This is an excellent book for anyone dealing with chronic illness and pain. I am a survivor of a handful of chronic illnesses and autoimmune illnesses that I was able to turn around with lifestyle and dietary changes, but this spring my 17 year old son and I became very ill with a virus (you can figure out which one). It drained him of his energy for months and it attacked just about every system of my body. We became what the press has termed "long haulers" and since there was really no information out there about how to survive and recover when your illness didn't look like the stereotype on the news of coughing up a lung or dying on a ventilator, I had to figure out how to heal us on my own. A great deal of what ultimately helped is the same sort of stuff in this book.

It's very important to note that this is not a medical guide to healing from Lyme or other chronic illnesses. It is much more about lifestyle, mindset and emotional work, but I found that these were just as important in our healing. Before I got sick, for instance, I was always sleep deprived and frequently up all night reading. I had developed insomnia and I just took it as an excuse to stay up and read if I woke at 3 a.m. I had to learn the hard way how important it was for me to learn to get restful sleep, especially in the early morning hours when our bodies do the most cell regrowth and healing. I had gotten out of the habit of exercise over the long winter. As a mom of 5, I was habitually stressed and worried about my kids (you can imagine the higher level of stress and worry that our illness added to this). I also never drank water, and dehydration with illnesses like these can be disastrous (and were for us). The illness hijacked my breathing, heart rate and blood pressure and I suddenly had issues where I'd never had them before. Blood vessels ruptured in my legs and spilled blood into areas that would become black bruises (months later I still have a plum-sized red patch on one calf from the largest). As I drifted off to sleep at night, sometimes my lungs would just stop breathing and I'd gasp myself awake. I developed severe pain in one knee, high blood pressure (I previously had very low blood pressure) and blood in my urine. Deep breathing exercises, meditation, visualization and other stress relievers literally changed the way my body was working for the better. Other elements that this book recommends were also vital, like getting any kind of exercise we could, drinking lots of water, eating healthy foods, taking things to reduce inflammation (I did raw crushed garlic and ginger every day, among others), and so on.

The book is set up to be a 14-week program based on a 6-week program that the author has online. A lot of the focus is on the emotional side of things -- letting go of what's not working and learning to see the pain and symptoms as your body's way of communicating what's wrong and what it needs. This is vital with any illness-- if you just medicate the symptoms you cannot heal because you haven't dealt with the root cause/need. There is some health advice in terms of what helps with inflammation, basic things your body needs like healthy foods, proper sleep and enough water, and talk about the importance of movement/exercise. Again, these are all things my son and I used for our healing. We walked every day, got sunlight every day we could (this is my recommendation more than hers), ate healing foods, did breathing exercises and other forms of stress relief, and really listened to every symptom in order to figure out how to nurture that area.

The book is occasionally a little new age (I won't say "woo" because I think it's an offensive term, but that's the idea) but very little. The author comes from a Catholic background and got into more alternative healing methods in her recovery. They helped her and help others, but if it's not your thing then it's a tiny enough part of the book that it shouldn't be an issue. All in all, it's a very positive, affirming book from a woman who went through hell and back and now dedicates her life to helping others in her new normal.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.