Becoming Visible to Myself

An Unexpected Memoir

Told with aliveness and honesty, Becoming Visible to Myself is an invaluable guide for anyone, and especially women, looking to step into their full power. More than a memoir, the book is a synthesis of experiences, emotions, and resources, shared by the author with a generosity and courage reminiscent of Geneen Roth’s Women, Food and God and Lori Gottlieb’s Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Kathryn Kaplan is a self-proclaimed seeker and achiever, and what began as a book about how to start journaling morphed over time into the riveting story of one woman’s enduring quest to embrace happiness by living her authentic life.

Raised to never express feelings, Kathryn shares hard-won insights and innovative processes—culled from over 25 years of keeping a creative and intimate journal—that enabled her to become “fierce with reality” and cease being a mystery to herself. Coming to terms with the origins of narcissism in her family, she traces its damaging impact on her work and relationships while acknowledging the positive gifts she received from her parents.

Kathryn's transparent process of personal integration as well as her structured approach to journal review make it easy for anyone to follow her lead. Readers will resonate with her “vulnerability as a strength” and find unexpected nuggets that will inspire and support them on their own journeys of self-discovery.

Through her compassion and unwavering commitment to discovery and insight, Kathryn illuminates what's possible for us all when we take the time to become visible to ourselves.  Find a journal, pick up a pen, and let the journey begin!
— Howard Rossman, Founder and President, Civic Leadership Foundation

Newly Published

An unforgettable journey . . .

Dying with His Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Love and Grief is the revealing portrait of a real, faults-and-all, shiningly beautiful relationship, a multi-faceted diamond in the rough. Reconstructed from the author's journal entries and other writings poured out during the two years after her husband of thirty years slipped agonizingly away, the book moves back and forth through time fluidly, reflecting on how its passage is shaped and altered by grief. More than a memoir, Dying with His Eyes Wide Open also serves as practical inspiration on how to reconstruct oneself when life has been shattered and a model for honoring a lost loved one with whom the relationship was complex. Finding one's way back from the abyss requires forging an amalgam of theory, insight (one's own and others'), and lived experience. In this remarkable journey through love and grief, Kathryn has gotten the chemistry just right.

Top New Release in Death and Grief on Amazon

Advance Praise for Dying with His Eyes Wide Open

  • Death and grief are universal, and this book touches on these truths in relatable ways that are entertaining, instructive, and poignant. It made me appreciate more what members of my family have gone through when losing their spouse and consider how I can be not just more empathetic but more actively aware, understanding, and supportive.

    — Dr. Parker T. Gordon

  • An elegiacally beautiful account of a loving, compassionate, brilliant woman accompanying her beloved and remarkable husband to the Valley of Death. After the shattering recognition that he will never return, Dr. Kaplan mourns him reverently and profoundly, then finds a way to keep him in her life as she rebuilds her world without his physical presence.

    — NBD, Therapist

  • At times gentle. At times searing. Always compelling. Dr. Kaplan has given us a rich, fast-moving account of her feelings and thoughts while her beloved was alive, and after his death.

    — Nancy B., Consultant to organizations

  • This book is an extraordinary gift and blessing for anyone grieving (or anticipating) the death of a loved one. Walking with Kathryn as she journeys, we experience how a gradual emerging into a reconfigured solo life can (slowly, with time) blossom in the midst of profound, continuing sorrow and loss.

    — Robyn L. Posin, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, Author of Go Only as Fast as Your Slowest Part Feels Safe to Go and Choosing Gentleness: Opening Our Hearts to All the Ways We Feel and Are in Every Moment

  • Kathryn Kaplan has opened a door wide with the publication of Dying with His Eyes Wide Open, to anyone who wants to deepen their knowledge or understand their emotions when confronting death and grief. By meticulously recording the events around her partner’s diagnosis and death in the full context of his life and their life together, the difficult, the painful, the hurts and the wondrous moments, she allows her readers to make visible for themselves grief in all of its variations and nuances. A remarkably rich and deep work informed by a lifetime of self-reflection and questioning.

    — Eric Manheimer, MD, Former Medical Director at Bellevue Hospital, Clinical Professor at the New York University School of Medicine, and author of Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital, the inspiration for the NBC drama, New Amsterdam

  • This new book by Dr. Kathryn Kaplan is a loving and unflinching exploration of the challenges and possibilities of grief. Part memoir, part guide book for professionals and lay people alike, Dying with His Eyes Wide Open invites us to walk with Kathryn as she moves into and through her deep loss, neither abandoning the love and life she had, nor becoming mired in or clinging to the past. Instead she points to the strength and creativity we all have to face loss with our eyes wide open, bringing that loss forward into the next chapter of our lives.

    — Howard Rossman, Founder and President, Civic Leadership Foundation

Kathryn L Kaplan, PhD, is known for her work as an Organization Development Consultant in healthcare, educator and coach in women’s leadership, and senior leader of culture change in medical centers. Her memoir focuses on the intersections of the personal with the professional, individual, and organizational, as well as the inner and outer aspects of growth and change.

This multi-talented author skillfully weaves together accounts of how she came to grow from, rather than resist, her own vulnerabilities. Any professional who has labored to better understand herself will find confirmation and consolation here. Kathryn’s memoir will inspire you—with its examples of courage, healing, and grace.

— Janet Bickel MA, Leadership and Career Development Coach, and author of Equip Your Inner Coach

Ever the Seeker

The first thing to know about me is I have always been a seeker—someone looking not just for answers but also “the” answer—“IT.” What was this “IT” that was always eluding me? You know it well, whether you have it or whether you’re still looking: that effortless sense of confidence, self-esteem, something solid inside you can trust, that feeling everyone craves and so many of us believe only others enjoy, the basic knowledge that we’re really OK. But I didn’t have it. My experience of myself was that something essential was missing. I felt I had no direct access to my core—and that filled me with shame. It didn’t matter how much I excelled as an achiever, how many professional accolades I accumulated, how many happy moments I managed to experience. None of these brought “IT” any closer. I remained stuck in what I called “My Sad, Sad Story,” my explanation and rationale for feeling disconnected from my soul’s longing. Sadness was my default, looming large as my ultimate and inescapable truth, no matter how much evidence to the contrary stared me in the face. My quest to find me defined me, so when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see a successful professional, a caring wife, or even a woman struggling to find herself. I saw no one, and I grieved my absence, because without “IT” I was nobody. I was empty inside. Invisible. Only now do I understand that the “IT” I was seeking was me—the me who could accept me and even love myself.

Praise for Becoming Visible to Myself:
An Unexpected Memoir

This engaging story, presented with such clarity of vision, reflects Kathryn’s brilliance, wit, and empathy. I couldn’t put it down. Kathryn is one of those rare, other-centered individuals, and the insights she provides are a gift. — Eileen Cooper, Health Care Administrator

Kathryn’s courage, honesty, vulnerability, and discipline, along with her unwavering commitment to her inner life, provide companionship, guidance, and empathy for seekers everywhere. — Karen Arkin, Psychotherapist (Retired)

Passing her own rigorous, sentence-by-sentence raw truth test, Kathryn has gifted us with a memoir that generously and courageously reveals her practice life from the heart to the bone. Journaling privately to ourselves, cringing at times at what we place on the page, prepares us to one day write an account of our way of being. If only I had the courage and grace that Kathryn Kaplan exhibits here. — David S. Fearon, Ph.D. Co-author with Peter B. Vaill of Practice as a Way of Being, Professor of Management Emeritus, Central Connecticut State University

An epic poem of self-reflection to be savored page by page, chapter by chapter. It’s like a dense piece of chocolate—best enjoyed in nibbles.
— Stephen Stept, WordsWorthWriting

This book comes at a time when all people, especially women, need to find wholeness within themselves. Kathryn’s search for her own acceptance of her many talents—intellectual, emotional, creative—serves as a model. Her approach is well organized, practical, and poetic. — Sandy Prins, MS – ECSE, Grief Counselor

Resources

Interview

Listen to Kathryn speak about Becoming Visible to Myself with David Fearon on the Practice? Podcast.

Interview

Listen to Kathryn speak about Dying with His Eyes Wide Open with David Fearon on the Practice? Podcast.

Becoming Visible to Myself: An Unexpected Memoir

Dying with His Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Love and Grief