Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

“Alchemy of Illness” by Kat Duff

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Subtitle: A woman explores the transforming – and, paradoxically, healing – experience of being ill

Recommended to me by: a client

Alchemists strive to turn lead into gold by heating it alone in a sealed container, a crucible. In the crucible of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Kat Duff turned inward and found healing in the stillness and isolation forced by her illness.

Weaving together symptoms, dreams, mythology, Jungian psychology, and alchemy along with anthropological research into illness and healing, Duff reveals new perspectives on illness. Instead of being an assault or a punishment, illness can be a natural consequence of our history as individuals and communities. She sees her illness as an agent of healing both for sexual abuse she suffered as an infant, and for the land theft her forebears committed against the Sioux tribe in Minnesota.

Duff is careful to avoid the painful idea that “sick people are personally responsible for creating their illnesses through some kind of wrong-thinking or wrong-doing.” Sickness isn’t bad. It just is.

She relates a story about Nan Shin, a Zen nun diagnosed with cancer and struggling with guilt and remorse.

Then an old friend, who was also a Zen student, visited. He threw his arm around her shoulders and wisecracked, “Good Karma, huh? Brings you close to the Way.” Shin wrote later, “The jolt I felt then showed me very clearly that I had been thinking, Bad Karma. Within a fraction of a second the molecules turned themselves round and reorganized. I am flatly grateful to him forever.”

Unfortunately, Duff conflates illness with disability, and occasionally uses phrases like “confined to a wheelchair.” People are not confined by wheelchairs any more than people are confined by bicycles, cars, or any other device that assists mobility.

I recommend this book for its kaleidoscope of new perspectives about illness.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Seeking Peace” by Mary Pipher

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Subtitle: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World

Recommended to me by: Bay Area Spirituality Bookgroup

Mary Pipher didn’t expect to become famous for writing “Reviving Ophelia” and she fell into despair after years of touring and speaking engagements. The book covers her despair, her parents, her childhood, and then her healing. She says she is the worst Buddhist in the world because she has trouble sitting still and paying attention.

In the introduction she apologizes at length for having a crisis as a happily married and successful career woman when other people have real problems and real traumas. Then she describes her childhood family’s real problems and real traumas. She did have a fairly ordinary college career and young adulthood, at which point I put the book aside in frustration at its circular approach to the initially-described crisis.

I did pick it up again and read quickly through her healing approach, which included slowing way down, spending a lot of time in nature, trying yoga and massage for the first time, and meditating. She notices her vicious self-critic who cares about whether she is helping others but not about whether she is happy. With time and attention the critic mellows and she comes to a place of more acceptance for herself as she is.

I wish she had noted in her introduction that comparing our crises and traumas to other people’s is a tool of self-criticism rather than compassion. Swallowing our pain because someone else has been hurt more helps no one.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Bear That Wasn’t” by Frank Tashlin

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Recommended to me by: A client.

This children’s book was written in 1946 about a bear who emerges from peaceful hibernation to find that a factory has been built around his cave. The factory managers tell him to get to work. When he protests that he is a bear, one manager after another tells him he is a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat. Eventually they wear him down and he comes to believe them.

This is a classic example of gaslighting – making someone doubt their own reality.

The book is beautifully illustrated with Tashlin’s line drawings. The only downside to the book is blatant sexism in the illustrations. For example, each (male) factory manager has a series of shapely female secretaries. Aside from that, I wholeheartedly recommend the book, which supports the idea of listening to your own truth and not letting yourself be outvoted by other people’s opinions.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Girls Come Marching Home” by Kirsten Holmstedt

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Subtitle: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq

Recommended to me by: A client.

I learned so much from these detailed descriptions of nearly 20 women soldiers, their deployments, and their returns to the US. What it’s like to be a soldier in a modern war. What it’s like in the war zone in Iraq. What it’s like to be a woman in the military. What it’s like to return from war, changed by becoming a solider, by being wounded, by witnessing and experiencing trauma, to find that home doesn’t fit any more.

Some of the women soldiers were wholly accepted into their units with camaraderie and support. Some experienced sexism and sexual harassment. Women of color experienced racism as well. The ones who were arbitrarily harmed by their fellow soldiers and superiors said that caused them more pain and distress than anything else in their tours of duty.

Many of the soldiers are in their late teens and early twenties. A few are closer to forty, and experience age-related harassment for that difference.

On their returns, the women struggle with distinguishing between “normal” difficulties of reintegration and the more severe difficulties of PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. Some fight being diagnosed with PTSD and some fight for the help they need. They miss the structure, enforced closeness, and clear priorities of military life. The transition from skilled soldier to struggling civilian is a difficult one.

This is not an easy book to read, but I highly recommend its forthright, compassionate look at women returning from the war in Iraq.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Embracing Your Subconscious” by Jenny Davidow

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Subtitle: Bringing All Parts of You Into Creative Partnership: Conscious & Subconscious, Head & Heart, Masculine & Feminine, Adult & Child, Waking & Dreaming

Recommended to me by: Jenny Davidow

Jenny Davidow’s clear, practical, non-judgmental book covers a surprising array of techniques to make friends with your subconscious. Learn to decode your dream symbols, negotiate inner alliances, create positive endings, take fantasy vacations, transform outdated beliefs, heal your inner child, dream lucidly, connect with your creativity, and widen your choices in your waking life. Vivid examples and detailed exercises encourage you to make these techniques your own.

As seen in the parallel paired contrasts in the subtitle, the book emphasizes stereotypical, Jungian ideas about masculine and feminine attributes. In addition to being passive and receptive, femininity is paired with childhood and innocence. In several examples, women resolve relationship issues, while men resolve career issues.

Both outer relationships and the “inner marriage” between (stereotypical) masculine and feminine aspects are heterosexual, with no discussion of other possibilities.

This book safely skirts the realm of “you control external reality with your thoughts” while offering practical tools to negotiate improvements in your internal reality. Recommended, with the noted caveats.

Available at biblio.com.

“Trigger Point Self-Care Manual” by Donna Finando

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Subtitle: For Pain-Free Movement

Trigger points are small knots of tension within muscles. They cause local taut bands of muscle fibers and dispersed pain in predictable patterns. Steady, firm but not aggressive pressure helps resolve trigger points and the seemingly intractable pain they cause.

Clear, detailed, and encouraging, this book helps you find and treat your own trigger points. Donna Finando covers each major section of the body, including diagrams of trigger point pain patterns for the relevant muscles. The pain patterns, actions, and stretches are discussed for each muscle.

The full discussion for muscles that affect more than one section of the body is repeated in each section. For example, the scalenes appear three times, since they can cause pain in the neck, shoulder, and down into the arm and hand. Some of the introductory material is also repeated.

The repetition is annoying when reading through the book, but could be useful when using the book as a reference, eliminating the need to flip between sections.

Highly recommended if you have ongoing pain of mysterious origin. Even if the pain has some other underlying source, there may be trigger points involved. You’ll become more familiar with your body as well as reduce pain when you seek out and treat your own trigger points.

Available at bookshop.org.