Over the last three-plus years, I’ve been grappling with my identity.
After leaving the holistic healing bubble that was my life in Costa Rica, a beautiful country that I called home for 10 years, I found myself questioning who I was, what I wanted to do next, and how the hell I was going to make sense of the many versions of myself that had existed over the previous decade.
Because, let me tell you, I pivoted my business and purpose in life about a million times while I lived there.
We’re talking about a single woman who moved down to Costa Rica at age 32 to create a new life as a yoga teacher and raw vegan culinary educator, who then morphed that into a catering company and healthy local bakery, supplying hotels and small cafés, before eventually becoming the executive chef at a hotel where I ran a buffet serving upwards of 90 people at a time.
And all the while, I had this niggle that I wanted something I could call my own.
The entrepreneurial blood ran and boiled through my veins, so while I was busy building a career in the culinary world, I was also building a coaching business on the side.
I started out working as an integrative health coach, wrote four cookbooks and a spiritual children’s book, launched my own podcast, pitched myself to television producers, and appeared on live television as a wellness expert countless times.
Then came my mother era with the birth of my first child, which eventually shifted my purpose and mission from health and wellness into the spiritual, plant medicine, and trauma recovery space (my entrance into motherhood a tad traumatic and eye opening and a reminder of my sexually traumatic history - as it is for many other women).
I dove deeper into my work as a breathwork facilitator and began leading transformational experiences in the plant medicine world, while also having to contend with the commercialization of healing and bumping up against my own ego, identity, and integrity over and over again.
Until eventually, enough was enough.
I sold everything, walked away from that field of work, and moved my family back to small-town Ontario.
The funny thing is, back in 2013 when I first landed on the soil of Costa Rica, I recognized that I was running away from my previous life.
I was ready to finally begin to let go of my addictions to alcohol and an eating disorder I’d grappled with since my teens. But I was also running towards something.
Purpose.
The death of my father in 2011 changed me.
I remember, early on in my time in Costa Rica, sitting in a meditation in the jungle where I got this very clear download that I would eventually move back home to Canada to support my mother as she aged.
You see, as my father got sick and died, I did the opposite.
I pulled away. I numbed. I ran. I refused to face the reality of what was happening.
And somehow, sitting there in the jungle, I knew that when the time came for my mom, I would be ready to face that experience in a more grounded and integral way.
And here we are.
I’ve written The Brand That Breathes in less than six months, as I’ve finally started to settle into this new version of myself.
Although, I say that with the full recognition that the version of me who exists today, at nearly 46, will continue to evolve and change. And if I were to write this same book 10 years from now, it definitely wouldn’t be the same book.
So where did The Brand That Breathes actually come from?
Essentially, this book is a map that I’ve reverse-engineered from my life. From my career in television to who I am today. The pivots, the wild implosions, the shutting down and reopening of chapters, and the constant recreation of self.
What I started to recognize as I looked back over my life was that there was a through line connecting all of these seemingly unrelated experiences.
I’ve been following the same pivot cycle over and over again.
And I think many of us go through this cycle throughout our lives, although we may experience it in very different ways.
At some point, we come to a fork in the road where we have to decide whether we’re going to listen to that niggle, that tiny voice inside that says something doesn’t feel right anymore, or whether we’re going to ignore it and carry on.
I’m one of those people who listens. Sometimes not right away.
Sometimes there’s a pretty meticulous thought process that needs to happen before I make the massive leap.
And sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes I just torch shit and leave it behind.
But what I’ve come to understand is that every meaningful pivot in my life began when my integrity became more important than my identity.
When the person I was expected to be, or the role I’d become so comfortable playing, no longer felt like an honest reflection of who I was becoming.
And I don’t think I’m alone in that experience.
My hope is that The Brand That Breathes becomes a permission slip for anyone who feels that something in their life might no longer fit. I also hope it becomes an opportunity for readers to evaluate where they are in their own lives and notice where their soul might have a voice they’ve been ignoring.
Because while I’ve certainly been known to burn things down and start from scratch, I recognize that isn’t always necessary, or even possible, for everyone.
That’s why I’ve also included practical frameworks to help readers look back over their own lives and recognize how all of their previous experiences might inform whatever comes next. Everything we’ve done, learned, built, lost, and experienced has the potential to contribute to a new present and a different future.
We don’t necessarily need to leave those pieces of ourselves behind every time we decide it’s time for something new.
Maybe we just need to start seeing how they fit together.
And perhaps, in doing so, we can create a life that feels a little more integral to who we are today, while leaving plenty of room for whoever we’re becoming.
The Brand That Breathes is launching this December, with a local book launch celebration on November 29, 2026. If you’d like to learn more about the book and get updates as we approach the release, you can visit megpearson.com/book.