There comes a time in every woman’s life when she says, “You know what? To hell with it,” and takes her pants off in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon while eating a sleeve of saltines and watching Murder, She Wrote reruns with crumbs in her bra. Except, in my case, there was no bra. And there were no pants. And I was not well.

Hi. I’m Kristin. I’m 38, once tried to exfoliate my thighs with a loofah glove and a dream, and this is the story of how I had a full-blown life meltdown, took my clothes off, and somehow clawed my way back to joy, peace, and the kind of sweaty confidence that only comes from doing yoga in the nude on a patio you don’t technically own.

This is not your typical self-help book. There are no bullet points. No morning routines. No cold plunges unless you count me falling into a lake during a nudist canoe retreat while yelling, “I CAN’T FEEL MY SPLEEN!”

This book is about the moment my life went sideways—and how I somehow ended up right side up and bottomless.

It started, as many things do, with a breakdown in a Trader Joe’s parking lot. One minute I was buying freeze-dried mango and telling myself I was “totally fine,” and the next, I was sitting in my car, crying into an old Chick-fil-A napkin, and trying to remember if I even liked mango or if I was just pretending to be fun and breezy like Susan.

I was burnt out. Emotionally fried. Spiritually crusty. And I’d spent so long performing “fine” that I couldn’t even recognize the version of me who used to dance in her kitchen naked and laugh without choking on her own insecurity.

So I quit pretending.

I took off the pants.
I ditched the pressure.
I laid on my back in the grass, sun on my thighs, bugs in my hair, and whispered, “Okay, universe. I’m ready for the weird healing.”

And wouldn’t you know it?
That’s when things started to change.

Not overnight, mind you. There were still plenty of “why is there glitter in my crotch” moments, lots of naked crying (which, by the way, is weirdly empowering if you haven’t tried it), and a few weeks where I lived exclusively on cheese cubes and sparkling water. But slowly, piece by piece, sweat-drip by sunbeam, I came back.

Stronger.
Softer.
Weirder.
Still pantsless, but that’s kind of the point.

This book is for anyone who’s ever felt like life ran them over, reversed, and then parked on their self-esteem. It’s for the people who feel like they’ve lost their spark but still have a tiny flicker hiding under the boob sweat and the unpaid bills.

You don’t need to have it all together.
You don’t need a five-year plan.
You just need the courage to strip off the crap that isn’t serving you—emotionally, mentally, and sometimes quite literally, at the laundromat—and rise from the ashes of your former breakdown like the majestic, slightly-sunburned phoenix you were always meant to be.

Now, take off your pants (figuratively or literally—I support both), pour yourself something cold, and come with me.

Let’s rise.
Let’s heal.
Let’s air out our thighs and reclaim our weird, wonderful, wobbly selves.

The Pantless Phoenix is here, baby.
And she is ready.