Sunday, June 15, 2014

The Last Best Cure

"The Last Best Cure-My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life" by Donna Jackson Nakazawa

I am always looking to learn something.  This book was a more difficult read as it has a lot of medical science in it but it was a good read and I learned a lot.  The author was very sick with numerous chronic diseases.  She had tried every medical drug and procedure but was still feeling terrible and in turn emotionally drained.  She was in her thirties with two teenage children and did not want to continue to live with the chronic pain and fear and emotional stuff she was dealing with.  She decided to take a totally different route and was completly surprised by the results.  She sought out yoga, meditation, and acupuncture.  She learned that with being able to change your mind you become healthier emotionally and then your body starts to heal, that there is a connection between our minds and our bodies.  It was intruging information.  Her father died suddenly when she was 12 and she learned how that early childhood trauma affected her body and may have played a part in why she was chronically sick.  I really found the information fascinating.  If you have chronic pain or childhood trauma this is a good book to read.  I have gained some tools to help me calm my breathing when anxious, and things to put on repeat in my brain to retrain it.  I also like that the author is skeptical every step of the way but is often surprised at her results.  And since she is a medical science writer she always explains everything which I appreciate.  "I don't want my Pain Channel to become the childhood pain that keeps them from the Life Channel-now, or twenty years from today.  There has to be a better way."  Donna knew that her illness was having a profound effect on her children and she didn't want to continue the path that they were on.  "A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."  Meaning we spend so much time not being present, we think about the past or what is to come.  If we could spend more time just being in the moment we would find more joy.  "We don't have to react to the thoughts and feelings inside our mind as if they are true."  Emotions come and go and instead of spending precious thoughts on what we are feeling it is better to name the emotion and move on and find truth.  "It's as if we're all just waiting for everyone else to smile first."  A smile can change your day, be the first to smile at others and you might be surprised at the uplifing it will bring to your day.  "...that by healing women one by one she'll help each to become more influential and powerful in her family and community-and from there, more women's healing energy will help to heal the world."  Sometimes it just takes one, one healthy person to change the world.  "It's never too late, as long as you're willing to ask the question of what might be getting in the way of creating the joyful life you want to live now."  Healing and wholeness are never too late to achieve.  God is the one who brings the complete healing but He does give us means to acheieving it.

Fifteen Minutes

"Fifteen Minutes" by Karen Kingsbury

This book is taken from modern day.  A young boy having grown up on a horse ranch loves to sing.  He decides to try out on a reality tv show.  His family is struggling finacially and he hopes that if he wins he can help save the ranch.  His long time girlfriend and also his grandfather worry how fame might change him but he insists that his faith is grounded and nothing will ever change that.  He believes that what he is doing is for the glory of God but he encounters fame quickly and looses sight of his One true love.  Will he be able to hold on to his faith or will he loose everything he once loved?  This is another great read by Karen Kingsbury.  Her books always captivate me and keep me reading.  "Good Lord gave me another day.  Got nothing to complain about."  That right there is a gift, waking up to another day.  Sometimes we forget that and find too much to complain about.  "The person you are-the one you really are inside-is lost right now.  But God is chasing you, Kelly.  I've prayed that the world you're choosing will let you down.  And once it does that you will see that God never has."  Sometimes we lose who we are amidst the trials of this life but God is always after us.  The world doesn't have what we are looking for, our wholeness, our peace can only come from the One who created us.  "Sometimes God's voice is hard to hear over the world."  We listen to teachers, parents, spouses, friends but sometimes we just need to listen to what God is trying to tell us.  A good book of the testing of faith and holding strong to what you believe in.