Customer Reviews

You Are Not Your Illness: Seven Principles for Meeting the Challenge

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the most inspirational book I have read in a long time. The seven steps are mroe believable than other books I've read because the author went through it. I was tired of hearing advice from doctors and PhD's who know what to say, but cannot understand unless they are actually in it. The author has multiple sclerosis and is confined to a wheelchair- so I thought to myself, if she can overcome her illness, so can I. Thanks to this book I realized that just because my life has changed doesn't mean it has stopped.

This book was just what I needed! I don't have an illness, but I do have a job that takes over my life. Thanks to LInda's book, i realized that I am not my job or my awards- I took her adivce and compassionate words and was able to change my life around- by seeing the beauty in it. I lent this book a friend with cancer who feels the same. Thanks Ms. Noble Topf. This book is a treasure for anyone coping with a chronic illnes or any type of life change.

You Are Not Your Illness is very deep....but so is living with a chronic illness, as I do too. Knowing that Topf herself lives with MS and is in a wheelchair, makes me more receptive to her material. She speaks from experience. I gave this book four stars because I felt that there were alot of chapters that were difficult to keep up with. She covers alot of material. I found myself skipping through the book, at times, to other sections that were of more interest to me. As I said, the book is quite deep in terms of emotional responses, coping principles, etc. Some with chronic illness may not be ready for all of that, depending on where you are in dealing with your own situation, as the book is mostly a step-by-step process of becoming more "emotionally able-bodied" Don't get me wrong, there is a great message in the book as a whole. I certainly agree that in order to live life successfully with a chronic illness, one must connect spiritually with God. He is our truest source of strength, whether we realize it or not. I'm all for coping as positively as one can. She shares about some of personal experiences in dealing with her illness over the years. I found it to be encouraging at times and a little overwhelming at others. Perhaps I'm not where Topf is as we each deal with things at a different pace, and I'm sure she would be very understanding of that. I do applaud her encouragment to pursue life to it's fullest as you are physically able, to be kind to and nuture yourself, and her attitude is inspiring. She is very honest in sharing her experiences and doesn't sugar coat things. I admire Topf's tenacity. I also thought her recommendations of music were great...as music is very soothing to the soul, and the many resources for various support organiztions she listed was very thorough. I would not classify this as a one-time-sit-down read, but rather it is a book that you work through as you go.

There are plenty of books that seek to inspire by sharing personal experience, but Topf takes this that one needed step further by giving good and valid steps toward regaining one's spiritual and emotional balance. Such a topic is quite an undertaking. Writing for anyone for a chronic illness can be quite difficult. Topf handles her material with knowledge, compassion, equanimity, and grace. Thank you.

Like the author, I also have a chronic progressive illness which has put me in a wheelchair and which challenges me every day in new ways. Actually, I know lots of people who have similar diseases, since (like many similarly situated people) I am in contact with a lot of other patients. I can only thank the powers that be that not one person in my various support networks would have the audacity to presume that (1) she has "found" the Way to self-improvement and boy are you off track if you don't follow her Way; that (2) stories about her many spiritual "achievements," juxtaposed with stories about how OTHER, less enlightened, people stumble and fall, would somehow be uplifting to others to read; (3) her illness is really the worst one ever, without even so much as a cursory mention that others might have even more devastating symptoms (i.e. she might not really be the Queen of All Suffering), or might have circumstances (for example, might be parents) which prevent them from focusing all of their attention on their own needs (she spends a lot of time whining about her lack of children, not apparently because she actually wanted any but because it was one of those tasks that she always meant to take care of but her illustrious career (yes, you get to hear all about her many awards) prevented her from getting around to it, and she just hates to have anything in her "in" box.

I love to read, on just about any topic you care to recommend to me (and particularly the topic of living with chronic illness), but this is the first book I have ever read, on any topic, in my 38 years of life that I just plain wanted my money back. There are wonderful books out there in this genre -- try "The Chronic Illness Experience," or "After the Diagnosis," or anything by Judith Lynn Nichols, or for the aspects of the book which deal with seeing things clearly read Thich Nhat Hahn -- but avoid this book like the plague unless you are searching for someone who will make you feel inadequate.

A friend of mine met Linda Noble Topf on an airplane one day. He liked her and recommended to me that I buy her book because of a major life crisis I was experiencing at the time. The reading was slow going but her experiences encouraged and inspired me. It helped me realize that in the scope of life, there was a light at the end of the tunnel of my troubles. In fact, compared to others like Noble Topf, my tunnel was pretty short. The difficult reading may have been because there was so much to digest. It's almost a manual on coping and surviving. Definitely not summer beach material, but worth having on my bookshelf to go back and revisit occasionally.

A friend of mine met Linda Noble Topf on an airplane one day. He liked her and recommended to me that I buy her book because of a major life crisis I was experiencing at the time. The reading was slow going but her experiences encouraged and inspired me. It helped me realize that in the scope of life, there was a light at the end of the tunnel of my troubles. In fact, compared to others like Noble Topf, my tunnel was pretty short. The difficult reading may have been because there was so much to digest. It's almost a manual on coping and surviving. Definitely not summer beach material, but worth having on my bookshelf to go back and revisit occasionally.