The Walton Sun
Laurie Beck never aspired to be a writer, but when she was diagnosed with — and survived — an incurable form of cancer, she decided to pen a book to share her journey of healing.
Her memoir is to be released in Spring, but as a teaser, she has taken the simple lessons highlighted in each chapter and created a pocket-size book entitled “Eight Little Lessons of Hope & Healing.”
“I call it my appetizer,” she said. “It is a book of small apps of wisdom. It’s a small book with a big message.”
The lessons within her book, Awaken, Hope, Serenity, Healing, Positivity, Passion, Courage, and Humor, act as a mental roadmap for Beck’s continued recovery.
“It’s a reminder,” she said. The book is a small but poignant reminder, and it can be taken everywhere.
The points within its pages are pictured with crystal jewelry, which reinforces each lesson.
“Different crystals have different benefits,” Beck said of the ChiBella, or “beautiful energy,” jewelry.
Beck’s larger book is more than a story about cancer, it's a story about living. "It takes you back to my childhood and weaves in all life's challenges that were thrown at me and how I chose to handle them,” she said.
“I wasn’t meant to get some kind of incurable cancer, based on the fact that I teach wellness,” said Beck, who owns Pilates by the Sea in Gulf Place.
But fatigue, two nodules on each armpit, and a rash raised the suspicions of Beck’s husband, Bob.
“I would go home after work and sleep, and even hours later would wake up exhausted," she said.
“You’re working too hard,” she recalled Bob saying.
“I’m just enjoying what I'm doing,” she replied.
But when fatigue became her constant, she took her husband’s advice and went to the doctor, thinking she would be diagnosed with mono.
She was called a few days later with the results of her blood work, while teaching a Pilates class.
“He tells me over the phone it could possibly be leukemia based on my white cell count. I thought only children got leukemia,” she said. “That was my naiveté.”
Later tests revealed it was a form of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.
“I needed to stop worrying. It was making me sick,” she said. “I was a chronic worrier. Raising three boys, I was a worry wart.
“I thought I’m not worthy if I’m not giving, giving, giving, and doing, doing, doing,” she said. “I never allowed myself to sit back and be, just be in the moment.”
But that all changed one day when Laurie was alone considering her diagnosis and her family was outside enjoying the pool.
“I was having a pity party. And I realized ‘they’re going to have fun whether I’m here or not,’” she recalled.
“I love you all, but I’m going to make it about me now,” she told them. “And it all shifted.”
“I realized it’s okay to love me,” she said. “I don’t feel badly anymore.”
“We have the power to shift our thinking,” said Beck. “I used to have a lot of stinkin’ thinking. I’d have to infuse myself with a new thought."
“How do you walk around positive when you’re ill?” she said. For instance, “serenity — how do you get to that place of serenity?”
She found the answer to that question in the peace and quietude around her, including using the Gulf’s inflow and outflow to regulate her breathing patterns and thought process.
“I would repeat with the rhythm of the water, ‘I am healed, I am well,’” she said.
She also took her the advice of her mother, a healthy living-guru, to meditate, which she still does for 45 minutes to an hour each day.
“I sit and I’m quiet,” she said.
With Beck’s cancer now in remission, she is making it a point to share her healing with others, so that they may live better.
"No matter what challenges a person is facing in life, Eight Little Lessons is a wise little book that gives daily intentions that encourage healing from the inside out," said Beck.
For more information about Laurie Beck, visit LaurieBeck.com. “Eight Little Lessons of Hope & Healing” is available for purchase by itself, or paired with a lesson-reinforcing piece of ChiBella crystal jewelry. The book can be purchased from the website, at Pilates by The Sea, 56 Spires Lane, and at The Blue Giraffe, 1777 E. County Highway 30A.
Thursday, June 7, 2012 
Laurie Beck is many things to many people—
