Matthew Sanford’s life was irrevocably changed at age thirteen on an icy Iowa road when his family’s car skidded off an overpass, killing Matthew’s father and sister, and leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.


WAKING published by Rodale (released June 2006), chronicle’s Matthew’s journey, astonishingly personal, philosophical and heartbreakingly honest. This groundbreaking memoir takes the reader inside the body, heart and mind of a boy whose world has been shattered.  The author allows us to follow him into manhood, as he describes the process of separating from his paralyzed body, a journey that inevitably leads him on a quest for healing stories, ones that help him to reconnect his mind and his body, despite his paralysis.
          
Forced to explore what it truly means to live in a body, Sanford emerges with an entirely new view of being a “whole” person. He rejects much of what traditional medicine dictates about his condition, and through his extensive studies of yoga, he learns to hear a different kind of life within the silence of his paralysis, a life he had been told was impossible. In the process he discovers new meaning and purpose in the mysterious distance we all experience between mind and body.

Advance Praise for Waking

“This profound book is also a page-turner. I found myself reading late at night, unable to put it down. Like the best narratives, this journey takes you into new and unexplored realms of meaning. I cried and laughed and ultimately experienced transformational insights about my own life, elucidating not only the physical trials but also travails and triumphs of the soul. From a hard won understanding of how the body has intelligence and is an aspect of the soul, the author presents us with a new revitalizing vision of what it is to be human.”
---Susan Griffin – Author of more than 20 books and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

“Think you've heard it all? Wake up, there's more. Matthew Sanford's groundbreaking memoir advances a startling premise: Within an expanded consciousness of the mind/body connection lies hope for humankind.  Sanford gives this notion grit and power through the story of his journey from paralysis at age 13 to life as a yoga practitioner and instructor. Beyond this remarkable story is Sanford's analysis of the current state of our consciousness through his awareness that there is more. More to know about how yoga fosters energetic awareness in his body in the absence of central nervous system function. More to understand about the relationship between a medical model that separates mind from body and a culture that separates action from intention. And finally, more to learn from Matt Sanford about the process of aging, the problems confronting the planet, and the promise of living fully through an awareness of silence. Waking will wake you up, give you a substantial jolt of hope, and change your relationship to the most ordinary actions you take.”  
---Patricia Weaver Francisco – Author of Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery

“This is a riveting, heartbreaking, heart opening saga. Though Matt’s story is unique, what he has learned about consciousness and about being embodied applies to all of us. His insights are seeds that acquire power and shape over time—months after first reading it, I find myself appreciating his writing and the depth of his thinking more and more.”
---Nina Utne – Chair, Utne Magazine

“Matt Sanford's Waking: A Passage into Body is more than a memoir.  It is a story of the most powerful kind.  Waking follows an archetype that Joseph Campbell identified in his pioneering work on personal development, influenced and informed especially by world myths and the work of Carl Jung.  It is a "hero's journey" of separation, initiation, and return.  However, the hero of Waking is profoundly human.  He is not larger-than-life, of mythological dimensions, or otherwise a hero to idolize and worship, but is an ordinary human being confronted with extraordinary circumstances. 

Good stories do not simply take us with them but they also subtly weave themselves into the particular fabric of our lives.  The story told in Waking is the treasure its hero brings to others upon his return from traveling through a forbidding land of pain and loss. 

Waking invites readers to reconsider what is healing, the place of death in life, and the possibility of novelty within the trajectory of any given human life.  Reflections on the wonder of an integrated human being, connected mind-to-body and person-to-community, run through the story like a golden thread.  Waking shows that the connections that sustain us through extraordinary times are ordinary – all around us and within.  Realizing them is an act of love and grace.”
---Kristi Swenson-Mendez – Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University

“Waking: A Passage into Body by Matthew Sanford is a gripping story that struck me on many levels.  As a reader, I simply couldn’t put the book down.  As a practicing psychologist and instructor at the Adler Graduate School in the Twin Cities, I am always on the lookout for real life stories that can inform about the human condition. Sanford’s story offers a powerful response not only to trauma, loss, and pain, but also to living within our fragmented society.

Not only would I like to make Waking required reading in my courses and recommend it to certain clients, I also believe it has valuable relevance for teen-agers who are undergoing the difficult transitions from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.  This is a book that I hope will make it into the world.”
---Catherine Furnberg – Instructor at Adler Graduate School and practicing psychologist

“Matt Sanford's book is a must-read for all students in allied health, health education, counseling, and rehabilitation professions.  Through his own experiences and story, Matt conveys a powerful message of hope and healing to all readers.  Any student working toward a career in the "helping professions" will gain invaluable insight by reading this book - insight to not only their patients, but to themselves as well.  This insight, accompanied by increased compassion and understanding, can yield only positive results for future practitioners and patients alike.  I recommend this book highly!” 
---Jolynn K. Gardner – Ph.D., CHES