Yasmine Cheyenne: Trust the Process
Yasmine Cheyenne is a self-healing educator, author, speaker, and mental wellness advocate who helps people learn how to cultivate daily practices to build healthy, joyful lives. Yasmine believes in “Self-healing For Everyone™” and on 2/22/22, launched The Sugar Jar Community™ app, a safe space with resources to support mental health. She has been featured on the Today show and in InStyle, Forbes, Refinery 29, The Every Girl, Poosh, and more. She lives in Washington, DC. Follow her on Instagram.
Yasmine Cheyenne
In this interview, Yasmine discusses the process of writing her new work of nonfiction, Wisdom of the Path, her hope for readers, and more!
Name: Yasmine Cheyenne
Literary agent: Kari Stuart, CAA
Book title: Wisdom of the Path
Publisher: Harper One
Release date: June 11, 2024
Genre/category: Self-Help
Previous titles: The Sugar Jar
Elevator pitch: Wisdom of the Path weaves stories of grief, heartbreak, joy, and overcoming that invite you to gather the wisdom you’ve collected throughout your life and use it for your path ahead. Anchored in four guideposts: base camp, intent, walk the talk, and lessons learned, this soulful and warm storytelling guide encourages us to embrace the bumpy roads of our lives with knowledge and knowing that we’re moving forward.
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What prompted you to write this book?
While I was writing my first book, The Sugar Jar, I noticed the way so many of us judge our past selves for the decisions we made then and how it can impact the way we treat ourselves in the present. If you’re hard on your past self, most likely you’re hard on your present self too.
And whatever belief systems we’re carrying that cause us to be hard on ourselves can limit our future. I wanted us to be aware of this so we could learn to give ourselves grace and get back to being on our own side.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
It took me about seven months to write the book. The original idea for this book came to me while I was editing my first book. Since I was still “living” in the first book, I’d write down any ideas for book two so that I could come back to them later.
When I came back to the ideas I’d saved for later, the book took a completely different turn than I originally thought. I love that about writing. With a little space and perspective, sometimes you decide to go in a different direction. I knew I wanted the book to end on a note that infused the reader with hope. I knew I wanted the reader to go on a journey with me that invited them to witness their own stories with compassion.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The publishing process is full of surprises. My biggest lessons are to trust the process, advocate for yourself, but also be a team player. So many people are working together to get the book into readers hands, and bringing a book into the world is a journey of gratitude for me.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope readers finish this book curious. Curious about their own beliefs, about their own fears, about the things that get in their way. I hope that curiosity leads to empathy, compassion, grace, and forgiveness of ourselves because we truly were doing the best we could.
And if we believe that for our past selves, we can love ourselves as we move on our life journey’s ups and downs.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Keep going. There are so many moments where you come back to what you wrote and just want to tear it all up. You start to think perhaps no one cares what you have to say or maybe it’s all been said before.
But there are people waiting for you to write in your tone, with your experience, and we have to almost recite this to ourselves daily as we write. So, show up and let what’s there come to the page—without editing. Editing is for later, in my opinion. In the beginning, our only job is to be in our creative space, and write.
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