INSPIRATIONAL JOURNEYS PRESENTS!
Easy Walks with Marjorie Turner Hollman
Hello:
I’m proud to announce the following guest for your listening pleasure.
Please be sure to read onward after the following message to learn how you can be my guest here on INSPIRATIONAL JOURNEYS.
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WHO?
Marjorie Turner Hollman
WHEN?
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
WHERE?
MORE ABOUT GUEST AUTHOR Marjorie Turner Hollman…
Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer/editor who loves the outdoors, and is the author of Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, More Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, editor of Easy Walks and Paddles in the Ten Mile River Watershed. Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are offers guidance and encouragement to those of differing abilities to gain access to the outdoors. Her latest book, a memoir, My Liturgy of Easy Walks, shares her stories of surviving and thriving in the face of chronic illness. She has been a freelance writer for numerous local, regional, and national publications for the past 20+ years. Authors obtaining developmental editing and book coaching from Marjorie have published their own stories as compelling books. She is a co-author of the recent community history, Bellingham Now and Then.
Marjorie’s featured book is entitled My Liturgy of Easy Walks
Description:
My Liturgy of Easy Walks is a memoir of learning to thrive in the face of life-changing events. Writing has helped the author make peace with her experiences. The Easy Walks book series shares information about how to get outdoors safely. This latest book in the Easy Walks collection inspires hope for those facing lives altered by illness or injury.
A Liturgy of Easy Walks tells the personal side of the author’s story. Readers will learn how a simple childhood game becomes a portal for spiritual awakening. A walk in the woods brings moments of insight. Encounters with strangers foster understanding and joy. Emotional, physical and spiritual struggles are all part of living with chronic illness, out of the mainstream. Adjusting to changed life circumstances can be difficult, isolating, and lonely. The author shares her own challenges, ponderings, and triumphs, discovering unexpected healing along the way.
Purchase link:
Excerpt:
Letting go: Well-intentioned people offer varied strategies intended to short-circuit the difficult process of “letting go,†whether it be of worries, pain, hurt, relationships, the past in general, or even prolonged grieving. The list of life challenges is endless, and suggestions for how to cope are endless too, yet have been useless in my own experience. I have learned that letting go is something that happens on its own time schedule, not because of trying harder.
There was a time when I watched in amazement as my right side began the process of learning how to function again, after being deprived of movement as a side effect of life-saving brain surgery. At first, my fingers began wiggling just slightly, nothing that I could control, and not to hold anything of weight. After a few days I was offered plastic drinking straws to grasp. Waving them in the air, I greeted my visitors with the news: “Hey look, I’m lifting straws!†as though I was in a weight-lifting competition. I took any ability to move as a win.
After a few weeks, I was able to clasp my fingers into a fist with some relative strength. Unclasping was difficult and laborious. The holding on came first, the letting go much later. Each instance of healing felt euphoric, even as the big picture of how I could manage my life remained a great unknown. I took every positive development as it came, rejoicing when I could. I still had plenty to be concerned about.
Six weeks after my surgery, I was traveling around the halls of the rehabilitation hospital where I was staying in the early days of my recovery. I sailed along the hall in a wheelchair, using my left leg since my right leg was still paralyzed. I used my left hand to turn the wheel of the chair. A staff person at the hospital chastised me, insisting I should be using both hands to push, not favoring my weaker hand.
I did not bother to respond. Her words took me back to a time when I sat in front of my parents’ television set on a Saturday morning, watching cartoons with my siblings. A cartoon character grabbed a spinning wheel and suddenly his hand stretched like a rubber band as the wheel spun round and round. I pictured my hand, which only knew how to grasp strongly, taking hold of the spinning wheel rim as my wheelchair rolled along at a good. As in the cartoon, I watched in horror, in my imagination, as my arm stretched, rubber-like, all the way to the bottom of the wheel.
I knew better than to listen to the misguided scolding of someone who had no idea of my abilities. I shook my head in wonder at such foolishness and continued on my way. My reflexes were not yet able function, allowing my hand to release itself from the wheel in time to avoid injury.
This image of my arm turning to rubber and stretching out of shape provided me with a tangible picture, an understanding of why “letting go†might be so difficult for some of us. Perhaps, like me, there has not been enough time for holding on, for strengthening that part of us that must hold on tightly before we can move on to letting go. To insist that one “should†let go when our muscles, physical or emotional, are not ready can cause more harm than the holding on was doing.
When we find the strength, the letting go will happen. Not because of a conscious decision, or from being shamed into taking this step, or for any other reason than that we have held on enough, tightly enough, strongly enough, long enough. Only then will letting go be possible. Not only possible, it will be exactly the right step to take. It will be time.
Connect with Marjorie at the following links:
FB Easy Walks, Massachusetts, RI and Beyond (private group)—request to join https://www.facebook.com/groups/616401235386068
Easy Walks book page
https://www.facebook.com/Easywalksinmassachusetts
BE A GUEST…
As authors, creative artists and entrepreneurs, we often find it hard to stand out above the constant chatter on the internet. If that sounds like you, I’d like to help you boost the visibility of your brand. My name is Ann Harrison-Barnes and I run a podcast called Inspirational Journeys. On my podcast I post solo episodes of value to my listeners, led by the Holy Spirit. I also talk to authors, creative artists and entrepreneurs who want to share their inspirational journeys with the world. If you’re interested in being a guest on my show, please send an email to annwrites75@gmail.com with Inspirational Journeys in the subject line of your email, so I can send you my featured book questionnaire.
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Dear Ann, you are such an amazing host. What a privilege to spend time with you for your podcast. The amount of information you share about your guests is beyond generous. Thanks again and blessings on your work.