Learning to Breathe: My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm to My Life

Learning to Breathe: My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm to My Life [Hardcover]

  • Author by Warner, Priscilla

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Editorial Reviews

"A funny memoir of Faith Club coauthor's serious attempt to change her brain from panic to peace in a year-long spiritual quest"--

From Publisher

Priscilla Warner has had a great life: a supportive husband, a flourishing marriage, two loving sons, and a bestselling book, "The Faith Club. "Despite all her good fortune and success, she suffers from anxiety and panic attacks so debilitating that they leave her unable to breathe. She's tried self-medicating--in high school, with a hidden flask of vodka--and later, with prescription medications--daily doses of Klonopin with a dark-chocolate chaser. After forty years of hyperventilating, and an overwhelming panic attack that's the ultimate wake-up call, Warner's mantra becomes "Neurotic, Heal Thyself." A spirited New Yorker, she sets out to find her inner Tibetan monk by meditating every day, aiming to rewire her brain and her body and mend her frayed nerves. On this winding path from panic to peace, with its hairpin emotional curves and breathtaking drops, she also delves into a wide range of spiritual and alternative health practices, some serious and some . . . not so much.

Warner tries spiritual chanting, meditative painting, immersion in a Jewish ritual bath, and quasi-hallucinogenic Ayurvedic oil treatments. She encounters mystical rabbis who teach her Kabbalistic lessons, attends silent retreats with compassionate Buddhist mentors, and gains insights from the spiritual leaders, healers, and therapists she meets. Meditating in malls instead of monasteries, Warner becomes a monk in a minivan and calms down long enough to examine her colorful, sometimes frightening family history in a new light, ultimately making peace with her past. And she receives corroboration that she's healing from a neuroscientist who scans her brain for signs of progress and change.

Written with lively wit and humor, "Learning to Breathe "is a serious attempt to heal from a painful condition. It's also a life raft of compassion and hope for people similarly adrift or secretly fearful, as well as an entertaining and inspiring guidebook for anyone facing daily challenges large and small, anyone who is also longing for a sense of peace, self-acceptance, and understanding.

Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Warner (The Faith Club) suffered her first panic attack at age 15. This debilitating condition resulted in self-medication with nips of vodka, using prescription drugs, and visits with a counselor. By middle age, Warner embarked on her "panic to peace project," a valiant attempt to cure herself with various relaxation techniques. This standard recovery memoir traces her hands-on journey through meditation with Buddhist monks, eye movement desensitization and reprogramming, guided imagery, Trager body therapy, a Jewish ritual bath, Jewish mysticism, yoga, and ayurvedic oil treatments, to name a few. Woven throughout is the backstory about her troubled family and its effects on Warner. The author also struggled with her feelings toward her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's: "I was forced to move her to a nursing home, a fact that haunted me, because, in her more lucid days, she had told me I'd be murdering her if I ever did that." Warner deftly describes her various treatments. She delves into painful family memories and recounts her panic attacks in detail. For those readers who've experienced this debilitating condition or have family members who have, Warner's account of her yearlong therapy trek will be insightful. Those not affected by panic attacks might want to search for enlightenment in other corners of the bookstore. (Sept.) Copyright 2011 Reed Business Information.

Quote Reviews

  • "From one who has suffered from anxiety (and who hasn't?), catching one's breath is imperative. Priscilla Warner opens every holistic door on her journey from panic to peace. Readers will cheer Warner as she finds some semblance of serenity. Her recipe for success makes this book prescriptive as well as entertaining--her dharma becoming her karma." --Joan Anderson, author of "A Year By The Sea"
  • "Priscilla Warner is a wonderful writer who's given us a page-turner of a teaching story. We happily root for her as she tries out different tools, methods and practices to first manage and ultimately transcend her debilitating panic episodes. She's actually rather fearless, even in her most terrified times. And thanks to her courage we learn a helluva lot about meditation, body work, psychotherapy, loving kindness, brain plasticity and the psychological and neurophysiological origins of panic. Part mystery story, part comedic hero's journey, part state-of-the-art psychology and part public health message, this is a complex, brainy book that does a lot of heavy lifting in the synthesis department. But you'd never know it, because it's so well written, and goes down in one sitting like some kind of tasty chick-lit snack. Learning a lot is rarely this enjoyable, and teachers rarely this appealing." --Belleruth Naparstek, author of "Invisible Heroes" and creator of the "Health Journeys" g
  • ""Learning to Breathe "is an exquisite, funny, life-changing approach to anxiety and panic. I highly recommend this book." --Christiane Northrup, M.D., ob/gyn physician and author of "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom "
  • "This is a psychological thriller about family. Except it's also very funny, and very sad, and very practical. When I wasn't laughing, I was crying; when I wasn't crying, I was meditating. All without being able to put the book down." --Sarah Payne Stuart, author of "My First Cousin Once Removed--Money, Madness and the Family of Robert Lowell"
  • "I have always considered Priscilla a dear friend. But after reading her book, I realize she is also a great teacher. When I finished Priscilla's book, a smile washed over my face and I let out a sigh. I promise you will do the same." --Meredith Vieira
  • "Wise, searching, fearless, and big-hearted, Priscilla Warner's search for inner peace will resonate with anyone who has ever been anxious or at sea--in other words, all of us. She is a comforting and stabilizing guide through her own life--and ours. This book is a gift." --Dani Shapiro, author of "Devotion: A Memoir"
Product Detail
ISBN: 1439181071
EAN: 9781439181072
Media: Book
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Free Press
Publication Date: 09-2011
Language: English
Pages: 274
Dimensions: 8.50 x 5.70 x 1.10
Weight: 0.85
Categories:
Illustrated