It's not about curing the disease, but healing the life; then the physical benefits come.
Bernie SiegelRead
I have learned to become not an M.D. but a 'C.D.' for the wounded people I meet. Yes, a 'Chosen Dad' who may not like their behavior but loves and reparents them and helps them to heal their lives and find self-worth and self-esteem and save their lives.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of nurturing and unconditional love in helping others heal and regain self-worth.
Bernie Siegel highlights the transformative power of love and support in the healing process. By positioning himself not as a medical doctor but as a 'Chosen Dad,' Siegel underscores the role of emotional connection and guidance in helping wounded individuals overcome their struggles. He advocates for nurturing relationships that foster self-esteem and personal growth, suggesting that compassion can be as vital as clinical intervention in the journey to recovery.
Themes
LoveHealingSupportSelf-WorthCompassion
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about mental health awareness, you might say, 'We all have a 'Chosen Dad' in our lives that shows us the power of unconditional love.'
More from Bernie Siegel
All quotes →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.
Bernie SiegelRead
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.
Bernie SiegelRead
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.
Bernie SiegelRead
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.
Bernie SiegelRead
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.
Bernie SiegelRead
Similar quotes
Two persons love in one another the future good which they aid one another to unfold.
Margaret FullerRead
Love, in the sense of spontaneous, unreflective action, spells the death of the old man.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?
Alain De BottonRead
Of all the rash and midnight promises made in the name of love, none, Boone now knew, was more certain to be broken than "I'll never leave you.
Clive BarkerRead
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Khalil GibranRead
O cold ! O shivery ! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let me off this once.
James JoyceRead