Healing into Possibility: The Transformational Lessons of a Stroke [Paperback]

Alison Bonds Shapiro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2009

Alison Bonds Shapiro suffered two debilitating and nearly fatal strokes in her fifties. Healing into Possibility chronicles her experience of learning, through trial and error, that her attitude would play the most important role in her remarkable recovery. In this touching book, Shapiro teaches simple principles that anyone can use when faced with illness, injury, or any other seemingly insurmountable problem to transform despair into hope and dead ends into possibilities.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A night-light for times of darkness and loss, enabling us each to find our own way home to our wholeness and the rest of our lives.”
— Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, author of Kitchen Table Wisdom

“Should be required reading for everyone who has had a brain injury. It will serve as a great help to caregivers as well. And it could be an inspiring source of support for anyone on a feasible but unpredictable path of recovery for whom the principal ingredients for sustaining their diligence are tenacity and true grit.”
— Sylvia Boorstein, PhD, author of Happiness Is an Inside Job

“Reading this book is like being with a friend who is warm, wise, gentle, and powerfully insightful — an articulate and really interesting friend who can share with you profound healing opportunities that can come with unexpected catastrophe.”
— Martin Rossman, MD, founder, TheHealingMind.org, and author of Guided Imagery for Self-Healing

“From ancient times, there have been people called ‘wounded healers’ who use their own experience with illness to heal others. Alison Bonds Shapiro is one of the outstanding wounded healers of our time, and her superb book offers healing lessons for us all.”
— Roger Walsh, MD, PhD, professor, University of California Medical School, and author of Essential Spirituality

About the Author

Alison Bonds Shapiro works with stroke survivors and their families at an HMO in Northern California. She also serves as an advisor to a small nonprofit dedicated to stroke survivors. She lives in Mill Valley, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: HJ Kramer/New World Library (June 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932073248
• ISBN-13: 978-1932073249
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #564,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #62 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Strokes

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Healing into hope, creativity, and new life, June 15, 2009

By 

Tigera - See all my reviews

This review is from: Healing into Possibility: The Transformational Lessons of a Stroke (Paperback)

HEALING INTO POSSIBILITY is a marvel. I have already bought an extra copy for a friend who had a stroke. Yet this new book by Alison Bonds Shapiro is, I believe, for everybody. Furthermore...get ready for this.. it is a page turner! I am speaking here as all of physician, psychologist, spiritual practitioner and close friend of someone with similar trials. I am also speaking as a scholar of the art and process of everyday creativity--a capacity we all have as our birthright, and which is every bit about how to live in the moment and to heal and thrive and find new richness and hope in all aspects of our lives. (I recently edited "Everyday Creativity and New Views of Human Nature.")

Healing into Possibility shows us how to cope with adversity, and shows clearly that it is not what happens to us, but how we respond that can make all the difference. Here is how we live and grow, make meaning of adversity, and even find true joy in our lives after all had seemed lost. Alison Bonds Shapiro takes us, in the most engaging way, through her story, her struggles, her triumph. We also meet her remarkable friend Rita who is, similarly, a model for us all. The "Eight Principles of Transformation" at the end are, themselves, worth the price of the book.

While engrossed in pure "story," we also encounter some of the most hopeful and cutting edge findings of our times, including the latest news on neuroplasticity and stroke recovery--a potential once thought to be brief but which is present for a great many years--and the relation of healing to attention, mindfulness, effort, compassion, and much more. We also find the many ways we can not only help ourselves but help each other cope with and grow from physical or psychological crisis--whether parents, children, colleagues, students, clients, or friends. I cannot recommend this beautiful book enough. May it do fabulously well.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A guide to surviving any challenge in life!, July 20, 2009

By 

Randy Redding Realtor (San Rafael, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Healing into Possibility: The Transformational Lessons of a Stroke (Paperback)

I have never had a stroke and I hope I never do, but at 58, I know from the past that more challenges await. Alison's book "Healing into Possibility" will be one of my handbooks at the ready when they come. I read the book in 2 sittings because, like a good suspense novel, I couldn't wait to see how she got out of the current predicament she was in. The profound lesson that Alison reminds us of is that in this present moment anything is possible. "Healing into Possibilities: The Transformational Lessons of a Stroke" is a book whose words and wisdom live and breathe in the moment.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anyone who has had a brain injury or handled patients with such will recognize the experiences of the author, July 11, 2009

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Healing into Possibility: The Transformational Lessons of a Stroke (Paperback)

Any library strong in personal growth - which should be many a general interest collection or new age library - will welcome HEALING INTO POSSIBILITY: THE TRANSFORMATIONAL LESSONS OF A STROKE. Anyone who has had a brain injury or handled patients with such will recognize the experiences of the author, who suffered two debilitating, nearly fatal strokes in her fifties and realized her attitude would be the key to how well she recovered.