I wrote a new book!

When the Ache Remains is here <3

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Today feels celebratory for so many reasons (hello, election results and Taurus full moon!) — and like a good day to share good news. I was going to come up with some super special, strategically-scheduled way of sharing this, but doing so from the heart, when it feels right, has always felt most true for me.

I’m so deeply grateful to get to announce my second book, When the Ache Remains, coming on April 28th, 2026 with Hachette. The stunning cover is below:

Jacket design by Holly Ovenden

I started writing this book when I was finding my way through my own storm — not when I was on the Other Side of anything. What unfolded was a process of alchemy, an undoing of stale stories about what it means to live with any kind of ache, and a meeting of my own grief with a compassion I had never truly known before. These pages are filled with my heart, an outreached hand, and a reminder of our unaloneness. I have been changed through the process of what unfurled in these pages, and it feels like the widest gift to get to share it with you.

I got the galleys a few days ago — what a surreal thing, to hold it in my hands,

Here is the official description of the book:

In When the Ache Remains, Lisa Olivera blends her own personal experience of living with depression with therapeutic wisdom in a moving exploration of the emotional pain each of us lives with, offering readers guidance on finding beauty and aliveness alongside the aches we carry.

Emotional pain, of all kinds and magnitudes, is part of life. We’ll never be able to find ourselves free of it; no meditation or amount of therapy will cure us of the harder parts of being alive. The practice of turning toward the ache with care – reverence, even – might be one of the most meaningful gifts we can give ourselves. It might even save us.

Lisa has confronted this reality for years as a therapist, weaving her exploration of it throughout her popular newsletter, Human Stuff. She asks questions like, how do we confront and tend to the painful parts of being human without letting that pain entirely overtake us? How do we find joy even when depression visits, even when we lose someone we love, even when the hurt of the world is ever-present? How do we cultivate aliveness in the midst?

When the Ache Remains shares the practice of bringing wholeheartedness to our pain in a tender and wise exploration of how ache shapes life, how we can alchemize our grief into medicine, and how presence is accessible even in the midst of difficulty. Blending deeply personal narrative, humanistic psychology, lessons from nature, words of nourishment, and her naturally poetic undertone, Lisa invites readers on a journey alongside her as she uncovers the impact of our aches, and the process of learning to tend to them in more open, integrative, and loving ways.

A few of the places I wrote this book, with lots of help from trees.

You can learn more and pre-order here. I cannot wait to share this book with you; writing it felt like a portal of its own, like it carried me through my own process of becoming a wider companion to my own grief and to the beauty of this world, in turn providing me with so much more to offer. I will never take for granted the opportunity to share my work in this way, and it is my deepest hope that this book will hold you like it has held me.

More soon; Thank you thank you thank you.

With care,
Lisa