COMING MARCH 2027 · SOURCEBOOKS
A Compassionate Book for Women with High-Functioning Anxiety
Dear Anxious Woman: A Therapist's Letters for Women with High-Functioning Anxiety
A book for the woman with high-functioning anxiety, whose anxiety hides in plain sight – in the worrying, the over-giving, the perfectionism, the never feeling like enough.
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A 2-minute quiz to find your type, and a first gentle step in your inbox.
Most books hand you "anxiety" as one big, generic word. This one names the exact flavor of yours
The constant worry, the people-pleasing, the perfectionism, the overthinking, the need to control, the urgency, the self-doubt, the never-enough, the quiet fear of taking up space – anxiety wears a lot of faces, and yours has probably been running the show for so long you stopped seeing it as anxiety at all. Chances are you've never had your specific pattern reflected back with this much precision. That recognition alone changes something.
If you nodded at even a few of these, I wrote this book for you. Not for the version of you that has it all together – for the one underneath her.
You might be her if…
Your mind won't turn off, even when everything is technically fine.
You feel like you're always a step behind, no matter how much you do.
You say yes when you mean no, because disappointing someone feels unbearable.
You hold everyone together – and no one knows how close you are to falling apart.
You reach for control when things feel uncertain, and call it "being on top of it."
You doubt every decision, then replay it for hours afterward.
You look, by every outside measure, like you're doing great.
And underneath, you're tired in a way sleep doesn't touch.
Stop fighting yourself.
Learn why healing isn’t about getting rid of your anxiety, but about moving her out of the driver’s seat so she no longer runs the whole show.
Give yourself permission to rest.
Let go of the pressure to push through and learn, gently, how to let the part of you that holds it all together finally exhale.
Understand where your anxiety came from.
Meet the achiever, the perfectionist, and the people-pleaser in you, and finally understand why she works so hard.
Learn the science behind why you are the way you are.
Discover how your nervous system shapes your overthinking, overdoing, and constant bracing, so your anxiety finally makes sense.
Learn how to manage anxiety
Get practical tools that move you from simply understanding your anxiety to actually knowing how to calm it.
Come home to yourself.
Reconnect with the calm, grounded woman who has been underneath the striving and worrying all along.
A look inside the book
Anxiety shows up in so many different ways, and it rarely shows up as just one.
The book is structured in letter format. Each letter is addressed in the way you actually live it – not in clinical terms, but in the language of what you do and how you feel. Read through them and notice which ones tug at you. Most women find themselves in several.
Some of these will feel familiar. A few might feel too familiar.Dear Overwhelmed Me (my story)
Dear Woman Who Is Constantly Worried
Dear Woman Who Feels Like She's Always Falling Behind
Dear People-Pleaser Who Never Says No
Dear Perfectionist Who Feels Like Nothing Is Ever Enough
Dear Woman Who Can't Relax Because Rest Feels Unproductive
Dear Strong One Who Holds It All Together (Even When You're Falling Apart)
Dear Overthinker Who Can't Turn Off Her Mind
Dear Woman Who's Afraid to Take Up Space
Dear Woman Who Needs to Control Everything
Dear Woman Who Moves Through the World Urgently
Dear Woman Who Doubts Her Every Move
Dear Woman Who Feels Like She's Never Enough
Dear Woman Who's Addicted to Doing and Achieving
Dear Woman Who Uses Avoidance to Cope
Dear Woman Who's Ready to Heal
Whatever you've been judging yourself for – the worry, the avoidance, the control, the inability to sit still – these letters reframe it as something that made sense once.
An adaptation, not a flaw. And if you saw yourself in five of them, or ten, that's not a sign something's wrong with you. It's a sign you've been carrying more than anyone realized – and that there's a letter here for each piece of it.
That shift, from what's wrong with me to oh, that's why, is where the relief starts.
Praise for Dear Anxious Woman
“For high-achieving women, anxiety doesn’t look like falling apart—it looks like keeping it all together. In Dear Anxious Woman, Dr. Kelly Vincent reveals the hidden costs of characteristics that our culture expects and rewards in women. Warm, insightful, and deeply validating, this is an important book for women who have spent a lifetime looking capable on the outside while carrying far too much within.”
—Jen Douglas, PhD, clinical psychologist, expert on perfectionism and high-achieving women, and author (St. Martin’s Press, coming 2028)
“Everyone experiences anxiety, but when it starts to erode our ability to function, it becomes a problem. Dr. Kelly Vincent offers solutions for women battling anxiety in all its many forms. Her tips gently push you toward change while challenging your core beliefs. This book is for every woman with anxiety.”
— Nedra Glover Tawwab, author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace
"The book I'll be recommending to every capable, exhausted woman who walks into my therapy room."
— Abby Rawlinson, psychotherapist and author of Reclaiming You
“Kelly Vincent has done something rare: she's taken the language of the nervous system (fight, flight, freeze, fawn, the window of tolerance) and turned it into letters that feel like a hand on your shoulder instead of a textbook. I recognized so many of my own clients and community members in these pages: the woman who can't rest because rest feels unproductive, the one who's addicted to doing, the one whose 'calm' is really just a nervous system stuck on high alert. Kelly never pathologizes any of it. She explains why the body learned to armor itself this way, and then she shows women how to gently teach it something new. This is the book I'll be handing to every high-functioning, high-achieving woman who thinks she just needs to try harder to relax, when what she actually needs is to understand her nervous system as an ally, not an enemy."
— Jessica Maguire, physiotherapist, nervous system educator, author and founder of the Nervous System Certification
WHEN YOU CAN FEEL IT BUT CAN'T NAME IT
Understand how your anxiety actually shows up.
The book won’t be out until March 2027, and I wanted you to have a place to start. In about two minutes, you'll discover which of the four types you lead with – the Steady One, the Soft One, the Watchful One, or the Driven One – and get a clear picture of how your anxiety tends to move through you, plus one gentle first step that actually fits your pattern.
It's the fastest way to put words to something you've been feeling for years. And the letters in Dear Anxious Woman pick up right where your results leave off.
Free · about 2 minutes · your results and a first step land straight in your inbox.
"High functioning anxiety is a protective shield – guarding you from the fear, the pain, the memories, the beliefs. I'm not asking you to throw the shield away. I'm asking: what would it be like to slowly lower it? To take one finger off the grip at a time, and see what's possible on the other side?"– from Dear Anxious Woman
Section Styles gallery-split
01.
A few goodies when you preorder Dear Anxious Woman
Dear Anxious Woman arrives in March 2027. When you preorder now, you don’t just reserve your copy. You get support that starts today, carries you through the wait, and gathers you in community the week the book comes out. Because reading about your anxiety and actually loosening its grip are two different things, and I don’t want you doing the second part alone.
Your Easeful Era: A Masterclass for High-Functioning Anxiety
Free with your preorder ($197 value)
My signature program for high-functioning anxiety. Short video lessons, a guided workbook, and six bonus sessions to help you calm your nervous system and start shifting your patterns now.
02.
A Free Chapter, Today
Free with your preorder ($197 value)
Get a full chapter of Dear Anxious Woman in your inbox the moment you preorder. Start reading the letters now.
03.
Invitation to the Dear Anxious Woman Book Club
A private book club during launch week
Join me and the women who got here first to celebrate the book, share what resonated, and feel less alone in it.
04.
How to Receive Your Pre-Order Goodies
Preordered. Check check!
Fill out the form below with your name, email, order confirmation number, and where you preordered. I’ll send your free chapter, Easeful Era access, and Launch Circle invitation straight to your inbox.
Preorder available soon!
I wrote this book because I lived it.
I'm Dr. Kelly Vincent – a licensed clinical psychologist, and a recovering high-functioning-anxious woman myself. I've spent years helping women untangle the exact patterns in this book, and years untangling my own. I didn't write this from above you. I wrote it from beside you.
We're all figuring it out, together.Dear Anxious Woman is a debut with international reach – translation rights sold in multiple countries before publication.
Published by Sourcebooks (a majority-owned subsidiary of Penguin Random House)
You've been holding it all together for so long. Let something hold you for a change.
Dear Anxious Woman arrives March 2027.
Join the waitlist and I'll make sure you're the first to know – with a few early reader extras along the way. Whenever you're ready to loosen your grip, even one finger at a time, this book will be here.
With so much love and belief in you, – Kelly