Every woman carries a fire inside her, somewhere between the embers of what she survived and the flames of who she is becoming. For years, I didn’t understand mine.
I didn’t know that the scorching heat I felt was not failure or flaw, but resilience. A resilience forged in childhood responsibility, trauma, motherhood, leadership, and the long, messy, beautiful work of healing.
My book, Raising Fire: Igniting Resilience and Becoming Whole, was born from that journey. It isn’t a story about being unbreakable. It’s a story about redefining resilience and becoming whole.
Women are often praised for being “so resilient”, as if we were born with flames already blazing. But resilience isn’t innate or effortless. It’s built through adversity, through tiny choices made over and over again, through learning to rise even when rising feels impossible.
In my work as an Indigenous woman and Deputy Chief of Police, I’ve been asked countless times:
– “How do you stay strong?”
– “How did you survive what you did?”
– “How do you lead while healing?”
The truth is simpler and harder than people think:
You build resilience the same way you build a fire – one small ember at a time.
In Raising Fire, I call this your Head Fire:
the inner flame powered by your experiences, guided by your intuition, and strengthened by daily habits like sleep, movement, boundaries, breathwork, connection, and courage.
Nothing tested or transformed me more than becoming a mother.
Motherhood awakens the parts of you that are still unhealed. It brings forward the child you once were, the fears you’ve buried, the patterns you inherited, and the hope you desperately want to pass forward instead.
As an Indigenous mother, I return often to the teaching that our children choose us. Their spirits come from the sky world knowing exactly whose arms they need. My daughter chose me, not because I was healed, but because I was willing to be.
Healing while mothering isn’t clean or linear. It’s crying in the shower so your kids don’t hear. It’s showing up, even running on empty. It’s learning to soften the armour that once protected you but now weighs you down. It’s breaking the old rules – Don’t Talk, Don’t Feel, Don’t Trust – and creating new ones rooted in truth, safety, and connection.
Motherhood didn’t just ask me to raise her.
It asked me to raise myself.
Trauma isn’t just a memory. It becomes biology.
In Raising Fire, I share the science in simple, grounded language – how hyperarousal, fight-or-flight, and chronic vigilance aren’t personality traits; they’re survival responses. Your body remembers what your mind has learned to bury. The Emory University “cherry blossom study” shows that trauma can echo through generations – not metaphorically, but genetically.
But so can healing.
Neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to rewire itself – means you’re not stuck. You can teach your mind and body a new rhythm. Safety can be learned. Joy can be relearned.
This is why small practices matter:
1. A morning routine
2. Deep breathing
3. Naming your emotions
4. Rest
5. Nourishment
6. Movement
7. Boundaries
8. Community
9. Gratitude
These aren’t wellness trends. They’re science-backed tools that help extinguish survival mode and kindle stability, clarity, and confidence.
Women, especially mothers, leaders, survivors, and caregivers – are burning out at staggering rates. We don’t talk enough about the cost of being everything to everyone. The World Health Organization defines burnout as chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been successfully managed. The body defines it as exhaustion, cynicism, numbness, and collapse.
I lived it.
I worked through it.
And I nearly lost myself to it.
Burnout isn’t weakness.
It’s a signal.
A request from your body to stop abandoning yourself.
Raising Fire offers a roadmap out – practical, compassionate, backed by research, shaped by lived experience.
Breaking Generational Cycles
My grandmother was a residential school survivor.
My mother carried her own wounds in silence.
For a long time, I carried the impact of both.
But I refused to carry it forward.
Cycle-breaking isn’t glamorous. It’s not a single courageous moment. It’s a thousand small decisions to do life differently than you were taught. To choose softness over survival. To believe your daughter deserves more. To believe you deserve more.
Healing is not forgetting.
Healing is not denying what hurt.
Healing is remembering without reliving.
It is carrying fire, not pain.
Why I Wrote Raising Fire
I wrote this book for:
– Women who have been told to “toughen up”.
– Mothers who are healing while raising children.
– Survivors who think their story is “too much”.
– Leaders who carry more than anyone sees.
– Indigenous women navigating systems not made for them.
– Anyone who believes they must break to be worthy.
My message is simple:
You are not too late, too broken, or too far gone.
You are rising.
You are becoming.
You are raising fire every day you choose yourself.
A Final Word for Every Woman Reading This
If you are standing in your ashes right now, hear me clearly:
You are not starting from scratch.
You are starting from experience.
Your fire is not something to fear.
It is something to honour.
May you tend it.
May you trust it.
May you raise it –
for yourself, for your children,
and for the women who will follow your light.
Name: Lee-ann F. O’brien
Professional Title: Deputy Chief Of Police
Bio: Lee-Ann O’Brien is the Deputy Chief of the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service, author of Breaking Trail, and a motivational speaker. An Irish and Cree leader from Fishing Lake First Nation, she inspires women and girls to lead bravely, build resilience, and redefine strength through service, healing, and bold authenticity.
