Baker - Kitchen table wisdom: stories that heal

Stories
That Heal

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Foreword by Dean Ornish, M.D.

R IVERHEAD B OOKS

N EW Y ORK

RIVERHEAD BOOKS

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Excerpt from Unlearning Back to God copyright 1994 by Mark Nepo. Used by permission of the author.

The names and identifying characteristics of the persons whose stories are told in this book have been changed to preserve their privacy.

Copyright 1996, 2006 by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Cover design copyright 1996 by Tom McKeveny

Front cover photograph by Peter Zeray/Photonica

Book design by Lee Fukui

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

RIVERHEAD is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

The RIVERHEAD logo is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Riverhead hardcover edition: August 1996

First Riverhead trade paperback edition: August 1997

Riverhead 10th Anniversary Edition: August 2006

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Riverhead hardcover edition as follows:

Remen, Rachel Naomi.

Kitchen table wisdom: stories that heal/Rachel Naomi Remen.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-101-65523-8

1. Remen, Rachel Naomi. 2. PhysiciansUnited StatesBiography. 3. Remen, Rachel Naomi Philosophy 4. Meditations. I. Title.

[C]54.R374A3 / 1996

610.92dc20 26-5175 CIP

[B]

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

For everyone who has never
told their story

Like everything else, this book has a story.

Kitchen Table Wisdom was sold on the basis of a single little story that a friend of mine encouraged me to send to his book agent, who in turn sold it to a publisher. There was no book proposal, no book theme, no chapter outline. Not the way in which a publisher is accustomed to buy a book. An editor was assigned to take me in hand and put things right.

Let us make an outline, she said firmly.

Unfortunately, I am not a person capable of making outlines. After an hour or so of working together, she admitted defeat.

What is this book about? she asked.

I did not know.

Rachel, she said. When you meet a new counseling patient, surely you identify their problem, decide what to do and in what order you need to do it, and make a plan, dont you?

I had felt exposed.

No, I said. I dont know what people need to do or who they need to become. When I first meet with someone, I have no idea where we are going, and where we end up is usually a surprise to us both.

She sat back in dismay. Then how do you get quality outcomes? she asked.

I just follow the natural process of things, I mumbled, avoiding her eye.

My editor is one of the best in the business, and she rose to the occasion. She smiled her encouragement and said the thing that made Kitchen Table Wisdom possible. Just write about whatever matters to you, Rachel. Give me four hundred pages by this time next year and we will figure out together what the book is about.

And that was the beginning.

I quickly discovered that I am an author and not a writer. Writers are people who are probably born to write. An author, on the other hand, seems to be born to do something else and then writes a book about it. This is a very different thing entirely. Caught up in the routine of daily life as a physician, I had not planned to write a book. But my story had attracted the attention of my friends agent and she sent it to a publisher who was willing to take a chance. The publisher offered me a contract and suddenly I was an author. I did not feel ready.

In a panic I called a friend who has written several books, and she recommended a woman who she had hired to help her write. My meeting with this woman did not go well. Lunch was pleasant enough, but after the tea was poured she looked me in the eye.