Your heart will lie to you.
Here's what nobody told you.
Heartbreak. Confusion. Feelings so intense they take over your whole life. "Random" problems and drama in other parts of your life that hit you out of nowhere.
If you've ever wondered why love hurts this much, why life is so hard — and why doing everything right still wasn't enough — this book was written for you.
The ebook is completely free. Print copies are available at cost through IngramSpark.
About the book
The stuff nobody told you about love, sex, and why adulting can be so brutal
Most of us figure out life and relationships the hard way — through heartbreak, confusion, and mistakes we wish we could take back. But what if the pain wasn't random? What if there were actual principles at work — things that, once you understand them, completely change how you see yourself and the people you're drawn to?
Don't Follow Your Heart covers the things most young people were never taught: what sex actually does to you emotionally, why intense feelings don't always mean you've found the right person, what real intimacy looks like, and how to protect yourself from the kind of hurt that takes years to get over.
It's not preachy. It's not a rulebook. It's one person's hard-won experience — laid out honestly, so you don't have to learn it all the same painful way.
The hidden cost of romantic mistakes
How the choices you make in relationships ripple into your finances, mental health, friendships, and future — in ways most people never connect back to the source.
Why heartbreak physically hurts
The science and the spiritual reality behind why losing someone feels like losing a part of yourself.
What sex does to you emotionally
The bonding that happens — whether you want it to or not — and why it matters more than anyone told you.
A sample from inside
See what the book is actually like
The spiritual reward or consequence of action is often not in the same sphere as the action.
My friend Tony was shot point-blank in the chest. When he told me the story later, he said he didn't even think he'd been shot. He thought the gun jammed or fired a blank because he didn't feel anything. It was only later, when he felt a pain in his lower back, that he realized it hadn't been a misfire. The bullet had entered his chest, bounced around off his ribs, leaving a path of damage, and finally exited out his back, destroying his kidney in the process. But Tony never felt where the damage began, only the wetness of the exit wound. I think this can be a helpful illustration of how something lethal to us can enter our lives unnoticed, leave a trail of destruction, and the only thing we feel is the final effect in a completely different area than where the trouble began. The only difference is that we're usually the ones pulling the trigger.
What's inside
40 lessons. Real talk. No fluff.
Each chapter tackles something real — the questions you've actually googled at 2am, the things you felt but couldn't explain, the situations nobody prepares you for.
Emotional intimacy
What it actually is, why it's rarer than physical intimacy, and why it matters more.
What real love actually looks like
Learn to recognize genuine, healthy love — and how to tell it apart from lust, infatuation, and the counterfeits that feel just like the real thing, but will leave you worse off and hurting at the end.
Sex & your emotions
The honest conversation about what happens to you — body and soul — when you're physically intimate with someone.
For parents, pastors & counselors
The conversation they need — from someone who's lived it
Young people are getting their information about sex and relationships from the internet, from friends, and from culture — and most of it is incomplete, misleading, or outright harmful.
Don't Follow Your Heart fills that gap. It's written in a voice teens and young adults will actually listen to — honest, direct, and grounded in real experience. It doesn't talk down to them. It gives them the framework they need to make better decisions before the consequences arrive.
The ebook is completely free to download and share. Print copies are available at cost. There's no reason every young person in your life shouldn't have access to this.
— from the book's introduction