Healing Happens: When You Live - Part 1

This is an excerpt from an interview for the book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds. 

Avital:         We have on the line Dr. Bernie Siegel. He has transitioned from being a pediatric
surgeon to running support groups, and considers himself in a way now a life coach. He has written about 14 books, and of them most noted for his very first book Love, Medicine and Miracles.

                   He developed a therapy program called exceptional cancer patients and that’s
where he utilizes their drawings, dreams, images, and feelings to create a system of care-frontation. He is also known as one of the top 20 spiritually influential people living on the planet by Watkins Review.

Avital:         What do you think someone can say to a loved one who has cancer and is not
looking beyond the traditional medical treatment for healing?

Bernie:        My mind was once just a doctor's mind. Okay, this is what’s going to happen in my
life.

Many years later one of our children at age seven said to me, “I need an x-ray.”

I said, “What are you talking about?” This fascinated me too.

He said, “My knee hurts.”

I said, “Yeah. I’ve been telling you take a hot bath and it’ll feel better.”

“No, I need an x-ray.”

Now what would make a seven year old insist? That’s that inner wisdom speaking to him. We got an x-ray and he had a bone tumor. Now the x-ray looked like it was a malignant tumor. They’ll be cutting his leg off and then he’ll probably die in a year or two because I’ve been telling him to take a bath instead of treating it. I was feeling guilty and awful knowing we’re going to lose a child.

The next day after I came home and told my family about the x-ray. I have five children so I told the family, my wife.

He came to me and he said “Dad.”

“What is it?”

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“You’re handling this poorly.”

A seven-year-old became my therapist. “What do you mean?”

He said, “Look, we’re trying to have a nice day and play in the front yard, and you want us in our bedroom depressed, worrying about next year. We want to have a nice time today, we’re not worrying about next year.”

Yeah, he taught me a hell of a lot.

Avital:         That's great! And what happened with your son?

Bernie:        He is fine. Turned out to be a benign tumor, osteoid osteoma, which is very
painful. Eight years later my wife had an abnormal mammogram and had cancer. I just thought... to be continued. 

To learn more about the book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds, and discover more inspirational stories and transformative health and healing tips, please visit: http://www.healinghappensbook.com/

To connect with Dr. Bernie Siegel, please visit http://berniesiegelmd.com/.