Our body loves us, but it needs to know we love our lives in order for it to do all it can to help us survive. The change in body energy activated by the love alters our internal chemistry and makes a difference. In many cases, this kind of miracle is damn hard work. But when you are willing to do the work, and live in your heart, magic can happen.
I have seen innumerable cases of “miracle healings” in my life and practice. Here is one of the stories that has inspired me.
Surrender to Survive, by Sue Memhard
I was a two-time breast cancer survivor. Each time, a rather unusual physician named Dr. Bernie Siegel became center stage in my world. I listened to his tapes before, during, and after surgeries, and his words held me through chemo. He believed in miracles — and so did I. Due to serious side effects, I stopped chemo prematurely, refused radiation, and yet survived — for fourteen years.
To work with the healer I thought could help save my life, my husband and I abruptly left our long time home and our friends and family in Massachusetts, knowing we would not return. When I arrived in Denver last June, I wondered if I would see the month’s end. I came on faith — faith in the energy and spiritual cancer treatment I had chosen, faith in God and a conviction that now was simply not my time to leave. I was having an advanced, aggressive metastatic breast cancer recurrence. And I felt that somehow I would survive it.
Get The Latest By Email
“It’s never too late,” my healer had pronounced. I believed her. And so the journey began.
The chemo years before had created its own legacy of health problems, and I had developed severe chemical intolerances little understood by the medical profession. In recent years I largely avoided traditional medical care. Now, unable to undergo surgical anesthesia or chemo, I had no choice but to find a completely alternative way. Bernie’s enlightened teachings laid the foundation and gave me the courage to do so.
Working Miracles: Moving From "I Can't" to "I Can"
An energy and spiritual healer in Denver was the practitioner I trusted...a worker of miracles.
On my first day of “treatment,” I was directed to walk around the Denver Statehouse three times clock wise. This of course seemed ridiculous, and I was in significant pain from the then-advanced cancer. “You can do it,” we were cheerfully told. “You’ll understand later.”
So I did, limping, sweating, hanging onto Jim’s arm, and together we rejoiced in a feeble “I can.” Great, I thought, but how is this going to save me?
And then the first miracle happened: I was given time to find out.
Over the next weeks and months, my healer delivered powerful healing energy to my body in daily treatments. Together we uncovered lifetimes (yes, lifetimes) of trauma, negative beliefs, and emotions.
These were some of my (unconscious) beliefs:
It’s too hard.
I can’t.
I don’t deserve to heal.
Maybe God doesn’t love me.
My default emotional states all evolved from fear.
“This is a big project,” my healer pronounced.
When not in treatments, I made prescribed dietary changes, consumed endless amounts of wheatgrass and Essiac, took handfuls of supplements, received Chinese acupuncture, and most important, was taught kundalini yoga. As the yoga practice deepened, what I had been promised came true: it was sustenance to the body and soul, life-giving as air itself.
Yet, like a bad recurring dream, “I can’t” still whispered from the wings.
Surrendering to Partnership with God
There was that question of God. Where was (s)he? Why had this happened to me again? Did God love me — or just everyone else, more deserving than I? I had some big repairs to make in my thinking. Despite a lifetime of spiritual seeking, despite my “belief” in miracles, the surprising truth was I had lost my faith as a child.
“God was there,” I was reminded. “It was you who left.”
I realized I had begun to surrender to partnership with God from the time I’d agreed to circle the Denver Statehouse three times when we first arrived. We tackled fear and its related negative emotions. How can fear coexist with God inside? I began to be aware of its pervasiveness in my life.
Was there another way to be in the world? While these defensive, vigilant ways of relating to life were effective for childhood survival, they served no purpose now. In fact, they fed the cancer. When I was actually able to shift myself into happier internal places — love, enthusiasm, compassion, detachment, peacefulness, tolerance, patience, surrender — in spite of how my body felt, daily life, and my body, were better.
The Body Follows the Mind
“Focus always on the light and you will heal. The body will follow the mind.”
As I plowed through mental, emotional, and spiritual layers, my once-battered heart began to open. I felt light breathed into me and pain receding. The cancer tightness in my chest released.
I sent gratitude to every cell. Gratitude for miracles. Gratitude for my amazing, loving husband and daughter, and for their unquestioning support of my chosen unconventional healing path. Gratitude for this precious life.
But fear still lurked, and anger ran deeper than I thought. I needed to claim my innate empowerment, release an unconscious victim program. Finally, I understood at the deepest levels that childhood abuse and neglect necessitate forgiveness, acceptance, and letting go. Then nothing — including cancer — can have power over us.
Repeatedly I returned to surrender. The opposite of giving up, surrender to God’s light and grace is fundamental to the soul’s healing. Our precious little will and ego must bow to the Infinite! It seems so simple, so obvious, and yet so unattainable.
And then, one day, it isn’t.
My will is thy will.
The release in my body is real. The cancer cells are dying.
Cancer is a Bully from Our Past
Just over one year from the day we landed in Denver, I am looking out the window of our little rented house, marveling at the majestic front range, and contemplating all that has happened.
I have learned that cancer is a bully from our past. Like all dis-ease, it begins in the mind, emotions, and spirit, and appears later, often many years later, in the body. Yes, we can treat it with surgery, drugs, and other interventions to prolong life, but the soul longs for more.
For women, Mother Earth’s increasing distress is a deep wounding to our divine feminine nature, whether we are aware of it or not. Our breasts, symbols of motherhood and comfort, are in pain. I understand now that allowing my own or the world’s hurt to enter my body serves no one.
The Gifts Of Healing: Wholeness, Love, and Happiness
There are many gifts. This astonishing soul work has strengthened my faith in miracles and has created deep cellular healing. I am physically stronger and healthier than I’ve been in years, more conscious, loving, tolerant, peaceful...happy. Another miracle: The chemical sensitivities are nearly nonexistent.
For the first time in my life I feel whole. It took three times to get here, and I am a slow learner, but I’m healing. If it is meant to be, I will be completely well.
The truth is that my story can be anyone’s. When the soul is determined to heal, the body can follow, and what we call miracles can happen. As Bernie first taught me, our true nature is wholeness, love, and happiness — and is available to us all.
Making Choices Based on What You Have Faith In
Fear and love play a major role in all our lives. Fear is meant to protect us from danger, not make us ill. Fear can get you to run faster and escape a rabid animal, but if you live in fear of everything and every one, it will intensify stress and negatively affect your ability to heal. Love and laughter are what enhance healing, reduce stress, and increase our ability to heal. So let your heart make up your mind.
It is important to follow your faith and make choices based upon what you have faith in. That can include yourself, your God, your doctor, your treatments, and more. It’s not just doing what others prescribe for you, because when you do that, you give up your power. Every treatment has its side effects, but if you choose a treatment out of faith, the side effects are diminished and the treatment more beneficial. What the mind believes has a very powerful effect on the body.
©2011, 2014 by Bernie S. Siegel. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher,
New World Library, Novato, CA 94949. newworldlibrary.com.
This article is excerpted with permission from Chapter 4 (Miracle Healings) of the book:
A Book of Miracles: Inspiring True Stories of Healing, Gratitude, and Love
by Dr. Bernie S. Siegel.
Click Here For More Info or to Order This Book on Amazon.
About Bernie Siegel
Dr. Bernie S. Siegel, a sought-after speaker and media presence, is the author of many bestselling books, including Peace, Love and Healing: 365 Prescriptions for the Soul; and the blockbuster Love, Medicine & Miracles. For many, Dr. Bernard Siegel—or Bernie, as he prefers to be called—needs no introduction. He has touched many lives all over the Planet. In 1978, he reached a national and then international audience when he began talking about patient empowerment and the choice to live fully and die in peace. As a physician who has cared for and counseled innumerable people whose mortality has been threatened by illness, Bernie embraces a philosophy of living and dying that stands at the forefront of the medical ethics and spiritual issues our Society grapples with today. Visit his website at www.BernieSiegelMD.com
About Sue Memhard
Sue Memhard, M.Ed., was the Founder, Board President of The Emerald Heart Cancer Foundation. Sue was an internationally collected artist, poet, children's author and holistic counselor. She was a 3-time breast cancer survivor via conventional, complementary & alternative care, and a passionate advocate of choice in health care treatment. She lived from 1949 - 2011. Visit her work at www.emeraldheart.org and www.suememhard.com.
