UnBroken
A Manifesto to Healing in a World that Keeps Us Sick, Suffering, and Stuck
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Reclaim Your Wholeness
Why do we feel broken when we’re sick and suffering? Why does help so often fall short—even when we’ve done everything “right”?
Right questions. Wrong assumption.
UnBroken radically reframes our suffering: The problem isn’t us. The problem is how we see ourselves when we’re vulnerable and in need: through a lens of brokenness and disconnection. Drawing from cultural history, trauma science, and her decades of experience, physician Karyn Shanks MD exposes how the dominant medical paradigm reduces us to disconnected parts, pathologizes our suffering, and reinforces the false belief that we are broken and need to be fixed. This narrative, so deeply ingrained in all our human experiences, forms the bedrock of our science and medicine, traumatizes us, and keeps us sick, suffering, and stuck.
UnBroken gently leads us back to ourselves: already whole, innately wise, and fully capable of deep resilience. With powerful narrative, robust science—including epigenetics, neuroplasticity, core systems functional medicine, and transformational psychology—and embodied practices, UnBroken invites readers to decode the deeper meaning of their suffering and reclaim the flow of their lives. This is not a protocol. It’s a call to remember your innate potential, to step into your personal agency, and to live your new story of wholeness.
Karyn Shanks MD is a physician, author, and teacher who helps clients recover their lives from chronic complex illness—a journey she’s walked herself. Her work integrates the sciences of directable human potential—epigenetics, neuroplasticity, systems-based functional medicine, and transformational psychology—with the lived wisdom that safety, compassion, and story are the true foundations of healing. Over four decades, she’s learned one enduring truth: everyone can heal, and the best medicine comes from within.
Find UnBroken in the following formats
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What the Experts are Saying
“Karyn’s book feels like a breath of relief. She takes the overwhelming, confusing, and often shaming world of medicine and makes it human. She invites us not to somewhere new, but to a wisdom and self so many of us have lost.”
—Kevin Goldwater
trauma-informed licensed mental health counselor (LMHC), adjunct professor at NYU
“A masterwork of wisdom and right thinking … so important in these times.”
—Shari Rhoads, Internationally Renowned Conductor/Pianist
“UnBroken is a formula for transformation but there are no rules or prescriptions to be found here. Dr. Shanks’ genius lies in her compassionate determination to transform you into yourself. She does this by revealing where harmful influences have taught you to limit your thinking, ultimately delivering not a conclusion but a fresh start. This book will leave you permanently equipped to manifest your own unique version of a healthy and happy life.”
—Robin Stephen, Author
“This transformative book is a beautifully written, well researched, and expertly laid out guide to becoming your healthiest, most vibrant self. The author blends science and personal insight as she leads readers through nine steppingstones toward becoming our ‘TotalGloriousOneness,’ shifting our biology, genetics, stories, and actions.
This book highlights where Western medicine falls short of treating the whole person. I earmarked countless pages and will return to this book again and again as a lifelong reference. Just WOW!”
—Beth Dosland Mullan, RN
“This phenomenal book is a must-read for hungry, healing souls! Every chapter serves as a profound guide, aligning your internal compass no matter where you find yourself on life’s map, illuminating the trails of healing you are meant to explore right now. This is more than a book, it is a transformative journey brimming with wisdom, love and raw, unapologetic truth. It gently validates and meticulously unpacks the wrinkled stories of your very soul.
“The author, with profound grace, encourages you to “be curious” with every pause, every breath, as you unpack and unfold along every trail of self-discovery. This book is not just a guide, it is your compass in finding yourself again, reminding you with unwavering certainty that you are not broken.”
—Jane Bourgeois, DC