Rebecca Ward, author of The Paper Tiger Syndrome, is a healer, survivor, activist, author, speaker, coach, and therapist. (2022. Back cover) In this book she relates her own story of personal tragedy and liberation to show her readers that it is possible to endure a tragedy and overcome those fears.

Ward begins by defining what they paper tiger is. To which she offers the following. “Paper tiger -something or someone that appears to be a threat, but in reality, is powerless.” (2022, p.1) 

Rebecca starts out sharing her story. It is a timeless pang of hurt and sorrow when a police officer suddenly appears at your front door. Instead of telling her what it was all about he gave her a card and asked her to call the number on it. She was baffled. It was for the coroner’s office. And it was regarding her father. He was dead and she had not been expecting this. 

She thinks about difficult their relationship had been and how it had just begun to improve. He was an alcoholic. He was absent from much of her life. She was now in college and far from where he died. She had dreams and changed track due to this life changing experience. 

Eventually she married and began to have a family, but that was soon wrought with tragedy. She was going to have boy twins and she began to deliver them prematurely. Their chances of survival were slim to none. They passed away four hours after she delivered them. She was again overcome with grief.  How could life be so cruel?

Ward says that in overcoming these fears we must recall when we were totally fearless and at peace. (2022, p.5) Hopefully, we all have some point in our lives when we felt this way. Getting back to that point means finding our original blueprint. (p.6) 

“When hardship invades your life, the experience can leave you feeling lost and alone. But suffering doesn’t cause the disconnect; it’s the attempt to avoid suffering that creates the illusion of separation and hardship.” (2022, pgs.9-10) “Your original blueprint is the part of you that knows abundance is your natural state. It’s the inner voice, which says I am full…” (p.11) “this is more than a change in mindset. It’s about developing a body that feels fully alive and present in inhabiting it.” 

There are exercises to help you locate your original blueprint and be at peace within your body. Almost nobody escapes tragedy altogether so if you would like to find a way to be whole again after the awful things that life can toss us this is a must read. I enjoyed it and learned a lot about myself in the process. You can too.