What if the ending you feared was actually the beginning you deserved?
Chapter 1 of The D Word, free. It reads like healthy gossip and lands like a mirror, especially if you have quieted your inner voice to keep everyone else comfortable.
Raw. Honest.
Impossible to put down.
Chapter 1 opens in the middle of a moment most women recognize instantly but have never seen written down quite like this.
- The weight of obligation, written the way you have felt it but never said it
- The quiet ache of self-betrayal dressed up as being “good”
- The first whisper that something has to change
You will feel it.
“I started reading and then couldn’t stop. The first chapter — the heaviness in the words, but mostly the words behind the words. It’s felt, palpable.”— Roberto Giannicola
Tragically funny. Unflinchingly honest.
The D Word takes you inside the psyche of an empathic woman who begins to question the life she was taught to want. It is a story of self-abandonment disguised as love, and the slow realization that sacrificing yourself to be “good” quietly erodes who you are.
The Courage to Let Go
How walking away from relationships can look like quitting — when from another perspective it’s opening up to your true path.
Ending Self-Abandonment
The insidious ways we lose ourselves in relationships, and how people-pleasing masquerades as devotion.
Redefining Love
How inherited shame distorts love and sexuality, and how disentangling from self-sacrifice reconnects us with source.
The Power of Forgiveness
Embodying the grace and freedom of forgiveness — mostly of self for believing we weren’t good enough.
What People Are Saying
“Stephanie Nash writes with naked honesty about a subject all women know too well. Her willing vulnerability is dangerously captivating. This book is a must-read as well as a valuable therapy tool for anyone encountering the D word.” — Libby Christianson
“The format gives me Carrie Bradshaw vibes in the best way — super personal and easy to get pulled into. Honest, raw, and so relatable.”
— Rhi K
“It reads like a mystery novel — I was on the edge of my seat. I felt it reverberate into something of my own past, especially as an empath who conforms to not cause trouble but inside knows she wants something different.”
— Samantha Santiago, PhD
“The author doesn’t just liberate herself — she liberates other women who have also self-abandoned. A beautiful balance of sharing honestly from lived experience and teaching from a place of humility.”
— Elizabeth Scutchfield
“Compelling, real, funny — it feels like fantasy and reality and raw honest hard truth all at once. I was dying to know what comes next for our heroine. Phenomenal, truly.”
— Andrea Laxton
“The chapters made me feel very seen as a woman. This is a story of finding love within and having the courage and conviction to fight for it, above all else.”
— Merilee Smith
“I felt like I was right there… I could relate to the internal dialogue — that feeling of being pulled between what we think we should want and what we actually desire but are afraid to articulate.”
— Jackie Coley
Want the whole story?
Order The D Word wherever you love to buy books.
Dr. Steph
Dr. Steph Nash, PhD, OTR/L, is a spiritual coach, researcher, and founder of Paradigm Expansions. She silenced her intuition for years to keep the peace, went through her own divorce, and wrote the book as a creative act of self-love in hopes it will reach out. Her work bridges science and spirit so your mind gets the evidence for your heart to expand into love.
“No one is coming to save you… or live your life for you.”
Dr. Stephanie Nash • The D Word