The Walk to Nirvana

By Kim Lam

The Walk to Nirvana explores the realities of awakening, the call for change and experiences of mysticism. It follows Kim’s real-life account on dealing with her life-changing diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) at the age of 28. 

This book is for the curious soul-seeker where one searches for the “lost soul” and wants answers on identity and purpose when bad things happen. It is a journey of expansion. 

Filled with practical advice and tools on how to navigate this weird, wacky, and wonderful world, it provides some alternative perspectives and a wand to empower oneself when feeling uncertain, traumatized, lonely, at despair or feeling hopeless. 

From collapsing; to coughing up blood; to lung-transplant conversations; basically really scary things and a whole lotta trauma, it navigates Kim’s story of healing, recovery and triumph as well as a general kick-ass sense of being! 

As the world goes through its own existential crisis and awakening, from the COVID-19 pandemic to equality crises, political upheavals, social risings, this book is a perfect complement to individual awakening and collective consciousness. 

It’s for anyone looking to get an aggregate view of healing, it contains the most useful paths to self-love, acceptance, expansion, abundance, and enlightenment. It has the ability to raise anyone’s energetic vibration, improve their days, weeks and months with ease, longevity, and consistency. 

The Walk to Nirvana will resonate with students of life, spiritual seekers, modern-day hippy’s and anyone who has suffered tragedy, chronic illness, depression, anxiety, grief or ‘dark night of the soul’ moments. It is after all, about the walk, the journey, and the way forward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803139722

Kim Lam

Kim Lam hails from Scotland. At 35, she’s gained over seven years’ experience in dealing with a severe respiratory condition. Through the power of literature and story-telling as a content-specialist, Kim has traversed healing and recovery, navigates enlightenment and seeks to share wisdom of what it means to rise up.

Book preview

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Copyright © 2022 Kim Lam

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of doctors. The reader should consult a doctor in matters relating to his/her health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 978 1803139 722

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

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Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

This page belongs to five special souls.

William, Geraldine, Samantha, Lochlan and Evie.

It is your story as much as it is mine.

For my readers

You shine the brightest at night.

Contents

Prologue

Shame. Sadness. Fear. Loneliness. Anxiety. Depression. The whole scale of human emotion, I’m quite sure I’ve felt all of the darker sides to such an extent, that they overshadowed everything good about this world. And so have many experienced this. Globally, more than three hundred million people of all ages suffer from depression.¹ Yet, it’s human nature and it’s the yin to the yang. It’s character-building. It’s eye-opening. It’s humbling. It’s gratitude-building. And more often than not, the birth of something beautiful is not usually pain-free.

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. The implications of depression range from the onset of a heart attack, suicidal thoughts being triggered, the furthering of physical disease in the body, and a domino effect to those around us.

Whilst this book isn’t solely about depression itself, it comes from my experience of battling a lifelong chronic illness – Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). I was diagnosed at twenty-eight. The Fall. And the Rise.

Cliché, you might say, there are a million books on self-help, self-love, radical acceptance, enlightenment and more. Whilst I do not wish to mislead you and claim that this book will get you to Nirvana, I’d like to emphasise the Walk part. The Journey. It does no harm for one to stumble across passages that resonate with them. That can trigger an enquiry, a change, an improvement, a better future and a way forward.

"Love thy Neighbour as thyself."

Whilst this book is about you, it is also about our social responsibility to lift others up. Hence, the writing of this book.

I always saw it as an opportunity to share my experiences, learnings and tools that I used to navigate some of the darkest periods in my life.

This book aims to explore themes, topics and tools which will help you discover more of yourself, along with examples from my own journey, so that you can put it into practice.

At the time of writing in 2021, the world has been experiencing one of the biggest global upheavals human history has ever witnessed and experienced: the COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide movements on inequality, injustice and tragedy, such as Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, Free Palestine campaigns and, unfortunately, a war-torn refugee crisis to an extent never seen before.

Amongst it all, people have experienced loss on a scale never seen before, in relation specifically to respiratory issues, six million deaths globally from COVID-19 alone; significant job losses, the shutdown of economies and millions of businesses worldwide; social isolation, identity and a deepening mental health crisis; destruction and the ‘end’ of ‘normal’ life as we know it.

To say healing is needed is an understatement. To say individual healing is important is also an understatement. It is the beginning of collective consciousness and a path for a brighter future. For yourself. For others. And the rest of humanity. And what better time to do it than in the midst of a spiritual and earthly revolution?

People are looking for answers, peace, faith and a new way of being. Nirvana is described as the bliss of enlightenment. Enlightenment is self-realisation, the extinction of suffering and to live by certain values that will enhance and improve your life and the lives of those around you. It can be messy, joyful, scary, fun, daunting, exhilarating and more. I encourage you to face all of it. The whole spectrum. Healing is not linear: sometimes it is pretty; sometimes it is not. It is a spiral and it will oscillate in ways that make you feel like you are on a roller coaster, but again, I emphasise the journey and the walk. Not the destination.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt, ‘Man in the Arena’

This reading did not accidentally cross my path. I first heard it on my yoga teacher training course in 2019, then shortly after in Brené Brown’s Netflix debut. It is no coincidence. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Use adversity to