Honour your personal skills, strengths, talents

Jan Adrian, creator of Healing Journeys and the Cancer as a Turning Point: From Surviving to Thriving conference, blogs about three books that help people to take care of themselves. She writes:

"I’ve been reading Jonathan Ellerby’s book, Inspiration Deficit Disorder, and am aware of the similarity between his message and that of Larry LeShan in Cancer as a Turning Point. They are also similar to Thomas Moore’s message in Care of the Soul. Jonathan talks about the Essential Self or Essence the same way Thomas Moore talks about the Soul.

Jonathan says our tendencies and passions come from this Essence. Once any aspect of your life has been cut off from your essence, then you have also lost your natural connection to energy and vitality in that part of your life. Your greatest joy and vitality lie in honoring what makes you unique. A life disconnected from the Essential Self is one doomed to stress, unhappiness, and poor health.

Larry LeShan, in his research with 'terminal' cancer patients, found that when they rediscovered what made them excited to get up in the morning and lived from their passion, half of them went into long-term remission. In Jonathan’s words, they were honoring what made them unique and expressing what came from their Essence. In Thomas Moore’s words, they were nurturing their souls."