How do we process difficult experiences? How do we make meaning from them? And how do those experiences eventually become something that helps someone else? Let's jump into the conversation.

Well, the top line, I am a mental health counselor, and I took a job in the eastern mountains of Portugal.

and spent a year there.

And in the middle of that year, the area went through the longest running wildfire in Portuguese history.

And we were evacuated and then brought back to the site.

So I then wrote a book about it because writing is a way that I process things.

And again, I felt like I need to put this story out there.

Did writing become that process for you? It's