365 PRESCRIPTIONS FOR THE SOUL

5 PRESCRIPTIONS & "Soulutions" from:
365 PRESCRIPTIONS FOR THE SOUL:
Daily Messages of Inspiration, Hope and Love
By Bernie Siegel, M.D.

Prescription #26
Turning Point

What if you gave someone a gift, and they neglected to thank you for it — would you be likely to give them another? Life is the same way. In order to attract more of the blessings that life has to offer, you must truly appreciate what you already have.
— Ralph Marston, The Daily Motivator

A gentleman I was talking to on the phone related that his doctor and the EMR team had told him his heart stopped beating and he had died at least five times during surgery. He concluded our conversation by saying, “I used to have troubles, but now I have only blessings.” His outlook clearly had been turned around by this experience.
I meditate each day, and one portion of the meditation consists of my thinking about what I am grateful for. Most of us never stop to consider our blessings; rather, we spend the day only thinking about our problems. But since you have to be alive to have problems, be grateful for the opportunity to have them. Some people use their problems to get attention and are afraid to give them up and be blessed. I prefer to appreciate life and accept my problems as a part of my life.

When my body gets to the point where I can no longer function or feel gratitude, then I’ll leave it and become grateful again. But until then, I will appreciate what I have and not whine about what I don’t have. I will feel blessed by life and the opportunity to help others see that they are blessed too. Blessings come in many shapes and sizes. Be prepared, as my gentleman caller was.

Soulution of the Day
What gifts have I failed to see before me?
Don’t wait for a disaster to awaken you to the things
you can be grateful for today.

Prescription #28
Hope

“Hope” is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —
— Emily Dickinson

Hope restores us. What each of us hopes for will differ and change with time. I believe we need hope to go on living. Hope inspires us to reach for the future. It gives us something to look forward to and strive for on our path.

If we had no hope — for a cure, for winning the lottery, for falling in love, for the end of war, for being free of abuse, or for having food, warmth, clothing, and shelter — we would have no reason to go on. What you hope for doesn’t matter, but rather the essence of hope itself.
I see people who die a few minutes after a doctor tells them there is no hope of a cure. They give up and go. Others get angry and find joy in proving the doctor wrong. Something within them is challenged and hopeful. Hope is the divine motivator.

Soulution of the Day
Allow the bird of hope to perch on a branch
of the tree of life and never stop singing.

Prescription #33
Guidance and Friendship

Friendship is the golden thread
that ties all hearts together.
— Anonymous

One day Marilyn, one of our support group members, sent me an email with the subject line guidance. In her email, she told me that the word dance being a part of the word guidance made her think about how dancing is like doing God’s will. Two people dancing are not struggling with each other; one leads and the other willingly follows. When the two become a team their movements flow in harmony with each other.

When she looked back at the word she saw the G as representing God and then U and I. So guidance is about God, you, and I dancing together. When you are willing to trust and believe, guidance comes. I believe the rhythm we should all be dancing to comes from our Creator. It allows us to move as a team while creating our unique dance of life.

The thoughts she related in her email made me think about
the word friendship as well. We are all sailing through the waters of life, which are sometimes turbulent and stormy and sometimes calm with the breeze at our backs. But no matter what the sailing conditions are, doing it with friends makes it easier.

So when you set sail, remember to bring some friends along. When things get rough you’ll have the supporting crew who will help you through the storms, and when the wind fills your sails you’ll have someone to share the joyful journey with.

Soulution of the Day
Sail through life knowing your guidance comes from the eternal compass, which knows the direction you must sail to return to your home port.

Prescription #364
New year’s resolutions

I don’t want to make any resolutions.
I want to keep my old regrets.
— Lucy, from Peanuts

It is not a bad thing to make a New Year’s resolution, but
you can also continuously set yourself up to fail. Be realistic and
forgiving. The best resolution is to accept your limitations and start from there. Resolve not to give up on yourself, and to love yourself, even when you don’t like your behavior.
It is, as Lucy says, far easier to live with the old regrets and problems than to change. So resolve to practice doing what you have resolved, rather than achieving sainthood tomorrow.
As you write down your resolutions, remember these things:
Be kind; do not set yourself up for failure by creating multiple
resolutions that involve too much self-denial. Keep your goals manageable and realistic. The best resolutions leave one day of the week to enjoy being human and not living by any rules or expectations you have created.

Soulution of the Day
Resolve slowly so you don’t get dizzy and fall down on the job.

Prescription #365
New Year

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called “Opportunity” and
its first chapter is New Year’s Day.
— Edith Lovejoy Pierce

A “new year” — I think the term is an oxymoron. How can you have a new year? You are the same person, and the world doesn’t start again with a clean slate. Your troubles don’t disappear. People don’t forgive you for what you did the year before. Unless you have amnesia, your life is anything but new when you awaken on the first day of the year. It is simply a way of measuring the passage of time. Why make such a fuss over it?
The truth lies in our desire to be reborn, to start again, to make resolutions and changes we can live up to. Then why wait for a
certain date to start a new year? Why can’t tomorrow be New Year’s Day? Maybe it is!
I see it every day in my role as a physician; people learn they have a limited time to live, and they start their New Year behavior. They move, change jobs, spend more time with those they love, stop worrying about what everyone else thinks of them, and start to celebrate their life. They are grateful for the time they have to enjoy life and they stop whining about what they wish had happened during the past year.
When every evening is New Year’s Eve and every day you awaken is New Year’s Day, you are living life as it was intended.

Soulution of the Day
Tonight celebrate New Year’s Eve and at midnight start to live your New Year. But remember to celebrate the next night
and all that follows as well.

Excerpted from 365 PRESECRIPTIONS FOR THE SOUL: Daily Words for Healing Mind, Body, and Spirit, by Bernie Siegel, M.D.
$18.95, Hardcover, Order toll-free: 1-800-972-6657 Ext. 52 or www.newworldlibrary.com