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Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence

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I discovered this book while searching the web for information on yoga for people living with disabilities. Through a series of clicks I landed on Matthew Sanford's web site where I saw a photo of a young man leaning forward from his wheel chair, reaching over to adjust a student practicing a yoga standing pose.

I learned that the author is a leader in adapting Iyengar yoga to meet the needs of the individual. Matthew's mental awareness--as a result of a spinal cord injury--was literally knocked out of the lower two-thirds of his body. While doctors were able to keep him alive, he was not given the tools to reconnect his mind to his paralyzed body.

Matthew describes how for years after the devastating accident, from the chest down, he experiences a "schism" or "a form of silence" between his mind and his body. During his first months in the hospital and later periods in intensive care units there was so much pain that leaving his body became a survival skill. These experiences alone catapulted Matthew into unknown territory when it comes to understanding the mind and body.

In 1991, he began studying Iyengar yoga with Jo Zukovich, co-founder of the San Diego Yoga Studio. When they started, it was not clear how yoga would travel through his paralyzed body, and there were no examples to emulate. WAKING describes how teacher and student learned and adapted together.

In 1998, Matthew began to share the results of their work in an adaptive class for people with disabilities. About the same time, he began teaching people without disabilities. He found that the principles of yoga apply the same way in both cases. WAKING helps the reader to understand why the author's unique perspective is equally applicable for people who do not have his limitations.

Matthew's broader aim in writing this book and in teaching yoga is to infuse the importance of mind-body integration into the rehabilitation process. To this end, he offers workshops to healthcare professionals and yoga teachers alike. He uses his story to share how yoga is indeed a "waking" of the human consciousness. This is a book that can potentially revolutionize the thinking of physical therapists and anyone that works with people who are coping with past trauma and injuries. I recommend it with all my heart and soul!

--Suza Francina, author, The New Yoga for People Over 50 and The New Yoga for Healthy Aging.

This is a book you will want to share with colleagues, patients, family and friends if you are in an integrative medicine healing practice. Those that "get" what you are doing will love it for its clear description of our vision. Those that don't "get" what you are doing, may very well after reading this extremely well written, passionate story. Matthew understands that yoga goes far beyond his personal experience or any story for that matter. He uses his story to share how yoga is indeed a "waking" of the human consciousness and a responsiblity for us all. His use of humor, irony and candor make for an engaging, personal experience while pushing the reader to look beyond their personal limits.

I became acquainted with Matthew Sanford through a National Public Radio interview. I was taken with his voice and his experiences. I immediately bought and read Waking.

Having had polio as a child, I went through much rehabilitation and many surgeries. Mr. Sanford's discovery of his power to determine his medical treatment was inspiring to me. This book should be required reading for every orthopedic physician, surgeon, and therapist.

I picked up this book last night off my side table to read a few pages and get a feel for where it was going. Three hours later I hadn't moved and I didn't stop reading until I finished the book. I kept forgetting to breathe. This book should be required reading for every pre-med student. I was horrified by the stories, not of incompetence, but of disregard by medical professionals of the spiritual and emotional needs of a young boy suffering so much trauma, day after day. The writer's forgiveness for all that he experienced and endured is truly remarkable. Readers should note that this book not only tells a passionate and beautiful story, but the writing is simply superb. Although I read the book through in one sitting, the metaphors and deeper meanings keep bubbling up to me, like all those phantoms and ghosts that circulate through the writer's words. This book is not going to be what you expect: Boy has accident, Boy can't walk again, yet, against all odds, Boy climbs Mt. Everest. The boy in this book takes us on a transformative journey that is far more life affirming. It's ultimately a true story about all of us and our inner capacity for survival.

Being a paraplegic myself and also rehabbing at Mayo Clinic, I certainly could relate to Matts experiences with the medical community. Way to often we are confined to a limited set of therapeutic practices by doctors who refuse to consider anything outside the "normal" western approach to medicine, and who are we as mere patients to argue with them? They are the supposed experts. Matts struggles with his rehabilation efforts echo so clearly in my mind, and his eventual triumph years later using yoga techniques rather than gutting it out with the more conventional approach is a wakeup call to the medical community that there are other methods to rehabilition that should and must be considered. A well written story and an even better message.

Definitely a worthwhile and inspiring read! "Waking" tells the moving story about a young boy who's life is tragically changed by one family car trip. I shed tears over the course of this book, but was also in awe of the journey Matt has taken through his life. He shares how he has connected with his injured, imperfect body, and has inspired me to do the same. This has been a great book for our book club. Highly recommended.

When my husband, a stroke survivor, ordered this book I did not read it immediately. I failed to understand it's relevance to MY life. Matthew Sanford has tapped into yogic wisdom in a deeply personal way, and although his story is of loss and reawakening through spinal chord injury, his message has value to anyone who lives in a body (or would like to).
Aside from the wisdom he offers, Matthew is a clear and compelling storyteller with a powerful mastery of writing. I read this book in two sittings because I could not tear myself away from it. Highly recommended for everyone over age 14.

In 1978, Matthew Sanford was paralyzed from the chest down when the car he was in skidded on a patch of ice and rolled end over end off an overpass in Iowa. His father and older sister were killed. He was thirteen.

This trauma and the subsequent transcendence are honestly and eloquently told in this remarkable book. Sanford's life as a paraplegic includes unbearable pain and setbacks. A broken neck in addition to the paralysis, screws driven into the side of his head, his wrist broken by a doctor in front of his eyes, a femur broken to the skin are only a few example of the many difficult and gruesome challenges that Sanford faces toward any kind of recovery.

But this is not a book about one person's will to defy the odds, to overcome devastating tragedy. Or rather, it is an overcoming of another kind, both mystical and deeply practical. It is a book about learning to know silence in a way that most of us have never imagined. A depthless silence that in its profundity may mesh the mind with the body or divorce from it entirely. His healing is no ordinary tale and we learn that no healing is ordinary, that all of us share the possibility of an undiscovered world of body-mind (soul?) relationship. He writes of his experience with gentleness, compassion of others (especially his mother and older brother, survivors of the wreck but perhaps only physically) and the grit, heartbreak and wonder that comes from living the truth day by day. Sandford's introduction into Yoga provided a very important path for his discovery. And Sanford's exploration of awareness even in parts of a body decreed lost forever is indeed the stuff of transcendence. I urge readers to partake in the arduous yet miraculous reality of this person's existence.

This was an awesome book. A great story for anyone really, but very helpful as well to those in the medical or alternative health care field, as I am a massage therapist. I found the linking of trauma and injury with the body very helpful in understanding clients and even my own limitations or prior injuries, it proves that your muscles do remember and even have flashbacks to trauma incurred to the body. I was totally inspired by Matthew and all he went through and accomplished during his journey back to health and Im so grateful that he shared it with us. It is also a good book for anyone experiencing aging in their bodies to read as well, lots of helpful insight for all of us as we start to disconnect from our bodies because of limitations or injury or age. Very inspiring and uplifting and hopeful.

This memoir was a fabulous read. I couldn't put it down once I started. Matthew's story of his accident and recovery was heartbreaking, but the inspiration he provides for all of us gives us hope that we too can overcome the obstacles we face in our own lives. We do not stand apart from Matthew, but we walk with him, all of us. I feel that Matthew does not what us to feel sorry for him, but to learn from him that we all can be whole, healthy and live productive lives. I was amazed by his insights and the poetic elegance of his writing. This author will go far. Read it!