For years, Joyce Xuan Bao lived between worlds.

Born in China and raised between the traditions of her homeland and the expectations of American culture, Joyce learned early how to adapt, achieve, and stay quiet. She became fluent in reading the room, earning approval, and chasing the version of success that made everyone else comfortable.

But beneath the accomplishments was a deeper ache.

A disconnection from her roots.
A complicated relationship with her body.
A fear of being fully seen.
A quiet longing to come home to herself.

Permission to Become is a deeply personal and spiritually grounded memoir about healing, identity, belonging, and the courage to reclaim the parts of yourself you were taught to hide.

Through stories of immigration, family rupture, ancestral pain, emotional eating, burnout, self-abandonment, and spiritual awakening, Joyce invites readers into the path of unbecoming the roles they inherited and becoming the person they were always meant to be.

Blending memoir, inner healing, somatic reflection, ancestral wisdom, and practical self-inquiry, this book offers a compassionate roadmap for anyone who has ever felt caught between cultures, trapped by expectations, or disconnected from their own voice.

Inside, readers will explore how to:

• Reclaim the roots, stories, and identity they once rejected
• Heal inherited patterns of shame, silence, and self-abandonment
• Listen to the body as a guide to emotional truth
• Release the need to prove worth through achievement
• Reconnect with intuition, desire, voice, and personal power
• Move from survival and performance into wholeness
• Give themselves permission to become fully themselves

At the heart of the book is Joyce’s Roots to Rise process, a reflective framework that guides readers through reclaiming their roots, feelings, power, desires, voice, intuition, and wholeness.

For readers of Permission to Come Home, What My Bones Know, Untamed, The Body Keeps the Score, and Women Who Run With the Wolves, Permission to Become is an invitation to stop abandoning yourself and begin listening to the truth that has been waiting within you.

You do not have to earn the right to become.

You only have to give yourself permission.

Ready to Learn More?