Paths to Myself: The Story of This Book and the Wound That Began It

Every book has a visible cover, and also inner covers that nobody knows about.

What you see as it stands on the shelves is only its outer story.

In these lines, I don’t want to tell the outer story of Paths to Myself, but its inner story.

Not where this book was written, but which feeling it was born from.

Not at which desk I sat, but which wound I was carrying when I picked up the pen.

Because this book was not written because it was a “good idea”.

This book was written in a place inside me that had been silently bleeding for many years, because the bleeding no longer stopped.

Crashing into myself while trying to run away from myself...

For a long time, I did not look for paths to myself.

I was looking for ways to run away from myself.

Working more, producing more, staying busier, seeming more “necessary”…

I thought the fuller I was, the better I would feel.

Yet there was a voice inside me that stubbornly refused to be silent:

“Where are you in this life?”

The more I tried to suppress this question, the bigger it became.

By day I disappeared into crowds; at night when I was alone, all the crowds collapsed onto me.

One day came, and there was nowhere left to run.

A day that looked ordinary on the calendar but had long been a breaking point inside me.

The day I crashed into myself while trying to run away from myself.

Paths to Myself began with the shock of that collision.

Who did I really write this book for?

From the outside this book looks as if it were written for the reader.

In truth, I first wrote it for myself.

There was a “me” I had carried inside for years but could never quite turn into sentences.

A me I silenced because I thought if I spoke I would be misunderstood, if I was open I would not be loved, if I voiced my hurt they would say “you’re exaggerating”.

Paths to Myself was an attempt to get to know that silenced me again.

An attempt to take it seriously for the first time, to listen to it for the first time, to say for the first time “your story is worth telling”.

Yes, I want to say something to everyone who reads this book; but first I wanted to touch my own shoulder and say:

“I hear you.

You were silent for years, now you can speak if you want.”

This book is like a letter from someone who postponed themselves for years to everyone who has postponed themselves.

But the first recipient of the letter was myself.

And the wound that started it was that I had got used to living by abandoning myself.

Where this book began was not a big event but a big realisation.

I realised this:

While I had been trying to stay loyal to many things all my life, the one I had most often left halfway was myself.

There were hundreds of ways I left myself halfway:

Saying “okay” even when I didn’t want to.

Insisting “I’ll manage” even when I was exhausted.

Swallowing it and saying “it doesn’t matter” even when I was hurt.

Staying in a place I knew was wrong for me, just saying “I’m used to it”.

All of these were roundabout ways of saying one thing:

“I’m not that important.”

That sentence was the wound that was truly bleeding inside me.

And for years I mistook that wound for “self-sacrifice”.

That is why Paths to Myself is not just a story of inner journey; it is the effort of a person who has got used to abandoning themselves to come back to their own side.

A silence appeared on my desk; like a collapse that comes before the sentences..

The first sentences of this book did not flow easily onto the page.

Rather than writing, for a long time I just looked.

At the blank page, the blank walls, my own state moving through the emptiness.

When I sat down at the desk, I did not sit down saying “let me write a book”.

I sat down saying “Where did I lose myself?”

That is why, beneath the first lines of Paths to Myself, more silence gathered than writing.

Everything I couldn’t say first grew heavy inside me; then slowly began to turn into sentences.

Sometimes I wrote a single line and stared at it for days.

Sometimes I wrote two pages and then wanted to delete them all.

Because I did not want to leave any place to hide in this book.

I made myself a promise:

“You will not lie here.

Here, at least here, will be a place where you won’t hide from yourself.”

This promise was less a writer’s intention than an effort to remain human.

A person’s return to themselves is not as romantic a process as we imagine.

In fact, most of the time it has quite jarring side effects.

While writing Paths to Myself, the honest answers I gave to the question “What do I actually want?” upset some of the balances in my life.

I started to refuse things I had once silently accepted.

I realised that some ties I maintained just “for the sake of keeping the peace” had in fact long been over.

Perhaps cracks I had covered for years became visible.

As all this was happening I saw this:

The path to yourself sometimes begins by taking some things away from you.

Not everything taken is a loss; sometimes it is a burden.

Between the lines of this book there is not only walking inward; there is also pulling back from some roads, closing some doors, giving up some roles.

Let me confess, you look at yourself...

When the idea of publishing Paths to Myself first came to me, I felt a great hesitation.

“Am I ready to open myself up this much?” I asked myself.

Then I realised that this book is not actually a one-sided opening.

As I confess some things, the reader is also invited to look at themselves.

Let this be a secret agreement between us:

I will honestly tell of my own loneliness, my fragility, the places where I played a role, the sentences I swallowed, my struggle to face the darkness I carry inside.

And if you wish, while you read these lines, you can also look at your own life and ask:

“Where did I hide, where did I get lost, where did I leave myself halfway?”

The aim of this book is not to teach you “how you should live”.

It is only to say, “deep down you already know, come on, take that seriously.”

Paths to Myself is not a book that promises miracles.

It will not change your life overnight, it will not close all your wounds at once.

But maybe it will do this: it will mark the place of the wound together with you.

That is what it did for me.

It said, “This is where it hurts.”

It said, “You have been ignoring this for years.”

It said, “If you keep living like this, you will slowly melt away inside.”

If you have taken this book into your hands, perhaps a similar voice has already awakened inside you.

I only wanted to make that voice a little more visible.

Looking back today, I can describe Paths to Myself in a single sentence:

This book is actually a “wound diary”.

A diary that tells how the wound opened, how it was ignored, how it kept bleeding, and how one day it was finally accepted.

Not the cool-headed account of someone completely healed; but the record of someone who is still in the process of healing.

Perhaps that’s why the most honest sentence of this book is this:

“I can’t say I have found the paths to myself.”

But I can say this: “I am no longer running away from myself.”

And sometimes, the greatest kindness a person can do for themselves is not to find the perfect path, but at least to stop running.

Paths to Myself was born exactly at this point.

The wound that started it still sits somewhere inside me; but it is no longer hidden, and it has a name.

And once we name something, we can form a more genuine relationship with it.

Perhaps as you read these lines, you will also whisper to your own wound:

“I am ready to see you too.

Because maybe my path also begins right here.”