After losing over one-hundred pounds and surviving cancer multiple times, Gretchen Norling Holmes, PhD, was a new person. The differences in her body were obvious. But the real changes went far beyond her appearance. An extension of her hit podcast, Holmes's inspiring memoir, The Work In Between, recounts her story of transformation. Diving deep into the ways childhood trauma, unregulated emotion, and a lack of self-worth shaped her body and her soul, Holmes traces her journey through some of the cruelest and most beautiful experiences life has to offer.
Witty, frank, and richly thoughtful, The Work In Between is peppered with wisdom from the author's expertise in the field of Health Communication. Holmes brings an astute eye to the relationship between outward appearances and medical experiences as she draws from her doctoral education and years of service as a hospital executive. And yet, the complex web of stories that characterize The Work In Between extend far beyond Holmes's own experiences. As this memoir makes clear, we carry family trauma in our bones. Until we do the inside work of facing our demons and declaring our worthiness, we cannot live the full, happy lives we were meant to live.