Question for Bernie
I listened to your Hay House interview, and you spoke a lot about cancer and autoimmune diseases. Do you have any experience with healing ALS?
Bernie’s Answer
ALS is a challenge, but in summary, you need to love your life and body despite the limitations so that your body gets the “I want to live” message and so will work at healing. Energy healing is a very important approach that the whole family can learn to do.
Energy healers put their hands over the areas of the body, or directly on the areas of the body, that are dysfunctional and visualize the person they are healing being able to everything they did before the illness. Healers often concentrate especially on things that the person loved to do before their illness interfered. The healer’s hands act like cables bringing the universal healing energy directly into the areas of dysfunction.
Along with bringing healing energy to dysfunctional areas of the body, energy healing can also be used to get any repressed anger out. The healer again uses their hands, but they keep them hovering a few inches away from the patient and, following the outline of the body, stop intermittently and make a movement away from the body with their hands that indicates “throwing away” bad emotions and any other substances that are compromising health.
One of the most effective exercises anyone can do, and certainly a person with ALS can benefit from it, is to make a list of the words you would use to describe what it is like to have ALS. On another list, write down relationships and situations that could be described with the same negative words you used to describe having ALS. Look closely at the second list and resolve to eliminate those relationships and situations that are so negative in your life that they are directly interfering with the healing process.
For information about supplements that might help, check with www.lifeextension.com Also, find a naturopathic physician who can manage homeopathy, acupuncture, and other alternative treatments.
Peace,
Bernie
Reader’s Response
Thank you Bernie! The treatment is for my sister; she tries things out, but can’t seem to stick with any natural healing method. Her will is not strong and I guess I’m having a harder time accepting this diagnosis than she is. When I talk with her about some of these things, she looks at me with “deer-in-the-headlights” eyes. I’m sending her your download from Hay House and maybe it will plant a seed.
Bernie’s Comment on Reader’s Response:
Don’t talk to your sister about your ideas and opinions. Instead, listen to her. She needs to hear what is within her and not your advice. It isn’t a question of the strength of her will, but just one of a personality that is more retiring than yours. Please let her know that what she has to say is the most important part of any conversation.
Tell her she can ask you for any help at any time, but that you will always be available just to listen to her. Suspend your judgment and resist the temptation to tell her what to do. Just be supportive as she comes to her own conclusions. When you allow her to hear herself talk, then she will know what she needs to do.
Peace,
Bernie
Question for Bernie
After getting a diagnosis of breast cancer which had spread into my lymph nodes, I was given one and a half years to live. Then, I attended your one-day seminar in Toronto. I learned that the amount of time you have (and no one escapes death) is not what counts—it is what you do with the time that is important. That was 23 years ago!! I have lived by that creed for the past 23 years and it has helped me to survive a colostomy, blood clots in both lungs, and a strangulated hernia. Now, at the age of 80, I am still active and traveling around Canada.
My question is—what can I do to help two of the most important people in my life to embrace your teachings? Both my daughter and my best friend have been through near-death experiences recently, and although they have come through them, they are still very weak and convinced that they have cancer and are dying. I don’t think they believe in the power of the mind, so what can I do to help them?
Thank you so much for any help you can give me, and for opening my eyes to the joy and beauty of life.
Bernie’s Answer
To help them discover just how much control they really have over their survival and the quality of their lives, you can give them two of my books as a gift. I recommend Love, Medicine & Miracles along with my newest, just out in September of this year—The Art of Healing: Uncovering Your Inner Wisdom and Potential for Self-Healing.
Tell them about my website at www.berniesiegelmd.com and go there with them to find other reading about the mind-body-spirit connection. If they ignore these resources, there isn’t anything you can do but love them.
You can be a life coach if they are willing to show up for practice, but if they aren’t willing to make the effort, your love and example may change their minds in time.
Bless you,
Bernie
Question for Bernie:
Thank you, Bernie, for all of the time and help you have given me with my questions over the last few months. One problem remains unsolved. It is my relationship with my mother. It is a very long story. I will try to make it short.
I never felt “right” from when I was a child up until now. I felt like I grew up as an orphan, or even worse, as if I had to be the “mother” to my own mother. But however hard I tried to do all what she wanted, it did not make any difference. She complained all the time about everything and seemed to be unhappy all the time. It also did not seem to help that she had a husband—my father. She complained to me about him, too. Nothing changes after he died (18 years ago).
I managed for some time to just keep contact to a minimum, which helped me. Unfortunately, she just interpreted it as proving her point that I was never “there” for her and didn’t care. She is now 86 years old and, of course, she complains about age-related weaknesses, etc. I still do a lot for her and so does my sister, but as I said, it is never right and never enough.
She phones me at work, at night, or whenever something comes up. She cries on the phone and becomes abusive about nonsense like not being able to find the paper immediately, or that the temperature in her flat is not right. I tried to explain to her that with a fulltime job and a family, I cannot always just come running to do things—that we have to plan a bit in advance. For example, I phone her to ask what she needs from the shops when I go shopping and, inevitably, she says “nothing.” Then, when I get home after shopping, she calls to say, “I don’t feel good enough to go shopping. Can you come?” (and she means within the hour). The same thing happens with visits to the doctor or dentist, bank, etc. When I say, “No, I can’t come today. Can I come tomorrow?” she becomes abusive, shouts at me that no one cares, and says that everyone gets help but her, and then she starts crying.
I started not answering the phone simply because I have reached the limit of my ability to take any more. But then, there is this voice nagging inside telling me that she is old, maybe I should do more, it is not right not to answer the phone, etc., etc., and I feel terrible. I get incredibly angry at myself and the whole situation. This has been going on for years, but has gotten worse over the last eight months because she had to move. Her block of flats got sold, but she is only 50 meters from where she was. She does not want to adapt to the new situation. She is in a newly renovated flat now. Instead of being thankful and happy that she is still in the same area and her new flat is renovated, everything is crap.
I can understand that it is difficult to get old and weak, although she is still able to do all of her own housework. What I cannot accept anymore is her behavior. I told her this, but she just tells me that I have no idea what she goes through, and that I will see for myself one day just how horrible everything is when one is old and no one cares. She has become a spiteful, manipulative, and sad woman, but what can I say? She always was that way, even in her younger days. I feel trapped, unable to free myself from a relationship that is unhealthy and unhelpful for both of us.
Thank you so much, Bernie.
Bernie’s Answer
The only approach that works in a relationship like the one you describe between you and your mother is to stop trying to reason with her and stop trying to problem solve. Instead, what she needs is to hear herself talk. Then there is a chance she will be able to realize that her negativity drives people away.
Listen to her talk and respond by saying only “mmmmmm….” If you respond with any more than that, she will have a target for her negativity. It is fine for you to say “No” to things you cannot do for her, but each time you do, add “I love you.”
She isn’t the problem now—your thoughts are. You are spending far too much time thinking about the difficulty of dealing with her, and going over again and again the years of having a strained relationship. Let go of all that negativity. By setting that example for her, she might learn to be kind to herself and others by not filling her life with negativity.
But whatever she does, you can only control your own behavior, so stop participating in negative conversations. Instead, when she becomes abusive or cries, just tell her that you love her. That’s all you need to say. Even if she says something back that is hurtful, you can totally defuse it so it doesn’t hurt you, and you can feel good about yourself again knowing that she only hears these positive words from you—“I love you.” Again, even if you tell her honestly that you cannot do something for her, always add “I love you.”
And call her now and then just to say, “I love you” and ask “How are you?” and then listen. One of my favorite quotes is about how important it is for us to really listen to another person—it is so important. Remember this,
“Deafness is darker by far than blindness.”
~Helen Keller