I was something of a health nut in my youth, when the word “organic” was not yet even in the common vocabulary. Alternative healing fascinated me and I read every book I could find on the subject.
Sometimes I asked myself, why am I reading all these books about healing when I don’t need them?
Eventually, I came across Dr. Bernie Siegel’s book, Love, Medicine, and Miracles. It was about the power of love and the mind’s influence to heal the body and even produce unexpected cures, or miracles. In the 1980’s, the book was considered pretty out-there, but I thought it made perfect sense and I found it very inspiring.
Fast forward a few decades to when I find myself struggling with severe Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, a very debilitating condition with intense nerve pain, migraines, and other difficult symptoms. Nothing the medical community had to offer helped - not the medications and not the treatments.
But something of Bernie Siegel’s ideas must have stayed with me, because I began looking for my own path to healing through changing my perceptions of pain, changing my beliefs about what was possible, and, instead of hating my pain, sending it love.
The book that resulted from all this is coming out in a few weeks, and guess who my editor found to write the foreword?
Yes, that’s right, Dr. Bernie Siegel.
For me, that’s it’s own little miracle.
Sometimes I asked myself, why am I reading all these books about healing when I don’t need them?
Eventually, I came across Dr. Bernie Siegel’s book, Love, Medicine, and Miracles. It was about the power of love and the mind’s influence to heal the body and even produce unexpected cures, or miracles. In the 1980’s, the book was considered pretty out-there, but I thought it made perfect sense and I found it very inspiring.
Fast forward a few decades to when I find myself struggling with severe Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, a very debilitating condition with intense nerve pain, migraines, and other difficult symptoms. Nothing the medical community had to offer helped - not the medications and not the treatments.
But something of Bernie Siegel’s ideas must have stayed with me, because I began looking for my own path to healing through changing my perceptions of pain, changing my beliefs about what was possible, and, instead of hating my pain, sending it love.
The book that resulted from all this is coming out in a few weeks, and guess who my editor found to write the foreword?
Yes, that’s right, Dr. Bernie Siegel.
For me, that’s it’s own little miracle.
Sarah Anne Shockley believes that writing can be a deeply transformative process for both author and reader. She has published books on travel and living with chronic pain. Her latest book, The Pain Companion, will be released by New World Library, June 2018. She is currently working on a YA magical realism novel set in Guatemala. |