Choosing to Breathe

What if living a life true to yourself meant unraveling everything you were taught to believe? In this powerful continuation of her story, Emma Stevens returns to The Gathering Place and shares the hard-earned wisdom that comes from confronting loss, identity, and truth. As an adult adoptee raised to feel grateful rather than grieve, Emma was shaped by silence, expectation, and trauma. But deep within, resilient parts of her fought to be heard. Through raw and reflective storytelling, she explores what it takes to stop merely surviving and start living intentionally. Her journey is a call to anyone who’s ever felt like they were performing a version of themselves for others. Honest, insightful, and deeply human—this memoir is an invitation to breathe, to question, and to reclaim the life that is truly yours.