Opening Chapter Sneak Peek of Katie Jo's Upcoming Book 2025

Chapter One Sneak Peak by Katie Jo:

This was the moment everything shattered, and the moment I began the lifelong path of truth—of learning who I really am and daring to live it.

 

So much of the way I live now traces back to the day my son died—and the world that ended with him.

When the ER doctor opened the door and told our waiting family my child was gone, something in the universe tore wide open. Everything that once felt steady, good, and solid split apart in an instant. Every part of me—every thread that had been lovingly woven into the identity of “Katie Jo”—was shredded. The warm tapestry of self-awareness I had built over a lifetime ignited in the wildfire of that pain, reduced to ash and silence.

I remember seeing her from above—this woman below me, screaming like an animal. Her wail ripped through dimensions, echoing across all that is, as though her voice alone might lasso her child’s soul and call him back. That woman was me.

The grief had pushed me out of my own body. It took a moment to realize the scene I watched unfold from above was mine.

“She’s making a ruckus,” I said quietly to the Being of white light standing beside me.
“She can,” the Being replied. “Her baby just died.”

In the room below, my mother-in-law wept. “No,” she cried. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Yes,” the Being said simply. “This was the plan.”

And just like that, I was pulled back into my physical body—into Katie again. The pain slammed into me like waves of molten stone. I could hardly breathe beneath its weight.

March 28th. The day everything changed. The day the world shattered, and the day I began the long, painful process of putting myself back together.

Every broken shard of who I thought I was had to be found and pieced back. Some were too sharp to hold. Some turned to dust. The mirror will never reflect the same image again—but it is still a mirror. It is still me.

This week, as I packed boxes to move, I found old photo albums—pictures from the before. Jonah as a baby in a carrier. His chubby legs in the summer grass. I sat down and wept.

Later, I realized I couldn’t remember what I’d packed. The fog had come in again. The autopilot that helps me function when the edges of grief get too sharp to touch. I retreat into a deeper place, where everything is muted, safer, less raw.

People tell me I’m grounded. They call me brave—for speaking, for starting over, for loving again, for leaving what no longer fit. But the truth is: I’m more afraid than most. I’ve seen the monster. I know what’s behind the door. And I know it can open at any moment.

Death changed everything. But it also became the beginning of something sacred.

The moment the world I knew was destroyed was also the moment I began the journey of living my truth. Of seeking what is real. Of asking what’s left from the refiner’s fire when everything else is burned away.

This is the path I walk. One foot in the mystery, one hand on my heart.
Learning. Remembering.
Choosing—again and again—to live.

………………………..

 

True courage is knowing what’s worth fearing—and choosing to live fully in the presence of divine purpose.

I sat in a conference center surrounded by entrepreneurs, authors, podcasters, bloggers—people with platforms, passion, and purpose. When the morning session ended, the event leader stepped to the microphone and said, “Okay, everyone—it’s time to film your speaking reels. Check the back table for your name and time slot.”

A ripple of nerves swept through the room. Whispers, sighs, dread.
“Oh no.”
“Here we go.”
A woman near me, in a beige blazer, exhaled: “Speaking on stage is my biggest fear.”
Others nodded in agreement.

I sat still, calm. A woman with perfectly curled blonde hair leaned over to me with kind camaraderie. “Aren’t you afraid?” she asked, voice gentle and melodic.
I smiled softly. “No. I’m more afraid of leaving things unsaid.”

What a luxury—to have public speaking as your greatest fear.

I thought back to the last words I ever spoke to my son.
I’d been tired. He was sick, fussy. I scolded him before bedtime.
I didn’t know they’d be the last words he’d ever hear from his mother.

That is my greatest regret.
And my greatest fear?
Losing another child.

Not the stage. Not the spotlight. Not the risk of stumbling through my words in front of strangers.

Since that day, I’ve walked forward—step by trembling step—across a lifetime shaped by the ache of his absence. I’ve lived with grief the way you live with cobwebs in the corners of a well-kept house. They don’t stop me from moving or living—but I always know they’re there. Some people don’t see them. But I do. Every day.

In a strange and sacred way, the death of my son became my ultimate rock bottom. Nothing—nothing—has ever hurt more than that. And because of it, no failure, mistake, or risk since then has truly frightened me. Not in the same way.

That was also the day my faith, as I had known it, began to unravel.

I remember sitting in the hospital waiting room when the doctor came in with the news. The world shattered. I left my body. The pain was too much to contain. I floated outside myself, observing. A Being of Light stood beside me.

“This was the plan,” the Being said. And with those words, everything changed.

People often comment on my voice. In meetings, podcasts, on stage:
“Your voice is soothing.”

To me, it’s just… my voice. The way I speak. The tool I use to try and make sense of it all. I’ve never seen it as particularly special or remarkable. I rarely raise it. I almost never yell. Probably because the last time I did, it was the final thing Jonah heard.

People say I’m calm.

But what they see isn’t serenity—it’s something else. Something quieter. Something forged.

Years ago, I visited a beach in Mexico.

Local lifeguards patrolled a certain stretch of water, warning tourists to stay away. To the untrained eye, the ocean looked harmless. Peaceful, even—sunlight dancing on the waves, a tranquil shimmer that whispered invitation. But underneath, an invisible undertow pulsed, strong enough to drag a grown adult straight to the ocean floor.

People ignored the warnings. People died there. Regularly.

That stretch of water was always watched. Always guarded.

And that’s the best way I can explain my “calm.”

It’s not peace. It’s vigilance. The kind born from knowing what lurks underneath. There’s a churning beneath my surface—a relentless pull. I live with the risk of being carried away by it. My routines, my rituals, my coping strategies... they’re the lifeguards. They hold the line. They keep me from vanishing under the current.

But, I stepped into that water.

Quietly. No one noticed. I wasn’t loud or reckless. I wasn’t showing off.

I simply walked into the sea. I went in on purpose.

The guards were busy keeping their eyes on the bold ones—twenty-something men posturing for one another on the shore. I wasn’t a threat. Just a thirty-something mother on vacation, strolling through the shallows.

The water was only knee-deep when I felt it—those hidden tentacles wrapping around my ankles. In an instant, the undertow yanked me down. I was dragged across the ocean floor like a rag doll, scraped and tumbled, spun like a leaf in a storm. Completely at the mercy of the deep.

And then—just as suddenly—I was thrown back up. The sea spat me out, flung me onto the shore like a rejected offering. Like a mother slapping the hand of a toddler who reached for the stove.

I crawled away on all fours, gasping, coughing, salt-packed and sand-scoured. My limbs were scraped raw. My bikini twisted. Every crevice of my body filled with grit and ocean.

But the part I remember about that day most wasn’t the fear, or whiplashed neck.

It was the stillness.

That split-second before the crash, when I was suspended—hovering, weightless, between sky and sea. My feet above my head, my face turned upward, and the sunlight streaming through the water, turning it all to gold. Time held its breath. My soul did too.

And somehow... I feel a strange nostalgia for that moment.

Not shame. Not regret.

Because I went in. I dared.

I felt the depth, the danger, the drag—and I survived.

Maybe that’s the blueprint of my soul.

Maybe, before I ever came to this Earth, I signed the contract and said:

“Give me the whole thing. Let me feel it all. The breaking and the beauty. The wreckage and the wonder. The grief and the glitter. Let me tumble. Let me rise. Let me know what it means to be fully, wildly, relentlessly alive.”

Maybe none of it was an accident.

Maybe there was a plan.

And maybe the real wisdom isn’t in avoiding risk or pain—but in knowing what’s worth fearing.

Not public failure. Not rejection. Not the opinions of strangers.

But the weight of unspoken truths. The ache of a silenced voice. The tragedy of never diving deep enough to discover your own soul.

So, I speak.

Not because I’m fearless—but because I’ve met fear, and I know its name.

And I know what’s worth walking through it for.

I went into the water.

And I came back.

So now I live like someone who knows what it costs not to.

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