An Interview With Bernie Siegel, MD

     
I am so thrilled to have had the chance to interview Dr. Bernie Siegel (Bernie as he prefers) regarding his new book, “Faith Hope and Healing” and his life’s work.

CM: You have written so many exceptional books; your recent book “Faith Hope and Healing” is a collection of first-person accounts where you bring together almost three dozen cancer patients to share their stories and the lessons they’ve learned. Can you share a personal experience of someone whose lesson has touched you deeply?

BS: I met a young woman named Sue Ann. She has cerebral palsy, meaning that she has no control over the motions of any parts of her body. To talk to her, you need an interpreter to listen to her grunts and groans, to read her lips and tell what she’s saying.  In order to send you a letter she needs to be tied in the chair and gagged, so she doesn’t drool and bang into the word processor.  She types with her nose. She says she got a new machine recently that might work with her toe. That’s the courage it takes for her to send you a letter. She’s thirty-eight years old. She has also developed cancer. Her parents have died and she is finding it more than difficult to continue living in her body and her situation. But her comment wasn’t “Do you have Jack Kevorkian’s phone number?” her comment was, “I’ve decided I’m gonna play until I die.”

That’s the kind of people I’m talking about. She inspires me. When she sent me a Christmas card, which is made up of a page long poem that she wrote, the last line was “Let’s spend Christmas with Jesus, helping people less fortunate than we.” I think that’s the part that you begin to realize these people are fortunate, beautiful, loving people. Her life is about teaching you to love and to have joy, not to just survive because somebody else is in tougher shape than you are. And, I’d say, over and over, all these people are just living each day; they’re not trying not to die, they’re trying to contribute to life, and just live NOW.
 
CM: How does it feel to know that through your writings and teachings you have been able to help millions of people around the world.
BS:  Yeah. I’m beginning to understand how many people I’ve helped. I’m amazed at how many people recognize me, like when I’m out jogging, and start talking to me as they’re walking by, or driving by, and they know who I am. In airports, and in other places, people start talking about very personal matters, and about loved ones who have cancer or whatever, and I realize -- or I’m beginning to -- how many people we have touched.

For physicians particularly, I recommend to them to let their wounds show. We’re all wounded.  We’re all in some pain. If we share the pain and work together and learn from each other, then some beautiful things happen. That is what life is about. Joseph Campbell said, "We’re here to participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world."  And that’s pretty much the way I feel about life.  It’s full of pain, difficulties, and sorrow, but there are also wonderful moments of joy. And if you choose joy, you can have far more of those moments.

CM: You’re a big proponent of doctors spending more time with patients, aren’t you?
BS: Yes. It drives me nuts when I read medical journals. . . whatever the complaint, boom, here’s a prescription. In the ads the doctor never says “Sit down and tell me what’s happening.” It’s always “Take this pill.” You go into a doctor’s office and the doctor asks “What’s your chief complaint?” So you start complaining, and saying what’s wrong with you. But what if the doctor said, “How may I help you?” Then you could discuss what’s going on in your life, or even why it is bothering you. I learned to ask people, “What are you experiencing?” Then I’d know what you’re going through. Emotional words come out of people when you listen. A headache is described as a burden or pressure. It’s something sucking away at you, a failure. So then we can look at what’s the pressure, or the burden, and I can help the person heal their life, which then provides physical benefits also.  I try to treat the experience, not just the diagnosis.

CM: So within this experience, you perceive soul, mind, and emotions as all one entity?

BS: I think they’re all tied together. We are a unit, so I don’t think these can be separate. We have gotten so used to paying attention to the external (like our body and what shows up in the mirror), and we forget what’s going on at the soulful, spiritual, heart-level. People get so into their head. I like to say that “we don’t act like human beings, we act like human doings.” We get too much into the physical, but the body is really there to make the deeper, soulful, spiritual stuff meaningful by performing acts. It’s not just something you have in your mind.


CM: So do you have a suggestion for helping people connect with their spiritual heart-level, as you say?

BS: One of my exercises is about that. I tell people that when they take a walk or sit quietly, they should really try and be with their own thoughts. I think that being quiet is the loudest noise I have ever heard. I mean total silence:  being away from everything, with no airplane going over head, or animals chirping, or other people making noise, just totally alone. The first time I did that I thought my head was going to explode because I was left with just MYSELF. If you’re off in a quiet isolated area away from all kinds of mechanical things, you have to pay attention to what’s going on within you, and you begin to hear voices and things spoken to you, and incredible wisdom surfaces. The intellect is moved aside and the lid is taken off what I call your “treasure chest.” Stuff comes up from your heart and soul.

CM: You’ve written that death is our greatest teacher because we all have a limited time to live. Are you saying that we should live each day as if it’s our last?

BS: It’s not a bad idea. I think it’s vital that we accept our mortality. In fact, when I’m on radio and TV, I always tell the person who introduces me not to forget to say we’re running out of time, at the end of the program. This is because I like to say to the audience:
Don’t forget folks, “you’re all going to run out of time.” So how do you use your time? I once said to my son, ‘If you had 15 minutes to live what would you do?” He said, “I’d buy a quart of chocolate ice cream and eat it.’ So what’s your chocolate ice cream? Go live with that. Don’t deny your mortality, but go live with chocolate ice cream and watch what happens.” When people accept their mortality, they may move to a place where they really want to live, or they may change their job, because so many of us give up our lives to please everybody else. When you realize you’re mortal, you start doing what makes YOU happy. That goes back to the soulful stuff. A big part of that is learning to say NO to what you don’t want to do. Most people have a hard time with that.  People don’t realize they’re saying no to themselves by saying yes to all the things they don’t want to do. Don’t wait until the doctor says you have six months to live to give yourself permission to sit on the beach, or paint a picture, or work in the garden. Go do it now! I don’t judge people; I just try to make sure it’s THEIR chocolate ice cream that they’re choosing.

CM: What do you think the future of healing will bring?
BS: I hope it will bring us to love one another, to accept that we are all one family. Because if we don’t get together and do what’s good for the entire planet, we’ll all be eliminated. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but it may, knowing what people are like. But maybe at that moment we’ll all say, “We’ve got to get together and do what’s right for life and for creation.” That would make the difference. If every child grew up loved, we would not have to worry about the future. I mean that literally.

I leave your readers with this reflection on their own lives.
Ask yourself “What do I need to do to nourish myself.”