Waking Up Alone

Waking Up Alone is part memoir, part map: a vulnerable, fiercely honest exploration of what it means to awaken as a Black woman in a world built on master-slave narratives, gender roles, and spiritual illusions. Clinical psychologist Dr. Nicole Wordlaw—Stanford and Berkeley-trained, longtime Buddhist practitioner, daughter of a Black father and white mother, and former partner of a well-respected spiritual teacher—traces her journey from a little girl seeking love through obedience, to a woman unraveling the cultural myths that shaped her. Through the lenses of race, womanhood, and power, she reveals how systems of domination live not only in institutions but inside our most intimate relationships, and in the stories we're taught to believe about ourselves. Waking Up Alone invites readers to recognize the cages they've inherited, question the roles they've been taught to play, and listen for freedom's quiet song within. This is a book for anyone ready to unlearn, to awaken, and to remember who they were before the world told them who to be.