Learning to Breathe
One Woman's Journey of Spirit and Survival
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4.9 • 14 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER
An extraordinary spiritual memoir about the will to survive, one breath at a time, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama
While traveling in Laos on a winding mountain road, the bus that award-winning photojournalist Alison Wright was riding in collided with a logging truck. As she waited fourteen hours for proper medical care-in excruciating pain, certain she was moments from death, she drew upon years of meditation practice and concentrated on every breath as if it would be her last.
Despite countless surgeries and a grueling recovery, Alison set herself the goal of achieving a new dream: to one day climb Mount Kilimanjaro-and she reached the summit on her fortieth birthday. Gasping for air once again, she stood at the highest point in Africa, determined to never again take a single breath for granted. Perfect for readers who love spiritual authors traveling abroad, such as Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) and Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea), this memoir is an amazingly inspirational tale of how a life-changing accident transformed one woman's faith.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Photojournalist Wright has gone to the ends of the earth, including some mountaintops, in a career that has documented the human wonders of the world, especially resilient children and endangered cultures. In this memoir she turns her lens on herself and her own astonishing story. The victim of a horrific bus crash in Laos in 2000, Wright should have died of her grievous injuries. She survived, and in this book retraces the steps of her journey of physical recovery, spiritual development and literal return to the scene of the crash. An Asia enthusiast, the author was led by work and temperament to Buddhism and some of Asia's most compelling Buddhist figures, including Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama, who contributes a foreword. Wright's editors owe this tale of courage and gratitude more respect in the form of harder editing. The author's spiritual insights are fascinating and should have been teased out more. A chapter set in Australia is an interesting but irrelevant sideshow, and chronology is occasionally confusing. This inspiring story deserves a wide audience and better editing.
Customer Reviews
Inspiring
An epic accident and the story of her amazing turn around. You can't help but look at the stresses in your life with a new view. I've read it three times when I'm feeling the need for inspiration