“Thank You for Everything; I Have No Complaints Whatsoever”
An Interview with Bernie Siegel, MD
If life is a labor pain, the only question, says best-selling author, retired surgeon, and beloved armchair analyst Bernie Siegel, MD, is how many labor pains are we willing to endure to birth another baby?
Whether the baby in question is a child or an idea, the energy to keep fighting an illness, or the conscious decision to slow down, look, and listen, Seigel implores healers to become The Observer. He also suggests that patients should become more of a pain, asking all their health practitioners just as many questions and just as many times as they need to.
In his first career Seigel, the physician, noticed that the patients who get noticed are the ones who ask, “Oh, is that so?” and “Why would that be?” Realizing that they are the ones who decide what happens with their healthcare, to choose health may mean saying no more often than yes.
If you’re seeing a health practitioner, he suggests that you bring 'em something—maybe a rock from your yard, a feather or a flower. Anything can be a conversation piece, and the idea is to find ways to meet together and talk as peers.
If you're the practitioner, understand that your job is to present choices, ideas, and suggestions. Whether you’re a heart surgeon or an herbalist, help clients explore different paths rather than dragging them into your vision of life and living.
In Siegel's vernacular the doctor is out, and the coach is in. We're here to bring out the best in each other. If necessary, you may criticize or complain briefly, but only if it's helpful. If what you wish to give isn't accepted, don't knock yourself out.
The way we help to heal another is the same way we heal ourselves. We listen kindly and without judgment. We acknowledge the situation, front to back, and we expect to find something we can accept. We believe things can improve, sooner or later.
These are the building blocks of healing — healing from cellular dis-ease, from the spiritual contempt of war, from fearful emotional riptides whose surges could suddenly shape-shift and even gently change direction, slowly rippling back toward everything it touches. Everything we touch.
Siegel has an all-purpose mantra, a cure-all whose healing catalyst is appreciative acceptance: Thank You for Everything. I Have No Complaints Whatsoever.
The busy physician published his first book, the groundbreaking Love, Medicine and Miracles in 1986. His mission to humanize medical education and enlighten all healers to teach and to live the empowerment of mind/body/spirit balance, led him to write Peace, Love and Healing in 1989 — and to retire from conventional medicine.
In the 1990s Siegel wrote How to Live Between Office Visits and Prescriptions for Living, evolving into a gentle champion of the cancer survivors who dwell in the faith-full space between knowing and being.
With his wife Bobbie, a metaphysical teacher, the Siegels researched and documented hundreds of stories of exceptional cancer patients — a project she named ECaP — creating life-changing resources, inspiration, and infrastructure for a new wave of exceptional support groups.
Motivating millions of people with another decade of audio books, guided imagery, and meditation CDs, speaking at medical conferences, and church healing services throughout the world, in 2003 he co-authored Help Me to Heal and 365 Prescriptions for the Soul. Last year Smudge Bunny was written to “help children find the blessing in the curse.”
And now as a splendid holiday surprise, New World Library introduces Siegel’s 101 Exercises for the Soul: A Divine Workout Plan for the Body, Mind and Spirit.
Holistic Times caught up with this sprightly physician-turned-coach a few weeks after his keynote address for the American Holistic Medical Association (AHMA) annual conference in Philadelphia.
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HT: About 12 years ago your books predicted a fast evolving world view, in which we come to understand the quantum effects of individual and collective consciousness, a fanciful thought elevated into a widely accepted scientific fact. Popular literature has made mystical leaps, as works like The Celestine Prophecy further “materialized” with statistics, artifacts, and fables, as in our recent metaphysical documentary film epic, What the BLEEP Do We Know? In other words, it seems to me that your little plan is working!
HT: After several colleagues heard your AHMA lectures and your inspiring observations of why babies are perfect, the notion apparently followed us home and “came out to play” this fall, helping to influence the atmosphere and décor in some of our newly expanded and renovated office suites. So, let's talk first about kids — who you've said typically arrive here, one way or another, in perfect condition.
HT: Another great visual is to find photos where a proud parent protectively beholds their own soul-reflection in miniature, half-smiling like a Madonna. Kids come to us with no issues, no concerns, giving us witness to their pure, healing light.
HT: Drawing things out. Art therapy is a magic trick that you're famous for.
HT: And the ideas for healing that boost the body…
HT: In your new book, 20 chapter headings form the framework for a series of individual exercises. The individual coaching tips in chapters such as “Humor will help you finish,” and ”Pain is necessary,“ “Be an activist,” and “Emotional 911” could have been written, specifically, as antidotes to the challenges and after-shocks of this summer of natural catastrophes. I believe many of us keep feeling the anxiety of needing to DO SOMETHING but feeling helpless about not being able to do all that we would wish to do.
HT: We can rest and work. As your book says, all travelers need rest on their journey.
Mary Grace McCord
EDITOR’S NOTe: Dr. Bernie Siegel’s landmark life-text of healing, Peace, Love and Healing is part of CCNH’s graduate studies curriculum. |
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