“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”― James Baldwin
I don’t remember a time without reading as a hobby in my life. Having been introduced to books at the age of 4 by my mother, my love for the written word has grown manifold since then. Though, I must confess there was a phase in between when I was unable to read a book.
This was after my autoimmune detection. The sudden changes in my body had taken me aback and I was almost on the brink of depression, which I am told is the case with many sufferers.
During one of my routine visits to my doctor, he suggested I take up some hobby to keep my mind busy. And, I broke down. He didn’t realize he had opened a can of worms with that statement of his. In between sobs, I told him, “What hobby? I can’t dance. I can’t work out. I can’t hold a brush, leave alone paint. I can’t stand for long to cook. I can’t walk, run, or go cycling. Is there anything left for me to do?”
After a brief pause, he meekly replied, “Ummm….read?”
Ding! There was a bell in my mind which went out aloud on hearing that word. How come I ever thought of it before? Without much ado, I decided to get back to my lost love, to bring back colours into my life. With every book that I read, I opened a new gate toward healing. I learned new things about my body and also tried mastering the art of training my mind which is extremely helpful if done rightly.
As an avid reader, there are many books that I have loved and lived but here I would like to share with you the name of 5 books that helped me heal and get out of the pain, guilt, and trauma of being a sufferer. It helped me gain the strength to keep moving ahead and it still does.
“Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people’s ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.” ― Roberto Bolaño
1. You can Heal Your Life by Louise L Hay
Louise’s key message in this powerful work is: “If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed.” Louise explains how limiting beliefs and ideas are often the cause of illness, and how you can change your thinking…and improve the quality of your life.
2. How to Heal Yourself When No One Else Can: A Total Self-Healing Approach for Mind, Body, and Spirit by Amy B. Scher
Using energy therapy and emotional healing techniques, How to Heal Yourself When No One Else Can show you how to achieve complete and permanent healing by loving, accepting, and being yourself no matter what. Energy therapist Amy B. Scher presents an easy-to-understand, three-part approach to removing blockages, changing your relationship with stress, and coming into alignment with who you truly are.
After overcoming a life-threatening illness, Amy had an epiphany that healing is more than just physical. Her dramatic story serves as a powerful example of how beneficial it is to address our emotional energies, particularly when nothing else works. Discover areas of imbalance and easy ways to address them on your healing journey. Whether you are experiencing physical symptoms or are just feeling lost, sad, anxious, or emotionally unbalanced, this book can change your life.
3. Energy Medicine: Use Your Body’s Energies by Donna Eden
4. After the Diagnosis: Transcending Chronic Illness by Julian Seifter, Betsy Seifter
“After the Diagnosis “is a heartfelt and moving lesson on the art of living well through serious illness. Dr. Julian Seifter understands the difficulty of managing a chronic condition in our health-obsessed, take-life-by-the-horns, live-forever world. When he found out he was suffering from diabetes, he was an ambitious medical resident who thought he could run away from his diagnosis. Good health was part of his self-image, and acknowledging that he needed treatment seemed like a kind of failure. In his practice, however, as he helped his patients come to terms with serious conditions, he began to understand that there were different, better ways to approach a life-altering diagnosis. In this frank account of his experiences both as a doctor and as a patient, he shares the many lessons he has learned.
Writing with his wife, who has been an essential partner in his own treatment, he teaches you how to contend not only with the physical problems, the social stigma, and the emotional fallout of illness, but also with the medical establishment.
Convinced that a deeper understanding of the spiritual, emotional, and physical challenges will bring not only comfort and support but also better care, he emphasizes truths rarely acknowledged in medical writing: – that a patient is not simply a collection of signs and symptoms, but someone with a particular personality, psychology, and history; someone with idiosyncratic wishes and goals- that blame, anxiety, obsession, and shame are inevitably part of the psychological journey, and that the doctor-patient relationship needs to make room for the whole person, including these difficult emotions- that sometimes doctor and patient have to throw out the rule book and construct highly personal, creative solutions- that denial, acting out, and “being bad” can sometimes be of benefit in managing illness- that optimism and emotional resilience– both of which can be cultivated and nourished by the doctor–may contribute to what medicine calls luck – that sickness, usually seen as alien and destructive, can become a vehicle for growth and self- realization.
The message, in short, is: You are not your disease. You are you. Paradoxically, rather than destroy your identity, the experience of sickness can deepen your sense of who you are and what you can become.
5.How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers by Toni Bernhard
This life-affirming, instructive, and thoroughly inspiring book is a must-read for anyone who is–or who might one day be–sick. And it can also be the perfect gift of guidance, encouragement, and uplifting inspiration to family, friends, and loved ones struggling with the many terrifying or disheartening life changes that come so close on the heels of a diagnosis of a chronic condition or even a life-threatening illness.
The author, who became ill while a university law professor in the prime of her career, tells the reader how she got sick and, to her and her partner’s bewilderment, stayed that way. Toni had been a longtime meditator, going on long meditation retreats and spending many hours rigorously practicing, but soon discovered that she simply could no longer engage in those difficult and taxing forms. She had to learn ways to make “being sick” the heart of her spiritual practice and, through truly learning how to be sick, she learned how, even with many physical and energetic limitations, to live a life of equanimity, compassion, and joy. Whether we ourselves are sick now or not, we can learn these vital arts of living well from How to Be Sick.
Here’s hoping they help you in your journey of healing too.