Where should I send the audio and video series?
Where should I send the audio and video series?
Several months I ago I surveyed my readers and asked:
When my book Dancing with Elephants goes on sale, I want to make you an offer so good you cannot refuse it, and you are so impressed you want to tell all your friends and family to buy the book. Help me craft that offer. Which of these bonuses would you like to see included in an offer to buy the book and get the following bonuses for free?
Survey Results of my Awesome Readers:
So, I decided I would create all 5 and offer them as a free Great Mindfulness Package to anyone who bought the book and emailed me (great.mindfulness.dancing@gmail.com) a picture of their receipt before March 12, 2017! I hope that makes you happy. I have spent the last 6 weeks creating that package.
Today I want to tell you about the top requested item, A More Healing Way: Video Conversations on Disease.
I set out to create a 5-part series – five conversations with five featured teachers – to mirror the five parts of the book. I decided to expand the book to include some of the best insights of each featured teacher in the book.
Picking inspiring and wise featured teachers was the easy part. In a world of potential teachers, I’ve picked these five:
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Professor of Medicine Emeritus and
creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and
the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society
at the University of Massachusetts Medical School
Author: Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness
Patch Adams, MD
Gesundheit Institute
Author: Gesundheit!: Bringing Good Health to You, the Medical System, and Society through Physician Service, Complementary Therapies, Humor, and Joy
Lucy Kalanithi, MD, FACP
Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine
Stanford University School of Medicine
Contributor to When Breath Becomes Air
John Paul Lederach, PhD
Professor of International Peacebuilding
University of Notre Dame
Author: Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians
Toni Bernhard, JD
Law Professor at the
University of California-Davis
Author: How To Be Sick
These people are all wise teachers, living the wisdom of the future in the present and oriented to a more healing way of living in the here and now.
The great challenge was to get these people to agree to talk to me, and be recorded on Skype video so that I could share with others. I told them that as a person with Huntington’s disease, I am seeking out those who I hope can teach me about love, compassion, and the joy of living. I used email and twitter to contact them.
I almost failed at this task – actually, I canceled the project because I was only able to get two of the five to commit. A few days after I canceled, two of them contacted me to say they were in after all. Within 24 hours I reversed the decision on canceling the project and I had all 5 committed to the project.
After each interview, I felt like I was on a high. These are wonderful, compassionate people. But they also wise – each one challenging me to move beyond where I am and each one giving concrete practices to get there. Jon Kabat-Zinn shares about there being “more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong with you.” Patch Adams explores how lives can be deeply transformed by diving into the ocean of gratitude. Lucy Kalanithi explores how we can be disarmed by joy, even in the midst of suffering. John Paul Lederach reveals how to create habits of getting your daily dose of awe, and how this spirit of awe transforms the way we can be present to suffering. Toni Bernhard explores how difficult – but completely achievable- it is to make self-compassion your default mode. Such a wise circle of teachers.
In this five-part series, you can watch interviews with mindfulness teachers, doctors, and bestselling authors as they share their best tips for facing disease in a more healing way. Hosted by (me) Jarem Sawatsky, a professor with a terminal disease, these honest and engrossing conversations on facing disease offer viewers a more healing and hopeful way of facing disease. The series includes over 3.5 hours of conversations with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Patch Adams, Lucy Kalanithi, John Paul Lederach, and Toni Bernhard.
Between now and March 12, I am going to ask you to do four things
I am going to ask you to help me sell as many copies in the first week as possible. I have become convinced that this book can be healing for a lot of people. My hope is if we sell a lot of copies in one week, the visibility of the book will increase and will benefit more people.
It is difficult for an author to understand the potential and the challenges of their own work. It is always with some fear and trembling that I have been giving advance copies of the book to Advance Readers, reviewers and to possible book endorsers. I just never know what they are going to think. There is a deep joy within me when my work seems to connect with others. Here is one exciting response I’ve received:
This is a beautiful and inspiring book. It is full of humor and wisdom about the pain of loss in our life, by a man who is living the severe loss of a debilitating disease. It is a book that we should all read so that loss be not transformed into anger or depression, but into love and radical acceptance.
-JEAN VANIER, founder of L’Arche and national bestselling author of Becoming Human
I have been reading your book Dancing with Elephants and found so moving that I chose it for my selection at our next book group meeting on 2/11 (we have met for the last 50 years every month or 2). So I signed up for the Readers Group.
I have followed the instructions on http://www.Jaremsawatsy.com & when I get to the Step 3:sign up for mindfulness package, I click and am asked for my email, for you to “send your special instructions for the mindfulness package” I fill my email & click on”Send it”. However I never receive a response-inbox or spam. I try many times, but still no response. What should I do?
Hi Jarem, I recently heard about your book “Dancing with Elephants” from my brother Vic Siemens. We are first cousins with Len, your father. I got the book from our local library here in Langley BC and thoroughly enjoyed reading and absorbing it. I was made aware of your Mom some years ago but did not realize that one of her sons also had the disease. I would love to visit with you some time but we have no plans to be in the Winnipeg area in the near future. I have a brother Dennis in Winnipeg and another brother Ed in Newton Siding. There is a lot on my heart but have a hard time putting down with written word.
Dear Jarem, I just want to thank you and say I am really grateful to have found your book. Your honesty and humor is inspiring. I received your gift of your five interviews and loved every one. I have Parkinson’s Disease and the night I decided to listen to the interviews my symptoms were really getting me down. I listened to Patch Adams, enjoyed it so much, I then listened to all of them and was so glad I did! I sent the link to a friend who is enjoying them, too. I’m in a Parkinson’s support group of about 40 people in New Mexico and for our next meeting we’re asked to share something that we find to be helpful in living with our disease. Until I found your book and interviews, I had no idea what to share! Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom and struggles. Looking forward to your next interview! Blessings on you.
Dear Sandy PLEASE look up these : Be In Health Ministry Thomston Georgia & on Y0u Tube they report people getting healed of Parkinson’s Disease there also Henry Wright wrote a more excellent way on how God still heals many diseases often presumbed incurable with the right ministry help also you could try and Bethel Redding California church where many mighty healings have happened and also Toronto airport fellowship Canada where many have reported miraculous healings of many diseases thank you Jesus and I will pray for you to right now
Incredible book. I facilitate an HD Living Positive Support Group in Grand Rapids MI and I use mindfulness, yoga and breath awareness in the group meetings. You are amazing and I hope you are able and willing to speak to groups such as mine and to conferences and conventions.