As a kid I quite often found myself reading, when most of the ones my age were outside playing football and other typical games for that age, but I was finding the world of books much more inviting and I was devouring tons of em to be honest, being kind of a nerd for some years... but time passed and my affinities for reading are not that strong anymore. I could blame Nisargadatta Maharaj for blowing my mind with his books a few years ago, that made almost any other type of literature a waste of time, but it's mostly my guilt rather than his.

Every book is an open world though, and you don't choose them, they choose you. Not too many chose me lately to be honest, but I got inspired by @galenkp recently who's devouring the third or the fourth one for the current lock down, and I thought I should talk about about my current book of choice for spending some time reading during the pandemic, anything other than blog posts, tweets and ordinary pieces of literature that I often consume online.

Remapping Your Mind: The Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story is what I'm currently sipping but you should know that I have the Romanian version of it and the title sounds a bit different. My poor English wouldn't allow me to comprehend the core of it and it would be a waste of time, energy and money to even try it. It's actually the second time I read it and I might sometimes in the future take it again under my lenses. I'm currently at page 90 and I confess reading it at a really low pace. Not just because I want to absorb the info with all my brain cells, but because I'm distracted by other activities as well.

It is written by two psychiatrists, Lewis Mehl-Madrona and Barbara Mainguy, and in close to 400 pages the two have managed to tackle quiet a few cases that they successfully pined as healed ones which are pure examples of how our stories and the constant repetition, both mentally and verbally of such stories, can affect, in most of the cases in a negative way our lives and health.

What has drawn my attention right from the first chapters was the case of some guy Wayne that had suicidal tendencies and severe back pain, and after four months of therapy got healed. I kind of resonate with this case, because although I no longer have suicidal thoughts, and only had a few during high-school, I still suffer from back and joints pain, and his story kind of points on what should I change in mine, in order to heal myself as well.

He was for many years the only person working for his family, struggling to keep their business alive, and dealing with less to almost none appreciation from them. Story that gradually got him to the point of suffering from a painful depression, with suicidal tendencies, and a back that was reacting to all the weight that was pushing on his shoulders, as he mentioned.

He actually was thinking to commit suicide because that's how he thought he would make others around appreciating him, and finally sense his value inside the family. He witnessed, when being a teenager, the funerals of his cousin who committed suicide and his family reactions, and got to the conclusion that doing the same his family would finally see him at his true value, which was definitely not the best option. Luckily the therapist made him see the roots of his painful problems, and helped him wipe out the idea of suicide and get right of 80% of his back pain in four months.

I'm not pushed by any suicidal thoughts, but my back/joints problems, might be the reverberation of many years filled with unnecessary mental burdens, fears and frustrations being carried on my shoulders on a daily basis, which gradually acted as the heavy story that's weakening my back. For quite some years I cared for too much, stressed for tons of unimportant people and ideas, and feared of too many ghosts, and I guess it would be the time to loosen all that and walks straight... with emptied shoulders and relieved back and joints.

According to the two therapists you first have to identify the story that is weighing heavy on you and after unloading it, there is the absolute need to replace it with the healing one. Actually the creative one, I would say, because once you stop destroying it's time to create. I know it's not a two hours task, but gradually I will manage to develop the I don't give a fuck attitude towards people, situations and opinions that really don't matter, combined with some let it be in the middle of out of control life episodes, obviously having in mind a goal to walk towards. Something that matters, something that's healthy and fulfilling and something that's mine.

How am I gonna do that exactly I have no clue right now, but what I know for sure is that reading this book for the second time in one year is absolutely no coincidence. I actually don't believe in coincidences, and I am planning to finally dust myself off and move forward straight, healthy and happy. This pandemic might become after all the episode in which Phoenix comes back to life and I should be thankful for it. What's your book of choice currently, by the way?

Thanks for attention,
Adrian