Bernie Siegel
You can survive tough situations and even turn them to your advantage by acting as if you are the person you want to be. When you act like that person, you can become that person. The hard parts are deciding whom you want to become, being willing to rehearse until you become that person, and forgiving yourself until you do.
I decided to become a surgeon named Bernie who writes books and gives seminars to teach people what he has learned and is still learning about how to deal with life's difficulties.
I have always made a distinction between healing and curing. To me, 'healed' represents a condition of one's life; 'cured' relates strictly to one's physical condition. In other words, there may be healed quadriplegics and AIDS patients, and cured cancer patients who are leading unhealthy lives.
Patients want to be seen as people. For me, the person's life comes first; the disease is simply one aspect of it, which I can guide my patients to use as a redirection in their lives. When doctors look at their patients, however, they are trained to see only the disease.
I am convinced that unconditional love is the most powerful known stimulant of the immune system. If I told patients to raise their blood levels of immune globulins or killer T cells, no one would know how. But if I can teach them to love themselves and others fully, the same changes happen automatically. The truth is: love heals.Collection: Love
One's attitude towards oneself is the single most important factor in healing and staying well.Collection: Attitude
Be grateful simply for being alive. When you are grateful for life, pure and simple, your life becomes one you can be grateful for. That may strike you as circular or even backward logic, but your attitude really does have an effect on how things work out. When you can't change your life any other way, you can still change your attitude. When you do, your life changes. You find more chances to love, and you will be surprised to see how much more love is returned to you.Collection: Thanksgiving
Love releases incredible energy that promotes the biochemistry of healing.Collection: Healing
If you watch how nature deals with adversity, continually renewing itself, you can't help but learn.Collection: Encouragement
You cannot fail at being yourself. A cat doesn't try to be a tiger, and you shouldn't try to be something you aren't. You are a process, not a product. Your job is to discover what you are and create that creature. You still won't be perfect, but success isn't about perfection-it is about authenticity. You are a success if you are being your real, authentic self.Collection: Success
Diseases can be our spiritual flat tires - disruptions in our lives that seem to be disasters at the time but end by redirecting our lives in a meaningful way.Collection: Meaningful
Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.Collection: Opportunity
Thoughts are chemical. They can either kill us or cure us.Collection: Chemicals
It is astounding how much the immune system is strengthened by reducing daily mental stress levels with either visualization or meditation. The other great tonic for the immune system is love—loving ourselves as well as others.Collection: Stress
I believe that we are here to contribute love to the planet - each of us in our own wayCollection: Believe
God wants us to know that life is a series of beginnings not endings. Just as graduations are not terminations but commencements. Creation is an ongoing process and when we create a perfect world where love and compassion are shared by all suffering will cease.Collection: Compassion
We destroy ourselves when we stop feeling. If you bury your feelings within you, you become a graveyard.Collection: Feelings
When you love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable, you’re free.Collection: Forgiving
Life is a labor pain; we are here to give birth to ourself.Collection: Pain
One cannot get through life without pain...What we can do is choose how to use the pain life presents to us.Collection: Motivational
Compliments are the helium that fills everyone's balloon; they elevate the person receiving them so he or she can fly over life's troubles and land safely on the other side.Collection: Positive
What thoughts are so important that it is worth holding on to them even when they make you miserable? Why are you holding on? You are in charge of your thoughts and feelings. If you are willing to search for the reason that you can't let go of disturbing thoughts, you can learn about yourself and restore your own peace of mind.Collection: Letting Go
Love is giving with no expectations...Love cures, heals, and rewards two people: the lover and the beloved.Collection: Love
It's hard to carry a child around with you, but fortunately, in most cases, you don't have to ask a child for directions if you have a well-chosen role model ready to guide you. This is the next prescription: Take one role model, as often as needed. Set aside a few minutes today to fill this prescription so you will have it handy when you need it. Think now about who your role models have been. What do they offer? Who else do you admire, and exactly what do you admire about them? Have your roster of role models ready and waiting to help you the next time you are perplexed.Collection: Children
When you embrace the mystery and open yourself to it, a new life is created, resistant to the old problems. You will notice at times that the new life isn't what you asked for. But asking for specific items or for particular events to occur isn't how I define prayer. I cannot guarantee that the orders you place with God will always be filled. Prayer is not a test of God, but a call for help to find your inner strength and talent.Collection: Prayer
The fundamental problem most patients have is an inability to love themselves, having been unloved by others during some crucial part of their lives.Collection: Love
I love how Mother Theresa said she wouldn't attend an anti-war rally but if there was a peace rally to call her. So I realized it's not about waging a war against everybody's disease and diagnosis but rather about helping them live.Collection: Mother
If God came in and said, I want you to be happy for the rest of your life, what would you do?Collection: Happiness
To paraphrase something the anthropologist Ashley Montagu once said, the way I change my life is to act as if I'm the person I want to be. This is, to me, the simplest, wisest advice you can give anyone. When you wake up and act like a loving person, you realize not only that you are altered, but that the people around you are also transformed, because everybody is changed by the reception of this love.Collection: Love You
There is no such thing as an incurable disease, only incurable people.Collection: People
Remember this: Now is the only time you have. When God created the universe, it was now. You can't say to creation and energy, "I'll do it later, not now." Later doesn't exist. Creation doesn't know anything but now. Whenever you get around to doing what you want to do, it will be now. The things you need to do to live a happier, more fulfilling life-the only time you can possible start doing them is now.Collection: Energy
People have taught me what most doctors don't learn, in other words, when somebody does better than expected, the doctor will tell them they're doing very well and to keep it up. I learned to say, "You didn't die when you were supposed to so what's going on?", and they always had a story to tell me.Collection: Doctors
Do not be afraid to love. Remember dear old Don Quixote, viewing the world with love. He saw many beautiful things no one else saw. Try being dear Don Quixote for a day. You'll see that love improves your vision and allows you to see more than your eye has ever seen before. But be forewarned: Those who look on the world with love will need a handkerchief, not to use as a blindfold, but to blow their nose and dry their tears.Collection: Love
Bobby and I were married in 1954 and by now we know that anger does not mean "I don't love you" or "I want a divorce." It means, "I am wounded and in need of love, and I feel safe telling you about it because you are my family." Sometimes our behavior with each other is no different from the cry of an unattended baby.Collection: Baby
As one woman told me, "When I decided to come in to work happy, everybody around me became happy." This woman had decided to quit a job she hated, and on the last day of her two weeks' notice, she woke up happy. At the end of the day, she noticed that everybody around her was happy, too- so she didn't quit after all. She decided to come to work happy instead. Two years later, she's still on the job, radiating happiness and love.Collection: Jobs
It's not about curing the disease, but healing the life; then the physical benefits come.Collection: Healing
No matter what the statistics say there is always a way.Collection: Statistics
When guilt rears its ugly head confront it, discuss it and let it go. The past is over. It is time to ask what can we do right, not what did we do wrong. Forgive yourself and move on.Collection: Happiness
Life is full of painful events, and people who have lost their way and hurt others. Our pain is not lessened when we respond with hatred. In fact, the opposite occurs: When we hate people who hurt us, we come to resemble what we hate, or worse, and then we suffer all the more. What is evil is our response. We have choices, and love is the most powerful eliminator of all.Collection: Hurt
Hoping means seeing that the outcome you want is possible and then working for it.Collection: Hope
Live by your experience and do not let limited beliefs alter your life experience.Collection: Belief
For me, a lovely day is any day I wake up.Collection: Gratitude
Act as if you are the person you want to be.Collection: Want
Studies of volunteers have shown there is a benefit to performing acts of love for other people. The irony is that it is actually in your best interest to be selfless. The things you do for the benefit of others not only make you feel fulfilled, they increase your chances of living a long and happy life. Remember that an act of love always benefits at least two people.Collection: Happy Life
Refusal to hope is nothing more than a decision to die.Collection: Hope
What if Jesus was the only normal person who ever lived?Collection: Jesus
Anything that offers hope has the potential to heal.Collection: Heal
When you accept that you are not in charge of everything, you can begin to work with the one who really is in charge. This has been my experience; when I accepted that I was not in charge and started to work with someone else's plan, the Boss showed up. Now we are a team and I have less to be concerned about. He organizes my schedule. I just follow it, and when He is taking a day off my wife steps in.Collection: Team
Life is an opportunity to contribute love in your own way.Collection: Love