It's not about curing the disease, but healing the life; then the physical benefits come.
Bernie SiegelRead
If you see what you do each day as your way of loving the world and helping it heal, then life gets to be a lot different. The difference between burning up and burning out is the difference between loving what you are doing and not loving it.
Interpretation
Viewing daily actions as an expression of love can transform your experience of life and work.
This quote by Bernie Siegel emphasizes the profound impact of perspective on how we approach our daily tasks. When we engage in our work and actions with love and a desire to contribute positively to the world, our experiences become more fulfilling and meaningful. In contrast, a lack of love in what we do can lead to burnout and dissatisfaction, highlighting the importance of finding joy and purpose in our endeavors.
In practice
In a motivational speech about finding passion in your career.
It's not about curing the disease, but healing the life; then the physical benefits come.
Diseases can be our spiritual flat tires - disruptions in our lives that seem to be disasters at the time but end by redirecting our lives in a meaningful way.
It is astounding how much the immune system is strengthened by reducing daily mental stress levels with either visualization or meditation. The other great tonic for the immune system is love—loving ourselves as well as others.
I truly feel the best doctors are ones who are criticized by nurses, patients and family. They do not make excuses and learn from their mistakes.
Part of my evolution has been to learn how painful most people's childhoods are. They grow up not liking themselves, not loving themselves. Ask people if they were lovable the minute they were born, and watch them sit back and have to think about it. One lady said, 'I suppose so.' That's painful.
Being a survivor doesn't mean being strong - it's telling people when you need a meal or a ride, company, whatever. It's paying attention to heart wisdom, feelings, not living a role, but having a unique, authentic life, having something to contribute, finding time to love and laugh. All these things are qualities of survivors.
Everything grows rounder and wider and weirder, and I sit here in the middle of it all and wonder who in the world you will turn out to be.
The hardest thing, I think, is to live richly in the present, without letting it be tainted & spoiled out of fear for the future or regret for a badly-managed past.
That larger story in 'Salvage the Bones' is just about survival, and I think that, in the end, there are things about this novel and about these characters' experiences that make their stories universal stories.
I guess I just process death differently than some folks. Realizing you're not going to see that person again is always the most difficult part about it. But that feeling settles, and then you are glad you had that person in your life, and then the happiness and the sadness get all swirled up inside you.
One of the very first things I figured out about life...is that it's better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you're hopeful, you have more fun.
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
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