What Happened to You is Not Your Fault.

Your Future.Your Responsibility.

Freedom from Shame is an award-winning guide for anyone ready to interrupt the patterns that persist long after abuse has ended. This book is for survivors, those who have caused harm, and the professionals and systems that influence how abuse is understood and addressed. It shows you how to stop destructive patterns and create a life no longer defined by the past.

The Past Isn't the Problem. The Pattern Is.

You’ve tried to move forward, but you keep ending up in the same place.

Different people. Different circumstances. Same result.

You may not understand why no matter how hard you’ve tried to change, nothing changes.

You think it’s the past that’s limiting you. It’s not.

It’s what keeps repeating. In how you think. In the choices you make. In the relationships you find yourself in.

This book shows you how to stop letting what happened to you in the past define what’s possible now and what you create next.

Your past doesn’t get the final say in your relationships. You do.

A Book Like No Other — Raw, Researched, and Rooted in Real Transformation

Leila writes Freedom from Shame from lived experience. She has faced the impact of sexual abuse in her own life and changed what it set in motion. She also brings years of professional training and work with others, offering a clear, practical way to understand what keeps repeating and how to change it.

This isn’t just insight. It’s a guide to help see what’s been shaping your life, and begin changing it in real time.

What Changes When You Do This Work

If You've Experienced Abuse

You’ll see how the abuse is shaping your thoughts, choices, and relationships. You’ll learn how to interrupt those patterns so you can create relationships that feel safe and authentic.

If You Love Someone Who is Struggling

You’re already helping people. This book gives you a resource you can use in the moment when clients can’t see what’s driving their behavior.

If You Work With Others

You already support people. This book gives you a practical resource you can use in the moment when clients can’t see what’s driving their behavior. It helps you guide them toward really change, not just insight.

A Path Toward Forgiveness

Explore forgiveness not as something owed, but as something for you — a doorway to freedom that only you can open, when you’re ready.

Meet Leila Reyes, MSW

Leila Reyes doesn’t just study this work. She lives it.

She knows what it’s like to have the past dictate your present day experience. She knows what it’s like to keep ending up in the same place, wondering why nothing changes.

And she knows what it takes to change it all – for the better!

Through her own experience, and twenty plus years of working with others, Leila has developed a clear, grounded way to understand what gets set in motion by abuse, and how to stop letting it run your life.

Her work is about changing how you live, love, and relate – now.

With a masters’ degree in social work and training in several relational approaches, Leila brings both professional depth and lived truth to everything she teaches.

She is the author of Freedom from Shame and the host of the podcast From Trauma to True Love, where she explores what it really takes to create a life that is fully lived.

Her work, and this book, come from one simple belief:
You deserve to heal. Completely. Not just survive

Praises for Freedom from Shame

“Its radically restorative message can only be called a revolution — it brings the bright light of healing and love.”

Katherine Woodward Thomas

NY Times Bestselling Author
What’s True About You

Through Leila’s guidance, “you’ll find a proven pathway to free yourself from the limitations of abuse and live a joy-filled life.”

Marci Shimoff

#1 NY Times Bestselling Author
Happy for No Reason

“…an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to understand the journey from trauma to triumph.”

Rochelle Edwards, MS, LMFT

founder of Transformative Justice Institute, 501c(3)

International Impact Book Award Winner

“You’ll discover what currently holds you back and start freeing yourself from patterns, excuses, and behaviors that no longer serve you. You’ll examine the story you’ve told yourself and create a new story you truly want to live by.” ~ Gordon Clay, Creator of Healing the Father Wound®

You Can't Change What Happened, But You Can Choose What Happens Next.

The past doesn’t just live in memory. It lives in the meanings we made about what happened – often when we were very young. Those meanings become the lens through which we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through life – often without even realizing it. And from that lens, you make choices that keep creating the same patterns. You can try everything, and still end up in the same place. This book helps you see that clearly, and discover who you are beyond what happened. When that shifts, new choices become available. And what you create in your life and relationships begins to change with it.

Available in paperback and ebook

Questions About the Book

Is this book appropriate if I'm in early stages of healing?

Yes. This book is designed to meet you where you are. The focus is on helping you understand how the past shapes the quality of your life and relationships, giving you a way to start seeing and changing at your own pace. This book is not a substitute for therapy. If you are in active crisis or need immediate support, working with a mental health professional alongside reading is strongly recommended.

I'm a therapist — Can I recommend this book to clients?

Absolutely. Many clinicians use this book as a companion resource in their work. It gives your clients a clear way to understand what keeps repeating in their lives, and language they can relate to outside the therapy room. It also offers a practical framework you can reference together, especially when clients feel stuck, reactive, or unable to see what’s driving their behavior. This isn’t meant to replace therapy. It’s a resource that helps you work go deeper and translate into real change between sessions.

Does the book address perpetrators of abuse as well as survivors?

Yes. This book speaks to the full reality of the cycle: those who have been harmed and those who have caused harm and are willing to take responsibility for it. Leila writes with a level of honesty and compassion that doesn’t excuse harm, but doesn’t leave people without a way forward. This approach is reflected in what she calls the “Freedom Project,” a space grounded in truth, responsibility, and the possibility of creating a different future, for those who have lived the impact of abuse and for those who are ready to face their role in it. This makes the book a rare resource, not just for understanding what’s happening, but for changing what happens next.

For a survivor, what does "taking responsibility" mean?

It does not mean blaming yourself for what happened to you. If you were harmed, none of that was your fault. Taking responsibility means recognizing that, while you didn’t choose what happened, you do have a say in what happens next. It’s about seeing how the past may still be shaping your thoughts, choices, and relationships—and choosing, consciously, how you want to show up now. This isn’t about adding more shame. It’s about stepping into the part of your life you have the power to change.

What if I’ve already done a lot of work on myself—will this still help?

Will this book blame me for happened?

What if I’ve caused harm—can this book really help me change?

Will this help me change my relationships?