Meet Dr. Wordlaw—clinical psychologist, long-time meditator, author, and spirited coach.

The voice you can trust always sounds like love.

Waking Up Alone is
part memoir, part map:

a vulnerable, fiercely honest exploration of what it means to awaken as a Black woman born into a nation rooted in complex trauma; a nation in which limiting stories about race, gender, and spiritual awakening capture the collective consciousness.

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Pre-order now

What Readers Say

  • "Gripping, instructive, and, ultimately, wise and inspiring. This deeply important and brilliantly written book dovetails profoundly with the core insights of Somatic Abolitionism."

    Resmaa Menakem, Ph.D.
    Author of the New York Times bestseller My Grandmother’s Hands

  • “A decolonial offering in the slave narrative legacies left by Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, with the artistry of feminist Audre Lorde's biomythography, in the spirit of Black liberation psychologies. Your quest for freedom needs this book.”

    Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Th.D.,
    Author of Dearly Beloved: Prince, Spirituality, & This Thing Called Life

  • "Wordlaw's exquisite story-telling and brilliant analysis illuminate these deeply internalized narratives in ways that allow her readers to recognize their own embodiment of them, whether relating as "slave" or "master." In so doing, she uncovers a way forward for her readers as well."

    -Robin DiAngelo, PhD.
    Author of White Fragility and Nice Racism.

  • "Nicole Wordlaw offers a courageous and intimate reckoning with how the master-slave narrative lives in our bodies, our spiritual communities, and our most tender relationships. With emotional honesty and profound care, she speaks difficult truths about race, power, patriarchy, and student-teacher dynamics while continually returning us to Presence — to the deep stillness and love that can cradle even our heaviest sorrow. She guides us toward healing inherited patterns and embodying a freedom beyond domination and submission. A brave, wise, and necessary offering for our time."

    —Kaira Jewel Lingo, Buddhist teacher, Author of We Were Made for These Times, co-author of Healing Our Way Home

  • "With a truth-telling flame, Dr. Nicole Wordlaw illuminates the wounds of racism, power, and generational trauma, guiding us toward the liberation that arises through loving presence. Her storytelling is lyrical, unflinching, powerful, and deeply wise. This book calls us to a shared courage—to face what we inherit and, together, to rediscover the deep belonging that frees the heart."

    Tara Brach,
    Author of Radical Acceptance

  • "With unflinching courage, rare honesty, and a medicinal dose of hard-earned wisdom, Nicole Wordlaw invites us into the tender, imperative work of seeing clearly. Waking Up Alone illuminates the subtle and often painful ways inherited stories of domination and submission—the “master–slave narratives”—live not only in our history, but in our minds, bodies, and relationships, both personal and collective. This book is both a personal reckoning and a compassionate invitation: to soften into the presence of Love and to learn to listen to the still, small voice within, against all conditioned odds. Nicole generously opens the shell of herself in the name of supporting whoever is ready for the pearl she offers. I highly recommend you take her up on the gift."

    —Caverly Morgan, Teacher
    Author of The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together and A Kids Book About Mindfulness 

  • As gurus fall in the wake of #MeToo and the Epstein files, as women wake up to the bad trades we've made to bow down to masters who aren't grateful for our devotion, as BIPOC rise because #BlackLivesMatters, and as Trump's army of ICE commit atrocities against immigrants and those who protect them, there couldn't be a more important story to tell. Nicole Wordlaw finds her way to a truer spirituality, one that isn't founded upon oppression, patriarchy, white supremacy, and white male power in America. If you're looking for a spiritual leader you can trust, one who won't gaslight you with spiritual bypassing but will guide you to the guru inside, look no further than Nicole Wordlaw.

    -Lissa Rankin, MD,
    New York Times bestselling author of Mind Over Medicine and Sacred Medicine

  • “What makes this work extraordinary is Wordlaw's recognition that true liberation requires us to discover the teacher within—to stop seeking freedom through external authorities and instead listen to the wisdom that emerges when we dare to wake up alone. She shows us that love, not judgment, is the key that unlocks the cages we've inherited and taught ourselves to maintain. An essential reading!”

    Loch Kelly, M.Div, LCSW,
    Creator of the Mindful Glimpses app, Author of The Way of Effortless Mindfulness

  • "An inspiring, eye-opening, and third-eye-opening combination of memoir, cultural commentary, ancestors’ tales, and somatic practices. Nicole Wordlaw—an earnest spiritual seeker who became the longtime partner of a highly respected spiritual teacher—courageously and mindfully explores the underlying damaging narrative that so many of our relationships follow. Then she offers us some equally courageous and mindful opportunities for healing. "

    Scott Edelstein
    Author of Sex and the Spiritual Teacher and The User’s Guide to Spiritual Teachers 

Hi, I’m Nicole.

I’m glad you’re here. I wrote Waking Up Alone for you, for all of us who have gotten lost following master-slave narratives, following something outside ourselves, believing our own Truth was less than wise.

It is time for us to come home: time to rest into the whole moment of ourselves. It is time to find and follow the inner compass, to take responsibility, and reclaim ourselves well.

Though power has not embraced us, has not protected us, has not defined us as having great value, we are not deterred. We no longer define ourselves by looking into another’s eyes. We are “slipping past the plantation walls,” as Bayo Akomolafe would say. We are claiming ourselves, scars included, Right where we are. We are taking back the night, uprooting the internal oppressor.

I am here, in community with you, to create a space for us to notice ourselves, whole and holy.

SO grateful to be waking up alone, together.

Nicole

Learn more
Learn more