by Noel Nguyen
In the mud, we learn who we are. In the rising, we discover who we can become.
This workbook is more than pages—it’s a sacred invitation to remember your worth, heal your wounds, and step fully into love. Through nine symbolic petals, reflecting the journey of the lotus flower, you’ll be guided from unconscious survival through the thickest mud of trauma, abandonment, and pain, toward a blooming life rooted in self-worth, compassion, and truth.
Inside you’ll find meditations, affirmations, journal prompts, and soulful practices designed to help you release the weight of what was, embrace the courage of what is, and grow into the freedom of what’s possible.
Your story matters. Your healing matters. You are not broken—you are becoming.
Take the path. Choose love.
If you’ve ever felt buried by trauma, abandonment, co-dependency, heartbreak, family dysfunction, or the quiet ache of not being seen—this space is for you. You don’t need to come with answers. You only need the willingness to meet yourself where you are, in the mud.
Healing without a model for love or safety is not simple—it is a choice made every day to rise from the places that once held you down. Whether you are a trauma survivor, navigating PTSD, healing from abandonment or addiction, walking the journey of adoption, or simply searching for a way back to your own self-worth—this path was created with you in mind.
My memoir, My Life in Mud, is the story of how I learned to breathe in the shadows of abandonment, trauma, and silence, and how, like the lotus, I found a way to bloom through the mud. But the story does not end with me. The mud is not only mine—it belongs to all of us. It is the weight of lived experiences: the memories that shape our thoughts, the voices that echo in how we speak to ourselves, the inherited patterns that quietly direct how we connect with others.
That is why I created the companion workbook, My Life in Mud: A Path to Choosing Love. It is not a manual—it is a mirror. Inside its pages you will find invitations to pause, to reflect, to trace back the patterns that formed you. Through journal prompts, affirmations, and guided practices, the workbook helps you unravel what you’ve carried, review the stories that shaped you, and begin to rewrite them with gentleness.
The lotus does not deny the mud—it uses it. The mud is part of its strength, part of its bloom. In the same way, your past is not your prison; it is your soil. These pages offer you tools to root deeply, to rise slowly, and to create your own bloom of resilience, love, and self-worth.
You are both the reader and the writer of your life. This path is an offering—a reminder that you can return to love, even from the mud.
For those who feel forgotten, lost, or silenced, this work is a reminder:
the mud does not define you—
it nourishes you.
It is where you root, rise, and bloom.
““The story you carry in the mud of your life may be the very light someone else needs to find their way out.””
Noel Nguyen
Noel Nguyen is a writer, speaker, and transformational mentor whose work weaves memoir, healing, and cultural reflection. Through her books and workshops, she guides others to rise from pain into resilience and love.
Born in Vietnam during the final days of the war and carried to America through Operation Babylift, Noel Nguyen’s life began in extraordinary circumstances. Her journey through abandonment, identity, and healing inspired her memoir My Life in Mud and companion workbook My Life in Mud: A Path to Choosing Love. A writer, speaker, and transformational mentor, Noel blends personal storytelling with trauma-informed reflection to guide others in reclaiming worth, self-love, and resilience. Through her workshops, talks, and writing, she invites readers and communities to discover that even in the mud, beauty can bloom.
My Life in Mud: A Memoir is a lyrical journey of survival, identity, and self-discovery. Born in Vietnam during the final days of the war and airlifted to America through Operation Babylift, Noel Nguyen’s story unfolds as both personal reclamation and cultural reflection.
Blending poetic prose with raw honesty, Noel takes readers through abandonment, loss, and trauma into resilience, love, and belonging. This memoir is a reminder that even from the deepest pain, beauty can rise.