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Swimming with Elephants: My Unexpected Pilgrimage from Physician to Healer

After two decades in the study and practice of medicine, Sarah Seidelmann took a three month sabbatical to search for a way to feel good again. Having witnessed human suffering early in her career and within her own family, she longed for a way to address more than just the physical needs of her patients and to live in a lighter, more conscious way.

Swimming with Elephants tells the eccentric, sometimes poignant, and occasionally hilarious experience of a working mother undergoing a bewildering vocational shift from physician to shamanic healer. During that tumultuous period of answering her call, Sarah met an elephant who would become an important spirit companion on her journey, had bones thrown for her by a shaman in South Africa, and traveled to India for an ancient Hindu pilgrimage, where she received the blessing she had been longing for. Ultimately, she discovered an entirely different way of healing, one that she had always aspired to, and that enabled her to help those who are suffering.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is an exceedingly vulnerable, beautifully written book and the most genuine spiritual memoir I have ever read. It is also — in many hilarious moments — laugh out loud funny." — Maria Bamford, Comedian and star of Netflix Original Series Lady Dynamite

"I LOVED THIS BOOK. Sarah takes us on an intimate tour of the hero's journey. She's a brilliant storyteller...making sense of the baffling journey from the ordinary world into the mystical and back again. I didn't want it to end." — MeiMei Fox, New York Times bestselling author

"A fascinating, amusing, and wise account of how someone born with a shaman's predilections, raised in a rationalist culture, finds her way back to her true self.” — Martha Beck, New York Times bestselling author of Expecting Adam

"Sarah Bamford Seidelmann has amassed heaps of wisdom in her courageous leap from the safe realm of medical science into the unknown — the world of spirit. In this incredibly honest and compassionate memoir, you feel as though you're soaking in her courage and wisdom on every page. Even better, you do so laughing." — Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha and The Fear Project

"From the lakes of Minnesota to the Ganges River in India, Sarah Seidelmann's transformative journey from MD to shamanic healer is a refreshingly honest and very funny tale of spiritual growth." — Matt Adrian, author of The Guide to Troubled Birds

About the Author

Sarah Bamford Seidelmann is a fourth-generation physician turned shamanic healer and life coach, who deeply enjoys shenanigans. She’s a frequent guest blogger at Maria Shriver’s site for Architects of Change and has led sold-out retreats combining surfing and shamanism in Hawaii and a sacred pachydermal pilgrimage to Thailand. She loves to help others find their own “feel good” so they can live courageously and enthusiastically. Visit Sarah at followyourfeelgood.com.

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 304
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781573247016
  • Genres
  • memoir, travel
  • Release date
  • 2017