Yacolt author spreads message of healing through children’s book

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“Dedicated to survivors of trauma everywhere: you are a miracle, and you can make it through. ‘The Healing You Can Do’ was written for you.”

Yacolt author Meghan Hindi opens her children’s book about overcoming abuse and trauma with these words.  

“Whether you have survived trauma, sexual, physical, verbal, emotional abuse or any other event that left you to question your inherent value, please know that you are not defined by those experiences,” she later writes. 

The reader is first introduced to joy as a child is born at the beginning of the book. Using bright colors and happy emotions, the first few pages follow a child through her birth and start of life, meeting people and exploring the world. 

Hindi and her artist Katie M. Berggren then explore the effects of trauma at a young age, as the child, whom Hindi calls “her hero,” suffers a traumatic experience. 

“No matter how you were wounded, the pain can strike so deep. It can feel like you don’t know whether to cry, eat or sleep,” Hindi writes as the reader sees a spread of pages with a black and dark color scheme. 

“It goes from light to dark to light,” Hindi explained during an interview with The Reflector last week. “I believe each of us are born and our existence to the universe is precious and incredible and celebrated. The world obviously affects us in a variety of different ways and trauma and abuse happen.”

The book then follows the girl through the healing experience. “As you grow beyond that moment, as you work to let it go, please take care of yourself,” she writes. “Remember, take it slow.” 

The story then follows the child through pages where descriptions and illustrations get brighter and brighter, using colors as a tool of storytelling. 

The words of the book never make any mention to gender or age, a detail Hindi states was on purpose. 

“It speaks to the spirit of the human being,” she said of her character and mentioned that she and Berggren attempted to just make the character a spirit instead of a girl but had a hard time doing it.  



“Anywhere you see turquoise is really her power against the world,” Hindi explains of the character and her spirit. “We tried to put it in every page.”

Hindi was inspired to write a book following the birth of her second child. 

“My goal is to always provide myself with the most healing experience for whatever I’m dealing with at the time,” she said, adding that at the time of her second birth she was coping with sexual and emotional trauma from her childhood. “I found incredible healing though that (giving birth).”

Hindi found the core of her inspiration two months after the birth of her second child.

“I was thinking about the amount of transformation I had found and I was thinking about how I could have gotten there sooner,” Hindi explained. “All of a sudden I asked myself ‘what did I need to hear when I was a child?’ and something whispered in my ear, almost audibly, the first few pages of this book.”

“This character is based in every experience I’ve ever had, even to becoming so transformed — you can learn to love the world,” Hindi explained. “This is on my wall because it’s my goal for the rest of my life,” Hindi said while pointing at the book’s final pages. “It’s on my wall because I want to remember to love everyone.”

‘The Healing You Can Do’ made its debut in June of this year and is available at

thehealingyoucando.com and on Amazon. 

Although Hindi originally wrote and dedicated the book to children experiencing trauma in their life, she has found that her book has helped more than just children. 

Along with being an author, Hindi advocates for women empowerment through the childbearing process and lives on a property in Yacolt where she cares for rescued animals.