The healing practitioner's story is one of 28 inspiring tales from brave women around the world which feature in a new book Wild Woman Rising: Brave Women Who Carved Their Own Path.

"I was sent to boarding school when seven ... I fell pregnant at 17, and my father was killed by drunk driver," Mrs Kenny said.

"The writing proved to me that I had actually dealt with it all. It helped me realised there was no resentment left towards my mother, there's still grief around my father's death but it's not the way it was before - I couldn't talk about him without sobbing."

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An only child, Mrs Kenny believed she was a disappointment from the time she was born, recounting seeing her mother with her head in her hands, wondering who she needed to be to make her happy.

Her concerns were only reinforced when moving from her home in England to Australia, and after just three months in a strange land "packed off to boarding school" six kilometres from their home.

Previously her mother had threatened to send her to a "naughty girls home" - of which she thought her new school was - and was now desperate to know what she had done and why she was sent away.

Her treatment at the school was not kind nor loving, and it was only years later with her own children Mrs Kenny realised how "horrifying" her childhood was.

She does not remember her mother ever saying the words "I love you", she doesn't believe she ever uttered she was "proud", nor acknowledged her achievements as a mother to her children.

Her road to healing has been long, she said, but alternative therapies such as Theta Healing (a meditative technique conducted while the client and practitioner are in a theta brainwave state) has helped her grief.

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It was only until after her mother had died she was able to put pen to paper and record her story to show others they weren't alone.

She said being part of this compendium of brave stories was not about self promotion but to help others, as telling her story had already "touched a lot of people".

"It's not about me, but it seems to touch a lot of people and helps a lot of people," she said.

In 1971, when Mrs Kenny was 17 she fell pregnant, which she believed was the worst thing she could ever have done to her mother.

She was told to not come home with a baby as society frowned upon unmarried women (of any age) who became pregnant, but the teenager refused the abortion her mother was pushing for.

Like many others, the Mrs Kenny was "shunted off" to a special home for women like her, expected to disappear from the public eye then return once the baby was born and adopted out, and nobody would know any different.

"I went up to one in East Maitland," she recalls.

"The nuns were really nice ... but we were called by our middle names, and it was a bit traumatic, the idea that you would not be able to trace anyone afterwards

"There was a girl there I knew, she was older than me, I think she was 20 and I remember thinking at the time, 'oh my God if I was 20 there's no-way that I would let people push me around'."

These homes gave no education to the women they housed on what to expect during pregnancy, or what was happening to their bodies, not what they should do during labour.

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After a traumatic labour and her baby boy being whisked away before she could see, the then teenager returned home and was expected to return to normality - but everywhere she looked reminded her of motherhood.

A story she read in Woman's Day about unmarried mothers who had jobs gave her hope, and prompted her to return to the hospital and demand her son back.

"When I went back to see social worker and tell them that I'd like to take him back ... she said 'oh he's still here in the hospital, I knew you'd be back'," Mrs Kenny said.

"My mother's response was 'I didn't want to make it easy for you', which sums up our relationship really."

Just over a year later the young mum married the father of her son - who are still together to this day - and now have four children.

"I'm in a really good place now," Mrs Kenny said.

"I've come to a place of peace, which I certainly didn't have before. And I've come to a place of understanding my mother, understanding why she was the way she was and I've been able to forgive her."

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The women writers in Wild Woman Rising are described as people "who have alchemised challenging life events and created a life and business from their soul work."

"They are staring tradition in the eye and actively challenging the status quo, whilst birthing a whole new way of living and doing business," a press release for the book states.

All proceeds from the sales of Wild Woman Rising goes to supporting the international charity GirlRising, which uses the power of storytelling to change the way the world values girls and their education.

The book is being published by Ashwin Publishing.

An Excerpt from Wild Woman Rising:

I had three days of false labour before an ambulance ride ended with me spending 30 hours in the hospital, alone, flat on my back on a very hard labour table. Hindsight would reinforce that the way I was treated in the hospital was abuse. I had no support person, no visitors and I was left on my own for hours at a time, expected to time my contractions when I had no idea that the pains I was getting in my back were in fact contractions.

More than twenty hours into my labour, I had an out-of-body experience. I remember looking down on my body lying on the table as the room suddenly filled with people panicking, slapping my face and calling my name to get me to come around. They must have realised I was dehydrated, and their remedy was to give me orange juice. Shortly after, immobilised with my feet in stirrups, the baby came out one end and the orange juice came out the other, and even though I said I was going to vomit the nurse yelled at me. My long hair and nightie were covered in vomit. I was extremely distressed, yet I heard no words of comfort.

The baby was not shown to me after he was born, he was whisked away out of the room and at that point, I was too exhausted to care. I had been given an episiotomy which required many sutures to repair and resulted in three extremely painful abscesses later.

The whole process was so horrific the only reason I had a second child was because I was determined that my son would not be an only child like me.

The following contributing authors all run successful coaching, healing and therapeutic businesses in the Illawarra, Newcastle, the Central Coast and Sydney: Maiya Kenny, Camila Sunshine, Deborah Quirke, Donna Burrows, Gabrielle Bailey, Jennylee Taylor, Jess Karnaghan, Jules Stone-McLeod, Jo Martin, Kirsty McCann, Lucy Whyte, Maaya Eagle, Mary Girishaa, Melinda Kalac, Tara-Lee Bagnall, Tarryn Reeves and Tarsh Ashwin.

By April, the Wild Woman Rising Online Summit will coincide with the hard copy release.