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A review by honeycoffeereads
29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life by Cami Walker
5.0
Over the course of the summer after ten years of separation, I reconnected with an aunt and cousin who I hadn't been able to talk to nor find. During our reunion over the phone and through emails for the past several months, my cousin told me of his ordeal being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. He is almost twenty years old (having been diagnosed in his teens), and me being on the other end of the country, have had difficulty understanding all that he went through. There are certain experiences that you can listen to with all your heart and support, but not experiencing it first hand somehow makes his condition a little more challenging to understand. Wanting to know more and understand deeper, I thought it was a good idea to seek more information about his condition through books (since it's one of my prime outlets).
I picked 29 Gifts by Cami Walker when I was on a search in my library one evening looking for a book that I could read over the holiday season - self-help and filled with lessons but wasn't overbearing, melodramatic nor gave you ideas but didn't explore any results for having to connect with others or fine-tune compassion. Taking the book home after reading the summary and label, I was struck immediately with Cami's story of being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in her twenties after she got married and the steps she took to try and manage her condition.
Immediately, I felt like I could better understand what my cousin went through and is going through, as well as connect with Cami's story of awareness and interconnectivity in the world. Given a principle by one of her spiritual teachers to share gifts with people over 29 days - 1 gift per person per day - Walker began a process of seeing how giving helped her condition and illuminated the world around her from strangers, friends, and family.
29 Gifts was an absolute heartfelt read - something I hadn't experienced in a very long time. It's a small book with a lot of profound truths. Walker tells the tale of each one of the gifts that she gave as well as some background on her childhood, her diagnosis, marriage, and personal relationships. She talks openly about how stress and overworking can manage to make people ill, especially with autoimmune disorders (something my cousin experienced growing up as a child that I was there firsthand to witness, monstrous negativity and abuse). And, she also explores how sharing and giving a piece of herself openly through financial donations, gifts of time, stories, and even small objects like a tissue for a grieving friend and a shoulder to cry on helped her focus less on what MS had stolen from her (the ability so far to have children) and more on what she has been gifted with. Having recovered from a previous substance abuse addiction, Walker shares how acupuncture, massages, and other alternatives such as getting off of subscription pills lessened her agony, and through her quest to manage her condition, she was filled with emotional and spiritual resources through her giving that she didn't unearth before.
At the conclusion of the book, I thought it was wonderful for Walker to include not only stories from the once-blossoming 29 gifts community (which was at the time that I checked it out online unavailable to view due to a server error), but also a letter by the spiritual teacher Mbali that inspired Walker on this journey. Her letter and the book give an eye-opening difference between giving in order to receive something in return, and giving from a place of selflessness. I used to favor that - like the Bible proverb - that your left hand should not knowing what your right hand is doing i.e. you should give anonymously and without the knowingness of doing something worthwhile. Walker's approach throughout the book is not to pat herself on the back for helping someone else but becoming more conscientious of her decision and actions, as well as becoming more aware of herself, her body, and the emotional/spiritual changes she experienced.
Overall, I think this is a delightful read for anyone who wishes to experience a look into not only someone who transformed their disease to work in their favor (for the most part) but also how easily gifting someone with something as small as compassion, time, or a few extra cents can have a large impact on the world. Walker's story not only inspired me to try her 29 gift challenge but also helped me understand more of what I had difficulty understanding with my cousin.
I picked 29 Gifts by Cami Walker when I was on a search in my library one evening looking for a book that I could read over the holiday season - self-help and filled with lessons but wasn't overbearing, melodramatic nor gave you ideas but didn't explore any results for having to connect with others or fine-tune compassion. Taking the book home after reading the summary and label, I was struck immediately with Cami's story of being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in her twenties after she got married and the steps she took to try and manage her condition.
Immediately, I felt like I could better understand what my cousin went through and is going through, as well as connect with Cami's story of awareness and interconnectivity in the world. Given a principle by one of her spiritual teachers to share gifts with people over 29 days - 1 gift per person per day - Walker began a process of seeing how giving helped her condition and illuminated the world around her from strangers, friends, and family.
29 Gifts was an absolute heartfelt read - something I hadn't experienced in a very long time. It's a small book with a lot of profound truths. Walker tells the tale of each one of the gifts that she gave as well as some background on her childhood, her diagnosis, marriage, and personal relationships. She talks openly about how stress and overworking can manage to make people ill, especially with autoimmune disorders (something my cousin experienced growing up as a child that I was there firsthand to witness, monstrous negativity and abuse). And, she also explores how sharing and giving a piece of herself openly through financial donations, gifts of time, stories, and even small objects like a tissue for a grieving friend and a shoulder to cry on helped her focus less on what MS had stolen from her (the ability so far to have children) and more on what she has been gifted with. Having recovered from a previous substance abuse addiction, Walker shares how acupuncture, massages, and other alternatives such as getting off of subscription pills lessened her agony, and through her quest to manage her condition, she was filled with emotional and spiritual resources through her giving that she didn't unearth before.
At the conclusion of the book, I thought it was wonderful for Walker to include not only stories from the once-blossoming 29 gifts community (which was at the time that I checked it out online unavailable to view due to a server error), but also a letter by the spiritual teacher Mbali that inspired Walker on this journey. Her letter and the book give an eye-opening difference between giving in order to receive something in return, and giving from a place of selflessness. I used to favor that - like the Bible proverb - that your left hand should not knowing what your right hand is doing i.e. you should give anonymously and without the knowingness of doing something worthwhile. Walker's approach throughout the book is not to pat herself on the back for helping someone else but becoming more conscientious of her decision and actions, as well as becoming more aware of herself, her body, and the emotional/spiritual changes she experienced.
Overall, I think this is a delightful read for anyone who wishes to experience a look into not only someone who transformed their disease to work in their favor (for the most part) but also how easily gifting someone with something as small as compassion, time, or a few extra cents can have a large impact on the world. Walker's story not only inspired me to try her 29 gift challenge but also helped me understand more of what I had difficulty understanding with my cousin.