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Do not lose heart, we were made for these times,” writes Clarissa Pinkola Estés, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves, in “Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times.” In autoimmunity, the body goes to war with itself because it cannot recognize or distinguish its own healthy cells from its unhealthy ones. I believe we are living in a time where our world may be suffering from a similar condition—where we as people, as a planet, and especially as women are at war with ourselves. I also believe this time holds a great invitation: to learn how to live in, with, and for your Self despite that, maybe for the very first time. To radically give yourself the complete permission to be true to who you are and what you need. To live from your sovereignty, your birthright. To be audacious enough to reclaim your wellness in unhealthy times and finally befriend your own precious sense of self from within, despite what may be happening all around. What I have learned over the course of fifteen years in documentary storytelling, while living in a body that was screaming as it couldn’t keep pace with my productivity for others, is that true self-prioritization and health can never be found in a constant march against an external system, but only through a quiet, personal revolution. If I am correct in believing that being trapped in self-abandoning “good girl” and caretaking roles has set the stage for a false-identity epidemic of autoimmunity—and I will share that my experience and research both bear this out—then only an inner reclamation of authenticity can set us free and get us well. Most of us were raised to wait for some level of permission to speak up. Our sense of self was tied to our value or care for others early on, so we strove to be seen as “good” instead of real. Now we must break those chains first placed on us by our family members or culture. I have studied my own health and the health of a thousand other women diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, and the evidence is clear: Self-silencing is making us sick, over-giving is keeping us that way, and abandoning our own wants and needs for a lifetime can create an immune system in identity crisis. We have to stop punishing ourselves in order to please. Only when we become our own ultimate advocates can our bodies evolve from asking, “Why are you still ignoring me?” to “Thank you for finally listening!” The kind of healing experience I hope to ignite for you in this book is one that invites you to welcome a new responsibility for your health by giving you full and urgent permission to self-prioritize. Listening to your body and your intuition in a new way can help you reclaim your relationship with your own authentic identity and reeducate your immunity. Because what I have seen in myself and now studied for years is this: When women are in alignment with the truth of themselves, they are more likely to be and stay well. We won’t just do this to compassionately caretake and reclaim a truer way of living for ourselves—we do it in the hopes of inspiring other women and girls as well as the male allies in our lives.