Want to enjoy the life you are living, even as you face major life challenges?
Is your mind succumbing to age? Is your body failing you? Can you ever find joy, peace, or fulfillment in these challenging conditions? The answer is a resounding YES.
Author Jarem Sawatsky saw the countless guides out there for those caring for the ill and healing the curable, but when he was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease he found there was nothing for those living with an incurable illness. He quit his job as a professor and devoted his life to exploring the possibilities of living with chronic conditions. Now he’s bringing his findings and insights to you in this empowering mindfulness guide.
In Dancing With Elephants you’ll discover:
- Simple practices to bring healing to your heart and life to your new outlook
- Humorous (and occasionally heart-wrenching) stories of Sawatsky’s own journey of self-discovery and surprising family caregiving
- Multiple ways to build confidence in yourself, even when you’ve been shaken to the core
- A new perspective to transform your pain and renew your spirit
- Practical tools to face your seemingly inescapable fears, and much, much more!
Based on the popular blog of the same name, Dancing With Elephants includes insightful interviews with compassion experts Jon Kabat-Zinn, Lucy Kalanithi, and Patch Adams. Sawatsky’s landmark book provides support that only a fellow traveler down this road can offer.
If you like touching stories, mindful wisdom, and a touch of irreverent humor, then you’ll love Sawatsky’s life-changing book.
My heart goes out to this family as it does to all families facing terminal illness- been there ourselves. More time for people and less time for stuff seems to balance the soul- we instinctively know what is better but like addicts, we return to the half full pit, time and time again only to be healed again and again by connection to others and realizing how much those connections are the foundation of a humane humanity.
See, my wife, about 3 years ago, developed vascular dementia. She’s holding up pretty good, better than I, somedays—most days, really; though she does have her gloomy and angry moments.
There are times she yells so loud and is so nasty sounding (by all appearances it seems she is yelling at me) that the elephants stop dancing and just stare at her and me.
On one such occasion, in a grocery store, after my wife yelled really loud and then walked away from me, a young man walked up to me. Holding up his fist, he said, “I would never let my wife talk to me that way,” while never making eye contact with me. He was wearing a MAGA t-shirt, and I could only feel sorrow for him. I honestly had no anger in me and felt no need to explain my situation to him. Then he strutted away from me while shaking his head. What he didn’t know was that all the employees at the grocery store knew about my wife’s health situation (she had yelled out in their store before.) And they gave me reassuring smiles and shrugs and thumbs up.
Had that incident occurred a year or so ago, I would have felt the need to explain everything to this sorrowful stranger and maybe do him some harm, which would have made me more like this sorrowful fellow.
This “Dancing With Elephants” is a journey I highly recommend, even for the healthy among us.
Who knows, it could be written for you.
I am currently in the beginning stages of a medical workup for ‘dementia’. I don’t know yet where this will lead. In view of this, the book takes on a special significance for me. My oldest sister died with, not of, moderately advanced Alzheimer’s disease at an advanced age of 89.
The book captivated me from the very beginning. It is written with all the earmarks of authenticity. The author is clearly one who has ‘walked the walk’ to write about what he writes about. The book is particularly helpful to people who want to know about the problems of aging, debilitating diseases, (and there are others besides HD!) losing one’s mind, or even may have HD, Huntington’s Disease. Or people who are experiencing these same issues. I especially was interested by the video reviews of interviews with various people who had influenced Jarem. Very powerful interviews.
Jarem writes ‘from the heart’. So, it is easy to read him, but much of the subject matter is common knowledge to him, since he has been learning/teaching related stuff for decades. He uses phrases like everyone should know about what he is writing. Here I refer to words/phrases like mindfulness, mindful falling, (how can there be such a thing as "mindful falling?"), mindfulness training, deep listening, restorative justice, healing justice, and others. It seems that most people he interviews are familiar with these words or phrases as well. I guess I have not had pre-knowledge of these phrases. I have some learning to do. But it has been worth it. In spite of these criticisms, I give him 5 stars.
I have no hesitation recommending this book. Read it and enjoy. I am well into the book for the SECOND time – ALREADY!
David Hoeppner
August 2, 2017
This is a book for facing disease and aging in a ‘healing’ way; the clarity to help each of us learn about loving, letting go, and living in the present moment. If I were able, I would read it like a quality textbook; quick scan, then very slow thoughtful digestion of each chapter. Filled with jewels of thought, Jarem’s words reflect many of my friend’s thoughts on what are the most crucial actions and attitudes for best well-being after diagnosis … with excellent suggestions for follow-up.
Congratulations on this book, Jarem!
Truthful L. Kindness
The amount of wisdom contained in this book is unbelievable. Jarem interviewed Jon Kabat-Zinn, Patch Adams, Lucy Kalanthi (wife of Paul Kalanthi who wrote When Breath Becomes Air), Jean Paul Lederach, and Toni Bernhard about living with chronic illness. He comes from a Christian background, but is heavily influenced by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. It's a unique spirituality that makes this book just that much more special.
His story of living with Huntington's Disease as a family member (it is genetic) and after he received the diagnosis he had expected to get is not sad or sentimental in any way. You don't feel sorry for him in any way when reading this narrative. He "transformed fear into joyful dancing."
The cover is one of the most fun I've ever seen. I would never have considered dancing with elephants as a way of going through, but Jarem not only makes it seem bearable, but a love-filled joy.
If you need some encouragement in living with joy, read this book. It will change your perspective on everything. Even if you don't have a chronic illness, I recommend this book. It's one that will stay with you and teach you something new with every page.
I love his poetry as well. It enhanced the prose in a way that blessed me.