Bernie S. Siegel - Love, Medicine and Miracles

Minding The Body

The Privileged Listener

The Healing Partnership

Disease and the Mind

The Will to Live

Embodying The Mind

Beginning the Journey

Focusing the Mind for Healing

Images in Disease and Healing

Becoming Exceptional

Love and Death

There are several things I am happy to share with you since the writing of Love, Medicine & Miracles .

I retired from the practice of surgery in 1989, because by that time more health care professionals were willing to listen to my message. Once they understood that my work had a scientific basis, they were willing to accept it. I no longer had to keep explaining myself but could instead share my experience and therefore help more people by what I had learned. Ten or twenty years ago if they listened, they were more likely to argue about the validity of what I was saying. I appeared on all the talk shows as an excellent source of conflict and controversy. There was much misunderstanding of the statements I made regarding the role of illness in a persons life. I spent a good deal of time defending myself and explaining what I meant. The point I was trying to make related to the fact that an illness had effects on a persons life beyond just the physical dimension. There were beneficial side effects and a freedom to live that some people obtained from their disease because it made them aware of their mortality. Since we are all mortal, why did some people need to be ill to have the freedom to live their unique lives and experience the beneficial side effects?

Today the health professionals and talk shows are asking for information. I am more often a source of inspiration, not inflammation. Both doctors and patients need healing and are far more ready to listen and learn today. As a matter of fact, I recently read a very moving book by a physician whose wife died of cancer. In the book he apologizes to me. Now, he and I never met and he has nothing to apologize for, except his previous beliefs. The message he shares through his writing is that he has learned that his family had a unique and difficult experience, not just a diagnosis that one prescribed treatment for. My teachings and meditations were important to him and his wife as they lived the experience. Suddenly hope and love became very important complementary therapies.

Before writing this introduction I reread my previously published books and was not disappointed by what I read. There is a good deal of important and useful information within them. They are good training manuals for those facing adversity. I am even wiser today, due to my further experience with adversity and what I have learned since writing these books and starting Exceptional Cancer Patients in 1978. I want to share what I have learned in the intervening time.

One of the things I have learned is that I havent discovered anything new about survival behavior. The message is an age-old one and can be found in the words of the prophets of the past and those struggling to survive todays difficulties, from exceptional patients to members of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Marines. Science and medicine certainly have confirmed through recent research the personality profile and psychology associated with survival behavior and how they affect the bodys chemistry and healing ability.

Information about healing and surviving has been handed down to us for thousands of years by all the great prophets and spiritual leaders. What I have learned is that their message is similar to my own. When one finds a common theme in the writings of those who are healers, one knows there is truth in them. If I were rewriting my books today I would be sure to include the messages of these healers and the most recent scientific support of the advantages of this kind of behavior and lifestyle.

If I were rewriting Love, Medicine & Miracles , I might consider changing its title to The Side Effects of Cancer . Healing is hard work, as is any change one must make in ones life. I and others have learned, however, that the side effects of cancer may not all be bad ones. Yes, cancer, can kill and we tend to think of side effects as problems, but there are good side effects too. An awareness of ones mortality can lead you to wake up and live an authentic, meaningful life. I can read you an article entitled Thank God I Have Cancer. The Thank God is for the time the cancer gave the author to learn about the beauty, kindness and love that are here for us to share. These side effects also produce a longer life as their byproduct.

The ugly duckling had to do a lot of personal work to find himself and his beauty and to heal his life. He had no support from his family or health professionals to help him find self-esteem and love. He found it in his reflection. I feel that a patient should not have to go through the same struggle. Ones family and the medical profession should be able to educate and instruct about appropriate survival behavior when adversity, in the form of an illness, occurs in life. The issue is not about living forever and testing God, but utilizing all of the physical and emotional forces available for healing. The mind and body are not separate units, but one integrated system. How we act and what we think, eat, and feel are all related to our health. Physicians should be capable of teaching this behavior to patients. I spend more time teaching now than ever, and my most grateful patients are the ones who thank me for teaching them how to deal with all of lifes difficulties, not just the physical ones.

Medical education does not deal with many of the difficulties physicians must confront in themselves and their patients. Physicians need to be good technicians and know how to prescribe, but for healing to occur they also need to incorporate philosophy and spirituality into their treatment. We need to feel as well as think. When ones existence is threatened there are more issues and questions to confront than what medicine to take, or operation to undergo. As one woman wrote, we need a mutual investment societythe patient and the doctors investing in each other.

So how do you display survival behavior and find a good doctor who knows how to use his or her expertise and be your teacher? Ask the doctor if he or she has ever been criticized by his or her family, patients or nurses. If the answer is yes, that is the doctor to use. Why? Because that is someone there is hope for. You dont criticize someone you dont think is willing to listen, learn and hopefully change. As the poet Rumi said, Your criticism polishes my mirror. Good doctors understand this. The nurses also know the capable, caring physicians from their experience with them, so ask their opinion and dont hesitate to speak up if you are not treated with respect. Submissive behavior is not survival behavior. Be the human being, not the diagnosis or room number.