About Waking Up
What happens when a clinical psychologist begins to hear the voice of her first love—after his death?
Waking Up is a poetic, soul-baring memoir by Dr. Sasha Faust. After losing her first love, Walter, to suicide when she was eighteen, Sasha’s world unraveled. But in the quiet aftermath, something miraculous began: Walter never truly left. Guided by his presence across realms, Sasha walks readers through heartbreak, healing, and spiritual transformation.
Blending psychology and mysticism, science and Spirit, Sasha offers a multidimensional healing arc—from trauma and grief to awakening and remembrance. Through channeled insight, evocative poetry, and raw personal narrative, Waking Up explores what it means to lose someone, remember your soul, and reconnect with the unseen.
This book is a spell and a clinical mirror, a love letter to the ones we’ve lost and the parts of ourselves we are still finding. For anyone navigating loss or awakening to their intuitive gifts, Waking Up is a luminous companion at the intersection of grounded wisdom and divine guidance.
Praise for Waking Up
““Dr. Sasha Faust’s breakout first book, Waking Up, is as honest and passionate insight into grief, loss, and spiritual transformation. What makes this offering so important is that it is a unique blend of honesty and the highly trained interpretation of an outstanding clinical psychologist. Rarely, will you find a mental health expert share this much about their journey. Her ability to take complex constructs and make them personal and human is outstanding.”
— Ronald Stolberg, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Professor, and Co-Author of Teaching Kids to Think
“I am moved by Dr. Sasha Faust. This is the kind of book you want to read in a quiet nook and share with others. Her wisdom is priceless. She is a gift and so is this book!”
— Randy Peyser, author of The Power of Miracle Thinking
“Dr. Sasha Faust uses easily understandable language to appropriately address the profundity of Life. Her writing captures an endless, boundless positivity in the face of total darkness. Her language is simple yet profound, guiding readers gently through the complexities of existence. There is a magnetic quality to her words, drawing you in and holding space for reflection. The spaciousness of the format invites Wisdom to arise from the silence between the lines. Sasha speaks the language of Love—true boundless Love—where real freedom is found. A work of quiet genius.”
— Paul William Corey, MD, Clinical Specialist, Kadima Neuropsychiatric Institute; Sharp Memorial Hospital; California Institute of Integral Studies
“Dr. Sasha Faust has transmuted personal pain into a path of healing and wholeness, embodying the soul’s journey through heart, spirit, and human experience. Her willingness to enter life’s labyrinth in search of truth and reconnection with the Divine reflects a purpose we all carry—and ultimately, remember.”
— Laurie Morse, L.Ac., author of The Art of Returning to Love, How to Show Fear and Stress the Exit and HEAL
“Waking Up is a profound and poetic memoir that bridges psychology and spirituality with grace. Dr. Sasha Faust offers a powerful narrative of healing that will resonate deeply with anyone on a path of self-discovery, grief integration, and inner transformation.”
— Nava Sedaghat, PsyD, Clinical Psychologist, Owner and founder of Abundant Mind Therapy
“Waking Up is an intimate telling of how trauma transforms—through the wisdom and mystery of the soul. Dr. Sasha Faust’s words move the reader—echoing something ancient within us that somewhere, somehow, we’ve always known. She speaks to the truth we ache to hear, the most-important thing that’s been so long forgotten —that Love has never truly left us. Waking Up is a beacon, guiding us home to the arms ever-reaching out to embrace us."
— Sarah Kelly, BSN, Reiki Master Teacher, Somatic Educator, Owner of The Heart Healing Sanctuary
“Waking Up is a luminous and revealing journey through the terrain of grief, abuse, and spiritual awakening—told through poetry and prose that pulse with honesty and truth. Dr. Sasha Faust’s words do not just tell a story—they invite a remembering. Her poetry gently asks the reader: Is this ‘you’ today? Yesterday? Tomorrow? This book lingers—in heart and spirit.”
— Mary M. Versteck, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Professor
“Dr. Sasha Faust’s journey of awakening has been one filled with love, grace, compassion, and understanding. She is truly a beautiful soul and beacon of light for all who are walking the path to soul discovery and remembrance. By sharing her experiences, she brings comfort to others with the knowledge that there is hope and that we do not walk this often challenging path alone.”
— Jane Horvitz, Akashic Records Reader & Spiritual Medium
“Waking Up is a sacred act of remembrance of love, of spirit, of the self that survives even after loss. Dr. Sasha Faust doesn’t just write with grace she channels with reverence. Each page pulses with raw honesty, poetic truth, and the kind of wisdom only carved through deep soul initiation. This is more than a memoir. It is a transmission for anyone who has ever felt the ache of grief, the silence of spiritual suppression, or the quiet miracle of returning home to their gifts. This book is a light in the dark, a soft hand through the veil, and a revolution of what it means to be fully alive.”
— Hollie Hohenbrink, RBT
Dedication
For my dear friend, Walter Aubin, who passed away by suicide when I was 18. Walter, who showed me, and taught me, and proved to me that true, expansive, all-encompassing love and magic does in fact exist and is everlasting. Walter, you are love. You always have been. And now? You live in this book, too. On every page. For forever. Walter you are the absolute best co-author in Spirit that I could have ever dreamed into being. Thank you for making my wildest dreams come true