The most radical intimacy isn’t with a lover. It’s with yourself.

These are real stories — mine, and maybe yours too.

Any given Thursday, 3:07 AM – Bedroom

The fan whirs overhead. My chest is tight, thoughts in a loop:

Who am I, and what do I truly want in this one life? 

I’ve asked myself this in the oncologist’s office, at my kitchen table with divorce papers, and on dates with new potential partners where the wine (I don’t like to drink) was better than the conversation.

The crack where the light came in….always came the same way: through the mirror. And the intimacy that mattered most wasn’t being seen by or even sex with another. It was telling the truth to myself.

February 16th, 2012 – Doctor’s Office

The word cancer echoed like a countdown.
Do I want to spend what could be my last months performing a life—or living one? What will you work on, show up as, BE, if you live?

Years later, divorce documents spread across my table… another version of the same question.

My body was starving for touch, my soul starving for connection. My mind clung to the script: Stay, it’s the “right thing” to do, it makes sense on paper, he’s a good guy, our kids are great, maybe this is just what mid-life is like.

But partnership as lovers, on paper, doesn’t fuck you back.

I felt like I was choosing between staying while muzzling the knowing (it’s over) or, actively walking into aliveness. And once you’ve felt the clock ticking in your bones, you know better than to waste time pretending.

March 16, 2022, 3:47 PM – Laptop Glow

Emails, meetings, rinse, repeat. Busyness was my Novocaine. But eventually, I needed a harder drug: truth.

So I built a spreadsheet.

Yeah. A spreadsheet.

It started as columns and rows, but quickly turned into something else: a place to pour out confessions I couldn’t even say to my therapist.

Each cell became a mirror. “Do I like role play?” Cell A12. “What are you terrified of?” Cell A21. Does height matter? Cell A3. “Where have you lied to yourself?” Cell A 41.

The columns, men, women…..dates. Every date, every detail, every truth.

I typed it all in, no edits, no filter. And once it was there in black and white, I couldn’t un-know it.

Relationship. Sex. Self.

That spreadsheet was the rawest thing I’d ever written. It didn’t judge me. It demanded I stop bullshitting.

And it changed everything.

Tools for You:

Liberation Timeline Workbook – Guided journaling with your 7- and 70-year-old selves. Use this to see the proof of your capacity, gifts and the beautiful future you could be living toward right now.

Saturday, 4:33 PM – Coffee Walk with Friends

She whispered, “I think I have a crush on another woman at yoga.”
Another admitted, “I love my husband, but I want to try things we’ve never talked about.”

And in book clubs, dinner parties, long drives, women and men started telling me the unspoken:

Horizons have shifted. At 35, we’re asking questions people once saved for 55. At 45, we’re realizing the second half of life doesn’t have to be compromised. At 55 we have abandoned the “shoulds”, unlocking the cage we kept. At 65 we shutter at the culture who told us sex doesn’t matter.

The old models of love, sex, and marriage don’t hold us anymore. And if culture is finally catching up, maybe the spreadsheet wasn’t crazy at all. Maybe it was a blueprint. 

Recent Email Draft to Myself – Subject Line: Don’t Forget This

Hey woman, I’m proud of you… each version, shade, age you are and act you’ve endeavoured. We worked damn hard to know these things, to love this deep, don't forget:

To Kelsey, the High Achiever: Softening doesn’t make you weaker. It makes you unstoppable.
To Kelsey, the Sexually Curious: Curiosity is common. Permission is rare. Granted.
To Kelsey, the Coupled: Divorce doesn’t break you. Silence does.
To Kelsey, the Spiritual-Science Seeker: Desire is ceremony, not shame. Pleasure heals.

Every chapter of my life — cancer, divorce, sleepless nights, dating again — forced me to admit a truth I’d tried to bury. Each scar is proof of intimacy with myself. Known, loved, worth it.

What’s Your Liberation Archetype? – Are you the Alchemist, the Phoenix, the Lover...?

Use this as a mirror to help you see not only yourself, that you are not alone.

Each archetype gives clues to a clear way YOU can Liberate yourself going forward.

Wednesday, 8:58 PM – Zoom Session, Client Asks Point-Blank

“Why should I listen to you, Kelsey?”

I lean in, smile:
Because I’ve done the hardest thing there is — I’ve told myself the truth.

Every time I chose truth over performance, desire over silence, aliveness over appearances, I built the authority I write with now.

I’m not perfect. I’m clear. Curious. Earnest. Loving. Practicing every day to be wholly me. Integrated, aligned. So the love I receive is truly for me, and the love I give is soul-born, sovereign, integrous, chosen. 

Liberation Letters exists so you don’t have to face the mirror alone. Behind this letter are thousands walking beside you — asking, daring, choosing.

If this hits, pass it on to the friend reclaiming her truth: “I see you. I’m proud of you. Keep going.”

Pass it on to the husband or boyfriend walking beside a woman he loves, supporting her evolution, cheering her on.

Life is a fucking miracle folks. Treat it—and yourself—like one. Love like it’s just one fine dance on a blue marble floating in space. At 80, you won’t regret truly living. 

In living, love, and truth,

Kelsey

PS — For those who still need my paperwork:

I hold a Bachelor’s in Economics, an MBA, and executive education from Harvard. I’m the bestselling author of The Success Hangover. I study at the Kinsey Institute—the world’s preeminent sex-research institute—and I’m completing Somatica Sex & Relationship Coaching certification.

Twice named Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneur, I’ve founded multiple companies (and took one public), contributed to and been featured in outlets like Forbes and Entrepreneur, and I teach Private Equity and New Venture Creation at Ivey Business School.

I’m also a mother of three and a cancer survivor, proud to have mentors and great teachers in my psychedelic practice. Married for 15 years and now dating for three, I’m the founder of The Paramount Love and the author of the forthcoming book The Spreadsheet.

One might say, I get around. I might say I’m living a life I didn’t always plan but that I’ve never been more proud of.

Dear Kelsey —
If you have questions or want to share an experience of desire, kink, or shame, write to me. Always anonymous. Always read by me.

Here’s to talking about it.

We are Looking For Women, Men & Couples (35 - 69 yrs old) Ready To Share Their Love & Personal Liberation Stories

Here's what I know: somewhere between "having it all" and feeling half-alive, there's a reckoning. A moment when you realize that success without soul is just sophisticated suffering...that love without truth of heart is a performance that’s one of the greatest tragedies of our lives.

That's why I'm filming "What is Real Love?" with Paramount Love—and we want to hear from you if you read the above and know exactly what we mean. You've felt it. Or you're feeling it right now.

Whether you're at the beginning of your journey, in the thick of transformation, or have integrated new ways of being, we want to hear your story. More importantly, others just like you need to hear it.

We don't need your transformation to be complete. Just your real, raw and sovereign self.

What you'll get:

This isn't about having the perfect story. It's about having the courage to tell the one you're living. It's about liberation and love.

Ready to share your story? Or know someone who would want to?

Click below to apply or forward this email to someone you know who would be interested.

Deadline: Oct 10, 2025

Paramount Love exists to reawaken truth, intimacy, and personal sovereignty in modern relationships. Your story could be the permission slip someone else needs for their own revolution.

Paramount Love

~ from the desk of Kelsey