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Advanced Praise
"Teri Dillion’s No Pressure, No Diamonds confronts the reader with a searching, well-written, and honest summons to remember both the fragility of the body, and the tenacity of the soul. Through her personal inquiry, she asks each of us to consider how much we may ignore our final appointment with mortality, and yet what we are called to develop whenever it makes its appearance. At “mid-life” she is at the end of life, and offers to each reader the gift of Persephone’s wisdom: someone who moves between worlds and brings messages from both. Her work is a gift to us."
-James Hollis, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst and author of Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times
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"In this beautifully written account of her soul's journey with serious illness, deeply informed by her Buddhist practice and body-informed archetypal therapy, Teri Dillion teaches by example and has given us a gift that will outlive her body."
-Katy Butler, award winning journalist and author of Knocking on Heaven's Door and The Art of Dying
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"This book is for every human. Dillion teaches us what true grace looks like when “reality calls” and it’s not what we wanted. Tragic, yet surprisingly light-hearted, this book is beautifully written — something we can all learn from."
-Amy B. Scher, author of This Is How I Save My Life
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"As I read the first words of No Pressure, No Diamonds, I felt like Teri Dillion had reached into my chest and grabbed my heart. “Here,” she seemed to say, “this is where it matters.” I was utterly tenderized before finishing the first page. Sharing both her humor and her pain, Teri suggests no easy answers, but instead offers a pathway that may lead to being truly human. This is the real deal: a treasure that humbles, inspires, strengthens, and perhaps even awakens the reader."
-Karen Kissel Wegela, PhD, LP, author of Contemplative Psychotherapy Essentials: Enriching Your Practice with Buddhist Psychology
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"Teri’s book doesn’t disappoint. It’s compelling, drawing you in...and making you feel like you’re right there with her as she navigates waters we can only imagine. I’m grateful to Teri for sharing these precious lessons with all of us."
-Brian Smith, author of Grief 2 Growth: Planted, Not Buried: How to Survive and Thrive After Life's Greatest Challenges and podcast host of Grief 2 Growth.
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"This book is a gift. Teri continues to serve as a therapist, spiritual seeker, and truth teller as she shares what it was like to come to terms with a shocking and debilitating, terminal illness. Laying bare her own humanity, it felt as though I was being given an opportunity to deeply experience my own. Exposing her longing for an ever- elevated life, coupled with a belief it would always be available, Teri drills down to her own heart. She takes us inward, inviting personal reflections about life’s purpose and meaning. This book offers everything you hope a memoir might: capturing the nuances of a true, messy, rich, complicated, heart-breaking experience that is LIFE. I finished the book feeling humbled, inspired, wiser – and with a new definition of “a life worth living.”
-Ingrid Clayton, PhD, Clinical Psychologist and author of Recovering Spirituality: Achieving Emotional Sobriety in your Spiritual Practice
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Is the popular narrative that anything is healable with the right attitude (or guru, guide, diet, treatment) ever truly helpful? And where do we find healing when no cure or easy answer exists?
At 35 and newly married, psychotherapist and Buddhist practitioner Teri Dillion suspects she knows most of the answers to a satisfying and meaningful life. But once diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and told to get her affairs in order before facing total paralysis and death, she finds herself pertly booted off all lofty perches of smug psychology and easy equanimity.
In the months that follow, she sets out in dizzying pursuit of an unlikely cure, traveling deeper into the byzantine landscapes of alternative medicine and self-help in hopes of being a rare and miraculous survivor. As she grows increasingly disillusioned with toxic positivity and bypassing spiritual gurus, she is forced to knock ever-louder at the door of her own knowing---and attempt to define her own deepest faith.
In this inspiring and entertaining memoir about living with (and at times railing against) terminal illness, written to appeal to the healthy and the ill, disfigured, or downtrodden, Teri reclaims the mysteries of grace while gently reminding us of the fragile blessings of embodiment. Join her for the journey as she explores whether the most brilliant jewels of meaning can be found not in conventional narratives of triumphant recovery, but in what we painstakingly and lovingly carve for ourselves out of life’s roughest blows. Can we ultimately lay claim to hope, resilience, self-love, and healing when the only way "out" is through?
At 35 and newly married, psychotherapist and Buddhist practitioner Teri Dillion suspects she knows most of the answers to a satisfying and meaningful life. But once diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and told to get her affairs in order before facing total paralysis and death, she finds herself pertly booted off all lofty perches of smug psychology and easy equanimity.
In the months that follow, she sets out in dizzying pursuit of an unlikely cure, traveling deeper into the byzantine landscapes of alternative medicine and self-help in hopes of being a rare and miraculous survivor. As she grows increasingly disillusioned with toxic positivity and bypassing spiritual gurus, she is forced to knock ever-louder at the door of her own knowing---and attempt to define her own deepest faith.
In this inspiring and entertaining memoir about living with (and at times railing against) terminal illness, written to appeal to the healthy and the ill, disfigured, or downtrodden, Teri reclaims the mysteries of grace while gently reminding us of the fragile blessings of embodiment. Join her for the journey as she explores whether the most brilliant jewels of meaning can be found not in conventional narratives of triumphant recovery, but in what we painstakingly and lovingly carve for ourselves out of life’s roughest blows. Can we ultimately lay claim to hope, resilience, self-love, and healing when the only way "out" is through?
