RADIO INTERVIEW PREPARATION

Choose Your Ink: The Story You Choose to Write With Your Life

1. What is your new book about?

My book is about a choice that every one of us makes, often without realizing it: What ink are we going to use to write our life story?

There are two kinds of ink that I use as a metaphor throughout the book. One is the ink of love, compassion, forgiveness, courage, understanding and hope. The other is the ink of fear, judgment, rejection, anger, pain and resentment.

Life happens to all of us. We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we do have a choice about how we respond to what happens to us.

This book is an invitation to pick up your pen again and realize: Your past may have written some of your story, but it does not have to write the rest of it.

2. Why did you choose the metaphor of ink?

Because ink represents something permanent.

Once we write something on a page, it becomes part of the story. And I believe our lives are very similar.

People experience rejection, betrayal, disappointment, trauma, loss and pain. Sometimes those experiences begin writing the story for us.

We start saying things like, “I’m not good enough,” “I can’t trust anyone,” “People always hurt me,” or “This is just who I am.”

But eventually, we have to ask ourselves a very important question:

“Who is holding the pen now?”

The metaphor of ink reminds us that we have the opportunity to choose what we write next.

3. Is this book about ignoring the pain of the past?

Absolutely not.

I don’t believe healing means pretending that painful things didn’t happen.

Your pain deserves to be acknowledged. Your story deserves to be heard.

But there comes a point where we have to distinguish between what happened to us and what we continue to carry because of what happened to us.

The past can explain us without having to control us.

Healing is not saying, “It didn’t hurt.”

Healing is being able to say, “It hurt, but it doesn’t have to determine who I become.”

4. What do you mean by the “ink of fear and judgment”?

The ink of fear and judgment represents the way we can begin writing our lives from a wounded place.

Fear tells us to protect ourselves.

Judgment tells us to condemn ourselves or others.

Rejection can make us believe we’re not worthy.

Pain can make us build walls.

And resentment can keep us connected to something we desperately want to move beyond.

When we continually write from those places, they begin influencing our relationships, our decisions, our identity and ultimately our future.

The challenge is to recognize when we are holding that particular pen—and consciously choose another one.

5. What does it mean to “put love in the ink”?

It means choosing to respond to life from a different place.

Putting love in the ink doesn’t mean becoming weak. It doesn’t mean allowing people to abuse you or accepting unacceptable behaviour.

Love can have boundaries.

Compassion can say no.

Forgiveness can happen without reconciliation.

Putting love in the ink means that even when I have been hurt, I refuse to allow the hurt to turn me into someone I don’t want to become.

It is about choosing humanity over hatred, understanding over judgment, forgiveness over resentment, and courage over fear.

6. You talk about people “holding their own pen.” What does that mean?

For me, this is one of the most important messages in the book.

When we are young, many of the things written into our story are written by other people and circumstances.

Parents influence us. Teachers influence us. Society influences us. Relationships influence us. Experiences influence us.

But as we mature, there comes a moment when we have to take responsibility for the pen.

That doesn’t mean we are responsible for everything that happened to us.

It means we become responsible for what we choose to write from this point forward.

At some stage, we have to stop saying, “This is what they made me,” and start asking, “What am I going to make of what happened to me?”

7. Who is this book written for?

It is really for anyone who has a story.

And that means all of us.

It is for the person carrying rejection.

It is for someone who has experienced betrayal.

It is for someone struggling with anger, resentment or unforgiveness.

It is for someone who has been judged.

It is for someone who has judged themselves harshly.

And it is also for someone who simply wants to live a more intentional life.

You don’t have to be broken to read this book.

Sometimes we read a book not because something is wrong with us, but because we want to become more conscious of how we are living and what we are writing.

8. Can changing the way we think really change our lives?

I believe it can profoundly influence our lives.

Our thoughts influence our emotions. Our emotions influence our behaviour. Our behaviour influences our relationships and our decisions. Over time, those decisions contribute to the life we experience.

That doesn’t mean we can simply “think positive” and make every problem disappear.

Life is far more complicated than that.

But we can become aware of the stories we repeatedly tell ourselves.

If I continually tell myself, “I am a failure,” I will probably begin making decisions from that belief.

If I begin telling myself, “I have experienced failure, but I can learn, grow and try again,” I create a different possibility.

The ink changes because the story we tell ourselves changes.

9. What would you like someone to take away after reading the book?

I would like them to put the book down and ask themselves one question:

“What ink am I using to write my life?”

Not what ink did my parents use.

Not what ink did my past use.

Not what ink did someone who hurt me use.

What ink am I using today?

And then I would like them to ask:

“What would change in my life if I chose love and compassion more often?”

Maybe it changes the way they speak to their partner.

Maybe it changes the way they speak to themselves.

Maybe they forgive someone.

Maybe they establish a boundary.

Maybe they finally let go of something they’ve carried for twenty years.

Maybe they simply decide that their past is no longer going to hold the pen.

That is the transformation I hope the book encourages.

10. If you could leave the radio audience with one message, what would it be?

I would say this:

Your life is a story, but you are not only the character in the story—you are also holding the pen.

There may be pages you wish you could erase.

There may be chapters you never wanted to live.

There may be words written into your heart by people who hurt you.

But there is still another page.

And the question is not, “What happened to me?”

The deeper question is:

“What am I going to write next?”

So choose your ink carefully.

Because every day, through our thoughts, our words, our choices and our actions, we are writing another line in the story of our lives.

Choose love. Choose compassion. Choose forgiveness. Choose courage.

And most importantly:

Pick up your pen and write the next chapter yourself.

FREE DOWNLOAD LINK: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zL0hklwY3-b28uqJfq5n5Amc7zjGpfhV/view?usp=sharing