BERNIE


By Bernie Siegel, MD


Waging a War Against Cancer vs.


Healing Your Life


peace rally let me know and I will attend.” We are not killers, consciously or unconsciously, and


W


yet when you listen to the language of medicine you hear words like poison, blast, kill, am- putate, destroy, eliminate, assault and more. Unfortunately, doctors are not taught how to communi- cate with patients, and so our own words induce negative side ef- fects. The words are coming from an authority and have a hypnotic influence. They tell you all the things that can go wrong but do not tell you what can go right. So wordswordswords are swordswordswords. Yes, they


become swords that can kill or cure just as a scalpel can. We should tell patients that their treatment is therapeutic and explain that there are possible side effects — but that they do not happen to everyone. The patients would go home with different feelings and options than they would if told of all of the side effects and none of the benefits. When given placebos patients have had their hair fall out and tumors shrink because they were told that is what would happen. We also have to remember that all the side effects of


cancer are not bad. There are blessings to be found in every curse. When accepting your mortality redirects your life, helps you to heal your life and find the ability to love, you will understand what I mean. Dave, a Quaker and friend of mine with cancer, went to


see his oncologist. His oncologist said to him, “I am going to kill your cancer.” Dave answered, “I’m a Quaker. I don’t kill anything.” And he walked out the door. Dave lived for twelve years doing alternative therapies. I do a lot of work with drawings and imagery and tried to get Dave to think of his immune system as soldiers or police cleaning out the cancer, but Dave could not work with those aggressive im- ages. His drawing shows his white cells carrying his cancer cells away. He wouldn’t hurt anything. When we focus on waging a war or fighting a battle ver-


sus healing our lives and bodies we are interfering with the healing process. Another patient I know had a large medi- astinal tumor and she was told by someone to imagine her white blood cells as dogs eating it up. Nothing happened. One day she shared that she was not comfortable being


6 Essential Living Maine ~ October 2014


hen asked to attend an anti–war rally, Mother Te- resa refused, responding to those requesting her attendance by saying, “But if you ever have a


aggressive and saw her tumor as a block of ice with God’s light melting it and then it literally began to melt away. I also saw in these drawings people showing God as


“What I want everyone to do is find your unique, authentic self and not live a role or a life imposed upon you by others.”


the source of radiation therapy and in the operating room, or holding them in the palm of His hand while they receive a bone marrow transplant. Studies show these patients are more likely to survive and have fewer side effects. I have also seen the horrendous side effects of radiation upon a woman who said, “When they put me in the room and shut the door it re- minded me of the gas chamber


in the concentration camp I had been in.” When our minds and bodies are involved in a battle,


our response is one of protection. That means we are pre- pared to run for our lives as our blood is diverted to parts of our brain and bodies that help us to escape. Stress hormone levels are elevated and immune function is suppressed dur- ing this time. When we are involved in healing and see life as a labor


pain of self birthing then the side effects are diminished and our body is reprogrammed to grow and heal as the stress level is reduced and immune function enhanced. What im- pressed me years ago — and has kept me involved in mind body work — was learning from the people who didn’t die when they were supposed to. Women live longer than men with the same cancers


and so do married men compared to single men. The rea- son for this is their relationships and connections. I knew a mother of nine who said, “I have nine kids and I can’t die until they are all married and out of the house.” Twenty three years later her ninth kid left home and her cancer came back. It amazed me that she could do that but sad that when she wasn’t a mother her life had no meaning. What I want everyone to do is find your unique, authentic self and not live a role or a life imposed upon you by others. Another patient of mine was a landscaper who devel-


oped stomach cancer when he retired. He delayed surgery, because it was spring, to go home and make the world beautiful, “So if I die I’ll leave a beautiful world.” When I told him post-operatively that I couldn’t remove all the cancer and he needed chemotherapy and perhaps radia- tion he said, “You forgot something. It’s still spring time; I am going home to make the world beautiful. So if I die I’ll leave a beautiful world.” John died at age ninety-four with no sign of cancer.


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