Unlimited Revisions

By age fifty, Lorelie Friesen considered herself an educated woman who should have been living the good life. Instead, she found herself with a serious problem: how to justify staying in an abusive marriage. She realized it was time to look inward. What was causing her to deny the seriousness of her circumstances? What was preventing her from taking the actions that would save her and her children? Her story is shocking at times and takes her in an unexpected direction: into the ring to rumble with her past and through the swamp of shame.

To defeat the 'glitch' in her thinking, Friesen explores the role that her childhood circumstances and adolescent trauma played in its development. Lorelie's journey takes her across Canada from the Maritimes to 1980s Edmonton. Her pathway to healing leads her back to family roots on the prairies and includes reuniting with her biological son.

Part memoir and part self-help book, Unlimited Revisions is for women who are pondering dissatisfying or abusive relationships and are interested in the elements of an escape plan. UR is for those who find themselves repeating history and seeking to change themselves and, in turn, their circumstances. UR can be a resource for friends and family supporting those who are striving to recognize and recover from flawed thinking patterns and choose 'better' for themselves. Fans of Brene Brown (Dare to Lead) or Gabor Mate (When the Body Says No) will identify Lorelie's concrete examples of attachment, shame, vulnerability, and worthiness. Those interested in stories of human suffering and triumph will be inspired by the potential of the UR Pathway to healing and the 4E's of recovery.

The UR Pathway begins with questions that drive seeking, then recognition of the glitch that results in maladaptive thinking, and finally to the most important decision ever: whether to remain in denial or enter the swamp to excavate the source of the glitch. Important themes include hegemonic masculinity and female complicity, which may be generational in nature, and require close and careful examination. With self-compassion and forgiveness, readers are encouraged to revise as often as necessary, find their wholehearted selves and exit the pathway, fulfilled, brave and confident.