WHOLE: How I Learned to Fill the Fragments of My Life with Forgiveness, Hope, Strength, and Creativity

A five-point plan to usher you through heartache and toward a stronger, healthier place.

“I know how to kill someone and get away with it.” The words spoken by her father when Melissa was a teen haunt her to this day. Two years later, after confessing that he was the serial killer nationally known as the Happy Face Killer, Keith Jesperson was arrested for the murder of eight women. The pain, guilt, and shame that followed her father’s conviction stigmatized Melissa for years until she figured out a way to use her emotions as fuel to free herself from self-imposed limits and set out on a journey to rebuild her fragmented life.

Through her work as an Emmy-nominated investigative journalist, television host, educator, and advocate, Melissa created WHOLE, a five-step program to better develop her own approach to healing: Watch the Storm, Heal Your Heart, Open Your Mind, Leverage Your Power, and Elevate Your Spirit.

Among other things, she found that the commitment to your core values makes all the difference in getting unstuck; that forgiveness gives the greatest chance of making a future not defined by the past; that there is great value in vulnerability; that creativity is essential to living a full life; and that hope is the basis for everything we feel, believe, and do.

In each phase of the program, Melissa inspires you to embrace your past to find wholeness within the parts of your life that you believe to be “broken.” If you are stuck in the rut of a painful experience—whether depression, trauma, pain, fear, addiction, or guilt—you will find comfort in this book’s advice, self-evaluation, and action plans.

WHOLE is a powerful journey of recovery and awakening that reframes the pain experience so it can be used as a way to invite understanding, growth, and transformation into your life.