The Art of Effortless Living: Simple Techniques for Healing Mind, Body and Spirit

A popular college professor who married a wealthy college beau, at 27 Bacci seemed to have it all. But her success suddenly vanished with the emergence of a nameless disease that stole her vitality and left her mysteriously incapacitated. For three years, she was treated by every doctor she could find, until she realized that healing would come only from inside herself. Leaving her marriage and career behind, Bacci embarked on a quest for self-transformation through meditation and yoga. Focusing primarily on bodywork, Bacci spends the bulk of this self-help manual teaching the ""inner arts"" that she asserts are not just neglected, but discouraged in our culture, ""stifling the ultimate source of our sense of fulfillment."" Examining a life spent doing rather than being, Bacci deftly describes addictions to fear and anxiety, which she says produce stress and its attendant ailments, from arthritis to cancer. She offers many suggestions for developing an alternative, ""effortless"" lifestyle, through breathing exercises, meditation and visualization, techniques for physical and emotional awareness, and connection to a higher self. Occasionally, Bacci implies that changing one's own viewpoint and behavior will magically change everyone and everything else as well. However, she skillfully presents the bodywork she's been performing with clients since the early 1980s and explains the philosophy behind it in calm, accessible prose with plenty of examples and exercises for cultivating ""receptivity and non-resistance."" (Sept.)