Changing Course Gracefully is a reflective travel journal that uses the PARQS Method to guide readers through emotional waves, cultural challenges, and moments of self-discovery with warmth, practicality, and calm. Why was this an important book for you to write?

Changing Course Gracefully is a reflective travel journal that uses PARQS™ to guide readers through emotional waves, cultural challenges, and moments of self-discovery with warmth, practicality, and calm.

For a long time, my life didn’t feel like a gentle “journey.” It felt more like an emotionally action-packed odyssey. I grew up in a highly restrictive religious environment, very cut off from the wider world. Travel wasn’t on the radar at all. When a wrong number led me to Joseph, who later became my partner and guide, my world cracked open. Traveling with Joseph and on my own, I went from my small neighborhood to all seven continents over the course of thirty years. On paper, that sounds glamorous—and it was many times—but more often I was moving through those countries with old “remote-control” beliefs still running the show.

Travel became my laboratory for self-trust. I noticed how often I overrode my own preferences to keep the peace, how quickly I went into autopilot in unfamiliar situations, and how long it took—usually after the trip—for the lessons to sink in. Even after building successful businesses and doing years of spiritual work, I still found myself unsure how to support myself in the very moments when I needed self-trust the most.

Changing Course Gracefully is my answer to that question—for myself first, and then for anyone who recognizes themselves in that pattern. I wanted a practical companion I could tuck into my day bag, open in a crowded airport, and actually use. PARQS and the prompts in this journal are distilled from years of lived experience across cultures, airports, hotel rooms, and honest conversations.

It was important for me to write this book because I know what it’s like to appear “put together” while feeling disconnected inside. I wanted to offer readers a way to pause, hear themselves more clearly, and begin building a quieter, steadier self-trust that travels home with them when the suitcase is unpacked.

What personal experience first sparked the creation of the PARQS Method, and when did you realize it could help others as much as it helped you?​

PARQS™ didn’t arrive as a neat five-step framework. It grew out of a long stretch of feeling like I was constantly reacting—saying yes when I meant no, overriding my needs to keep the peace, and then feeling resentful or exhausted afterward. After one particularly draining season, I sat in my therapist’s office, and she asked me a simple question: “What do you want?” I opened my mouth and realized I didn’t have an answer. I could list what other people needed, what I “should” want, and what would keep things calm—but not what I actually wanted.

That moment shook me. It made me see how far I’d drifted from my own preferences, and how automatic my responses had become. From there, I started asking myself very basic questions in real time, especially while traveling: What do I prefer here? What am I aware of in my body? What is one right action I can take? What am I honestly asking myself? Can I meet myself with some level of self-acceptance instead of criticism?

Over time, those questions were organized into the five anchors that became PARQS: Preferences, Awareness, Right Action, Questions, and Self-Acceptance. I used them first as my own private checklist when I felt overwhelmed or disconnected. I realized PARQS could help others when people I shared it with started repeating it back to me—telling me they’d tried the “next right action” idea or had written down their preferences before a trip and felt completely different. That’s when I knew this wasn’t just my private scaffolding; it was a way other people could gently interrupt their own autopilot and come back to themselves, too.

How do you hope readers will integrate the PARQS Method into their everyday life, not just their journeys abroad?​

I’d love for PARQS to become less of a ‘special occasion’ practice and more of a quiet companion readers can reach for on a Tuesday afternoon, not just on a flight to somewhere beautiful.

On the most practical level, I’d love for readers to use PARQS in small, ordinary moments: before they say yes to another commitment, while they’re sitting in the car outside a difficult appointment, or when they realize they’re scrolling their phone instead of resting. Taking sixty seconds to ask: “What are my preferences? What am I aware of right now? What is one right action I can take?” can change the tone of a day in ways that don’t look dramatic from the outside, but feel very different on the inside.

I think of PARQS as one way to build self-trust, a way to stay in conversation with yourself. Once readers are familiar with the prompts in the journal or digital companion, they don’t have to be sitting with the book to use them. They can jot a few lines in a notes app, check in mentally while making their morning coffee, or use a single letter—maybe “A” for Awareness—as a touchstone in moments of stress.

If readers walk away feeling empowered to pause, notice what’s true for them, and choose their next right actions with a bit more kindness and clarity, then PARQS has done its work far beyond the airport gate or train station

If you could add one new story or prompt based on your recent travels, what would it explore and why?​

If I added a new prompt today, it would probably explore what I think of as “micro-course corrections”—those tiny, in-the-moment adjustments that don’t look like big decisions but quietly change the whole experience of a trip.

Recently, I’ve been paying more attention to the moments when I override myself in small ways: pushing through hunger because I don’t want to inconvenience anyone, skipping a quiet morning because I feel like I “should” see one more sight, or staying in a conversation that feels draining out of politeness. None of those choices are catastrophic, but they add up.

The prompt might ask:
Where did I override myself today?
What would a small course correction have looked like?
If I could replay one moment with more self-trust, what would I choose?

I’d want that story and prompt to remind readers that we don’t need a dramatic plot twist to “change course.” Often, it’s as simple as choosing to rest instead of rushing, saying “that’s enough for today,” or honoring a quiet preference that no one else will ever see but us. Those are the moments where self-trust is quietly built.

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