However , a significant number of ECaP  members had already exceeded
predictions before joining the group, so there is a self-selection process at
work that is hard to keep from skewing the results. At the end of
Morgenstern’ s study , he noted that new patients entering ECaP  do begin toshow a higher survival rate and that this deserves careful observation and
follow-up, which we are now planning. It isn’ t easy to put love under a microscope, and because I’m a
practicing physician trying to help people here and now , I prefer to deal
with individuals and ef fective techniques, and let others take care of the
statistics. There is also a lack of grant money for this research, but that will
surely change as psychoneuroimmunology becomes more widely accepted. Research gradually improves medical care, and I believe that someday we
will understand the physiological and psychological workings of love well
enough to turn on its full force more reliably . Once it is scientific, it will be
accepted. When doctors and patients understand the healing power of love, we
will begin to add another dimension to medicine. Then we will be well on
our way to the glorious revelation predicted by Teilhard de Chardin in these
famous words:
 
Someday , after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and
gravity , we shall harness for God the ener gies of love. Then for the second
time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. EMOTIONAL  SUPPOR T
We encourage spouses, relatives, and friends of patients to attend ECaP
meetings, because it’ s much harder for one person to change while loved
ones continue in the old patterns. Ideally , the entire family or extended
family should be treated as a unit. We have to understand that, in a sense,
everyone  has the disease when it strikes one family member . In a group
setting, we can often help people see how destructive behavior patterns
interact to reinforce each other , and how love heals. It’s also well known that a focus outside the self helps people survive a
crisis. London sociologist Geor ge W. Brown reported in 1975 that, based on
psychiatric testing, “an intimate and confiding (but not necessarily sexual)
relationship with a husband or boyfriend” reduced the likelihood of
depression among women who had recently under gone severe stress of any
kind. In 1979 L. F . Berkman and S. L. Syme reported long-term work with
4,725 adults in Alameda County , California. They studied the ef fects of
marriage, church and club memberships, and friends, with controls forsmoking, obesity , and other previous health problems. The researchers
found that those with the fewest social contacts had a death rate two and a
half times higher than those who had the most social contacts. Those who
have pets live longer after heart attacks than those who don’ t, and nearly
everyone knows someone who has postponed death until after Christmas, a
reunion, or a birthday . Love of other people always is a sustaining factor . In a sense, however ,
living for others is a “gimmick,” a stopgap measure like sur gery or
chemotherapy , which can buy time until people learn to live authentically
for themselves. We all know that one of our basic needs is someone in whom to confide,
and recent research is proving that confession is good for the body as well
as the soul. Several statistical studies have shown that people in
psychotherapy visit physicians less often than people not in therapy . In experiments spanning the early 1980s, James Pennebaker , a
psychologist at Southern Methodist University , has shown that sharing
sorrow with someone else protects people from the stress of loss. Pennebaker studied men and women whose spouses had committed suicide
or died in auto accidents and found that those who bore their grief alone had
a much higher than average rate of illness, while those who could talk over
their troubles with someone else had no increase in health problems. In
another experiment, Pennebaker told volunteers he would ask them to talk
about a traumatic event in their lives, either into a tape recorder or in a
simulated confessional booth. When he had them describe some trivial
event instead, physiological measurements showed them to be tense, but
when later they were asked to reveal the tragedy after all, their bodies
relaxed completely , even though many cried and expressed powerful
emotions. Writing apparently works, too. Students who wrote about their traumas
made fewer visits to physicians in the ensuing six months than did others
who wrote about less important subjects. Keeping a diary gets us in touch
with our thoughts. It’ s really a type of meditation. When I suggest keeping a
diary , I don’ t mean where you went that day , but what you thought that day . It makes us aware how active our minds are while we’re paying no attention
to our thoughts, as we shower or eat. A diary can help us become conscious
of all these ideas and learn from them.The people in a patient’ s emotional support network often need to be
educated, too. Many people simply don’ t know how to relate to someone
who has a life-threatening illness. The only essential, really , is an honest
optimism. Patients need people to help them keep sight of their hopes and
the joys that are possible as long as life goes on. But patients sometimes
need to gently remind friends and loved ones that a false determination to
be constantly upbeat, no matter what the situation, is destructive. It springs
from the fears of disability and death that illness evokes in those who are
well. It’ s a natural reaction, but it must be faced, and it’ s one area where
group sessions can be enormously helpful. Beyhan Lowman, who died of
cancer at thirty-one in 1978, left behind A Spirit Soars , a booklet that serves
as a marvelous guide to those facing the same challenge. In it she wrote
poignantly of the patient’ s need for honesty:
 
Although everyone around me was trying his best to be light-hearted
and optimistic, somehow the ef fect on me was just the opposite. Suddenly
being thrust into a situation where everyone behaved only positively while
around me made me realize to what extent I was no longer part of that
world. The doctors and nurses who cared for me could not always have a good
day. They must have been tired of turning me over in bed or hearing me
complain. But, I never saw that. The lab technician taking a blood sample
must have been frustrated because my veins were so hard to find. But, she
always smiled through gritted teeth. Many times I heard the medical staf f
outside my door talking in agitated tones. But then, they always appeared in
my room as if they were actors going onstage in a well-rehearsed role. The same was true of my family and friends. Everyone tried to help by
telling me how wonderful and courageous I was. Even the man in my life
treated me dif ferently . I knew he must have felt some sense of injustice at
being involved with a dying woman—a development he never bar gained
for. Yet, he never expressed it to me. Of course, his intentions were to
protect me, but I would have had a lot to say to him. Instead of probing his
emotions, which would have included me in the life process, I allowed
myself to feel excluded by his silence. Since disease has usually fulfilled some psychological need for the
patient, it’ s also important to encourage change by doing things that reward
health, not continued illness. As adapted from a list given by the Simontons,
these include:
1. Encourage the patient to be active and do things for himself. 2. Comment when the patient improves. Don’ t get so involved with
difficulties that you can’ t see anything except signs of disease. 3. Spend time in activities unrelated to the illness. 4. Continue the relationship at its new and deeper level as the patient
recovers. It’s equally important for couples to continue some form of physical
intimacy through illness. Like many of the elderly , severely ill patients
often suf fer from “skin starvation,” a literal separation from life, when
touching stops. If lovemaking becomes dif ficult, there are usually
alternative ways of sexual gratification possible within a couple’ s values,
ingenuity , and physical condition. Caresses, hugs, kisses, and hand holding
are always  possible. One of my patients had marked ascites (abdominal
distention), which was uncomfortable if her husband pushed against it. So
she devised a way in which they could kiss, touch shoulders and knees, and
avoid pressure on her abdomen. I find that the resumption of loving—by touching and caressing, not
necessarily sexual activity—after sur gery or illness is a crucial sign of
marital support for a full recovery , especially after operations such as
mastectomy . Spouses often need counseling to adapt to such changes in
their lovers’  bodies, and this is another problem for which groups like ECaP
are invaluable. When a couple can survive such hardship, each knows ever
afterward that they have an unshakable founda tion on which to build the
rest of their lives. Richard Selzer wrote eloquently of this bond in an essay
called “Lessons from the Art of Sur gery”:
 
The young woman speaks. “W ill my mouth always be like this?” she
asks. “Yes,” I say , “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.”
She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles.”“I like it,” he says. “It is kind of cute.”
All at once I know  who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is
not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her
crooked mouth, and I so close I can see how he twists his own lips to
accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works. I remember
that the gods appeared in ancient Greece as mortals, and I hold my breath
and let the wonder in. There’ s something more that patients need from their loved ones,
perhaps the most dif ficult requirement of all—the need to deal with fears
and long-standing resentments or conflicts, the “unfinished business,” as
Elisabeth Kübler -Ross calls it. This comes about through the same two
linked opposites we’ve been discussing in various ways throughout this
chapter—self-love and love for others, assertiveness and forgiveness. TRANSCENDING FEAR
To unblock the fountain of love and enter on the path of creative,
spiritual growth, we must let go of our fears (“leave our troubles to God”). But this is very hard, particularly when it looks as though we’re not going
to die tomorrow . When we don’ t have that time limit, it’ s often harder to let
go. To accomplish this “simple” change, we must work through our
negative emotions and transcend them. This is impossible until we realize
that no one makes  us happy or sad. Our emotions don’ t happen  to us so
much as we choose  them. In fact, our own thoughts, emotions, and actions
are the only things we really do control. In the first century A.D., the Greek
thinker Epictetus made this fact the foundation of his philosophy , declaring
that all unhappiness arises from attempts to control events and other people,
over which one has no power . The same futile attempt, born of our fears and
resentments, weakens the body and leads to disease. At one level there is nothing to fear but, obviously , this can be taken too
literally and seriously . For example, fear is natural in life-threatening
situations—such as in high places and near loud noises—but every other
fear is abnormal. We will never meet anything we can’ t handle. I know this
by definition because no patient ever wants to exchange diseases. We each
are more comfortable with our own problems. I have a list of positive
sayings above our kitchen table. Our young daughter Carolyn helped teachme the futility of getting caught up in words. In the middle of a dinner -table
argument among our children, I asked everyone, “Do you want peace or do
you want conflict?” The first item on the list. Our daughter , who has a mild
hearing loss, answered, “I’ll have pizza.” We all laughed, and the ar gument
stopped. The aim here is not to lay down strict rules of behavior but rather
to use the imperfect medium of words to point toward a new psychological
reality—a happiness we can choose, independent of external conditions. A positive outlook can be cultivated as can a negative one be inculcated
by a lifetime of conditioning. In fact, psychologists long ago discovered that
emotions can be modified merely by adopting the facial expression of a
contrary emotion. Recently Dr . Paul Ekman of the University of California
at San Francisco distinguished eighteen anatomically dif ferent types of
smiles. He found that persons trained to control individual facial muscles
voluntarily could af fect physiological measurements of emotion by
assuming the facial position of a particular smile. Sadness can be lessened by looking in the mirror and smiling, as long as
one is not denying the sadness. Performing will not work, but truly putting
on a smile will create a dif ferent message that is fed back into the nervous
system. You can grieve for a loss, yet still keep yourself from losing all
perspective, all appreciation for the good things that remain in your life. Scientists who have studied responses to stress have found that
ineffectual anger is the emotion most destructive to homeostasis. A serene
acceptance of what is  promotes health, but by keeping the mind clear it also
puts a person in a better position to change things that need changing. Hence, as Dr . Wallace Ellerbroek has written, we should “be keeping
pleasant thoughts in our heads as well as pleasant expressions on our faces,
and behaving in general as if we were not going to our own funerals.”
It is necessary for those dealing with illness to reaf firm themselves
constantly with positive messages. A patient needs to stop getting up every
day saying, “I have cancer . I’m too weak or depressed to do anything,” and
start saying instead, “T oday can be beautiful. Today can be dif ferent
because  of the cancer .” The disease can be a motivator for change. As Lois
Becker wrote in her letter to me,
 
I think of cancer every day , but I also think of how strong my body is,
how good it feels most of the time. I still talk to my insides. I have a feelingof integration of body , mind and, probably , spirit, which I never before
experienced. Letting go of fear is the sticking point for many people. It’ s easier if you
see every interchange as either a request for or a giving of love. A
frightened person is really saying, “Love me.” But we tend to reject that
person and get angry . Then he or she gets more frightened and often hoards
anger until it hardens into resentment or hate. To hate is easy , but it is
healthier to love . When you’re feeling afraid, if you ask someone for a hug,
for some love, the fear will quiet down. One night I was in the emer gency room to examine a patient, and a man
wandered out of the psychiatric wing. He walked straight toward me—
because of my shaved head, I believe—and started berating me, screaming
about my ancestors and sexual habits. Everyone else disappeared into the
woodwork except the patients sitting up in their cubicles watching. As he
stood there screaming at me, I knew I had to see my patient, and I wondered
how I was going to take care of this situation. I thought about all my
sermons, and I looked him in the eye and said, “I love you.” He stopped as
if he’d been hit in the head with a mallet. He turned around and went
quietly back into his room and sat down. The chief of nursing in the
emer gency room said, “Y ou handled that beautifully .” And I said, “Thanks
for your help.”
Love is incredibly powerful in the midst of conflict. In most families I
have no trouble getting people to say , “I hate you.” “I love you” is much
harder . Patients often must say it by letter or phone before they can say it
face to face—because it’ s the “I love you” that carries the real emotional
power . There really isn’ t anything you can’ t handle. I know that, even though
you may not know it yet. Someone may tell me, “I’m frightened. My
husband has run of f with another woman. I have cancer now , and I’ve got
five kids at home. I don’ t know what to do.” From experience with other
patients I can now tell that person, “Y ou know what’ s going to happen a
year from now? You’ll ask me, ‘Do you know anyone else with a similar
problem? I’ll call them up and of fer my help.’  “You are strong enough to
get through all those things. I know a woman named Emily who was so fearful she wouldn’ t go out
in the rain. She wouldn’ t sign checks, either . She avoided almost all of life’ sjoys and responsibilities. Her husband finally left her , and you couldn’ t
blame him. Then she developed leukemia and went through an incredible
metamorphosis. When last seen, she was at a political rally , yelling at the
top of her lungs. Her husband would remarry the woman she has become. But it took leukemia to get her to wake up and live. For many people, it
takes the knowledge that we won’ t live forever—so why be afraid to love? TRANSCENDING HA TE
Resentments and hate are the obstacles that keep many people from
clearing up their unfinished emotional business and achieving harmony
with others. Transcending fear opens the way to for giveness of those who
have wronged you, and it releases a love that can make you psychologically
immune to your environment. Choosing to love and hold on to the mean ing
of life increases the chances of survival under all conditions. Psychiatrist
Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi death camps, wrote in his memoir
Man’ s Sear ch for Meaning  that the guards found it easier to kill those who
seemed ready to die than those who looked at their captors, with a spark of
life in their eyes. Love saved Frankl’ s life at one point. When he and his
fellow prisoners were told that a train was going to a work camp where
conditions would be better , he gave his place to someone else. The train
went to one of the gas chambers. Another survivor , Jack Schwarz, has told how he passed out during a
whipping and had a vision of Christ. Filled with love from the image, he
said to his torturer , “Ich liebe dich.” The guard was so shocked that he
stopped, and he was even more astounded when he saw right before his
eyes the prisoner ’s wounds healing within moments. Psychiatrist Geor ge Ritchie, author of Return fr om T omorr ow, tells this
story of “W ild Bill,” one of the death-camp survivors with whom he
worked after the liberation:
 
[“Wild Bill”] was one of the inmates of the concentration camp, but
obviously he hadn’ t been there long: His posture was erect, his eyes bright,
his ener gy indefatigable. Since he was fluent in English, French, German
and Russian, as well as Polish, he became a kind of unof ficial camp
translator….Though Wild Bill worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day , he showed no
signs of weariness. While the rest of us were drooping with fatigue, he
seemed to gain strength…. I was astonished to learn when Wild Bill’ s own papers came before us
one day , that he had been in Wuppertal since 1939! For six years he had
lived on the same starvation diet, slept in the same airless and disease-
ridden barracks as everyone else, but without the least physical or mental
deterioration…. Wild Bill was our greatest asset, reasoning with the dif ferent groups,
counseling for giveness. “It’s not easy for some of them to for give,” I commented to him one
day…. “So many of them have lost members of their families.”
“We lived in the Jewish section of Warsaw ,” he began slowly , the first
words I had heard him speak about himself, “my wife, our two daughters,
and our three little boys. When the Germans reached our street they lined
everyone against a wall and opened up with machine guns. I begged to be
allowed to die with my family , but because I spoke German they put me in
a work group.”
“I had to decide right then,” he continued, “whether to let myself hate
the soldiers who had done this. It was an easy decision, really . I was a
lawyer . In my practice I had seen too often what hate could do to people’ s
minds and bodies. Hate had just killed the six people who mattered most to
me in the world. I decided then that I would spend the rest of my life—
whether it was a few days or many years—loving every person I came in
contact with.” This was the power that had kept a man well in the face of
every privation. I’m not saying all the survivors came through by being able to love the
Nazis as human beings, and I’m certainly not saying everybody else died
because they didn’ t love enough. Many hung on to life so they could be
witnesses to the world. Some did it by turning “hatred into ener gy,” which
was the slogan that enabled the Vietnamese to survive forty years of war
and overcome the Japanese, French, and Americans—but you have to be
careful that you don’ t end up becoming like your enemies. To attempt Wild
Bill’s kind of love just because somebody says it’ s righteous would be a
pathetic hypocrisy . Such love may have little to do with the individuals inthe drama but rather may be a welling forth of a universal power—God or
the basic goodness of humanity—through the deepest wounds of the spirit. What I am saying is that love can save you! You can look at a murderer
with love based on the fact that you know what got him where he is. I’m not
suggesting you love atrocities, but even the most depraved person started
out as an innocent baby . We have to remember that all of us are created by
our parents and society . If we get the wrong messages from them and
receive no love from them, then any of us can end up a Hitler . This is not an
acceptance of evil, but rather a refusal to sink to its level. As Martin Luther
King, Sr ., has said, “Hate won’ t bring my family back.” You may not be
able to change your oppressor or save your life by your love, but you can
keep hatred from destroying your heart, mind, and life, as it has destroyed
his. Among my patients I meet many who are dealing with “impossible”
spouses. There are two ways out: You can either divorce your “Hitler” or
stay and try to change him or her with love. I remember a woman named
Ruth, who once told me, “I’ll make this marriage work if it kills me.” She
developed extensive metastatic breast cancer and became so depressed that
she was considering suicide. Then one day Ruth was in the audience at one
of my talks. The subject of suicide came up, and a young woman in the
audience related how her father had killed himself and her life had been
devastated, both because of the loss itself and because she couldn’ t deal
with her father ’s lack of courage. Her story moved Ruth so much that she
found new courage within herself, decided to live, and left her husband. However , when you realize that both you and your “Hitler” are only
human, you can probably learn to live together , helping each other change. Nothing helps someone become better as much as someone else granting
the possibility . As Goethe wrote, “If you treat an individual as he is, he will
stay that way , but if you treat him as if he were what he could be, he will
become what he could be.” I find it useful to remember what Martin Luther
King, Jr ., once wrote about Jesus’  command to love your enemies:
 
Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a
false label on an evil act. It means, rather , that the evil act no longer remains
as a barrier to the relationship…. We must recognize that the evil deed of
the enemy neighbor , the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy .The meaning of love is not to be confused with some sentimental
outpouring. Love is something much deeper than emotional bosh…. Now
we can see what Jesus meant when he said, “Love your enemies.” We
should be happy that he did not say , “Like your enemies.” It is almost
impossible to like some people. “Like” is a sentimental and af fectionate
word. How can we be af fectionate toward a person whose avowed aim is to
crush our very being and place innumerable stumbling blocks in our path? How can we like a person who is threatening our children or bombing our
homes? That is impossible. But Jesus recognized that love is greater than
like. When Jesus bids us to love our enemies, he is speaking of
understanding and creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. Only by
following this way and responding with this type of love are we able to be
children of our Father who is in heaven. The real test is not whether we could be crucified to save mankind but
whether we can live with someone who snores. You have to remember that you cannot change anyone. You can only
change yourself. But remember you create the other person by what you’re
like. This often gives a wife, for example, great power . Eleanor , one of my
patients, works with her husband in real estate. She’ s capable of making
million-dollar deals, but he criticizes the way she dresses, even sends her
back in the house to change her clothes when they’re ready to go out to
dinner . I said, “Okay , then tell him you can’ t make decisions. Don’ t wash,
clean, cook, keep the books, or do any of the other things he expects of you. If he asks, ‘Where’ s dinner?’  tell him you couldn’ t decide what to buy at the
supermarket. Tell him you couldn’ t decide what deter gent to buy , so the
laundry isn’ t done. Tell him how indecisive you are, and he’ll have to take
over everything. Then he’ll realize how much you do, and what you’re
capable of.”
Taking care of unfinished business may someday come to be recognized
as the most ef fective pain reliever and preparation for sur gery. I recall a
medical student named Karen who visited ECaP  after she’d learned her
boyfriend’ s father was to under go sur gery for lung cancer . She’d spent a
busy week checking to make sure the sur geon was well qualified. Then, on
the way to the hospital, she remembered something I often ask group
members: she asked her boyfriend what he would say to his father if he
knew his father were going to die tomorrow .In the hospital, the young man went up to his father , who had been an
alcoholic, and said, “Dad, there were times you beat me, locked me in the
trunk of the car , and did other things to me, but I want you to know I love
you and for give you.” They embraced and cried. Naturally , the father came through sur gery without dif ficulty . When
Karen came to her next meeting, she told us what happened and said, “It
wasn’ t so important to spend all that ener gy checking the sur geon’ s
credentials. What was important was saying ‘I love you.’”
When speaking at workshops I often ask, “If you knew you were going
to die on the way home, would you need to use the phone?” If the answer is
yes, I say , “Okay , if you promise when you get home to pick up the phone
and make all those calls, I’ll guarantee a safe trip home.”
When you suf fer a misfortune, you are faced with the choice of what to
do with it. You can wring good from it, or more pain. Out of the ordeal of
his son’ s death, Rabbi Kushner was eventually able to write a book, When
Bad Things Happen to Good People , which has helped thousands of people
through similar tragedies. In that way , the life that has been lost is given
meaning through what is created out of the pain. The ability to see something good in adversity is perhaps the central
trait needed by patients. As Viktor Frankl has written: “T o live is to suf fer;
to survive is to find meaning in the suf fering.” Death or the threat of death
has been called the ultimate teacher , for it goads us into appreciating to the
utmost what we have or can do today . My wife and I had to learn this lesson during a week in which we
thought our son Keith, at the age of eight, had a malignant bone tumor . He
told me he had a pain in his leg. At first I said he should take hot baths as
any good doctor would suggest. Then one day , while I was lacing his ice
skates, he told me the pain wasn’ t going away , and he suggested an x-ray . My thought was that we’ll teach him a lesson. He’ll probably have a
superficial break in the bone, and then he’ll be sorry he got the x-ray—he’ll
have to wear a cast for a fracture that would have healed without one. Instead, the x-ray showed a lytic bone lesion. According to all my medical
books this represented a malignancy , and our beautiful child would be dead
within a year . The five days before he was admitted to the hospital for
surgery were a horror and my guilt added to this, a guilt all parents feel. It
was impossible to think, love, concentrate, or talk. Fortunately , the tumor
proved benign and was removed easily with a small portion of the bone.However , the experience was one of our most important lessons. It
showed us what patients and their families must deal with. Moreover , it
taught my wife and me about survival. Our daughter Carolyn said to me one
day at breakfast, “Dad, do you ever think who will die first?” I said, “That
is not the issue. The issue is that the rest of us will go on living and giving
more to the world to make the life of the one who died more meaningful.”
Unfortunately , most of us must suf fer before we can be transformed. My
wife, Bobbie, and I were sitting in the kitchen when the garbage disposal
jammed. I said, “What shall I do?” She said, “Just push the reset button.”
So I went to God and asked, “If you’re such a great creator , why didn’ t you
give us a reset button?” God answered, “I did give you a reset button,
Bernie. It’ s called pain and suf fering.” It is only through pain that we
change. It can be dif ficult to see our loved ones hurting but not changing. Our job is to love them. It is their pain that changes them, not our sermon. Finding the ability to love requires giving up the fear , anguish, and
despair that many people nurture. Many people have a lifetime of
unresolved angers circulating through their minds and causing new stress
with each recall. Confronting them and letting go of them involves honestly
facing your own part in the problem, and for giving yourself as well as the
others you’ve resented and feared. If you do not for give, you become like
your enemy . The children with whom Jerry Jampolsky works have expressed the
lesson of transcendence superbly in the conclusion of a book they wrote
together , called There Is a Rainbow Behind Every Dark Cloud:
 
In summary , we think that your mind can do anything. You can learn to
control your mind and decide to be happy “inside” with a smiling heart, in
spite of what happens to you on the “outside.”
Whether you are sick or well, when you give help and love to others, it
makes you feel warm and peaceful inside. We learned that, when you give
love, you receive it at the same time. And letting go of the past and for giving everyone and everything sure
helps you not be afraid. Remember that you are love. So let your love expand, and love yourself
and everyone. When you love and really feel joined with everyone,
everything, and with God, you can feel happy and safe inside.And don’ t forget, when you have total Faith that we are always
connected to each other in love, you will surely find a rainbow on the other
side of any dark cloud. The phenomenal ener gy that can be liberated by surrendering our
negative emotions was described to me in a letter from Denise, a breast-
cancer patient who visited the congregation of a faith healer in Worcester ,
Massachusetts. She wrote:
 
After his sermon, he said that each one would know in their heart if they
were the one to be called. He turned around to his audience of over 1500
people and said, “I have a strong experience with someone concerning a
rose. She has a disease in her chest area.” I felt my insides move as I
recalled the night before while I was at dinner , when I took a fresh rose out
of the vase on our table, and smelled it. Someone had told me I had to take
time to smell the flowers of life. However , I didn’ t stand up. I thought it
couldn’ t be me. The healer then approached a woman who had stood up. Her name was
Rose, and she had breast cancer . He blessed her but said, “Y ou are not the
one I am experiencing.”
He said, “She also has breast cancer , and is wearing a beige top.” That
morning I had put on a pair of black slacks and a long-sleeved black blouse. Then I decided to put on my short-sleeved beige blouse as an overlay , felt
too fat, and took it of f, and then decided to put it back on again. At this point I stood up, and he called me down to the front of the
audience. He asked me about my illness, and as I stood there full of tears
and emotions, I shall never for get how his face looked. He didn’ t have any
eyes, just dark pools of infinity . As he anointed my forehead, he said, “ You
have to let go of your anguish .” And with this, I experienced a bolt of
energy that passed through my body . I felt a scream come from my mouth,
and I fell toward the floor into the arms of the ushers behind me. This experience was a turning point for Denise. She began to be able to
set priorities for herself and make choices based on her own needs. She
used psychotherapy and chemotherapy , ended a relationship she felt to bedamaging to her , and sold her business, which had been a major source of
stress. Finally allowing herself to express a lifetime of pent-up anger ,
frustration, and sadness, she cried for days, and found that for the first time
she was able to accept the child within her . At the end of her letter , she
wrote, “This was the first time I had ever given myself the privilege and
dignity to mourn my own pains and agonies. Now that all the debris has
moved from my soul, my [inner] child and I are one. I feel total integration,
self love, and for giveness. I need never judge others, for I no longer need to
judge myself.”
Spirituality , unconditional love, and the ability to see that pain and
problems are opportunities for growth and redirection—these things allow
us to make the best of the time we have. Then we realize that the present
moment is all we have, but it is infinite. We see that there is no real past or
future, and that as soon as we start thinking in terms of past and future—
regretting and wishing—we lose ourselves in judgemental thinking. In one
of the countries where people regularly live to be a hundred, people have a
saying: “Y esterday is gone, tomorrow isn’ t here yet, so what is there to
worry about?”
Many people are able to let go of their fears and resentments only when
they are nearly dead. Several years ago Dr . Ellerbroek described one such
case in the following terms:
 
Her pelvis, bladder and rectum had been removed—until she seemed to
be nothing more than a bag of flesh draped over a skeleton that of fered
shelter not for internal or gans but for spreading tumors. She asked to be
allowed to die on the shore of a local lake. In those peaceful surroundings,
something happened; she jettisoned her anger and depression, her spirit,
like a balloon freed of useless weight, soared—and her tumors started to
shrink. She was cured. Later Ellerbroek reflected on this and similar cases with these words:
 
It is my primary belief that we were sold a big bill of goods when we
were little. We were taught that under certain circumstances it is appropriate
to be angry , and that under all circumstances it is appropriate to be
depressed. I’m here to say that in my own personal, solitary opinion—and
totally contrary to the beliefs of almost all the psychiatrists I know—Ibelieve that anger and depression are pathological emotions, that they are
immediately responsible for the vast majority of human ills, including
cancer . I have collected 57 extremely well documented so-called cancer
miracles. A cancer miracle is when a person didn’ t die when they
absolutely , positively were supposed to. At a certain particular moment in
time they decided that the anger and the depression were probably not the
best way to go, since they had such a little bit of time left, and so they went
from that to being loving, caring, no longer angry , no longer depressed, and
able to talk to the people they loved. These 57 people had the same pattern. They gave up, totally , their anger , and they gave up, totally , their
depression, by specifically a decision to do so. And at that point the tumors
started to shrink. (I use the word “resentment” instead of “anger ,” because I think anger is
a normal emotion if it is expressed when felt. Then it is over with. If one
keeps a lid on it, it develops into resentment or hate. Sooner or later ,
resentment and hate explode, destroying others, or they are held in,
destroying oneself.) The transcendence described by Ellerbroek is precisely the essence of
the religious experience as it was described by Jung in Psychology and
Religion:
 
They came to themselves, they could accept themselves, they were able
to become reconciled to themselves and by this they were also reconciled to
adverse circumstances and events. This is much like what was formerly
expressed by saying: He has made his peace with God, he has sacrificed his
own will, he has submitted himself to the will of God. To those rationalists who ar gue that any such experience is a self-
delusion, Jung adds an especially apt reply:
 
Is there any better truth about ultimate things than the one that helps
you to live? This is the reason why I take carefully into account the symbols
produced by the unconscious mind. They are the only things able to
convince the critical mind of modern people. They are convincing for very
old-fashioned reasons. They are simply overwhelming, which is an Englishrendering of the Latin word “convincere.” The thing that cures a neurosis
must be as convincing as the neurosis; and since the latter is only too real,
the helpful experience must be of equal reality . It must be a very real
illusion, if you want to put it pessimistically . But what is the dif ference
between a real illusion and a healing religious experience? It is merely a
difference in words. You can say , for instance, that life is a disease with a
very bad prognosis, it lingers on for years to end with death; or that
normality is a generally prevailing constitutional defect; or that man is an
animal with a fatally over grown brain. This kind of thinking is the
prerogative of habitual grumblers with bad digestions. Nobody can know
what the ultimate things are. We must, therefore, take them as we
experience them. And if such experience helps to make your life healthier ,
more beautiful, more complete and more satisfactory to yourself and to
those you love, you may safely say: “This was the grace of God.”
 
Ellerbroek has concluded that patients with far advanced cancer must be
near death before the turnaround can happen, but I know from my
experience that people can change at any time. The earlier it occurs in the
course of a disease, the greater the chances of recovery . If a person takes the
spiritual path before becoming sick, he or she becomes practically
invulnerable to disease and misfortune—at least in the psychological sense,
and very often in the physical sense. As Norman Cousins wrote after his
self-cure of ankylosing spondylitis, “I have learned never to underestimate
the capacity of the human mind and body to regenerate, even when the
prospects seem most wretched.”
Dr. Granger Westber g, founder of numerous Wholistic Health Care
Centers, in which doctors, nurses, and ministers work as a team, believes
that the illnesses of about half to three-fourths of all patients originate in
problems of the spirit rather than in breakdowns of the body . As he phrases
it, the physical symptoms are often only the “tickets of admission” to a
process of self-discovery and spiritual change. To begin that true healing,
each of us must make the leap of faith described by French poet Guillaume
Apollinaire, who once wrote:
Come to the edge. No, we will fall.Come to the edge. No, we will fall. They came to the edge. He pushed them, and they flew . OceanofPDF .com9
There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that
enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf
that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not thr ow
down; no sin that enough love will not r edeem…. It makes no differ ence how deeply seated may be the tr ouble; how hopeless
the outlook; how muddled the tangle; how gr eat the mistake. A sufficient
realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you
would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world…. —E MMET  FOX, The Sermon on the Mount
OceanofPDF .comLove and Death
Five days before William Saroyan died in 1981, he called the Associated
Press to leave this statement: “Everybody has got to die, but I have always
believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?” His humor
showed how alive one can be even in the face of death. Neal was a patient who had originally been diagnosed as having
carcinoma of the pancreas. He’d been told by his oncologist that he might
live for a year or two. He exceeded that expectation, only to find out years
later, after a second biopsy , that he had lymphoma instead of pancreatic
cancer . He was then told he might live many more years. Since he and the
family had been planning for his death, this news upset him. As bizarre as it
may sound, he called me at this time, telling me how upset he was that the
doctors said he might live a long time. I said to him, “Y ou know how
doctors are. They’re not always right, you could die soon.” He said, “Y ou
know , I can always count on you to cheer me up.” I allowed him to change
slowly . Within a few months he had readjusted to living. Several years later Neal was taken to the emer gency room with a high
fever . He had an out-of-body experience and was up above, looking down
on the resuscitation. He heard the doctor say , “We’d better get his wife,
because he’ s not going to make it.” He was up above, thinking, “Don’ t
bother my wife. I’ll make it.” And he did. Some time later Neal asked to be admitted to the hospital. Having
fought lymphoma valiantly for years, he was exhausted and ready to die. His wife worked in the hospital’ s medical library , and could be near him. It
was extremely hard to convince the nurses that he was there to die. They
would come in every day and say , “Finish your lunch. Eat everything on
your plate.” It took them awhile to shift gears and allow him to do what he
felt was appropriate. One day , with tears in his eyes, he called the nurses in and asked them
to get his wife. He told her , “Honey , I’ve been there. It’ s warm and colorful
and beautiful, and they said, ‘It’ s your time.’  But I said, ‘No, I haven’ t said
good-bye to my wife yet.’  They said, ‘But it’ s your time,’  but I ar gued and
kept saying, ‘I haven’ t said good-bye.’  Finally they said it was all right,”
and that was when he returned to the room and called the nurses. Neal and
his wife said their good-byes, and he died quietly within twenty-four hours.DYING AT PEACE
Exceptional patients have taught me that we have an amazing amount of
control over our dying. Even a lar ge-scale statistical study of several
thousand deaths recently showed that nearly half came in the three months
after birthdays, while only 8 percent occurred in the preceding quarter . I’m
not saying that we can live as long as we want, but we don’ t have to die
until we are ready . The most obvious proof of this is the time people die in
the hospital. The vast majority die in the early hours of the morning when
the lifesavers are resting and the family has left or fallen asleep. Then there
is no interference with, or guilt over , leaving. All of us, especially those
who are living with serious illness or trauma, are constantly balancing the
rewards of life versus the “cost of living.” One patient told me that as long
as she had five good minutes a day she would keep on living. The pain and
fear of dying come primarily from conflict, unfinished business, and
hanging on so as not to “fail” one’ s family . We can learn to live each day as
a unit—doing what needs to be done, giving and receiving love—and thus
always being prepared to die. As one patient told me, “Death is not the
worst thing. Life without love is far worse.” Having mastered the art of
living day by day , we can always manage twenty-four hours if we have an
important goal to reach. This postponement can last a long time. I was giving a pep talk on this
subject to Melanie, a nurse with breast cancer . She said, “Y ou don’ t have to
tell me that. My mother came home one day when I was sixteen and said,
‘Girls, I’ve been told I have leukemia and that I’m going to die within a
year. But I’m not going to die until you’re all married and out of the
house.’” Eight years later she attended her youngest daughter ’s wedding. Many times I have witnessed the death of people who have learned to
love fully . It’s a peaceful, pain-free letting-go, in which no time is spent
dying. However , two conditions have to be met before this can happen: the
doctor as lifesaver must be told when to stop, and loved ones must give the
patient permission to go. They must share their love and grief, but let the
dying person know that they will be able to survive. In other words, the
dying person must not receive a “Don’ t die” message from the family . He or
she must receive their love and support, and the knowledge that the loved
ones will survive because they have been loved. The example the dying
person has been reveals how precious life is, even as it is being given up.Today I see that even death can be a form of healing. When patients
whose bodies are tired and sore are at peace with themselves and their loved
ones, they can choose death as their next treatment. They do not have pain
because there is no conflict in their lives. They are at peace and
comfortable. Often at that time they have a “little miracle” and go on living
for a while, because there is so much peace that some healing does occur . But when they die they are choosing  to leave their bodies because they
can’t use them for loving anymore. My own father told me about his
grandfather , who at the age of ninety-one said, “Get my friends together and
get me a bottle of schnapps. I’m going to die tonight.” To humor him, the
family complied. That night after the party he went upstairs, lay down, and
died. Each of us has that option. I might choose to live when someone else
might choose to die, but that depends on what we need to accomplish and
how much loving remains to be done. Death is no longer a failure but a
natural option, and, since I have redefined myself as a healer and teacher , I
can participate in this choice and help patients to keep on living  until they
die. We must realize people are not living or dying but alive or dead. Label
someone terminal and he is treated as dead. This is wrong; if you are alive
you can still participate by loving, laughing and living. Before I would
accept a quadriplegic’ s decision to die I would have him take one month of
art lessons from another quadriplegic who does incredibly beautiful
paintings holding the brush in his mouth. An elderly gentleman had fallen down the stairs and was admitted to the
hospital in a coma. He and his wife had been married over sixty years. The
next day she had a heart attack and was admitted to the medical service. He
was in coma, she was on a respirator , and they were on two dif ferent floors. I suggested to the intern that he should let each of them know about the
other ’s condition, since there obviously could be no direct communication. I
said, “If one dies, the other ought to know what has happened.” The interns
all thought it was spooky , so I whispered in the ear of each what had
happened to the other . The next day I came to the hospital, and the intern said, “Do you know
what happened?” I said, “No. What?” He said, “Mr . Smith died, and I had
picked up the phone to call the intern on the medical floor to get the phone
number of the niece who was the next of kin. The intern there said, ‘That’ s
funny . I’m looking for it. What do you need it for?’  Mr. Smith had just died,and the other intern said his wife had just died. The wife followed him by
five minutes.” What a gentleman—he went and picked up his wife, and they
left together . A drawn-out, living death happens when feelings are unspoken,
conflicts remain unresolved, and life goes on only for the sake of others. It
occurs when the dying one receives “Don’ t die” messages, which define
death as a failure, something that must be done in secret when doctors and
loved ones are absent. When people achieve peace with themselves and others, it becomes all
right to die, to “relax and enjoy it,” as one of my patients put it. But
paradoxically , as Dr . Ellerbroek has found, this very acceptance may
produce healing. I felt Valerie was only about forty-eight hours from death,
and because of her husband’ s reluctance to accept the situation, I decided to
help get the family together . On Tuesday night I explained the situation to
her husband and suggested that he call their girls to come home from
college. He said he would. On Wednesday night Valerie talked to me about her husband. “Do you
know what he says when you leave? He says, ‘Don’ t die. Don’ t die.’”
I asked her , “Have you ever done anything for yourself in your life?”
“No.”
“Then it’ s perfectly all right to die,” I said. “But, before you die, I’d like
you to straighten out your relationship with your husband.”
I came back later that night. Valerie was out of bed. Pointing toward her
husband, who was standing by the window , she said, “I just told him a few
things, some of which he didn’ t want to hear .”
On Thursday morning she was looking wonderful, and she said, “I have
two questions. Where did all this ener gy come from? And why are the
nurses in my room all the time now?”
I told her , “The nurses are in your room because you’re not dying
anymore, and the ener gy comes from resolving your conflict with your
husband. I don’ t know if a miracle will happen, but I think you should get
up and go home.”
“That is a little scary ,” she said. “I thought I was supposed to die
today!”
Tests have shown a significant delay in nurses’  responses to so-called
terminal patients. However , this is not meant to be a derogatory statement
about nurses. They must face their own mortality when they enter a roomwhere somebody is labeled “dying,” a dif ficulty we all face until we’re
comfortable with our own mortality . Valerie’ s remission lasted for two or three months (a “little miracle”),
during which she lived at home, accomplishing beautiful things with her
family . She then died peacefully at home, surrounded by love. This example
did more for the nursing staf f than any number of lectures. They all saw
what happens when someone resolves conflicts and finds new ener gy to
heal. If we could do this with all our patients at an earlier stage, not only
would they live longer and better , but we would probably increase the
number of self-induced cures dramatically . It’s amazing how seldom members of the hospital staf f visit patients
who are close to death. If you shut the door , no one comes in. I was once even questioned about killing someone because of this fear
of seeing death. I was in a meeting when I received a call from Muriel, a
young woman almost unable to breathe and near death from extensive
cancer . She told me, “Y ou say dying’ s easy . I looked up at the sky and said,
‘I’m ready ,’ and nothing happened.”
So I explained, “It’ s because you’re too agitated. I can’ t get there till
five o’clock, but then I’ll come and help you.” If patients want to wait they
will. When I came in, she was filled with fear and anger , and had been given
no sedation. I tried to tell her that it is hard to die angry and fearful. It keeps
you oriented to your body . You have to relax and let go. Then I asked for
some morphine, enough to calm her and ease her pain. Because of Muriel’ s youth, this was a frightening scene for the nurses. They had to be thinking, “This could be one of us in that bed.” Only a brave
medical student was there besides me and the patient’ s family . After the
morphine took ef fect, her breathing became easier and we had a wonderful
couple of hours, filled with love and laughter . She literally came alive
again, and at one point said she’d be coming back as the first woman
President. By seven o’clock Muriel looked so much better that I thought maybe
she was changing her mind. I asked her , “Do you mind if I go get dinner?”
She said no. I came back in half an hour , and she had died. I know that was
her way of making it easier for me. The nurses had announced she had died, but, when I walked into the
room, Muriel’ s eyes were open, the intravenous pump was still running, andeverything else was connected, as though she were still alive. The nurses
had dif ficulty dealing with her death. Later that night I heard that one of the nurses had called an
administrator and said I might have killed a patient with morphine. The
administrator wouldn’ t call me, because he wasn’ t an M.D. So it worked its
way up to the medical chief of staf f, who was at a party . The next day the chief of staf f, who knows me well, called me, and I
explained what had happened. But the part that pained me was the nurse’ s
inability to come into that room. She would have seen how beautiful
Muriel’ s last hours were. These hours are gifts of love that help all the
survivors go on. A patient of mine who died recently left me a note saying,
“Thank you for the love. I can take it with me.” She healed me and her
family and all who touched her . The love that flows from a life ended at peace was beautifully expressed
in a poem by Juliet Burch, now a student at St. John’ s College. It was
written at the bedside of her father , who died two days later . Sitting with Pa
The man who was/is my father
His laboured, rhythmical breathing
The slightness of his stature now
I hold his warm hand and
The room is peaceful
There is such a lack
of fear
in this room. It is a
peaceful place to die. I am
finally
unafraid to hold the hand of a man who
was so mighty . Meditation
A room that is
difficult to come to,
yet somehow
hard to leave. His opened eye.He is there
but what happens inside him? A pause in the metronome of breath
I come to attention. And then the rhythm
like the tired clock
returns. I wonder if he is
crying
inside. Is he afraid
at all? I worry less—
for I look to discover that
now the hand
being held
is mine. The contrast between a natural, peaceful death and a death artificially
prolonged without dignity has been captured in a similar poem by Joan
Neet Geor ge. Grandmother , When Your Child Died
Grandmother , when your child died
hot beside you
in your narrow bed,
his labored breathing kept
you restless
and woke you when
it sighed,
and stopped. You held him through the bitter dawn
and in the morning
dressed him, combed his hair ,
your tears welled, but you didn’ t weepuntil at last he lay
among the wild iris in the sod,
his soul gone inexplicably to God. Amen. But grandmother , when my child died
sweet Jesus, he died hard. A motor beside
his sterile cot
groaned, and hissed, and whirred
while he sang his pain—
low notes and high notes
in slow measures
slipping through the drug-cloud. My tears, redundant,
dropped slow
like glucose or blood
from a bottle. And when he died
my eyes were dry
and gods wearing white coats
turned away . NEW  MEANING IN LIFE AND DEA TH
There’ s a story about two businessmen who were driving to an
important meeting. Each was to receive $50,000 tax free, but they had to
get there in one hour . On the way , each had a flat tire. The first businessman
got out, looked in the trunk, and found he had no jack. He looked at his
watch, saw that he had to reach his appointment within ten minutes, and had
a heart attack on the spot. The other businessman looked in the trunk and
also saw he had no jack. He stood by the car . A passerby stopped, changed
his tire for him, and he made his appointment in time. I subscribe to the Jungian idea of synchronicity , or meaningful
coincidence. I believe that there are very few accidents. After one of my
talks a man handed me a card on which was written, “Coincidence is God’ s
way of remaining anonymous.” In a life out of harmony with itself, events
seem to conspire to go wrong, but by the same token they mesh wondrouslywhen you start to live your bliss. Don’ t climb the ladder of success only to
find that when you reach the top it is leaning against the wrong wall. As you
begin living your life, taking risks to do what you really want to do, you
will find things fall into place and you “just happen” to be in the right place
at the right time. Even elevator doors start to open when you arrive. Perhaps this is another way of saying you create your own opportunities
out of the same raw materials from which other people create their defeats. I call these apparent setbacks “spiritual flat tires”—unexpected events that
can have positive or negative outcomes, depending on how we respond to
them. For example, a half-hour delay might save you from being in a traf fic
accident, or someone who stops to help you change a flat tire might turn out
to be someone you needed to meet. Such occurrences teach us to stop
judging events as necessarily good or bad, right or wrong, and instead just
let life flow . A parent with cancer may be worrying about the ef fect on their
child. If an author ’s best source is an unhappy childhood, perhaps a future
best seller will come out of the pain, thus helping others and providing
financial success. We can only decide what to do with our pain. That is our
only option. Let me give you another example of what I mean. One morning Rose, a
student who worked with me, got into her car to come help me in the
operating room. Her car broke down, so she got on her bike, and it broke. At that point she said to herself, “W ell, according to Bernie, I belong back
in my apartment.” She went back, and as she entered her apartment, the
phone rang. It was her brother , a former drug addict, calling from Maine. He said,
“Thank God you’re there. I was just about to head for New York and go
back on drugs.” They talked for about an hour . She calmed him, and he
promised to stay until another family member could go and be with him. She then went out to her car and lifted the hood, saying to herself, “I
don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’ t know anything about engines.” At
that moment her other brother drove up and said, “I was driving down the
parkway , and a voice said to me, ‘Go by your sister ’s house.’” He fixed her
car, and she came to the hospital with her eyes wide open. She will never
need another sermon again. To become an authentic, spiritual person means to open to our intuition,
the part of us that knows . As Elisabeth Kübler -Ross has said, decisions
based on cold reason alone are usually made to satisfy others. Intuitivedecisions make us feel good, even if others think we’re crazy . But, as we
become authentic, we no longer worry about what others think. A woman named Connie, a math teacher at our children’ s school,
developed Hodgkin’ s disease. Her husband divorced her , and she was left
with a mortgage and a teaching position, and was afraid to make any
changes or moves. I talked to her , sent books to her , and tried to get her to
redirect her life. One night at a PT A meeting I decided to get on line to talk
to her , even though she was no longer our children’ s teacher . As I entered
her room, she said, “I was looking for you.” I said, “I know . That’ s why I’m
here.”
We sat down, and she said, “Y ou know , I decided to do what you were
telling me to do. One of the things that has interested me is taking flying
lessons. So I started to. One Sunday at two o’clock I went out to the airport,
and this handsome man stepped of f another airplane. I thought, Boy! I could
go for him, and to make a long story short, we’re getting married, and I’m
moving away with him.”
I said, “What got you to the airport at two o’clock on Sunday? Why
didn’ t you take a lesson at one o’clock on Saturday?” And we both laughed. It’s doing what feels right to you that brings your life to fruition. It shows
you all the people who are there to be loved and to love you, people whom
you never saw before even though they were always there. After hearing one of my talks, a man named Aaron came up to me and
said he just couldn’ t believe his life had any spiritual guidance. He didn’ t
have the faith that things would work out if he only had the courage to take
the direction he really wanted. He was very unhappy with his house and his
job. He wanted desperately to change both but was afraid to let go of the
old and seek the new . I promised him, “If you just leave your job, another
one will appear .”
“Okay ,” he said, “I’ll see,” and he quit. Sunday he went to church,
something he rarely did, and the man sitting next to him said, “I hear you
left your job.” Aaron said yes and told him the kind of work he did—and
the man said, “I need someone just like you.” Aaron was hired. “Well,” he told me, “you have to admit that could be a coincidence.”
So I told him, “Now sell your house, and you’ll find another one.” He
put the house on the market, but no one bought it. He had scheduled a tag
sale to dispose of some of the furnishings, but he’d decided to cancel it
because no one seemed interested in the house. However , I encouraged himto go ahead and hold the tag sale. One of the customers asked Aaron why he
was holding the sale. “I’m trying to sell this house, but I need another one,” Aaron replied. The customer told him, “W ell, I’m selling a house that you might be
interested in.” It turned out to be exactly what Aaron was looking for . He
bought it and soon sold his. But again, you have to admit, this could be a coincidence. If one has no
faith, then of course these are always coincidences. How do you know if
you have faith? The only way I can explain it is to tell you about the man
who fell over the side of a clif f, grabbed hold of a very small bush, and was
hanging there, watching its roots gradually pull loose. At that moment he
looked up toward heaven and said, “God, you have to save me.” And a
beautiful melodious voice said, “Don’ t worry , my son, I’ll save you. Let
go.” The man looked back up and said, “Is anybody else up there?” If you
don’t have to ask that second question, you have faith. As a healer I’m trying to get people to have faith in their own lives and
in the whole process of life. You can act from that faith and make the rest of
your life simple, or you can keep testing and make the rest of your life
difficult. No matter what good things happen, you’ll always be able to say ,
“It could be a coincidence,” and never enjoy the grace. Instead I counsel
you to choose your direction, make the leap of faith, and fly . Let the
occasional spiritual flat tires redirect your life. That’ s what survivors do. They don’ t have failures. They have delays or redirections. Choosing spiritual guidance also helps you to see that people’ s minds
and souls are interconnected in ways normally obscured from our everyday
vision. The separateness most of us experience is illusory , and seeing
through it makes life even more meaningful. Botanist Rupert Sheldrake has
recently proposed “morphogenetic fields” as a means of communication to
explain the otherwise baf fling results of certain experiments. It seems that,
once rats in one laboratory have learned a particular maze, other rats
anywher e in the world , having had no contact with the original rats, learn
that same maze faster . Apparently , once a thought has been thought, it can
be communicated to others. Sheldrake believes this may be the reason why
an important discovery is often made simultaneously by several people
working independently in dif ferent areas of the world. There are hidden channels of communication from the unconscious to
our conscious minds. As I previously mentioned, Jung has written, “Thefuture is unconsciously prepared long in advance, and therefore can be
guessed by clairvoyants.” Since I’ve made patients understand that it’ s safe
to tell me any experience they’ve had, I’ve encountered cases of
precognition many times. Some patients draw or describe the exact details
of upcoming sur gery, down to the precise placement of equipment and
personnel, despite having no knowledge of the room or the procedure. Several years ago I was asked to see Janet, a pregnant woman whose
husband had just been killed in an auto accident. At one point during our
conversation, I said, “Y our husband knew he was going to die.”
“Do you really believe that?” she asked. “I certainly do.”
It gave her some comfort, for then she understood better why her
husband had insisted she become independent by earning a nursing degree. She also recalled that, several weeks before her husband’ s death, they’d
been talking about accidents, and he said, “If I ever have brain damage, I
wouldn’ t want to live. I can lose an arm or a leg and I would still go on, but
if I have brain damage I wouldn’ t want to live.” The autopsy had shown
extensive brain damage. I also told Janet I believed her husband’ s spirit exists.
_OceanofPDF.com_Love_Medicine_n_Miracles_-_Bernie_Siegel.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        However, a significant number of ECaP  members had already exceeded
predictions before joining the group, so there is a self-selection process at
work that is hard to keep from skewing the results. At the end of
Morgenstern’ s study, he noted that new patients entering ECaP  do begin toshow a higher survival rate and that this deserves careful observation and
follow-up, which we are now planning. It isn’ t easy to put love under a microscope, and because I’m a
practicing physician trying to help people here and now, I prefer to deal
with individuals and ef fective techniques, and let others take care of the
statistics. There is also a lack of grant money for this research, but that will
surely change as psychoneuroimmunology becomes more widely accepted. Research gradually improves medical care, and I believe that someday we
will understand the physiological and psychological workings of love well
enough to turn on its full force more reliably. Once it is scientific, it will be
accepted. When doctors and patients understand the healing power of love, we
will begin to add another dimension to medicine. Then we will be well on
our way to the glorious revelation predicted by Teilhard de Chardin in these
famous words:
 
Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and
gravity, we shall harness for God the ener gies of love. Then for the second
time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. EMOTIONAL  SUPPOR T
We encourage spouses, relatives, and friends of patients to attend ECaP
meetings, because it’ s much harder for one person to change while loved
ones continue in the old patterns. Ideally, the entire family or extended
family should be treated as a unit. We have to understand that, in a sense,
everyone  has the disease when it strikes one family member. In a group
setting, we can often help people see how destructive behavior patterns
interact to reinforce each other, and how love heals. It’s also well known that a focus outside the self helps people survive a
crisis. London sociologist Geor ge W. Brown reported in 1975 that, based on
psychiatric testing, “an intimate and confiding (but not necessarily sexual)
relationship with a husband or boyfriend” reduced the likelihood of
depression among women who had recently under gone severe stress of any
kind. In 1979 L. F. Berkman and S. L. Syme reported long-term work with
4,725 adults in Alameda County, California. They studied the ef fects of
marriage, church and club memberships, and friends, with controls forsmoking, obesity, and other previous health problems. The researchers
found that those with the fewest social contacts had a death rate two and a
half times higher than those who had the most social contacts. Those who
have pets live longer after heart attacks than those who don’ t, and nearly
everyone knows someone who has postponed death until after Christmas, a
reunion, or a birthday. Love of other people always is a sustaining factor. In a sense, however,
living for others is a “gimmick,” a stopgap measure like sur gery or
chemotherapy, which can buy time until people learn to live authentically
for themselves. We all know that one of our basic needs is someone in whom to confide,
and recent research is proving that confession is good for the body as well
as the soul. Several statistical studies have shown that people in
psychotherapy visit physicians less often than people not in therapy. In experiments spanning the early 1980s, James Pennebaker, a
psychologist at Southern Methodist University, has shown that sharing
sorrow with someone else protects people from the stress of loss. Pennebaker studied men and women whose spouses had committed suicide
or died in auto accidents and found that those who bore their grief alone had
a much higher than average rate of illness, while those who could talk over
their troubles with someone else had no increase in health problems. In
another experiment, Pennebaker told volunteers he would ask them to talk
about a traumatic event in their lives, either into a tape recorder or in a
simulated confessional booth. When he had them describe some trivial
event instead, physiological measurements showed them to be tense, but
when later they were asked to reveal the tragedy after all, their bodies
relaxed completely, even though many cried and expressed powerful
emotions. Writing apparently works, too. Students who wrote about their traumas
made fewer visits to physicians in the ensuing six months than did others
who wrote about less important subjects. Keeping a diary gets us in touch
with our thoughts. It’ s really a type of meditation. When I suggest keeping a
diary, I don’ t mean where you went that day, but what you thought that day. It makes us aware how active our minds are while we’re paying no attention
to our thoughts, as we shower or eat. A diary can help us become conscious
of all these ideas and learn from them. The people in a patient’ s emotional support network often need to be
educated, too. Many people simply don’ t know how to relate to someone
who has a life-threatening illness. The only essential, really, is an honest
optimism. Patients need people to help them keep sight of their hopes and
the joys that are possible as long as life goes on. But patients sometimes
need to gently remind friends and loved ones that a false determination to
be constantly upbeat, no matter what the situation, is destructive. It springs
from the fears of disability and death that illness evokes in those who are
well. It’ s a natural reaction, but it must be faced, and it’ s one area where
group sessions can be enormously helpful. Beyhan Lowman, who died of
cancer at thirty-one in 1978, left behind A Spirit Soars, a booklet that serves
as a marvelous guide to those facing the same challenge. In it she wrote
poignantly of the patient’ s need for honesty:
 
Although everyone around me was trying his best to be light-hearted
and optimistic, somehow the ef fect on me was just the opposite. Suddenly
being thrust into a situation where everyone behaved only positively while
around me made me realize to what extent I was no longer part of that
world. The doctors and nurses who cared for me could not always have a good
day. They must have been tired of turning me over in bed or hearing me
complain. But, I never saw that. The lab technician taking a blood sample
must have been frustrated because my veins were so hard to find. But, she
always smiled through gritted teeth. Many times I heard the medical staf f
outside my door talking in agitated tones. But then, they always appeared in
my room as if they were actors going onstage in a well-rehearsed role. The same was true of my family and friends. Everyone tried to help by
telling me how wonderful and courageous I was. Even the man in my life
treated me dif ferently. I knew he must have felt some sense of injustice at
being involved with a dying woman—a development he never bar gained
for. Yet, he never expressed it to me. Of course, his intentions were to
protect me, but I would have had a lot to say to him. Instead of probing his
emotions, which would have included me in the life process, I allowed
myself to feel excluded by his silence. Since disease has usually fulfilled some psychological need for the
patient, it’ s also important to encourage change by doing things that reward
health, not continued illness. As adapted from a list given by the Simontons,
these include:
1. Encourage the patient to be active and do things for himself. 2. Comment when the patient improves. Don’ t get so involved with
difficulties that you can’ t see anything except signs of disease. 3. Spend time in activities unrelated to the illness. 4. Continue the relationship at its new and deeper level as the patient
recovers. It’s equally important for couples to continue some form of physical
intimacy through illness. Like many of the elderly, severely ill patients
often suf fer from “skin starvation,” a literal separation from life, when
touching stops. If lovemaking becomes dif ficult, there are usually
alternative ways of sexual gratification possible within a couple’ s values,
ingenuity, and physical condition. Caresses, hugs, kisses, and hand holding
are always  possible. One of my patients had marked ascites (abdominal
distention), which was uncomfortable if her husband pushed against it. So
she devised a way in which they could kiss, touch shoulders and knees, and
avoid pressure on her abdomen. I find that the resumption of loving—by touching and caressing, not
necessarily sexual activity—after sur gery or illness is a crucial sign of
marital support for a full recovery, especially after operations such as
mastectomy. Spouses often need counseling to adapt to such changes in
their lovers’  bodies, and this is another problem for which groups like ECaP
are invaluable. When a couple can survive such hardship, each knows ever
afterward that they have an unshakable founda tion on which to build the
rest of their lives. Richard Selzer wrote eloquently of this bond in an essay
called “Lessons from the Art of Sur gery”:
 
The young woman speaks. “W ill my mouth always be like this. ” she
asks. “Yes,” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut. ”
She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles. ”“I like it,” he says. “It is kind of cute. ”
All at once I know  who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is
not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her
crooked mouth, and I so close I can see how he twists his own lips to
accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works. I remember
that the gods appeared in ancient Greece as mortals, and I hold my breath
and let the wonder in. There’ s something more that patients need from their loved ones,
perhaps the most dif ficult requirement of all—the need to deal with fears
and long-standing resentments or conflicts, the “unfinished business,” as
Elisabeth Kübler -Ross calls it. This comes about through the same two
linked opposites we’ve been discussing in various ways throughout this
chapter—self-love and love for others, assertiveness and forgiveness. TRANSCENDING FEAR
To unblock the fountain of love and enter on the path of creative,
spiritual growth, we must let go of our fears (“leave our troubles to God”). But this is very hard, particularly when it looks as though we’re not going
to die tomorrow. When we don’ t have that time limit, it’ s often harder to let
go. To accomplish this “simple” change, we must work through our
negative emotions and transcend them. This is impossible until we realize
that no one makes  us happy or sad. Our emotions don’ t happen  to us so
much as we choose  them. In fact, our own thoughts, emotions, and actions
are the only things we really do control. In the first century A. D. , the Greek
thinker Epictetus made this fact the foundation of his philosophy, declaring
that all unhappiness arises from attempts to control events and other people,
over which one has no power. The same futile attempt, born of our fears and
resentments, weakens the body and leads to disease. At one level there is nothing to fear but, obviously, this can be taken too
literally and seriously. For example, fear is natural in life-threatening
situations—such as in high places and near loud noises—but every other
fear is abnormal. We will never meet anything we can’ t handle. I know this
by definition because no patient ever wants to exchange diseases. We each
are more comfortable with our own problems. I have a list of positive
sayings above our kitchen table. Our young daughter Carolyn helped teachme the futility of getting caught up in words. In the middle of a dinner -table
argument among our children, I asked everyone, “Do you want peace or do
you want conflict. ” The first item on the list. Our daughter, who has a mild
hearing loss, answered, “I’ll have pizza. ” We all laughed, and the ar gument
stopped. The aim here is not to lay down strict rules of behavior but rather
to use the imperfect medium of words to point toward a new psychological
reality—a happiness we can choose, independent of external conditions. A positive outlook can be cultivated as can a negative one be inculcated
by a lifetime of conditioning. In fact, psychologists long ago discovered that
emotions can be modified merely by adopting the facial expression of a
contrary emotion. Recently Dr. Paul Ekman of the University of California
at San Francisco distinguished eighteen anatomically dif ferent types of
smiles. He found that persons trained to control individual facial muscles
voluntarily could af fect physiological measurements of emotion by
assuming the facial position of a particular smile. Sadness can be lessened by looking in the mirror and smiling, as long as
one is not denying the sadness. Performing will not work, but truly putting
on a smile will create a dif ferent message that is fed back into the nervous
system. You can grieve for a loss, yet still keep yourself from losing all
perspective, all appreciation for the good things that remain in your life. Scientists who have studied responses to stress have found that
ineffectual anger is the emotion most destructive to homeostasis. A serene
acceptance of what is  promotes health, but by keeping the mind clear it also
puts a person in a better position to change things that need changing. Hence, as Dr. Wallace Ellerbroek has written, we should “be keeping
pleasant thoughts in our heads as well as pleasant expressions on our faces,
and behaving in general as if we were not going to our own funerals. ”
It is necessary for those dealing with illness to reaf firm themselves
constantly with positive messages. A patient needs to stop getting up every
day saying, “I have cancer. I’m too weak or depressed to do anything,” and
start saying instead, “T oday can be beautiful. Today can be dif ferent
because  of the cancer. ” The disease can be a motivator for change. As Lois
Becker wrote in her letter to me,
 
I think of cancer every day, but I also think of how strong my body is,
how good it feels most of the time. I still talk to my insides. I have a feelingof integration of body, mind and, probably, spirit, which I never before
experienced. Letting go of fear is the sticking point for many people. It’ s easier if you
see every interchange as either a request for or a giving of love. A
frightened person is really saying, “Love me. ” But we tend to reject that
person and get angry. Then he or she gets more frightened and often hoards
anger until it hardens into resentment or hate. To hate is easy, but it is
healthier to love. When you’re feeling afraid, if you ask someone for a hug,
for some love, the fear will quiet down. One night I was in the emer gency room to examine a patient, and a man
wandered out of the psychiatric wing. He walked straight toward me—
because of my shaved head, I believe—and started berating me, screaming
about my ancestors and sexual habits. Everyone else disappeared into the
woodwork except the patients sitting up in their cubicles watching. As he
stood there screaming at me, I knew I had to see my patient, and I wondered
how I was going to take care of this situation. I thought about all my
sermons, and I looked him in the eye and said, “I love you. ” He stopped as
if he’d been hit in the head with a mallet. He turned around and went
quietly back into his room and sat down. The chief of nursing in the
emer gency room said, “Y ou handled that beautifully. ” And I said, “Thanks
for your help. ”
Love is incredibly powerful in the midst of conflict. In most families I
have no trouble getting people to say, “I hate you. ” “I love you” is much
harder. Patients often must say it by letter or phone before they can say it
face to face—because it’ s the “I love you” that carries the real emotional
power. There really isn’ t anything you can’ t handle. I know that, even though
you may not know it yet. Someone may tell me, “I’m frightened. My
husband has run of f with another woman. I have cancer now, and I’ve got
five kids at home. I don’ t know what to do. ” From experience with other
patients I can now tell that person, “Y ou know what’ s going to happen a
year from now. You’ll ask me, ‘Do you know anyone else with a similar
problem. I’ll call them up and of fer my help. ’  “You are strong enough to
get through all those things. I know a woman named Emily who was so fearful she wouldn’ t go out
in the rain. She wouldn’ t sign checks, either. She avoided almost all of life’ sjoys and responsibilities. Her husband finally left her, and you couldn’ t
blame him. Then she developed leukemia and went through an incredible
metamorphosis. When last seen, she was at a political rally, yelling at the
top of her lungs. Her husband would remarry the woman she has become. But it took leukemia to get her to wake up and live. For many people, it
takes the knowledge that we won’ t live forever—so why be afraid to love. TRANSCENDING HA TE
Resentments and hate are the obstacles that keep many people from
clearing up their unfinished emotional business and achieving harmony
with others. Transcending fear opens the way to for giveness of those who
have wronged you, and it releases a love that can make you psychologically
immune to your environment. Choosing to love and hold on to the mean ing
of life increases the chances of survival under all conditions. Psychiatrist
Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi death camps, wrote in his memoir
Man’ s Sear ch for Meaning  that the guards found it easier to kill those who
seemed ready to die than those who looked at their captors, with a spark of
life in their eyes. Love saved Frankl’ s life at one point. When he and his
fellow prisoners were told that a train was going to a work camp where
conditions would be better, he gave his place to someone else. The train
went to one of the gas chambers. Another survivor, Jack Schwarz, has told how he passed out during a
whipping and had a vision of Christ. Filled with love from the image, he
said to his torturer, “Ich liebe dich. ” The guard was so shocked that he
stopped, and he was even more astounded when he saw right before his
eyes the prisoner ’s wounds healing within moments. Psychiatrist Geor ge Ritchie, author of Return fr om T omorr ow, tells this
story of “W ild Bill,” one of the death-camp survivors with whom he
worked after the liberation:
 
[“Wild Bill”] was one of the inmates of the concentration camp, but
obviously he hadn’ t been there long: His posture was erect, his eyes bright,
his ener gy indefatigable. Since he was fluent in English, French, German
and Russian, as well as Polish, he became a kind of unof ficial camp
translator…. Though Wild Bill worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day, he showed no
signs of weariness. While the rest of us were drooping with fatigue, he
seemed to gain strength…. I was astonished to learn when Wild Bill’ s own papers came before us
one day, that he had been in Wuppertal since 1939. For six years he had
lived on the same starvation diet, slept in the same airless and disease-
ridden barracks as everyone else, but without the least physical or mental
deterioration…. Wild Bill was our greatest asset, reasoning with the dif ferent groups,
counseling for giveness. “It’s not easy for some of them to for give,” I commented to him one
day…. “So many of them have lost members of their families. ”
“We lived in the Jewish section of Warsaw,” he began slowly, the first
words I had heard him speak about himself, “my wife, our two daughters,
and our three little boys. When the Germans reached our street they lined
everyone against a wall and opened up with machine guns. I begged to be
allowed to die with my family, but because I spoke German they put me in
a work group. ”
“I had to decide right then,” he continued, “whether to let myself hate
the soldiers who had done this. It was an easy decision, really. I was a
lawyer. In my practice I had seen too often what hate could do to people’ s
minds and bodies. Hate had just killed the six people who mattered most to
me in the world. I decided then that I would spend the rest of my life—
whether it was a few days or many years—loving every person I came in
contact with. ” This was the power that had kept a man well in the face of
every privation. I’m not saying all the survivors came through by being able to love the
Nazis as human beings, and I’m certainly not saying everybody else died
because they didn’ t love enough. Many hung on to life so they could be
witnesses to the world. Some did it by turning “hatred into ener gy,” which
was the slogan that enabled the Vietnamese to survive forty years of war
and overcome the Japanese, French, and Americans—but you have to be
careful that you don’ t end up becoming like your enemies. To attempt Wild
Bill’s kind of love just because somebody says it’ s righteous would be a
pathetic hypocrisy. Such love may have little to do with the individuals inthe drama but rather may be a welling forth of a universal power—God or
the basic goodness of humanity—through the deepest wounds of the spirit. What I am saying is that love can save you. You can look at a murderer
with love based on the fact that you know what got him where he is. I’m not
suggesting you love atrocities, but even the most depraved person started
out as an innocent baby. We have to remember that all of us are created by
our parents and society. If we get the wrong messages from them and
receive no love from them, then any of us can end up a Hitler. This is not an
acceptance of evil, but rather a refusal to sink to its level. As Martin Luther
King, Sr. , has said, “Hate won’ t bring my family back. ” You may not be
able to change your oppressor or save your life by your love, but you can
keep hatred from destroying your heart, mind, and life, as it has destroyed
his. Among my patients I meet many who are dealing with “impossible”
spouses. There are two ways out: You can either divorce your “Hitler” or
stay and try to change him or her with love. I remember a woman named
Ruth, who once told me, “I’ll make this marriage work if it kills me. ” She
developed extensive metastatic breast cancer and became so depressed that
she was considering suicide. Then one day Ruth was in the audience at one
of my talks. The subject of suicide came up, and a young woman in the
audience related how her father had killed himself and her life had been
devastated, both because of the loss itself and because she couldn’ t deal
with her father ’s lack of courage. Her story moved Ruth so much that she
found new courage within herself, decided to live, and left her husband. However, when you realize that both you and your “Hitler” are only
human, you can probably learn to live together, helping each other change. Nothing helps someone become better as much as someone else granting
the possibility. As Goethe wrote, “If you treat an individual as he is, he will
stay that way, but if you treat him as if he were what he could be, he will
become what he could be. ” I find it useful to remember what Martin Luther
King, Jr. , once wrote about Jesus’  command to love your enemies:
 
Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a
false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains
as a barrier to the relationship…. We must recognize that the evil deed of
the enemy neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy. The meaning of love is not to be confused with some sentimental
outpouring. Love is something much deeper than emotional bosh…. Now
we can see what Jesus meant when he said, “Love your enemies. ” We
should be happy that he did not say, “Like your enemies. ” It is almost
impossible to like some people. “Like” is a sentimental and af fectionate
word. How can we be af fectionate toward a person whose avowed aim is to
crush our very being and place innumerable stumbling blocks in our path. How can we like a person who is threatening our children or bombing our
homes. That is impossible. But Jesus recognized that love is greater than
like. When Jesus bids us to love our enemies, he is speaking of
understanding and creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. Only by
following this way and responding with this type of love are we able to be
children of our Father who is in heaven. The real test is not whether we could be crucified to save mankind but
whether we can live with someone who snores. You have to remember that you cannot change anyone. You can only
change yourself. But remember you create the other person by what you’re
like. This often gives a wife, for example, great power. Eleanor, one of my
patients, works with her husband in real estate. She’ s capable of making
million-dollar deals, but he criticizes the way she dresses, even sends her
back in the house to change her clothes when they’re ready to go out to
dinner. I said, “Okay, then tell him you can’ t make decisions. Don’ t wash,
clean, cook, keep the books, or do any of the other things he expects of you. If he asks, ‘Where’ s dinner. ’  tell him you couldn’ t decide what to buy at the
supermarket. Tell him you couldn’ t decide what deter gent to buy, so the
laundry isn’ t done. Tell him how indecisive you are, and he’ll have to take
over everything. Then he’ll realize how much you do, and what you’re
capable of. ”
Taking care of unfinished business may someday come to be recognized
as the most ef fective pain reliever and preparation for sur gery. I recall a
medical student named Karen who visited ECaP  after she’d learned her
boyfriend’ s father was to under go sur gery for lung cancer. She’d spent a
busy week checking to make sure the sur geon was well qualified. Then, on
the way to the hospital, she remembered something I often ask group
members: she asked her boyfriend what he would say to his father if he
knew his father were going to die tomorrow. In the hospital, the young man went up to his father, who had been an
alcoholic, and said, “Dad, there were times you beat me, locked me in the
trunk of the car, and did other things to me, but I want you to know I love
you and for give you. ” They embraced and cried. Naturally, the father came through sur gery without dif ficulty. When
Karen came to her next meeting, she told us what happened and said, “It
wasn’ t so important to spend all that ener gy checking the sur geon’ s
credentials. What was important was saying ‘I love you. ’”
When speaking at workshops I often ask, “If you knew you were going
to die on the way home, would you need to use the phone. ” If the answer is
yes, I say, “Okay, if you promise when you get home to pick up the phone
and make all those calls, I’ll guarantee a safe trip home. ”
When you suf fer a misfortune, you are faced with the choice of what to
do with it. You can wring good from it, or more pain. Out of the ordeal of
his son’ s death, Rabbi Kushner was eventually able to write a book, When
Bad Things Happen to Good People, which has helped thousands of people
through similar tragedies. In that way, the life that has been lost is given
meaning through what is created out of the pain. The ability to see something good in adversity is perhaps the central
trait needed by patients. As Viktor Frankl has written: “T o live is to suf fer;
to survive is to find meaning in the suf fering. ” Death or the threat of death
has been called the ultimate teacher, for it goads us into appreciating to the
utmost what we have or can do today. My wife and I had to learn this lesson during a week in which we
thought our son Keith, at the age of eight, had a malignant bone tumor. He
told me he had a pain in his leg. At first I said he should take hot baths as
any good doctor would suggest. Then one day, while I was lacing his ice
skates, he told me the pain wasn’ t going away, and he suggested an x-ray. My thought was that we’ll teach him a lesson. He’ll probably have a
superficial break in the bone, and then he’ll be sorry he got the x-ray—he’ll
have to wear a cast for a fracture that would have healed without one. Instead, the x-ray showed a lytic bone lesion. According to all my medical
books this represented a malignancy, and our beautiful child would be dead
within a year. The five days before he was admitted to the hospital for
surgery were a horror and my guilt added to this, a guilt all parents feel. It
was impossible to think, love, concentrate, or talk. Fortunately, the tumor
proved benign and was removed easily with a small portion of the bone. However, the experience was one of our most important lessons. It
showed us what patients and their families must deal with. Moreover, it
taught my wife and me about survival. Our daughter Carolyn said to me one
day at breakfast, “Dad, do you ever think who will die first. ” I said, “That
is not the issue. The issue is that the rest of us will go on living and giving
more to the world to make the life of the one who died more meaningful. ”
Unfortunately, most of us must suf fer before we can be transformed. My
wife, Bobbie, and I were sitting in the kitchen when the garbage disposal
jammed. I said, “What shall I do. ” She said, “Just push the reset button. ”
So I went to God and asked, “If you’re such a great creator, why didn’ t you
give us a reset button. ” God answered, “I did give you a reset button,
Bernie. It’ s called pain and suf fering. ” It is only through pain that we
change. It can be dif ficult to see our loved ones hurting but not changing. Our job is to love them. It is their pain that changes them, not our sermon. Finding the ability to love requires giving up the fear, anguish, and
despair that many people nurture. Many people have a lifetime of
unresolved angers circulating through their minds and causing new stress
with each recall. Confronting them and letting go of them involves honestly
facing your own part in the problem, and for giving yourself as well as the
others you’ve resented and feared. If you do not for give, you become like
your enemy. The children with whom Jerry Jampolsky works have expressed the
lesson of transcendence superbly in the conclusion of a book they wrote
together, called There Is a Rainbow Behind Every Dark Cloud:
 
In summary, we think that your mind can do anything. You can learn to
control your mind and decide to be happy “inside” with a smiling heart, in
spite of what happens to you on the “outside. ”
Whether you are sick or well, when you give help and love to others, it
makes you feel warm and peaceful inside. We learned that, when you give
love, you receive it at the same time. And letting go of the past and for giving everyone and everything sure
helps you not be afraid. Remember that you are love. So let your love expand, and love yourself
and everyone. When you love and really feel joined with everyone,
everything, and with God, you can feel happy and safe inside. And don’ t forget, when you have total Faith that we are always
connected to each other in love, you will surely find a rainbow on the other
side of any dark cloud. The phenomenal ener gy that can be liberated by surrendering our
negative emotions was described to me in a letter from Denise, a breast-
cancer patient who visited the congregation of a faith healer in Worcester,
Massachusetts. She wrote:
 
After his sermon, he said that each one would know in their heart if they
were the one to be called. He turned around to his audience of over 1500
people and said, “I have a strong experience with someone concerning a
rose. She has a disease in her chest area. ” I felt my insides move as I
recalled the night before while I was at dinner, when I took a fresh rose out
of the vase on our table, and smelled it. Someone had told me I had to take
time to smell the flowers of life. However, I didn’ t stand up. I thought it
couldn’ t be me. The healer then approached a woman who had stood up. Her name was
Rose, and she had breast cancer. He blessed her but said, “Y ou are not the
one I am experiencing. ”
He said, “She also has breast cancer, and is wearing a beige top. ” That
morning I had put on a pair of black slacks and a long-sleeved black blouse. Then I decided to put on my short-sleeved beige blouse as an overlay, felt
too fat, and took it of f, and then decided to put it back on again. At this point I stood up, and he called me down to the front of the
audience. He asked me about my illness, and as I stood there full of tears
and emotions, I shall never for get how his face looked. He didn’ t have any
eyes, just dark pools of infinity. As he anointed my forehead, he said, “ You
have to let go of your anguish. ” And with this, I experienced a bolt of
energy that passed through my body. I felt a scream come from my mouth,
and I fell toward the floor into the arms of the ushers behind me. This experience was a turning point for Denise. She began to be able to
set priorities for herself and make choices based on her own needs. She
used psychotherapy and chemotherapy, ended a relationship she felt to bedamaging to her, and sold her business, which had been a major source of
stress. Finally allowing herself to express a lifetime of pent-up anger,
frustration, and sadness, she cried for days, and found that for the first time
she was able to accept the child within her. At the end of her letter, she
wrote, “This was the first time I had ever given myself the privilege and
dignity to mourn my own pains and agonies. Now that all the debris has
moved from my soul, my [inner] child and I are one. I feel total integration,
self love, and for giveness. I need never judge others, for I no longer need to
judge myself. ”
Spirituality, unconditional love, and the ability to see that pain and
problems are opportunities for growth and redirection—these things allow
us to make the best of the time we have. Then we realize that the present
moment is all we have, but it is infinite. We see that there is no real past or
future, and that as soon as we start thinking in terms of past and future—
regretting and wishing—we lose ourselves in judgemental thinking. In one
of the countries where people regularly live to be a hundred, people have a
saying: “Y esterday is gone, tomorrow isn’ t here yet, so what is there to
worry about. ”
Many people are able to let go of their fears and resentments only when
they are nearly dead. Several years ago Dr. Ellerbroek described one such
case in the following terms:
 
Her pelvis, bladder and rectum had been removed—until she seemed to
be nothing more than a bag of flesh draped over a skeleton that of fered
shelter not for internal or gans but for spreading tumors. She asked to be
allowed to die on the shore of a local lake. In those peaceful surroundings,
something happened; she jettisoned her anger and depression, her spirit,
like a balloon freed of useless weight, soared—and her tumors started to
shrink. She was cured. Later Ellerbroek reflected on this and similar cases with these words:
 
It is my primary belief that we were sold a big bill of goods when we
were little. We were taught that under certain circumstances it is appropriate
to be angry, and that under all circumstances it is appropriate to be
depressed. I’m here to say that in my own personal, solitary opinion—and
totally contrary to the beliefs of almost all the psychiatrists I know—Ibelieve that anger and depression are pathological emotions, that they are
immediately responsible for the vast majority of human ills, including
cancer. I have collected 57 extremely well documented so-called cancer
miracles. A cancer miracle is when a person didn’ t die when they
absolutely, positively were supposed to. At a certain particular moment in
time they decided that the anger and the depression were probably not the
best way to go, since they had such a little bit of time left, and so they went
from that to being loving, caring, no longer angry, no longer depressed, and
able to talk to the people they loved. These 57 people had the same pattern. They gave up, totally, their anger, and they gave up, totally, their
depression, by specifically a decision to do so. And at that point the tumors
started to shrink. (I use the word “resentment” instead of “anger,” because I think anger is
a normal emotion if it is expressed when felt. Then it is over with. If one
keeps a lid on it, it develops into resentment or hate. Sooner or later,
resentment and hate explode, destroying others, or they are held in,
destroying oneself. ) The transcendence described by Ellerbroek is precisely the essence of
the religious experience as it was described by Jung in Psychology and
Religion:
 
They came to themselves, they could accept themselves, they were able
to become reconciled to themselves and by this they were also reconciled to
adverse circumstances and events. This is much like what was formerly
expressed by saying: He has made his peace with God, he has sacrificed his
own will, he has submitted himself to the will of God. To those rationalists who ar gue that any such experience is a self-
delusion, Jung adds an especially apt reply:
 
Is there any better truth about ultimate things than the one that helps
you to live. This is the reason why I take carefully into account the symbols
produced by the unconscious mind. They are the only things able to
convince the critical mind of modern people. They are convincing for very
old-fashioned reasons. They are simply overwhelming, which is an Englishrendering of the Latin word “convincere. ” The thing that cures a neurosis
must be as convincing as the neurosis; and since the latter is only too real,
the helpful experience must be of equal reality. It must be a very real
illusion, if you want to put it pessimistically. But what is the dif ference
between a real illusion and a healing religious experience. It is merely a
difference in words. You can say, for instance, that life is a disease with a
very bad prognosis, it lingers on for years to end with death; or that
normality is a generally prevailing constitutional defect; or that man is an
animal with a fatally over grown brain. This kind of thinking is the
prerogative of habitual grumblers with bad digestions. Nobody can know
what the ultimate things are. We must, therefore, take them as we
experience them. And if such experience helps to make your life healthier,
more beautiful, more complete and more satisfactory to yourself and to
those you love, you may safely say: “This was the grace of God. ”
 
Ellerbroek has concluded that patients with far advanced cancer must be
near death before the turnaround can happen, but I know from my
experience that people can change at any time. The earlier it occurs in the
course of a disease, the greater the chances of recovery. If a person takes the
spiritual path before becoming sick, he or she becomes practically
invulnerable to disease and misfortune—at least in the psychological sense,
and very often in the physical sense. As Norman Cousins wrote after his
self-cure of ankylosing spondylitis, “I have learned never to underestimate
the capacity of the human mind and body to regenerate, even when the
prospects seem most wretched. ”
Dr. Granger Westber g, founder of numerous Wholistic Health Care
Centers, in which doctors, nurses, and ministers work as a team, believes
that the illnesses of about half to three-fourths of all patients originate in
problems of the spirit rather than in breakdowns of the body. As he phrases
it, the physical symptoms are often only the “tickets of admission” to a
process of self-discovery and spiritual change. To begin that true healing,
each of us must make the leap of faith described by French poet Guillaume
Apollinaire, who once wrote:
Come to the edge. No, we will fall. Come to the edge.
The author is concerned that the results may be skewed due to self-selection, as some members had already exceeded predictions before joining the group.
What is the author's concern about the ECaP study's results?
The author prefers to focus on individuals and effective techniques, rather than relying solely on statistics.
What is the author's approach to dealing with patients?
The author believes that love is incredibly powerful and can be a source of healing and redemption, and that it is essential to cultivate self-love and forgiveness.
What is the author's view on the concept of love?
The author believes that forgiveness is essential for healing and that it is not about ignoring or condoning the actions of others, but rather about releasing negative emotions and choosing to love.
What is the author's opinion on the concept of forgiveness?
The author believes that death is not a failure, but rather a natural part of life, and that it is essential to choose to live each day with faith and trust in the universe.
What is the author's perspective on the concept of death?