3 X 5's: Index Card Wisdom from Best of Books

MIND-BODY CONNECTION Lissa Rankin (2020, revised edition). Mind over medicine:                                                                               Scientific proof that you can                                                                               heal yourself. Rankin is a medical doctor that became disenchanted with the medical standard care practice of drugs and surgery and the protocol of exercise and nutrition as the primary ways  to address illness...she began asking her patients profound questions during the intake process lik...

BODY WISDOM  Therese Bertherat (1989).  The body has its reasons: Self-awareness                                                           through conscious movement.  Berherat takes us on a personal journey in learning body wisdom /awareness using Ehrenfred's method which is radically different than the medical model/method she learned at University. The story unfolds as "sessions" of practices, and the end of the book reveals several "preliminaries" on how to cultivate body wisdom. Among the many practical lessons are:      pause after exhaling to let the body use oxygen before inhaling again--this allows the              body to rest/relax with every breath.      because all parts of the body are integrated, working with one par...

  GRANDSON OF GANDHI Arun Gandhi (2017). The Gift of Anger: And other Lessons from my                                                Grandfather Mahatma Gandhi. I first encountered Arun Gnadhi, the grandson of the great Mahatma Gandhi, via a video recording of him speaking on nonviolence at Old Dominion University in Virginia (my home institution). Then, i had the opportunity to meet him personally while at a Communication convention in Nashville, Tennesse at Christian Brothers University where he had a small institute for nonviolence on campus. The part about the visit i remember most was at lunch everyone pulled out their food and placed it on the table for anyone to partake of--it was one big feast shared by all, and everyone ate their fill--so unlike the western idea of everyone brings and eats their own bagged lunch...a model for a larger ...

  ONE MIND Larry Dossey (2013). One Mind: How our Individual Mind is a part                                              of a greater Consciousness and why it matters. According to Dossey, our individual minds are part of One Mind LIKE  a drop of water is to the ocean...we are all part of this One Mind and can tap into the One Mind for whatever we need, especially for healing, service, and love. Note that the drop of water-ocean metaphor does not mean the drop of water IS the ocean...the ocean is much vaster, more powerful, has properties of its own apart from the drop of water (see Houston Smith's "properties of being" like power, duration, locale, unity, import, and worth)...nonetheless we share the same essence/quality of the ocean.  Dossey provides evidence for the One Mind phenomenon through chapters that discuss: sense of being ...

POSITIVE SPINS & NEGATIVE FRAMES  Richard Bandler (2019). Thinking on Purpose: A 15 day Plan to a                                                             Smarter Life. Bandler (along with John Grinder) is one of the founders of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), and has many books on the topic beginning with The Structure of Magic (Volumes 1 & 2) in the 1970's. This latest book harvests many key principles of NLP in creating a "smarter" life like: dealing with negative memories, spinning positive emotions in the body, creative visualization, and the view that happiness is an ACTIVITY, something we do. 2 practical things to test out in everyday life: framing negative memories and spinning positive emotions.  1) For a negative memory, mentally put a FRAME  (like a picture frame) aro...

  THERAPEUTIC TOUCH  Dolores Krieger (1993). Accepting your Power to Heal:                                                    The Personal Practice of Therapeutic Touch Krieger is a PhD and an RN who, together with Dora Kunz, developed " therapeutic touch " (TT) in the 1970's, taught TT to over 36k professionals, facilitated its teaching in over 80 colleges and health care facilities in the US, and researched TT for over 25 years as of the time of the books writing in the early 1990's.  Simply, TT is using one's hands to direct and modulate one's energy to support the healing of another. The TT method involves centering oneself, assessing the energy field of another, treating the person, and then reassessing the energy field.  What i love about the book is the ACTIVITES provided to learn TT...this is literally a "...

HEALING Raymon Grace (2003). The future is yours: Do something about it! Raymon is a healer that advocates a simple healing method: relax the body and quiet the mind into an alpha state, set an intention to heal along with a visualization of the positive outcome desired...that's it! He says, "...If you can relax your body and mind enough to focus your thoughts, and use vivid visualization, you can perform miracles!" (p.2). For those skeptical about these healing methods, i point to his phrase, "...If we do nothing, nothing happens, but if we do something, then something might happen" (p.27). So, what's to loose in trying? To create the alpha brain wave state  [there are devices to measure one's brain waves to confirm that one is in a state of alpha, but Raymon maintains that we don't need these, you'll simply feel relaxed in body and centered in mind--i agree] for healing,  Raymon recommends a relaxing visualization that brings all the sens...