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Alice McDowell's path to peace and happiness was pocked with two divorces and two bouts of cancer, but at 71, this resident of Kingston and author loves who she has become.

It wasn't she explained, an easy process. McDowell maintains she has found very few people who possess this self love that can then transform itself into unconditional love for others. She is a good example of just how hard it can be to achieve.

Raised in a large Italian family in New York, McDowell earned a degree in social work, became a registered nurse and counselor and set out on a career path to find success. She worked long hours and was at one point in charge of an alcohol and drug treatment agency that served nine counties in New York. She had an important place in the hierarchy of the career world and a good salary. She made money and spent it recklessly.

Then a diagnosis of breast cancer came, in 1994. This stop sign in her life, she said, forced her to reevaluate her priorities. Material things were not so important. The focus turned inward.

But once she beat the cancer, McDowell admitted she fell right back into her old ways.

The workaholic who wanted it all stepped back on the fast track and refused to look back. A second cancer diagnosis -- this time uterine cancer -- was the kick in the head McDowell said she needed in order to look honestly at her direction.

Lessons learned

She took what she had gained through these experiences and wrote her first book, entitled "The Good News: It's Cancer." The inspirational journey takes readers into her life transformation and developing connection to God.

That book came out in 2001. This past April, McDowell offered up her second book that seeks to give all of us a process to work through in order to have that self love McDowell said she has found. The self-help book is entitled "Gentle Lessons From a Recovering People Pleaser."

While she doesn't like to use the word addiction, McDowell said there are all kinds of them that get in the way of the goal of self love. She said we carry around the leftover pain of our childhoods and end up living with fear, wanting the wrong things in life (like material things) and not liking who we've become.

Being a people pleaser will cause you to lose yourself and make decisions that may not be the best ones, McDowell said. She said "Gentle Lessons" not only tells readers what they must do but it also shows them how, in a step-by-step process that isn't easy.

The book will be beneficial to cancer patients, but really it's for anyone, the author said.

A different lens

It will help with relationships, she said, as readers come to understand the different people they are inside. Some are people pleasers, worriers, critical people, doubters and plain judgmental, she explained. If you can identify your own makeup, you can work on the negative and be the person you're meant to be.

It took McDowell three years to write "Gentle Lessons." She said good reviews have come from both men and women. She used over 40 years working in professional and spiritual coaching and counseling to come up with the process in "Gentle Lessons."

One part of the journey includes all of the people who have been placed in our lives, for years or a season, she said. It is our responsibility to recognize they are in our daily life for a reason. We need to take something from each of them.

"People come into your life for a reason," McDowell said. "Even the annoying ones. They are your greatest teachers. They all have something to teach you. It might be patience or tolerance or learning to be non judgmental."

After two failed marriages, McDowell is happily married to her third, Bob Trimmer, who she has known for 29 years. They moved to Kingston four years ago from Reno, Nev. McDowell is retired.

A better way

She has worked through her own issues of not feeling good enough, of feeling insecure about her appearance, road rage and being judgemental of others. She has confronted all of those selves inside and said she simply wants to share her personal experiences and triumphs with others. Being self aware means you gain the power to choose a better way without the negativity in your life, the author said.

"Most people don't know how to do life differently or they would," McDowell said. "This book tells them how to do it differently if they want to do the work. I didn't want this process to die with me. I am 71."

We truly can't love others unless we love ourselves first, McDowell emphasized. She said that is being selfish but in a positive way. And there are people out there needing that lesson, she said.

"People are in real misery, and they don't have to be," she said. "The first step is to look at themselves. but so many don't know how to do that. This book tells them how."