“Beautifully written, this book is a magical mystery tour. You will be riveted as you join Gina as she retraces the steps of her journey of healing from trauma, sharing the gifts she found along the way.”
“A memoir/self-help gem that pulls you into the lived reality of transformation”
Turn Your Pain into Purpose
Discover the Revolutionary Healing Power of SMGI® to Transform Trauma and Soar into Your True Self
Are You Feeling Trapped by Trauma?
Struggling with the lingering effects of past pain?
Feeling like you’re not your true self, hiding behind a mask?
Wondering if the deep hurt inside you can ever be healed?
Unwilling to let your past, your patterns, or your circumstances determine what's possible for your future?
“Compassionate, practical, and empowering, this book offers readers a clear path to turn pain into purpose and discover their capacity to truly fly.”
Get Yours Wherever Books Are Sold
This book has been distributed to 45,000 independent bookstores, online stores, chain stores, ebook retailers, libraries and universities. Retailers include Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Target, and Walmart.
If you’d like to purchase multiple copies of Life Is Hard and Then You Fly for your team, event, or to give as gifts, please contact info@lifeishardandthenyoufly.com. Discounts are available, depending on volume.
“…a warm, candid blend of memoir, healing guide, and invitation to explore the inner world… central message is generous and reassuring…makes a complex approach surprisingly easy to follow and gives readers plenty of places to begin.
Vance’s voice is conversational, playful, spiritually open, and remarkably frank. She writes about childhood violence, chronic pain, motherhood, sexuality, grief, suicidal thoughts, and healing with an honesty that feels authentic. Her humor brings welcome air into difficult material, while the many client stories show the method in motion.
Scientific ideas, hypnotherapy, parts work, shamanic traditions, energy practices, angels, ancestral memory, and past-life imagery all share space in her expansive understanding of healing.
Vance’s deepest achievement is helping readers see survival itself as evidence of resourcefulness, courage, and an enduring capacity for love. Life Is Hard and Then You Fly turns survival into a language of self-compassion, then gives readers the tools to make that language a way of life.”
There’s a Path to Freedom
In Life is Hard And Then You Fly, Gina Vance introduces the transformative power of Somatic Mindful Guided Imagery® (SMGI®)—a simple, effective method to heal trauma, reclaim your true self, and turn pain into purpose, feeling more free.
#1 Amazon Best Seller
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#1 Amazon Best Seller 〰️
What You’ll Discover Inside
The 9 Survival Responses: Understand how instinctive reactions like Fight, Flight, and Freeze become trauma triggers—and how to break free.
Practical Healing Tools: Use SMGI® to release pain, clear inner clutter, and retrieve lost parts of yourself.
Trauma to Treasure: Transform your struggles into sources of strength, purpose, and joy.
Spiritual Alignment: Reconnect with your soul to live authentically and expand into your Greater Self.
“A powerful and important read for anyone seeking to understand how their body holds their story and how to finally let themselves heal.”
Meet Gina Vance
Gina Vance is a mind-body mentor and inner journey guide who developed SMGI® after her own journey through pain and adversity. Inspired by her mentors and clients, she’s helped thousands heal trauma and reclaim their true selves. Her work is a fusion of ancient wisdom and modern healing, designed to guide you to freedom and love.
What Readers and Experts Are Saying
Ready to Heal and Soar?
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Ready to Heal and Soar? *
Who This Book Is For
“For anybody who has struggled with pain, as you journey through the pages of this lushly written, transformative book you will find the tools to heal yourself—and fly.”
“A companion for anyone yearning to cut through their armor and live their fullest life.”
“Gina reminds us that our growth doesn’t happen in spite of our struggles, but because of them. She helps you understand your experiences in a way that lifts you up and reconnects you to your soul. Her words are both gentle and deeply wise, helping us see our lives from a higher perspective. If you’re ready to finally soar beyond old patterns, this book will show you how.”
This book is for anyone feeling stuck, dealing with trauma, or hiding inner pain behind a mask of success. It’s for high achievers and seekers who are ready to heal, reclaim their true selves, and contribute to a love-based world. Coach, therapist, healing practitioner or simply someone wanting to heal and feel free? This book’s for you!
“For anyone living with the weight of trauma, chronic stress, or unresolved pain, this book offers more than comfort, it offers a map. It acknowledges suffering without minimizing it, then provides concrete tools and an empowering framework to help readers turn survival into transformation.”
“I find its simple, powerful tools and exercises invaluable for helping men, fathers, and sons connect to their inner worlds.”
“We would all be better people, happier people, more healed people... by using this book as our field guide for how to be in this nutso life. This should hardly be called a book. It is a journey of the human condition - our sorrows, and where and how triumph can be found. I read almost none of the books I buy (although I love them like little treasures) this one however I have read cover-to-cover multiple times. And find something new within the pages and then within inside myself. This book makes sense and it heals the heart, mind, body along the way. Trust me this is gonna be the New “The body keeps score”, “Waking the tiger” and “Let them” all in one...”
“A game changer for every person who is ready to feel better. I believe it will change the world, one person at a time.”
“This is not just another self-help book. It is a storybook of people striving to be free and willing to do the inner work to get there. The chrysalis does not become a butterfly until first turning into goo inside a cocoon. In that goo is the living potential for us all to become the individual butterflies we are meant to be, and to fly free. May Gina’s book help you on your way.”
Supports for You
Free 9 Around the One Diagram: A downloadable PDF to help you understand your survival responses.
Access to Resources: Return here to explore additional tools including self-study programs and guided imagery audios!
Self discovery, healing & freedom
Whether just beginning to seek, already walking a path of reclamation, training in liberating work, or serving others as a professional helper, this book is for you. It reveals the simple, powerful process of SMGI® so the pain that once held you down can become the wings that let you fly.
Reading this book will remind you there is nothing wrong with you. You have ingeniously survived, and can feel proud of what you’ve lived and accomplished because of your adversity. You can feel better than you ever thought possible, gently and quickly from the inside out.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes! The SMGI® method is simple and effective, making it accessible for anyone ready to heal, and feel more free. Whether you’re new to inner work or experienced, this book gives simple methods that make a real difference.
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Clients often report feeling lighter and freer after their first SMGI® session. The book guides you to create tangible shifts at your own pace. Just learning what’s possible through the stories in this book, will catalyze changes in your subconscious that will create relief and ease.
“Extraordinarily written book…
…Its accessibility and clarity is remarkable.”
“This is an extraordinarily written book, both for individuals seeking self-help guidance as well as for practicing counselor/therapists who are always open to additional approaches to healing Mind and Body. I wish that I had had this invaluable book while I had my medical practice. It has dual purpose value, it helps both the therapist/counselor practitioner as well as the person seeking individual help. Its accessibility and clarity is remarkable.
Wonderfully organized, easy to read, and filled both with guidance as well as the necessary “life stories.” We need them to believe that they can work for us. We don’t learn by the abstract, “Do this, ” but rather, we learn from hearing or reading, “If he/she can do it, so can I!”
Find out for yourself what a treasure this book is. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. Do yourself and your clients/patients, if you have them, a favor, by getting it and incorporating its wonderful, healing guidance in your lives.”
— Nora Porter, MD, Retired physician, graduate of Cornell Medical School & Harvard’s Mind/Body Medical Institute