Question for Bernie:

My mother has been sick for many years on and off. It first started with breast cancer back when I was in high school. She beat it and was fine for about six years. Then for the past three years she has had different cancers on and off. It started with this weird lung cancer. . . I never quite understood, but apparently it was related to breast cancer (she doesn’t smoke). She actually hid it from my brother and me for a year, because she tried healing herself first. Ever since the first time she got cancer, she’s been working on herself, meditating, learning to love herself and her life, and even reading your books/listening to your CDs!

As I sit here drinking my sixth cup of java my best friend is walking sixty grueling miles across San Francisco with a gnarly head cold.  It’s hard for me to fathom putting foot to pavement like that when I have to motivate myself to rise and patter to the coffee pot each morn, but she’s been inspired to help put an end to breast cancer.  So, when Save the Ta-tas - an organization simply slathered in Awesome - asked me to be a guest blogger for Breast Cancer Awareness month I knew this was my unique chance to help women and earn a pink ribbon while still drinking my coffee.

As I described here, I don’t think it’s enough for us, as doctors and other health care providers, to aim for helping our patients get well. Yes, it’s critical to help people move from sick to well, but then what? So many of my patients go to their doctors, complaining from symptoms of this mojo-sapping epidemic that seems to be infecting the developed world. We feel fatigued, depressed, listless, unfulfilled. We suffer from decreased libido, lack of spiritual connection, insomnia, anxiety, and other vague symptoms.

Almost everyone has asked themselves this question at some point in our lives. Is there a bright light? Is St. Peter hanging out at the pearly gates? Do we get another go around as a reincarnated being?