Until My Memory Fails Me
Mindfulness Practices for Cultivating Resilience and Self-Compassion in the Face of Cognitive Decline
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A definitive guide for navigating cognitive decline using mindfulness and meditation practices that includes practical advice and poignant stories from a Buddhist chaplain diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment.
When Buddhist chaplain Sharon Lukert was diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), she turned to spiritual practice and community to help her adjust to a new and ever-shifting reality. In Until My Memory Fails Me, she shares her hard-won wisdom as a guide for anyone standing at the gateway of cognitive decline.
Through poignant storytelling and practical wisdom, Lukert offers specific ways to build resilience against the emotional swings and existential fear inherent in cognitive decline. The book includes:
- Instructions for more than a dozen mindfulness and meditation exercises, including The Handshake, Just Like Me, Open Awareness Meditation, and Tonglen (Lovingkindness) Meditation
- Practical advice on topics like understanding your diagnosis, how to talk to your medical providers, testing, dealing with bias, how to maintain communication, and managing new symptoms
- Stories, advice, and encouragement from her peers in the MCI community and her "dementia ancestors," those she worked with in her decades as a Buddhist chaplain in healthcare settings
With raw vulnerability, Lukert demonstrates how to find courage, acceptance, and compassion even as your sense of self shifts underneath you.
The first mindfulness book written specifically for people with MCI, the practices and lessons Lukert shares are also valuable for anyone experiencing cognitive decline caused by other disorders, as well as for loved ones and caregivers.
About this Author
SHARON LUKERT is a retired Buddhist chaplain who served patients and families in hospice and hospital settings for more than two decades. She studied with Pema Chödrön for more than thirty years and is a student of the Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. A former Buddhist monastic for three years, Lukert took precepts with Her Eminence Mindrolling Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche and Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche. She is also a former director of Gampo Abbey Monastery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and has facilitated workshops and study groups on Buddhism, meditation, death and dying, and bereavement support in various settings.
Reviews
"This extraordinary book invites the reader to accompany Sharon Lukert as she comes to terms with the diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment. Despite the raw vulnerability of her personal story, the woman we meet is undiminished. This book harvests her skills as a chaplain and Buddhist practitioner and offers them to us with the voice of a poet, storyteller, teacher, and lifelong student. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who seeks to pull back the veil and shine a light on a world that many of us fear."
--Susan Gillis Chapman, author of Which Way Is Up?
"This is a thoroughly enjoyable and smoothly instructive book. The author's deft confluence of her own cognitive impairment with her long-term wisdom from Buddhist spiritual traditions, sensitivity from her time as a chaplain, and empathic caregiving result in delightful reading. She doesn't just relate insight but beckons me into what it is like to be her as she gradually declines while continuing to care for cognitively declining people."
--Gordon J Hilsman, D. Min, retired board-certified chaplain and ACPE Certified Educator.
"Until My Memory Fails Me is both a poignant story and a well-written handbook on how to help yourself and others during challenging times. Sharon's honesty and integrity about her experience with cognitive changes makes this book a must-read, not just for people with cognitive impairment but for all of us who will face our own health challenges as we age. Sharon's meditations and Buddhist teachings are interesting and practical, with some I'll incorporate into my own daily routine. Sharon's voice is vulnerable and powerful and conveys a perspective I want my patients to see."
--Nathaniel Chin, MD, Medical Director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) and Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention Study (WRAP)
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