The Legacy of Joy In Living with Anna Corbett
“You will never walk again.”
“What … what are you saying?!”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Her doctor once again affirmed, “You will never walk again.”
“Noooooo!!!!” Maybe if she screamed it loud enough, it would make it not so. “Noooooo!!!”
“You will never walk again.” She wouldn’t believe it, yet these were the words she and her husband heard while she lay in the hospital bed, unable to move her lower legs.
“How could this be?!” “How could this be?!”
Esther Corbett was a brilliant, vivacious woman. A lifelong learner, she was passionate about the importance of loving connections in family and community, believing in the innate goodness of all. Recognizing women’s rights, she actively participated in the Suffragette Movement to give women in the United States the right to vote through the passage of the 19th Amendment. She was indeed committed to making a positive difference.
Yet, in her 30’s, as she was raising 3 young daughters, she was stricken with severe, crippling rheumatoid arthritis. She and her husband began searching for cures as she found her body attacking itself with this autoimmune disease.
Desperate for relief, at one point, she was hospitalized and was receiving injections of an experimental drug at that time, in the late 1920’s. In error, she was injected with a triple dose and suddenly found her lower legs folding at her knees. After weeks of futile attempts to get her legs to straighten in the hospital, she received the prognosis: “You will never walk again.”
This is what was significant: Esther Corbett did not accept that belief! She wouldn’t even consider it! She knew she would walk again! Her chosen belief: I WILL walk again!
We often hear the expression: Seeing is believing, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” The truth is that it’s actually the other way around: Believing is seeing: “I’ll see it when I believe it!”
Esther Corbett had a belief that she allowed into her entire system: “I will walk again!”
She began her journey through what we now consider ‘complementary’ medical practices. With a powerful faith in a Benevolent, Loving God, she began her healing journey. With prayer and meditation, as a lifelong reader and learner and student of Transcendental Thought, believing that people are naturally good and that everyone’s potential is limitless, she knew the power and influence of her chosen thoughts. She included listening to Norman Vincent Peale (who later authored The Power of Positive Thinking) on his radio program “The Art of Living”.
In addition, she included massage (touch therapy), Chiropractic treatment, steam therapy, ‘sound’ or music therapy, and healthy nutrition. She was taking an Integrative Approach to her healing.
Recognizing the possibility that unresolved and unhealed resentments, anger, and trauma could be contributing to her autoimmune disease, she began repairing and creating even healthier, loving relationships with herself, her family members, and her friends.
She knew that one of the traumas deeply embedded within her was the anger and the fear she had experienced as she and her husband, with 2 of their young daughters peering from behind, looked out into the dark of night, seeing members of the Klu Klux Klan burning a cross on their front lawn in their small town in Indiana — because they were Catholic. She began recognizing and feeling the emotions that had been so deeply buried by the actions of fellow community members. Her healing forgiveness work began as she freed herself of the memory of this trauma and others.
She more fully grieved the traumatic loss of her precious son Jimmy to the Spanish Flu during the 1917 Pandemic when he was only six months old.
And she more actively addressed the ongoing trauma of dealing with her husband, who was wrestling with his own challenges around alcohol.
She also recognized the importance of honoring her creativity as she wrote poetry and continually read the great classics. She knew the importance of choosing to feed her mind, her body, and her spirit only that which would nourish and heal her.
After eight long years of focused thought, prayer, and inspired medical action, Esther Corbett did walk again, living a loving, peaceful, and vibrant life for another 40 years! In addition, she published a book of her poetry in 1939, not long after she began walking again. The title of her book of poetry? JOY IN LIVING.
Here was a woman, dealing with a crippling autoimmune disease, unable to walk, parenting three daughters, yet navigating through all of this challenge and suffering with an openness to possibility, taking the pain and suffering and morphing it into a deep sense of healing peace, of calm and of JOY. An inspiration to all us indeed!
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I am often asked how all of my fascination and intrigue with the mind/body/spirit connection and integrative health and wellness began. How is it that I could have chosen this path, dedicating more than 50 years of my life to exploring, studying, living, and teaching these magnificent, powerful principles? And, what is the origin of my Joy In Living work and the inspiration for my upcoming book Awakenings on Your Soul’s Journey: A Woman’s Guide for Mindful Healing, Health, and Miracles?
Esther Corbett was my grandmother. I love sharing her story and the influence she had on my life and the lives of so many around her.
As a young girl, I was absolutely fascinated by my Mammaw, Esther Corbett. My soul was always so peaceful and happy being in her home, surrounded by books, classical music, and interesting conversation. One of my fondest memories was watching her as she sat before her old typewriter at her dining room table, with her gnarled, crippled fingers, composing her poetry, her face lit with passion and joy.
The ultimate gift: I felt ‘seen’, recognized, and heard by her. I was absorbing so much from her, not knowing at the time how what I learned from her as a child would have such a powerful influence as I navigated through my own tremendously challenging chapters, my own many Dark Nights of the Soul as a woman.
It has been a privilege to be Esther Corbett’s granddaughter. She is my ‘Muse’. My work Joy In Living with Anna Corbett, including my book Awakening on Your Soul’s Journey, all with guides for mindfully nourishing every part of you, your soul, and flowing that nourishment to all others, is dedicated to her and her tremendous courage, wisdom, and inspiration. I bow to you in deep gratitude, my dear grandmother, Esther Corbett.
