An Atascadero resident is helping people start 2019 by recognizing and overcoming the stories that they tell themselves that keep them from becoming their authentic selves with her debut book, “The Fraud Fable: How To Be Real When You Feel Like a Fake.” The book was release in mid-December and examines the fables people tell themselves, their origins and how to change the story for good.
“When I came up with the idea of ‘The Fraud Fable,’ being a therapist it’s not about the countless stories we tell ourselves, it’s where those stories come from,” author Denise Braun said, adding that many of the fables we tell ourselves were guided by someone who is older and wiser, “but many of those gables don’t serve us.”
According to Braun, there are a ton of fables people tell themselves.
“The risk of buying into a fable [is that] you don’t get to be your authentic you,” she said. “You’re living someone else’s made-up story.”
As a therapist, Braun saw people rewriting their stories but because they did not address the origin, they fall back into the same story. Her book helps people figure out the root of the story and how to rewrite it. She said what really helps is changing the story in the subconscious. So in her book, she include hypnosis via exercises. There are also audio files that go with each exercise that can be found on her website.
“There’s a ton of personal development books on the market,” she said. “There’s a lot of theory, but what do you do?”
That led to Braun including the exercises to help her readers work on the origins of their fables. Those exercises include visualization and deep relaxation, which is “the way we change our gable, not only by reading the book,” Braun said. “Hopefully it helps people reconsider how they fail to be authentic.”
Braun found herself living a life that wasn’t authentic, but it wasn’t until her sister, who was dying from breast cancer, said something that it came to Braun that she needed to make a change.
And she did.
Her book is for sale on her website, therealdenisebraun.com, and on Amazon. She kicked off the release of her book with a book signing at Spa Central Coast in downtown Paso Robles and has lined up an appearance on The Mother Loving Future podcast and others.