When your answer is “world peace,” you will find inner peace. Transcend the personal and choose life for everyone.
I believe that much of my reverence for life and living beings came from my father’s appreciation for the truly important things: trust, faith, hope, and love. My father was only twelve when he learned just how precious and precarious life is. He lost his father to an untimely death from tuberculosis, one that left my grandmother and her six children in a desperate situation.
Life is not unfair but it is difficult. Becoming strong at the broken
places is neither easy nor fun. We are constantly being tested by both positive and negative situations and circumstances. And it is this testing process that tempers and strengthens us if we adopt life-enhancing attitudes and behavior. This decision to choose what is best for our lives often doesn’t happen until we find ourselves stricken with cancer or other disease, facing divorce, or experiencing loss of some kind.
When we become stuck in a pattern of living only for our children or our spouse, or even for the company that employs us, we deviate from our true path. We all need to live our authentic, unique lives and not fulfill a role. I knew a mother of nine who said, “I can’t die till they’re all married and out of the house.” When her ninth kid left home twenty years later, her cancer returned and she died. Rather than live for your kids, live for the child inside you. Then when your kids leave home, you won’t die from a life that no longer has meaning for you.
One of the miracles of life is that we can choose at any time to get back on the path to fulfill our purpose for living. You might well ask, “How do I do that?”
This doesn’t mean we should give up our families and stop working, but that we should find a balance between doing for others and doing for ourselves. When you find meaning in your life and learn to say yes to what makes you happy, and no to the things you do not want to do, life becomes easier to survive. Then we are prepared to take less money for the right job or take a risk and do something we are passionate about.
You have to start with a belief in yourself, have faith in all the things you incorporate into your life, and, when you are ill, believe in the things you choose as therapy. You need to be in touch with your inner desires and greater self. I see it as having the right Lord and giving love in your chosen way. Your focus then is on living a healed life rather than avoiding death.
Karen and her husband had high-paying careers in the finance industry until her husband, who was only in his forties, became ill with so-called terminal cancer. They took early retirement, sold their apartment, bought some land and started a berry farm. It was something they had talked about doing when they retired, but after the cancer treatment, they decided it was now or never. Fifteen years later, Karen and her husband are running a successful berry farm and sell their berry preserves and marinades all over the world. By taking a risk in a leap of faith, they proved to themselves that when you live in your heart, miracles happen.
I am often reminded of the biblical message that says when life (and good) and death (and evil) are placed before us, we are to choose life. This does not mean simply that we should try to avoid dying. We should choose to live a meaningful life that involves us in a demonstration of love for ourselves and others. When we live that way, our bodies know we love life, and they do all they can to sustain us, heal our afflictions and wounds, and keep us healthy mentally and physically. Remember, as I’ve said before, your thoughts and feelings create your internal chemistry. A patient of mine, a landscaper who was about to retire, refused treatment for his cancer after surgery because it was springtime and he wanted to go home and make the world beautiful before he died. He lived to be ninety-four and became my teacher about what it means to choose life and not be focused on what is good for only you.
We now know from scientific studies how one’s emotions and personality affect survival rates. We understand that simple things like laughter affect the survival of cancer patients, and that meaningless retirement and loneliness affect the genes that control immune function. I also believe there are other factors that help us, and these are greater than we can possibly imagine. Some call these miracles, luck, serendipity, or just being in the right place at the right time. When everything falls into place and seeming coincidences appear with perfect timing, this synchronicity of events suggests there is a loving intelligence that is beyond our capacity to understand, but not beyond our ability to experience. I know people who have left their troubles to God and have been cured of cancer.
You don’t have to wait until you are sick and your existence is threatened before you start to live your authentic life with trust and faith. Listening to your intuition and acting on it will bring you unexpected gifts at any time in your life.
It was in 1997 when William and Danielle from Laguna Hills, California, learned they were expecting their first child. Danielle believed that the attitudes she adopted throughout pregnancy would affect the child inside her, and so she determined to remain positive and to pay attention to her instincts. When choosing an obstetrician-gynecologist from the Laguna Hills obstetric practices, Danielle scrolled down the list of available doctors, and her finger stopped at a Dr. Blake Spring (name changed to protect confidentiality). “I know this sounds a bit crazy,” she confessed to William. “But I have such a strong feeling about this doctor — something tells me he’s the right one for us.”
“When your wife makes a decision like that, especially when she’s pregnant,” William told me, “it’s best to go along for the ride.”
Danielle called the doctor’s office and made an appointment. Before her first visit with Dr. Spring, she searched through the drawer for her medical records and happened upon William’s birth certificate. She was surprised to see the attending physician who signed William’s birth certificate in 1974 was also a Dr. Blake Spring, but at a different hospital.
When Danielle and William went for their first consultation at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, they handed William’s birth certificate to Dr. Spring and asked if that was his signature. “It certainly is,” he said with a grin. “Riverside Hospital was where I did my ob/gyn internship. You were one of the first babies I delivered.” Danielle felt it was a good omen that the doctor who helped her husband into this world would now do the same for their first baby.
Months later Danielle delivered a healthy baby, having experienced no complications during pregnancy or the birth. William’s mother came and was delighted to reconnect with the doctor who had delivered her son. Everyone agreed afterwards that, throughout Danielle’s labor and delivery, it felt like a happy family reunion. Right from the start, the couple felt as if a greater hand had been directing them every step of the way. By listening to her intuition, Danielle and William had allowed synchronicity to play its harmonious role in the joy-filled birth of their first child.
Danielle was motivated to remain positive because she was doing it for her baby. But we can do this for ourselves too. Once when I was feeling troubled by difficult circumstances that I found myself in, I telephoned a friend, and she asked, “Bernie, do you get upset when you’re hungry?”
“No, I get something to eat.”
Then she told me to ask myself: What nourishment do I need? What can I do with my life to take away the feelings I don’t like about this situation or this moment? These questions are powerful because they make you stop and think about your life: What do I need to change or bring into my life? How does this curse I’m living with become a blessing? When you use whatever affliction you have and learn from it, the challenge becomes your teacher. And it changes your attitude toward it, so even if something can’t be cured, you can still heal and be a teacher for others with the same problem. Some people describe their curse as the catalyst for a new beginning, their wake-up call, or a blessing in disguise.
Animals that lose a body part don’t go and hide in the corner because they don’t look normal. But people who are disfigured or seriously injured often experience anger and shame, thinking they are no longer beautiful or functional. This thinking is faulty, but people can change their thinking.
Several years ago I met a woman who had been born without arms as a result of her mother taking the prescription drug thalidomide for nausea during pregnancy. When I saw this woman in a cafeteria using her feet to put dishes on her tray, and people carrying it to the table for her, I went to sit with her. I said, “I’d like to learn from you, about your attitude, the way you deal with life’s difficulties, and more.”
She said, “Give me the pen,” and wrote down all her contact information with a pen between her toes.
Even though I couldn’t cure her and she couldn’t cure herself, she was already healed. She was a gift to others and a teacher to me. She, like Helen Keller, became my coach. She wasn’t sitting home feeling bitter or resentful at her parents and God, saying, “Look what they did to me.” No, she chose life and learned what she could do with the body she had.
When you make the choice to focus on solutions rather than the problem — under any circumstances — it becomes life enhancing for you as well as for others. It’s not a selfish choice, and it helps you to find nourishment.
It’s easy to tell people to choose life. But how do you know when something is the right choice or is God’s will for you? When a Catholic nun was asked the question “How do you know what God’s will is?” she replied, “I know what God’s will is not. When I find myself pushing a pea uphill with my nose, and the pea keeps rolling down the hill, that is not God’s will.”
My mother’s answer to that question was more direct. She always used to say, “Do what will make you happy.” By saying this, she taught me to stay in touch with my feelings.
I asked a group of people once: “If you had only fifteen minutes to live, what would you do?” There were all kinds of answers, from playing golf and working in the garden, to calling loved ones and so on. When our son said, “I’d buy a quart of chocolate ice cream and eat it,” I told him, “I don’t have to worry about you — you’re enlightened.”
Then somebody said, “Wait a minute — you didn’t like my answer, but what if the thing I chose to do is my equivalent to chocolate ice cream?”
Fair enough, I thought. So now I say to people, “Find your chocolate ice cream.” Find what makes you lose track of time. That’s the healthiest state you can ever be in. I know this from personal experience. You are totally unaware of your body; you’re free of pain, free of disease, because you’re doing something creative. I found I could stand in the operating room for hours, even with a back injury, and have no problem; I could paint a portrait standing in front of an easel and not be aware of my back. But when those activities ended, I was either on the floor or on the sofa because anywhere else was too painful.
When you’re doing something you love to do, your body chemistry changes — your body gets the message. I have another story that illustrates how well this works. Not only is Bath, England, a popular destination for tourists, but it is also a major center for arthritis research, at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases. Years ago a friend of mine owned a gift shop near the hospital. One day, after returning from a buying trip, she created a window display with a large selection of handblown glass. As she said in a note to me later,
I displayed all the green, turquoise, and cyan blue bowls, jugs, plates, and vases, until they filled the whole window. When I turned the spotlights on and the light shone through the colored glass, it looked like a tropical ocean wave, with the deeper colors on the bottom and the lighter ones at the top. After I finished the display, a lady with a cane stopped to gaze at the window. I was pleased that she seemed to enjoy my creative work, but half an hour later she was still standing there gazing, and I began to wonder if there was something wrong with her. I went out and asked if she was okay. She then told me that for many years she had been suffering chronic pain from rheumatoid arthritis, but while she looked at the beautiful greens and blues, time disappeared, and the pain had totally left her. She said she hadn’t felt that well in years. I will never forget the look of peace on her face.
By being grateful and nourishing her soul with something beautiful, this woman gave her body what it needed. Time no longer had any meaning. She chose to live her life, instead of living and being her illness, and in doing so she found relief from pain.
Decades ago, before tape recorders were allowed in the operating room, I brought them in to play music because it helped my patients to relax. I chose something that made me feel better too. At first the staff said, “That’s not hospital policy — it’s a hazard around the explosive anesthetic gases,” but when everyone felt better from listening to the peaceful music, they stopped complaining. Today we have studies verifying the benefits of music — it shortens the length of time needed for the surgery, patients require less anesthesia, and they have less postoperative pain.
My prescription for choosing life and finding your true path is to use love as your motivation and inspiration. So do what you love to do, and find your own way of contributing your love to the world. Be with those who accept you as you are. Be accepting of those you meet. Love is blind, because it does not see faults in others. It also helps us to heal past differences and maintain healthy relationships. I like the following prayer: “Dear God, teach me to treat people today the way I hope you will treat me tomorrow.” The attitude sought in this prayer teaches us life-enhancing behavior.
I once heard a Franciscan monk tell an old story about Saint Francis and his student, Brother Leo. It was a hard winter in the hills of Italy, and they had been making a long journey on foot. As they walked in silence, they contemplated their reading from the morning, a meditation about the secret of achieving perfect joy. Brother Leo turned to Francis and asked him, “What is the secret of perfect joy?”
After explaining that people think pleasant or enlightening events will help them find joy, only to discover they don’t, Saint Francis pointed across the wide, snowy valley and said, “Suppose we go to that monastery across the field and tell the gatekeeper how weary and cold we are. Then suppose he calls us tramps and beats us and throws us out into the winter night. Then, if we can say to him with love in our hearts, ‘Bless you in the name of Jesus,’ only then shall we have found the secret of perfect joy.”
Letting go of expectations and resentments, and accepting whatever comes your way as merely the next step on your path, you will turn away from suffering and disease and will walk in health and peace. When you can love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable, you will be free.
Sometimes the choices other people make can have a remarkable effect on us, especially when those choices are made with love. A woman patient used to vomit after her chemotherapy; and so when she and her husband got to the car, he would hand her a bag that she could throw up in as he drove her home. One day at our support group, she was all smiles. When I asked her why, she said, “My husband handed me the bag, and when I opened it I discovered he had placed a dozen roses inside.” She never needed to vomit again after her therapy.
Choosing life is a conscious choice. It is not about the luck of the draw, but a conscious decision to think and behave in such a way that your mind and body are not in conflict. One of my patients had no side effects from radiation, and the radiation therapist thought his machine was malfunctioning — until he saw my name in her chart. He told me that was when he realized: “This is one of Siegel’s crazy patients.” When he asked her why she had no side effects, she said to him, “I get out of the way and let the radiation go to my tumor.”
I’ve mentioned patients who left their troubles to God and had their cancers disappear. This was due to the state of peace, tranquility, and love they had attained. It’s called self-induced healing and is not a spontaneous remission. Personality characteristics and our potential to survive are inseparable. In one study that used personality profiles, psychologist Bruno Klopfer correctly predicted nineteen out of twenty-four times which patients would have fast-growing cancers and which would have cancers that grew slowly.1
I encourage health practitioners to learn about survival behavior from exceptional patients, by asking them why they didn’t die, rather than say what doctors tend to say, which is: “You are doing very well. Whatever you’re doing, keep it up.” Those doctors learn nothing from these patients that they can pass on to other patients. It is vitally important for health practitioners to teach, and remind, patients of their potential.
I also remind people that relationships keep us alive, and that we need to foster a good relationship with our self as well, so that when we are alone we are not lonely. As a patient we have a responsibility to take charge of our body and our care. That means we need to teach our doctor and health care practitioners what patients are experiencing. When your doctor does not understand your point of view, tell her and teach her. If she listens and apologizes, stick with her and help her to learn from your experience. If she makes excuses or blames you, find another doctor. This is another example of how to choose life. Being a submissive sufferer and “good” patient is not survival behavior. You want to be known as a person and not as a disease or hospital room number.
Our Creator built survival mechanisms into all living things so we can heal wounds, alter our genes, and overcome various diseases. Living beings were designed to live. So be alive. Love your life and your body, and amazing things can happen.
Take the Immune-Competent Personality Test, based on Dr. George Solomon’s research:
1.Do I have a sense of meaning in my work, daily activities, family, and relationships?
2.Am I able to express anger appropriately in defense of myself?
3.Am I able to ask friends and family for support when I am feeling lonely or troubled?
4.Am I able to ask friends or family for favors when I need them?
5.Am I able to say no to someone who asks for a favor if I can’t do it or don’t feel like doing it?
6.Do I engage in health-related behaviors based on my own self-defined needs instead of someone else’s prescriptions or ideas?
7.Do I have enough play in my life?
8.Do I find myself depressed for long periods, during which time I feel hopeless about ever changing the conditions that cause me to be depressed?
9.Am I dutifully filling a prescribed role in my life to the detriment of my own needs?
ANSWERS:
If you answered yes to questions 1 through 7 and no to questions 8 and 9, you have an immune-competent personality that helps you to stay healthy, to overcome disease, and face challenges when they happen. If you answered no to the first seven questions and yes to the last two, you need to pay attention to your behavior and rebirth yourself. Most people who take this test will find they have at least some room for growth. When this happens, try adopting new attitudes and behaviors that help you to create a new person, and don’t limit yourself. I even recommend choosing a new name for this new you.
Siegel’s three additions to the Immune-Competent Personality Test:
1.I am taking you to dinner. Where do you want to go?
2.What would you hold up before an audience to demonstrate the beauty and meaning of life?
3.How would you introduce yourself to God?
ANSWERS:
1.Your response should relate to your feelings, not what it costs or the food preferences of the other person. Be willing to accept the gift without responding to their question, “What do you want?”
2.A mirror.
3.By responding, “It’s you” or, “Your child is here.” The best answer God ever heard from a high school student was “Tell God his replacement is here.”
You can find the online version of this test on my website at http://berniesiegelmd.com/resources/organizations-websites/immune-competent-personality-test/.