I never would have thought, in a million years, that one day I would write a book.
Writing has never come naturally to me. Even now, I’m surprised that I’ve managed to fill hundreds of journal pages over the years. Honestly, it all began with setting some goals and recording some dreams. I must have read somewhere that keeping a journal and reflecting on thoughts and feelings brings clarity and a better understanding of the self, and so I began.
A writing workshop I attended in 2004 helped me break out of my shell. It gave me the courage to express my thoughts, feelings, and dreams in a private journal. Thanks to Yesim Cimcoz, I still use some of the techniques I learned in that workshop after 20 years.
In 2006, out of necessity to support my Reiki students, I started a monthly newsletter that eventually evolved into this blog in 2009.
I never imagined I would one day gather any of it into something cohesive. It was in early 2025, when a family drama was unfolding in Istanbul, that I needed something to distract myself; the idea of this book was born. This was a testament that every negative experience may give rise to something positive.
It took me 2 days to assemble this book from years of blog posts, journal entries, articles, and notes. Yet it took months and months to ponder it. Some of the experiences I share are deeply personal. I hesitated whether to share them or not. I wondered whether people would judge me or think I was nuts. In the end, I am not flawless. I am just a human, but I love and accept myself as I am. I thought, so be it.
What began for me as a journey to find meaning gradually transformed into a journey to discover myself, my true self. And in the end, what I eventually came to realize was this: there is ultimately nothing to seek, no separate seeker, only this luminous moment—its weightless freedom, the awareness of that freedom, and the immeasurable peace that comes with it.
I wish I could say this realization came after years of meditation.
But no… I had to die to find this out.
And the experiences led me to find this, I shared in my book.
Here, I wanted to share the steps in the evolution of the book.
The first person I shared the draft with was my dear friend Sundar Kadayam. Over the years, we were always good sounding boards for each other, and he has extensive experience in publishing. My initial idea was to share chapters in chronological order and scatter my travel notes in between. It was Sundar's idea to split it into an inward and outward journey. It made perfect sense to me. The inward journey was my yoga and Reiki journey. The outward journey was my spiritual travels. I collected everything else in a third section. That included various articles, experiences, dreams, visions, etc. Sundar shared essentials in a book, like a preface, an introduction, a glossary, etc., and gave me some tips and resources from his own publishing experience. He even wrote a review for my book, which I used on the back cover. This gave me the boost I needed at that time. Thank you, my friend!
Picking the name was easy. I didn't even think for a moment. The motto in my email signature line has been "Love Unconditionally, Serve Selflessly, Transform to the Highest Potential" since 2010. I thought that would be a good representation and summary of my goal in my journey.
I didn't go through a professional-editor route for two reasons: First, I knew it would take a lot of effort to make this book publishable by a publishing house. I didn't care to make content changes a professional editor would suggest. I wanted the book to stay raw and imperfect. I wanted it to stay original, with all the mistakes in it. I wrote this book to leave to my grandkids, if I have some, one day. I didn't want to change the content for promotional reasons to make it more attractive to readers. It's what it is, and that includes the language. Also, I thought there were so many spiritual journeys and autobiographies out there. I didn't think people would find something new that they hadn't read anywhere else before.
After all, the target audience of this book is my family and close friends. I hope that, one day, my grandchildren might find something here that resonates with them, and maybe this collection will offer a spark of encouragement to fellow spiritual seekers.
Having said that, I used ChatGPT and Grammarly to review and edit portions of the book. However, I did it at a minimum, and I certainly didn't care for most suggestions. I wanted to keep it "imperfect" because that's how my English is, and it would not be real if I edited everything as ChatGPT suggested. I got help from 2 friends for whom I'm deeply grateful. First, Antonia von Hirschberg read a large portion of the book and suggested some grammar and punctuation fixes. She did a huge favor, maybe without knowing the impact, and printed the whole book and put it in a binder. That way, I was able to share it with another friend, Sharon Davis Riegler, who read it thoroughly and made similar grammar and punctuation suggestions. That process taught me how much grammar and punctuation I didn't know. Beware: There might still be some mistakes in the book!
The first Turkish friend who read and gave me stellar feedback, Ezgi, gave me the courage that I was on the right path. Thanks, Ezgi'cim!
Another encouragement was from my daughter. In fact, she was my original editor, before ChatGPT, before Grammarly, for years. When she was in middle school and high school, I'd run my monthly articles through her before publishing them on my blog, and she would give grammar oversight. She was the first to read my book and provide encouraging feedback. Thank you, Serra!
I also need to give credit with my deep gratitude to two people for the cover art. When I was diagnosed with cancer, Maria Kammerer gave me a hand-made etching of a bodhisattva as a gift of encouragement. This gift was so precious to me that not only did I keep it as a treasure, but I also wanted it to be on the cover of my book. Thank you for the precious gift, Maria.
It was Joey Wood who designed the cover art. My daughter's boyfriend is such a talented artist that he made it seem very easy and flawless. But I know so much effort goes into it. Thank you for the color selection and perfect reflective look of the cover, Joey!
I also want to thank my sister-in-law, who organized our Peru & Bolivia trip 20 years ago, accompanied me in my first visit to Gobeklitepe, and took me to Aphrodisias, Sagalassos, Laodikeia, Nysa, and Metropolis. To many more travels together!
There is one person, without whose help this book could not be printed, and that's my husband. Like he always does, he researched extensively, discovered the Reedsy tricks for formatting, KDP/Amazon guidelines, and so much more to make the book print-ready. The name is "self-publish," but believe me, it's not that a straightforward process. Thank you, honey!
Now is the time to enjoy the birth of "Love unconditionally, Serve selflessly, Transform to the highest potential".
And celebrate.
