Book: Gifts from the Broken Jar by PJ Long
Price: $19.95


Everyone, at some time, learns how life can change in a moment: with the crossing of the center line on a highway or the reading of a blood test; a telephone’s knell in the still of night or a spouse’s hesitation before the unspeakable is spoken. 

         Psychotherapist PJ Long’s life-altering moment came when the bolt of a terrified horse left her brain-injured. She became a stranger to herself, unable to drive a car, prepare a meal, or carry on a conversation.

        But when PJ began to write, pen and ink acted as needle and thread, mending her torn mind and stitching together a new life. Lessons she had gleaned over years of helping others returned to guide her. And as PJ wrote, she gained profound insight into the resilience of the spirit and the unexpected joys of everyday life.

        Warm, engaging, and exquisitely crafted, Gifts from the Broken Jar will take its place beside treasured works like May Sarton’s journals or Tuesdays with Morrie—books that tell the quieter tale, savoring the ordinary and discovering life’s wonders.

Prior to her accident, PJ Long was a psychotherapist in private practice, an adjunct college professor, and a consultant. She holds dual masters degrees, one in interpersonal communication and a second in psychology and spirituality. Her undergraduate work included studies in England and Japan.

During her nearly twenty-year career in social services, PJ at various times worked at an orphanage in Bangladesh; counseled Saudi women leaving harem life; performed crisis intervention for troubled teens; led parenting groups; and consulted with corporations, hospitals, police, schools, and others.

PJ is married to Michael Sampson, a family practice physician, whose country doctoring includes house calls and delivering babies. They live in Vermont with their two children, a menagerie of barn animals, a pond full of frogs, and four gardens—none of which has ever produced a decent tomato.

Although this book grew out of PJ's experiences following her traumatic brain injury in 1999, a breast cancer diagnosis in 2003 affirmed her resolve to seek publication of the journals. Years of accompanying hundreds of clients through the broken places in their own lives had helped prepare her for her own recovery. She is committed to sharing her journals so that she can pass on the gifts she has received to others who face arduous journeys.