GUIDED to WISDOM: The JOURNEY to EMOTIONAL HEALING by Susan D’Agostino

Susan D’Agostino has wisdom to share, garnered from a lengthy battle with cancer and the medical establishment. This is her intimate story.

“In 2002 I found a lump in my breast, maybe the size of a pea.” Like anyone faced with a possible dire diagnosis, D’Agostino was scared and confused. Her encounters with medical people left her feeling like a statistic, and when she got the dreaded prognosis after a painful biopsy, it was accompanied by the standard recommended next steps: months of chemo and radiation treatment. Fearing the treatment almost as much as the cancer, she sought alternative healing methods.

She consulted a variety of therapists—naturopaths, herbalists—and certain ones seemed like soul mates. In her search, she began to see signs: a strange affinity for the number 1111, a hawk landing and sitting in her yard. She began to trust her intuition; despite being prodded by the oncologist to get the standard treatment, she finally decided it wouldn’t be right for her. In the next few years, she became thoroughly immersed in her “mission”. She learned meditation, took yoga classes, eliminated aluminum products (like deodorants) from her life, began journal-ling, had colonics and kinesiology, and discovered automatic writing, leading her to her inner voice and a higher level of guidance.

One day she said “I knew I was finished” with the medical establishment’s treatments, and despite ominous letters sent by the oncologist predicting her demise if she stopped, tests showed that the cancer was gone. After resigning from her day job, she realized she could help others, and has remade her professional life as an Emotional Healer and Journey Practitioner.

D’Agostino’s saga is compellingly dramatic in the early pages, as the reader suffers with her and cheers her along on her personal mission. She has found her feet as a writer, staging her story skillfully, and frankly revealing the fears and rages that she believes were part of her inner cycle of “dis-ease” and healing. The last third of the book reinforces her positive messaging and could be used as a workshop tool for positive messaging and mediation. D’Agostino delivers a powerful and succinct message about hope and change in the subjective, human story that she shares. She reminds us that we are not alone.

Doubtless a vehicle to inspire others who find themselves or loved ones in a similar, life-threatening plight, Guided to Wisdom offers a heart-rending true story along with responsible and valuable advice to consider when deciding treatments and alternative methods of healing and self-healing. Overall, with her treatise Guided to Wisdom: The Journey of Emotional Healing, D’Agostino implores us to look inside ourselves for answers to life’s challenges and to trust our intuition.