Bernie S. Siegel - How to Live Between Office Visits: A Guide to Life, Love and Health

Introduction
A Guide to Life, Love and Health

One day in the fall of 1977 I was attending a workshop; sitting next to me was a patient of mine with breast cancer. Suddenly she turned to me and said, "You know what I need to know? I need to know how to live between office visits."

I had come to the workshop because of the difficulties I was having as a doctornot knowing, because of my inadequate training, how to deal with patients as people. Like many physicians, I had built walls around myself as protection from the emotional pain that I was seeing. My training was about how to treat disease. And when you begin to realize you can't cure every disease, you start to feel like a failure.

I know now that we teach what we need to learn. And when this lady spoke to me, I'm sure I was sensing a need in myself to learn how to live too. So I jumped at her question and said, "I'll teach you." I believe that within me a voice was saying, "I need to know this too. We can work on it together." (At the time, I thought we would meet for eight sessions and that in two months we would know how to live. But that short course has extended over fifteen years, and I am still working on the same problem: living.)

I sent letters to a hundred patients, inviting them to participate in a group, to talk about their lives, to draw pictures, to learn about living with their disease. I thought they would tell others, and I expected hundreds of people to respond. But only a dozen women appeared, and so we began with that small group. (And it is no coincidence that it was only women.)

I wanted to find out what was different about these people. What could I, as a surgeon, learn from them? How could other people learn to become "survivors" too? These women were showing me what life was about, showing me that I didn't have the answers, because I hadn't confronted adversity the way they had. I had thought I would be the one teaching and helping them, but I realized that they were the ones who were teaching me.

We began meeting regularly, and eventually longer talks and workshops evolved from our meetings. My wife, Bobbie, gave the group its name: Exceptional Cancer Patients (ECaP). Today ECaP has become a resource and model for support groups all over the world. We are seeing that all disease states are affected by psychosocial interventions. I am thrilled to see recent changes in the attitude of the medical community. Even in hospitals, we are beginning to humanize our approach to people, rather than just taking a mechanistic approach to disease.

After Bobbie and I established ECaP, we began to travel around the country, lecturing and conducting workshops on the art of healing. It had been my hope that my booksLove, Medicine & Miracles and Peace, Love & Healingwould answer many of the questions that people have. But I did not realize what a book does in terms of making the world aware of its author, and I found that my life was turned upside down. People began to want me, not just my books. At lectures and workshops people came up to talk, and to ask many questions. Others wrote letters or called, out of their need. Sometimes people have spoken to me at inopportune moments. I have not always been able to respond to the questions as fully as I would like.

I have written this book to provide more answers. You have been my teachers and have helped me find answers. Some of the questions included here are about universal problems; others are more specific. Some I may never be able to answer; only you can provide the answers. I want this book to present you with information, but I also want it to be a special support, a comforting voice, an embrace I can't always be there to give. We will learn together.

In the beginning, our workshops were meant for cancer patients, but they have been expanded and are now offered to everyone, for no one is free of afflictions. I realize that I am also speaking to doctors, counselors and students; to families of ill people; to those with AIDS, or lupus or multiple sclerosis. I am speaking to all of us who realize we are mortal and want each day to be precious.

Whether people have won millions of dollars in the lottery or are told they have only twelve months to live, many don't know what to do with their lives. I believe that when your answer to the question of what you would do in the next twelve months is the same whether you have won the lottery or have learned you are going to be dead, then you are really living your life. You are living fully in the moment.

I have some questions for you, tooyou will be presented with some of the questions we ask at work-shops. For example: If when you were filling out your income tax form you also had to fill out an application for permission to live, how would you fill out the form? (Stop and think a minute, because if I get to be president, this will definitely be included in your tax form. If we don't accept your reasons, we'll refund your taxes, so that you can have a final good year.) My hope is that your application will make the people reading it want to grant you a longer life.