You Are Not Your Illness: Seven Principles for Meeting the Challenge

There are plenty of books that seek to inspire by sharing personal experience, but Topf takes this that one needed step further by giving good and valid steps toward regaining one's spiritual and emotional balance. Such a topic is quite an undertaking. Writing for anyone for a chronic illness can be quite difficult. Topf handles her material with knowledge, compassion, equanimity, and grace. Thank you.

You Are Not Your Illness is very deep....but so is living with a chronic illness, as I do too. Knowing that Topf herself lives with MS and is in a wheelchair, makes me more receptive to her material. She speaks from experience. I gave this book four stars because I felt that there were alot of chapters that were difficult to keep up with. She covers alot of material. I found myself skipping through the book, at times, to other sections that were of more interest to me. As I said, the book is quite deep in terms of emotional responses, coping principles, etc. Some with chronic illness may not be ready for all of that, depending on where you are in dealing with your own situation, as the book is mostly a step-by-step process of becoming more "emotionally able-bodied" Don't get me wrong, there is a great message in the book as a whole. I certainly agree that in order to live life successfully with a chronic illness, one must connect spiritually with God. He is our truest source of strength, whether we realize it or not. I'm all for coping as positively as one can. She shares about some of personal experiences in dealing with her illness over the years. I found it to be encouraging at times and a little overwhelming at others. Perhaps I'm not where Topf is as we each deal with things at a different pace, and I'm sure she would be very understanding of that. I do applaud her encouragment to pursue life to it's fullest as you are physically able, to be kind to and nuture yourself, and her attitude is inspiring. She is very honest in sharing her experiences and doesn't sugar coat things. I admire Topf's tenacity. I also thought her recommendations of music were great...as music is very soothing to the soul, and the many resources for various support organiztions she listed was very thorough. I would not classify this as a one-time-sit-down read, but rather it is a book that you work through as you go.

This is the most inspirational book I have read in a long time. The seven steps are mroe believable than other books I've read because the author went through it. I was tired of hearing advice from doctors and PhD's who know what to say, but cannot understand unless they are actually in it. The author has multiple sclerosis and is confined to a wheelchair- so I thought to myself, if she can overcome her illness, so can I. Thanks to this book I realized that just because my life has changed doesn't mean it has stopped.

This book was just what I needed! I don't have an illness, but I do have a job that takes over my life. Thanks to LInda's book, i realized that I am not my job or my awards- I took her adivce and compassionate words and was able to change my life around- by seeing the beauty in it. I lent this book a friend with cancer who feels the same. Thanks Ms. Noble Topf. This book is a treasure for anyone coping with a chronic illnes or any type of life change.