truth that vulnerability breeds
vulnerability, and we all know this world could damn well use some more authenticity.
This book is a part of my story.
I invite you to find yourself in it somewhere,
And may it take you wherever you need to go.
The Courage to Go is based on a road trip I took in 2015 that changed everything for me, and maybe, if you decide to join the ride, it will change everything for you, too.
Order yours here!