Author: Antoinette Spade
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1728334713
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Love. What is it? Can a person describe love? Can love even be described? Throughout time, it has been heard that love can be defined in different ways. That there are different types and styles. It has been heard that love could be defined as an attraction (driven by the chemicals in our brains such as adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin), an infatuation, a feeling, an emotion, an action and even as much as a choice. In this book you will read of how a woman experienced the Storge (empathy), Philia (friendly), Eros (romantic) types of love throughout her life at the onset of trauma that cost her identity, therefore, leading her through life searching for the only type of love that not only covered all her mistakes and bad decisions, but also experienced the only type of love that she needed called the Agape (unconditional) type of love. The trauma Antoinette experienced stemmed from various types of abuse she went through during her childhood at which when she reached her teen years had prompted her to embark on different endeavors during those years into the adult years of her life. The most crucial and important type of love there is to be found by everyone, including Antoinette. It was when she found that type of love did she realize that there really and truly was someone who did see her as a person, a human that noticed and loved her for who she was. Someone not only fully loved her, but also fully knew her even when she was in her mother’s womb. This love, my friend, was the love that she had been longing for, searching for her whole life. It took for her to experience this love that she finally recognized someone was chasing her all along and didn’t even know it. This love that was given to Antoinette was not merely because she was attracted by this someone, no, she was chosen by this someone because of the unconditional love that He had for her. He made a choice, which is an action. He made a sacrifice for her, but He knew He had to let her experience all that she did in order for her to find the love that she longed for. It has been 16 years since she has found this love and it hasn’t faded away for her, nor did it ever leave or hurt her, not one time. Because of this very reason, Antoinette would like to share who gave her this love and let you know that this love is being given to you too. I must assure you; Antoinette is of NO exception to this very love by any means and she would just like to share her story with you in hopes that you will find this very same love too. It doesn’t matter who we are, where we come from, or even what we did in our life because we too are worth being loved the very same way that she was at all costs. This love that Antoinette found was totally worth finding. She found it so worthy that she is willingly choosing to share it with all of us in hopes of us accepting the value of our own worth to accept this very same love too. Contact Information: [email protected]
From Trauma 2 Triumph
Author: Antoinette Spade
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1728334713
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Love. What is it? Can a person describe love? Can love even be described? Throughout time, it has been heard that love can be defined in different ways. That there are different types and styles. It has been heard that love could be defined as an attraction (driven by the chemicals in our brains such as adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin), an infatuation, a feeling, an emotion, an action and even as much as a choice. In this book you will read of how a woman experienced the Storge (empathy), Philia (friendly), Eros (romantic) types of love throughout her life at the onset of trauma that cost her identity, therefore, leading her through life searching for the only type of love that not only covered all her mistakes and bad decisions, but also experienced the only type of love that she needed called the Agape (unconditional) type of love. The trauma Antoinette experienced stemmed from various types of abuse she went through during her childhood at which when she reached her teen years had prompted her to embark on different endeavors during those years into the adult years of her life. The most crucial and important type of love there is to be found by everyone, including Antoinette. It was when she found that type of love did she realize that there really and truly was someone who did see her as a person, a human that noticed and loved her for who she was. Someone not only fully loved her, but also fully knew her even when she was in her mother’s womb. This love, my friend, was the love that she had been longing for, searching for her whole life. It took for her to experience this love that she finally recognized someone was chasing her all along and didn’t even know it. This love that was given to Antoinette was not merely because she was attracted by this someone, no, she was chosen by this someone because of the unconditional love that He had for her. He made a choice, which is an action. He made a sacrifice for her, but He knew He had to let her experience all that she did in order for her to find the love that she longed for. It has been 16 years since she has found this love and it hasn’t faded away for her, nor did it ever leave or hurt her, not one time. Because of this very reason, Antoinette would like to share who gave her this love and let you know that this love is being given to you too. I must assure you; Antoinette is of NO exception to this very love by any means and she would just like to share her story with you in hopes that you will find this very same love too. It doesn’t matter who we are, where we come from, or even what we did in our life because we too are worth being loved the very same way that she was at all costs. This love that Antoinette found was totally worth finding. She found it so worthy that she is willingly choosing to share it with all of us in hopes of us accepting the value of our own worth to accept this very same love too. Contact Information: [email protected]
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1728334713
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Love. What is it? Can a person describe love? Can love even be described? Throughout time, it has been heard that love can be defined in different ways. That there are different types and styles. It has been heard that love could be defined as an attraction (driven by the chemicals in our brains such as adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin), an infatuation, a feeling, an emotion, an action and even as much as a choice. In this book you will read of how a woman experienced the Storge (empathy), Philia (friendly), Eros (romantic) types of love throughout her life at the onset of trauma that cost her identity, therefore, leading her through life searching for the only type of love that not only covered all her mistakes and bad decisions, but also experienced the only type of love that she needed called the Agape (unconditional) type of love. The trauma Antoinette experienced stemmed from various types of abuse she went through during her childhood at which when she reached her teen years had prompted her to embark on different endeavors during those years into the adult years of her life. The most crucial and important type of love there is to be found by everyone, including Antoinette. It was when she found that type of love did she realize that there really and truly was someone who did see her as a person, a human that noticed and loved her for who she was. Someone not only fully loved her, but also fully knew her even when she was in her mother’s womb. This love, my friend, was the love that she had been longing for, searching for her whole life. It took for her to experience this love that she finally recognized someone was chasing her all along and didn’t even know it. This love that was given to Antoinette was not merely because she was attracted by this someone, no, she was chosen by this someone because of the unconditional love that He had for her. He made a choice, which is an action. He made a sacrifice for her, but He knew He had to let her experience all that she did in order for her to find the love that she longed for. It has been 16 years since she has found this love and it hasn’t faded away for her, nor did it ever leave or hurt her, not one time. Because of this very reason, Antoinette would like to share who gave her this love and let you know that this love is being given to you too. I must assure you; Antoinette is of NO exception to this very love by any means and she would just like to share her story with you in hopes that you will find this very same love too. It doesn’t matter who we are, where we come from, or even what we did in our life because we too are worth being loved the very same way that she was at all costs. This love that Antoinette found was totally worth finding. She found it so worthy that she is willingly choosing to share it with all of us in hopes of us accepting the value of our own worth to accept this very same love too. Contact Information: [email protected]
Trauma to Triumph
Author: Mark Goulston
Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
ISBN: 1400228387
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
When you turn a crisis or even a trauma into a learning moment, it will turn fear into courage and then determination. This leadership roadmap shows you the way to successfully navigating through crisis or trauma and coming out stronger on the other side. Organizational trauma takes many forms. It could be a pandemic that disrupts the way people work. An economic meltdown. An act of violence. A failed merger. A layoff—or continual threats of one. Whatever the scenario, events like these can traumatize leaders and employees, sending everyone into survival mode. Here’s the good news: when leaders navigate a traumatic event effectively, the organization doesn’t just survive. In Trauma to Triumph, Mark Goulston, MD, and Diana Hendel present a visionary and tactical roadmap to help leaders create stability amid chaos and uncertainty, move productively through a traumatic event, and flourish in ways previously unimagined. After reading this book, readers will learn: How the survival mechanism manifests in employees and leaders amid trauma The predictable polarities, dilemmas, tensions and other patterns that emerge in traumatized organizations…and how to break these cycles Why lack of clarity in roles and poor communication are dangerous in times of crisis (and how to avoid these common pitfalls) How leaders can shift to a mindset that helps create trust, confidence, safety, respect, and inspiration in employees Best practices for leading yourself and others through crisis; grieving losses, embracing healthy coping mechanisms, reframing, and more How to launch a rapid-response process where you “control the controllables” and create a framework for making better decisions during a crisis High-impact tactics to help your organization recover and heal in a way that doesn’t just return to baseline, but transcends it Filled with tools and tactics, Trauma to Triumph is an organization-wide blueprint for navigating a future where we’ll likely experience one trauma or crisis after another. It gives leaders at every level the guidance to create confidence, courage, and enthusiasm in their team.
Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
ISBN: 1400228387
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
When you turn a crisis or even a trauma into a learning moment, it will turn fear into courage and then determination. This leadership roadmap shows you the way to successfully navigating through crisis or trauma and coming out stronger on the other side. Organizational trauma takes many forms. It could be a pandemic that disrupts the way people work. An economic meltdown. An act of violence. A failed merger. A layoff—or continual threats of one. Whatever the scenario, events like these can traumatize leaders and employees, sending everyone into survival mode. Here’s the good news: when leaders navigate a traumatic event effectively, the organization doesn’t just survive. In Trauma to Triumph, Mark Goulston, MD, and Diana Hendel present a visionary and tactical roadmap to help leaders create stability amid chaos and uncertainty, move productively through a traumatic event, and flourish in ways previously unimagined. After reading this book, readers will learn: How the survival mechanism manifests in employees and leaders amid trauma The predictable polarities, dilemmas, tensions and other patterns that emerge in traumatized organizations…and how to break these cycles Why lack of clarity in roles and poor communication are dangerous in times of crisis (and how to avoid these common pitfalls) How leaders can shift to a mindset that helps create trust, confidence, safety, respect, and inspiration in employees Best practices for leading yourself and others through crisis; grieving losses, embracing healthy coping mechanisms, reframing, and more How to launch a rapid-response process where you “control the controllables” and create a framework for making better decisions during a crisis High-impact tactics to help your organization recover and heal in a way that doesn’t just return to baseline, but transcends it Filled with tools and tactics, Trauma to Triumph is an organization-wide blueprint for navigating a future where we’ll likely experience one trauma or crisis after another. It gives leaders at every level the guidance to create confidence, courage, and enthusiasm in their team.
From Trauma to Triumph
Author: Laurie Snyman
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781540699664
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
A young man encounters: hunger, homelessness, physical abuse, abandonment by his father and step-father, his arm being amputated, voodoo spells, the murder of his mother, accidents, slander and religious hardship because of his Adventist faith, yet emerges strong and resilient. Carlot shows us how God can take us through ANY situation and use it for His Glory, if we keep our eyes on Him.
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781540699664
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
A young man encounters: hunger, homelessness, physical abuse, abandonment by his father and step-father, his arm being amputated, voodoo spells, the murder of his mother, accidents, slander and religious hardship because of his Adventist faith, yet emerges strong and resilient. Carlot shows us how God can take us through ANY situation and use it for His Glory, if we keep our eyes on Him.
Triumph and Trauma
Author: Bernhard Giesen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317250087
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
This book deals with triumphant and tragic heroes, with victims and perpetrators as archetypes of the Western imagination. A major recent change in Western societies is that memories of triumphant heroism-for example, the revolutionary uprising of the people-are increasingly replaced by the public remembrance of collective trauma of genocide, slavery and expulsion. The first part of the book deals with the heroes and victims and explores the social construction of charisma and its inevitable decay. Part 2 focuses on a paradigm case of the collective trauma of perpetrators: German national identity between 1945 and 2000. After a time of latency, the legacy of nationalistic trauma was addressed in a public conflict between generations. The conflict took center stage in vivid public debates and became a core element of Germany's official political culture. Today public confessions of the guilt of the past have spread beyond the German case. They are part of a new post-utopian pattern of collective identity in a globalised setting.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317250087
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
This book deals with triumphant and tragic heroes, with victims and perpetrators as archetypes of the Western imagination. A major recent change in Western societies is that memories of triumphant heroism-for example, the revolutionary uprising of the people-are increasingly replaced by the public remembrance of collective trauma of genocide, slavery and expulsion. The first part of the book deals with the heroes and victims and explores the social construction of charisma and its inevitable decay. Part 2 focuses on a paradigm case of the collective trauma of perpetrators: German national identity between 1945 and 2000. After a time of latency, the legacy of nationalistic trauma was addressed in a public conflict between generations. The conflict took center stage in vivid public debates and became a core element of Germany's official political culture. Today public confessions of the guilt of the past have spread beyond the German case. They are part of a new post-utopian pattern of collective identity in a globalised setting.
Step Step Jump
Author: Annabel Quintero
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781737005117
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
When Annabel felt the building shake without warning that crisp, sunny morning in New York City, she had no idea her life was about to change forever. Alone in her office, on the 46th floor, she step, step, jump, down the stairs to solid ground and into a taxi where her internal journey begins that will shape her life in ways she could never imagine. Bringing together riveting storytelling, cultural history, and a spiritual awakening.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781737005117
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
When Annabel felt the building shake without warning that crisp, sunny morning in New York City, she had no idea her life was about to change forever. Alone in her office, on the 46th floor, she step, step, jump, down the stairs to solid ground and into a taxi where her internal journey begins that will shape her life in ways she could never imagine. Bringing together riveting storytelling, cultural history, and a spiritual awakening.
Black Magic
Author: Chad Sanders
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982104236
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
A “daring, urgent, and transformative” (Brené Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead) exploration of Black achievement in a white world based on honest, provocative, and moving interviews with Black leaders, scientists, artists, activists, and champions. “I remember the day I realized I couldn’t play a white guy as well as a white guy. It felt like a death sentence for my career.” When Chad Sanders landed his first job in lily-white Silicon Valley, he quickly concluded that to be successful at work meant playing a certain social game. Each meeting was drenched in white slang and the privileged talk of international travel or folk concerts in San Francisco, which led Chad to believe he needed to emulate whiteness to be successful. So Chad changed. He changed his wardrobe, his behavior, his speech—everything that connected him with his Black identity. And while he finally felt included, he felt awful. So he decided to give up the charade. He reverted to the methods he learned at the dinner table, or at the Black Baptist church where he’d been raised, or at the concrete basketball courts, barbershops, and summertime cookouts. And it paid off. Chad began to land more exciting projects. He earned the respect of his colleagues. Accounting for this turnaround, Chad believes, was something he calls Black Magic, namely resilience, creativity, and confidence forged in his experience navigating America as a Black man. Black Magic has emboldened his every step since, leading him to wonder: Was he alone in this discovery? Were there others who felt the same? In “pulverizing, educational, and inspirational” (Shea Serrano, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Basketball (And Other Things)) essays, Chad dives into his formative experiences to see if they might offer the possibility of discovering or honing this skill. He tests his theory by interviewing Black leaders across industries to get their take on Black Magic. The result is a revelatory and essential book. Black Magic explores Black experiences in predominantly white environments and demonstrates the risks of self-betrayal and the value of being yourself.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982104236
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
A “daring, urgent, and transformative” (Brené Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead) exploration of Black achievement in a white world based on honest, provocative, and moving interviews with Black leaders, scientists, artists, activists, and champions. “I remember the day I realized I couldn’t play a white guy as well as a white guy. It felt like a death sentence for my career.” When Chad Sanders landed his first job in lily-white Silicon Valley, he quickly concluded that to be successful at work meant playing a certain social game. Each meeting was drenched in white slang and the privileged talk of international travel or folk concerts in San Francisco, which led Chad to believe he needed to emulate whiteness to be successful. So Chad changed. He changed his wardrobe, his behavior, his speech—everything that connected him with his Black identity. And while he finally felt included, he felt awful. So he decided to give up the charade. He reverted to the methods he learned at the dinner table, or at the Black Baptist church where he’d been raised, or at the concrete basketball courts, barbershops, and summertime cookouts. And it paid off. Chad began to land more exciting projects. He earned the respect of his colleagues. Accounting for this turnaround, Chad believes, was something he calls Black Magic, namely resilience, creativity, and confidence forged in his experience navigating America as a Black man. Black Magic has emboldened his every step since, leading him to wonder: Was he alone in this discovery? Were there others who felt the same? In “pulverizing, educational, and inspirational” (Shea Serrano, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Basketball (And Other Things)) essays, Chad dives into his formative experiences to see if they might offer the possibility of discovering or honing this skill. He tests his theory by interviewing Black leaders across industries to get their take on Black Magic. The result is a revelatory and essential book. Black Magic explores Black experiences in predominantly white environments and demonstrates the risks of self-betrayal and the value of being yourself.
Triumph Over Darkness
Author: Wendy Ann Wood
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0941831868
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
This collection of prose and therapeutic insights creates a powerful commentary on incest, rape, abuse, and the recovery process. Women and men share their personal experiences of childhood abuse and walk with the reader along the path toward wellness. They reflect each stage of healing with a clarity that, while often painful, is also hopeful. Addressing various aspects of abuse, including ritualistic abuse, multiple personality disorder, and partnering as well as providing a therapist's insights on the stages of healing, Triumph Over Darkness helps readers to understand recovery as a predictable process and see that healing is possible.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0941831868
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
This collection of prose and therapeutic insights creates a powerful commentary on incest, rape, abuse, and the recovery process. Women and men share their personal experiences of childhood abuse and walk with the reader along the path toward wellness. They reflect each stage of healing with a clarity that, while often painful, is also hopeful. Addressing various aspects of abuse, including ritualistic abuse, multiple personality disorder, and partnering as well as providing a therapist's insights on the stages of healing, Triumph Over Darkness helps readers to understand recovery as a predictable process and see that healing is possible.
The Girls Within
Author: Gill Frost
Publisher: Phoenix Publishing House
ISBN: 1912691604
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 430
Book Description
A compelling true story of one woman's battle with the aftermath of childhood trauma, which gives a gripping account of the often controversial and misunderstood condition of dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD). This emotional but ultimately uplifting journey details the unforeseen twists and turns of the effects of therapy and how it can help in coming to terms with the past and its unsettling echoes in the present. Heartwarming and lucid, it's an inspiring tale for all to read. Through its clinical rigour, professional therapists will also gain insight into the various treatment options for DID, including the innovative use of energy therapy. The book contains 32 colour illustrations, including 24 drawings by The Girls. The star of this book is an extraordinary, bright-spirited, and entertaining six-year-old girl, called Little Vivvi, who experienced shocking abuse from members of her family. Yet Little Vivvi lives within Vivian, a middle-aged woman who has struggled with DID for many years. The challenging process of psychotherapy is laid bare, as Little Vivvi wrestles with overwhelming memories of childhood abuse. Alongside talking therapy, energy treatment, which she calls Wooshing, is utilised to astonishing effect, becoming the enigmatic ingredient that finally enables Little Vivvi to find relief from the distress and fear that had dominated her existence. As therapy seems to draw to a close, Izzy appears. A very sensitive, thoughtful and mature eight-year-old, Izzy too needs love, support and treatment to speak about her trauma. After overcoming her understandable distrust, Izzy enables an exceptional ending to the therapeutic journey, far beyond anything Vivian and her therapist, Gill, could have dreamed. Little Vivvi and Izzy will make you want to laugh out loud as well as cry. Their story teaches so much about suffering, dissociation and survival. Their aim is to enlighten, inspire and offer hope to others through reading their incredible tales, which reveal the astonishing power of The Girls within.
Publisher: Phoenix Publishing House
ISBN: 1912691604
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 430
Book Description
A compelling true story of one woman's battle with the aftermath of childhood trauma, which gives a gripping account of the often controversial and misunderstood condition of dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD). This emotional but ultimately uplifting journey details the unforeseen twists and turns of the effects of therapy and how it can help in coming to terms with the past and its unsettling echoes in the present. Heartwarming and lucid, it's an inspiring tale for all to read. Through its clinical rigour, professional therapists will also gain insight into the various treatment options for DID, including the innovative use of energy therapy. The book contains 32 colour illustrations, including 24 drawings by The Girls. The star of this book is an extraordinary, bright-spirited, and entertaining six-year-old girl, called Little Vivvi, who experienced shocking abuse from members of her family. Yet Little Vivvi lives within Vivian, a middle-aged woman who has struggled with DID for many years. The challenging process of psychotherapy is laid bare, as Little Vivvi wrestles with overwhelming memories of childhood abuse. Alongside talking therapy, energy treatment, which she calls Wooshing, is utilised to astonishing effect, becoming the enigmatic ingredient that finally enables Little Vivvi to find relief from the distress and fear that had dominated her existence. As therapy seems to draw to a close, Izzy appears. A very sensitive, thoughtful and mature eight-year-old, Izzy too needs love, support and treatment to speak about her trauma. After overcoming her understandable distrust, Izzy enables an exceptional ending to the therapeutic journey, far beyond anything Vivian and her therapist, Gill, could have dreamed. Little Vivvi and Izzy will make you want to laugh out loud as well as cry. Their story teaches so much about suffering, dissociation and survival. Their aim is to enlighten, inspire and offer hope to others through reading their incredible tales, which reveal the astonishing power of The Girls within.
Turning Trauma Into Triumph
Author: Richard C. Scheinberg
Publisher: Wordclay
ISBN: 9780578006659
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
What if someone told you that the most difficult period in your life may be a blessing in disguise? As a psychotherapist with 25 years of experience, Richard C. Scheinberg has candidly and succinctly summarized the spiritual and deeply personal transformation of ten people attempting to overcome the worst challenges of their lives. In this inspirational book, Scheinberg also reveals how he survived the most difficult periods in his own life. Furthermore, he conveys his personal conviction that our common strengths emanate from a source more powerful than any challenges that may come our way. "An amazing book!" -Dr. Vivienne Finnegan, MD, Melbourne, Australia "It's very rare that a book comes along that is so thought-provoking about life. It made me reflect about my own life and start to truly understand 'How did I get here?' I started reading and I couldn't put it down! I loved it in its entirety and I can't wait to read it again!" -Michael D'Amico, Medical Programming Engineer, Selden, New York
Publisher: Wordclay
ISBN: 9780578006659
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
What if someone told you that the most difficult period in your life may be a blessing in disguise? As a psychotherapist with 25 years of experience, Richard C. Scheinberg has candidly and succinctly summarized the spiritual and deeply personal transformation of ten people attempting to overcome the worst challenges of their lives. In this inspirational book, Scheinberg also reveals how he survived the most difficult periods in his own life. Furthermore, he conveys his personal conviction that our common strengths emanate from a source more powerful than any challenges that may come our way. "An amazing book!" -Dr. Vivienne Finnegan, MD, Melbourne, Australia "It's very rare that a book comes along that is so thought-provoking about life. It made me reflect about my own life and start to truly understand 'How did I get here?' I started reading and I couldn't put it down! I loved it in its entirety and I can't wait to read it again!" -Michael D'Amico, Medical Programming Engineer, Selden, New York
Shadows Bright as Glass
Author: Amy Ellis Nutt
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439150079
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
On a sunny fall afternoon in 1988, Jon Sarkin was playing golf when, without a whisper of warning, his life changed forever. As he bent down to pick up his golf ball, something strange and massive happened inside his head; part of his brain seemed to unhinge, to split apart and float away. For an utterly inexplicable reason, a tiny blood vessel, thin as a thread, deep inside the folds of his gray matter had suddenly shifted ever so slightly, rubbing up against his acoustic nerve. Any noise now caused him excruciating pain. After months of seeking treatment to no avail, in desperation Sarkin resorted to radical deep-brain surgery, which seemed to go well until during recovery his brain began to bleed and he suffered a major stroke. When he awoke, he was a different man. Before the stroke, he was a calm, disciplined chiropractor, a happily married husband and father of a newborn son. Now he was transformed into a volatile and wildly exuberant obsessive, seized by a manic desire to create art, devoting virtually all his waking hours to furiously drawing, painting, and writing poems and letters to himself, strangely detached from his wife and child, and unable to return to his normal working life. His sense of self had been shattered, his intellect intact but his way of being drastically altered. His art became a relentless quest for the right words and pictures to unlock the secrets of how to live this strange new life. And what was even stranger was that he remembered his former self. In a beautifully crafted narrative, award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Ellis Nutt interweaves Sarkin’s remarkable story with a fascinating tour of the history of and latest findings in neuroscience and evolution that illuminate how the brain produces, from its web of billions of neurons and chaos of liquid electrical pulses, the richness of human experience that makes us who we are. Nutt brings vividly to life pivotal moments of discovery in neuroscience, from the shocking “rebirth” of a young girl hanged in 1650 to the first autopsy of an autistic savant’s brain, and the extraordinary true stories of people whose personalities and cognitive abilities were dramatically altered by brain trauma, often in shocking ways. Probing recent revelations about the workings of creativity in the brain and the role of art in the evolution of human intelligence, she reveals how Jon Sarkin’s obsessive need to create mirrors the earliest function of art in the brain. Introducing major findings about how our sense of self transcends the bounds of our own bodies, she explores how it is that the brain generates an individual “self” and how, if damage to our brains can so alter who we are, we can nonetheless be said to have a soul. For Jon Sarkin, with his personality and sense of self permanently altered, making art became his bridge back to life, a means of reassembling from the shards of his former self a new man who could rejoin his family and fashion a viable life. He is now an acclaimed artist who exhibits at some of the country’s most prestigious venues, as well as a devoted husband to his wife, Kim, and father to their three children. At once wrenching and inspiring, this is a story of the remarkable human capacity to overcome the most daunting obstacles and of the extraordinary workings of the human mind.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439150079
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
On a sunny fall afternoon in 1988, Jon Sarkin was playing golf when, without a whisper of warning, his life changed forever. As he bent down to pick up his golf ball, something strange and massive happened inside his head; part of his brain seemed to unhinge, to split apart and float away. For an utterly inexplicable reason, a tiny blood vessel, thin as a thread, deep inside the folds of his gray matter had suddenly shifted ever so slightly, rubbing up against his acoustic nerve. Any noise now caused him excruciating pain. After months of seeking treatment to no avail, in desperation Sarkin resorted to radical deep-brain surgery, which seemed to go well until during recovery his brain began to bleed and he suffered a major stroke. When he awoke, he was a different man. Before the stroke, he was a calm, disciplined chiropractor, a happily married husband and father of a newborn son. Now he was transformed into a volatile and wildly exuberant obsessive, seized by a manic desire to create art, devoting virtually all his waking hours to furiously drawing, painting, and writing poems and letters to himself, strangely detached from his wife and child, and unable to return to his normal working life. His sense of self had been shattered, his intellect intact but his way of being drastically altered. His art became a relentless quest for the right words and pictures to unlock the secrets of how to live this strange new life. And what was even stranger was that he remembered his former self. In a beautifully crafted narrative, award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Ellis Nutt interweaves Sarkin’s remarkable story with a fascinating tour of the history of and latest findings in neuroscience and evolution that illuminate how the brain produces, from its web of billions of neurons and chaos of liquid electrical pulses, the richness of human experience that makes us who we are. Nutt brings vividly to life pivotal moments of discovery in neuroscience, from the shocking “rebirth” of a young girl hanged in 1650 to the first autopsy of an autistic savant’s brain, and the extraordinary true stories of people whose personalities and cognitive abilities were dramatically altered by brain trauma, often in shocking ways. Probing recent revelations about the workings of creativity in the brain and the role of art in the evolution of human intelligence, she reveals how Jon Sarkin’s obsessive need to create mirrors the earliest function of art in the brain. Introducing major findings about how our sense of self transcends the bounds of our own bodies, she explores how it is that the brain generates an individual “self” and how, if damage to our brains can so alter who we are, we can nonetheless be said to have a soul. For Jon Sarkin, with his personality and sense of self permanently altered, making art became his bridge back to life, a means of reassembling from the shards of his former self a new man who could rejoin his family and fashion a viable life. He is now an acclaimed artist who exhibits at some of the country’s most prestigious venues, as well as a devoted husband to his wife, Kim, and father to their three children. At once wrenching and inspiring, this is a story of the remarkable human capacity to overcome the most daunting obstacles and of the extraordinary workings of the human mind.