{"product_id":"the-extraordinary-healing-power-of-ordinary-things-isbn-9780307209900","title":"The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things","description":"Every day modern medicine announces  the arrival of yet another “wonder drug” or “miracle procedure” to a world increasingly wary of expensive high-tech cures. Drugs, transplants, and surgery don’t work for 90 percent of our aches and pains and, while we are grateful for life-saving developments, we know that most come with risks that we ignore at our peril.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLong hailed as one of the founding fathers of mind-body medicine, Larry Dossey directs our attention to simple sources of healing that have been available for centuries—treasures often hidden in plain sight—from the power of optimism and of tears to speed recovery to the surprising usefulness of dirt and bugs in curing disease and infection to the benefits of doing nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExploring the medical research that validates these simple remedies, Dossey encourages us to align ourselves with the wisdom of nature and allow true healing to take place. \u003ci\u003eThe Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things\u003c\/i\u003e can transform our view of what health is all about, whether our concern is cancer or the common cold.“In this elegant, thoughtful, and profoundly useful book, Larry Dossey reminds us of the healing power of the life around us and offers us the gift of new eyes. \u003ci\u003eThe Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things\u003c\/i\u003e vindicates anyone who has looked beyond drugs and surgery in search of their own ability to heal.” —Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of \u003ci\u003eKitchen Table Wisdom \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Larry Dossey’s insights into the ordinary illuminate a path to happiness and help us see ‘the universe in a grain of sand.’” —Mehmet C. Oz, M.D., coauthor of \u003ci\u003eYOU: The Owner’s Manual\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Delightful, human, funny, poignant, and surpassingly wise, Larry Dossey’s essays are a national treasure.” —Joan Borysenko, author of \u003ci\u003eA Woman’s Journey to God\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“One of our most original thinkers on the nature of consciousness and its role in healing.” —Michael Lerner, president of Commonweal \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Larry Dossey’s words of wisdom have inspired and challenged me for years.” —Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of \u003ci\u003eMother-Daughter Wisdom\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In his quirky, brilliant, and passionate book, Larry Dossey offers us the quintessence of a lifetime’s search and conveys his message with the lucid grace of a born writer and the authority of a sage. In a hundred years, he will be remembered as someone who, in a grand way, assisted a shift in how we perceive the magic and mystery of our world and our place within it.” —Andrew Harvey, author of\u003ci\u003e The Direct Path\u003c\/i\u003eLarry Dossey, M.D., is a former internist and chief of staff of Medical City Dallas Hospital and the former cochair of the Panel on Mind\/Body Interventions, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health. He is the executive editor of \u003ci\u003eExplore: The Journal of Science and Healing\u003c\/i\u003e and the author of nine other books on the role of consciousness and spirituality in healing, including the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestseller \u003ci\u003eHealing Words: The Power of Prayer\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003ePractice of Medicine\u003c\/i\u003e. Dr. Dossey lives in Santa Fe with his wife, author Barbara Montgomery Dossey.Chapter 1: Optimism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA pessimist asks you if there is milk in the pitcher; an optimist asks you to pass the cream. —FOLK SAYING\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      It troubles me to recall him even now, many years later--the   fifty-year-old attorney who gave me my most painful lesson in the   value of optimism and what happens when it fades away. He was at the   peak of his career, father of three, athletic, a picture of health.   His only concern was a minor stomachache that had come and gone for a   couple of weeks. Even though his physical examination was normal, he   insisted on an abdominal scan just to be sure nothing was wrong.   Although I thought this overkill, I went along. To my surprise, the   scan showed a mass in the pancreas the radiologist said was probably   cancer. I discussed the situation with him and proposed a diagnostic   workup, including the possibility of eventual abdominal surgery. \"No   surgery!\" he declared emphatically. \"It's worthless. Nobody survives   cancer of the pancreas.\" I pointed out that he was mistaken. Although   the statistics are not favorable, people do survive this disease. In   any case, we weren't sure of the diagnosis and further tests were   needed to confirm it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He consented to be hospitalized that very day, but a light went out   in him. He seemed terrified, and nothing I could say would comfort   him. He began to stare straight ahead, refusing to speak to me or the   nurses. When I made rounds that evening, he lay silent and rigid in   bed with clenched jaws and furrowed brow. Even when I informed him   that his preliminary blood tests were normal, he didn't seem to care.   In his mind he was a condemned man going to the gallows. I resolved   that if his behavior did not change by morning, I would ask a   psychiatrist to consult on his case. I didn't get the chance. That   night the nurse found him dead in bed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His was a \"hex death,\" widely recognized in premodern cultures, in   which a previously healthy individual dies shortly after being   cursed. The curse--in this case, his certainty that he had a fatal   illness--removes all optimism and hope, and substitutes the   inevitability of death.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Optimism is the tendency to believe, expect, or hope that things will   turn out well. Debates have raged over the past few years about   whether it affects our health and the course of specific diseases. I   find these arguments tedious, because I believe evidence of the   healing power of optimism is in plain sight. These effects are most   obvious when they vary from day to day, like shifting winds. In the   1950s, Dr. Bruno Klopfer reported such an example that involved a   patient he was treating for advanced lymphoma. The man had large   tumors throughout his body and fluid in his chest, and was terminal.   Klopfer was so convinced that he would die within two weeks that all   medical therapy except oxygen had been discontinued. In a last-ditch   effort he gave the man a single injection of Krebiozen, an   experimental drug later said to be worthless. Klopfer describes the   results:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    What a surprise was in store for me! I had left him febrile, gasping   for air, completely bedridden. Now, here he was, walking around the   ward, chatting happily with the nurses, and spreading his message of   good cheer to anyone who would listen. . . . The tumor masses had   melted like snow balls on a hot stove, and in only these few days   they were half their original size! This is, of course, far more   rapid regression than the most radiosensitive tumor could display   under heavy x-ray given every day. . . . And he had no other   treatment outside of the single useless \"shot.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Within ten days the man was practically free of disease. He began to   fly his private airplane again. His improvement lasted for two   months, until reports cropped up denouncing Krebiozen. When he read   them, the man appeared cursed, and his attitude and medical condition   quickly returned to a terminal state. At this point Klopfer urged the   man to ignore the negative news reports because a \"new super-refined,   double-strength product\" was now available--a complete   fabrication--and injected him with sterile water. The man's response   this time was even more dramatic than initially, and he resumed his   normal activities for another two months. But his improvement ended   when the American Medical Association released a report stating that   nationwide tests had proved Krebiozen useless in the treatment of   cancer. A few days after reading this statement, he was admitted to   the hospital, and two days following admission he died.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If optimism can make such dramatic differences, you'd think we   physicians would do everything in our power to increase it in our   patients, but sometimes we seem hell-bent on depriving them of it.   Some of these instances are so outrageous they are almost funny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Andrew Weil, MD, who is director of the program in integrative   medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson, often sees patients   for a second opinion. \"You wouldn't believe what those doctors did to   me,\" one woman related. \"The head neurologist took me into his office   and told me I had multiple sclerosis. He let that sink in; then he   went out of the room and returned with a wheelchair. Then he told me   to sit in it. I said, 'Why should I sit in your wheelchair?' He said   I was to buy a wheelchair and sit in it for an hour a day to   'practice' for when I would be totally disabled. Can you imagine?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In his book The Lost Art of Healing, Harvard cardiologist Bernard   Lown gives examples of \"words that maim\" by depriving patients of   optimism and hope. They include, \"You are living on borrowed time,\"   \"You are going downhill fast,\" \"The next heartbeat may be your last,\"   \"You can have a heart attack or worse any minute,\" \"The . . . angel   of death . . . is shadowing you,\" \"You are a walking time bomb,\" \"I'm   frightened just thinking about your [coronary] anatomy,\" and \"Surgery   should be done immediately, preferably yesterday.\"4 To these medical   hexes, Weil adds a few more: \"They said there was nothing more they   could do for me,\" \"They told me it would only get worse,\" \"They told   me I would just have to live with it,\" and \"They said I'd be dead in   six months.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Why do we physicians find it so difficult to accord optimism a role   in health? Why is it so hard for us to be optimistic? You might think   we'd be positively euphoric, because we have more potent tools in our   black bags than ever before, and the human lifespan is at an all-time   high. Why aren't we joyful? The fact is, physicians are trained to be   realists, not optimists, and our realism often shades into pessimism.   The specter of death hangs over every clinical encounter, a shadow   that never goes away no matter how powerful our therapies become. We   know that all our treatments will eventually fail and the patient   will die; never has there been an exception. Thus the beginning   assumption of medicine is tragedy. No other profession rests on such   a morbid foundational belief. This is why it is so natural for a   physician to be a pessimist, and why optimism is the hard thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Pessimism dominates some physicians and colors everything they do.   I've known physicians who actually cultivate cynicism and take pride   in a morose, gloomy personal style. Some wear their pessimism as a   badge of honor. This often involves what's called \"hanging   crepe\"--black crepe, as at a funeral--in which the physician   emphasizes the worst possible outcome of any situation. If the   prophecy comes true, the physician is wise; if not, he is a hero,   having rescued his patient from his dire predictions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It is unethical, we are taught, to paint a rosy future for a patient   who is facing a grave health challenge when we know the outcome is   likely to be the opposite. The problem, however, is that the   physician's realism can trigger disastrous results. Consider medical   prognosis. When a physician tells a patient she has a fifty percent   chance of living twelve months, the patient is likely to interpret   this as a fifty percent chance of dying by the end of a year. The   patient, failing to understand that the doctor is simply making a   calculated guess, often converts the statistical prediction into a   death sentence by dying on schedule.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But it is never only a matter of the words that a physician uses to   deliver bad news, it's also how they are conveyed. Some physicians   are able to express bad news with such compassion that the sense of   impending tragedy is annulled. How do they do it? The way physicians   always have--through deep empathy and caring for those they serve.   They convey a sense of love and oneness with their patient, as if to   say, \"Together we will do our best. No matter what happens, I am with   you every step of the way; you will never be alone.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If profound pessimism can kill, why is it so widespread? Why would   evolution have permitted it to persist? What purpose would pessimism   have served? \"The benefits of pessimism,\" suggests psychologist   Martin E. P. Seligman, former president of the American Psychological   Association and author of Learned Optimism, \"may have arisen during   our recent evolutionary history. We are animals of the Pleistocene,   the epoch of the ice ages. Our emotional makeup has most recently   been shaped by one hundred thousand years of climatic catastrophe:   waves of cold and heat; drought and flood; plenty and sudden famine.   Those of our ancestors who survived the Pleistocene may have done so   because they had the capacity to worry incessantly about the future,   to see sunny days as mere prelude to a harsh winter, to brood. We   have inherited these ancestors' brains and therefore their capacity   to see the cloud rather than the silver lining.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The survival value of pessimism may date from the era when humans   descended from treetops onto the savannas of Africa. These open   grasslands were the home of the great stalking cats and were   dangerous places. Pessimism would have lent an edge in the struggle   to survive--not pessimism that overwhelmed and drove our ancestors   back into the safety of the forests, but enough to guarantee wariness   and survival.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But perhaps we should not concede too much to pessimism. It is   difficult to imagine how Homo sapiens could have advanced from savage   to barbarian to civilization without a sense that things might be   better. How could we have journeyed from caves to castles, from skins   to silks, from dominance to democracy, without optimism? Without the   beckoning light of a brighter future, it would have been easy to quit   in the early days and settle for the status quo. Something kept us   going toward a dawn not fully glimpsed, and optimism is as good a   name as any for this indwelling itch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ultimate Optimism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It's easy to be optimistic about optimism these days. Research shows   that optimists on average get sick less often and live longer than   pessimists. The immune system seems to be stronger in optimists, and   the cardiovascular system more stable. Optimists are the go-getters,   achievers, and leaders who are held high in public esteem. Optimists   are generally likable; they pump others up, and people enjoy their   company more than that of pessimists. There is a new field, positive   psychology, that stresses the value of optimism. Optimism is so hot   it recently made the cover of Time magazine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Optimism is on a roll--and I sometimes feel as if it is about to roll   over me. Although I am personally inclined toward optimism, I tremble   at the showy, smiley-faced, shotgun variety that is advocated these   days by the insufferable optimism merchants. I favor a quiet,   indwelling variety of optimism that I keep to myself as a calm   certainty. I hesitate to name this attitude; even calling it a   \"cognitive style,\" as the positive psychologists do, is going too   far. As Stendahl said about happiness, \"To describe [it] is to   diminish it.\" My approach is akin to what medieval theologians called   the via negativa, the negative way, which emphasized the fullness and   reality of the Divine by dwelling not on positive attributes, but on   the fact that the Divine is beyond description. Attributing any   quality to the Absolute was a form of anthropomorphic idolatry,   dressing up the godhead in human form. Meister Eckhart, the   thirteenth-century German mystic, was a proponent of the via   negativa. He said, \"Then how shall I love him?--Love him as he is: a   not-God, a not-spirit, a not-Person, a not-image; as sheer, pure,   limpid unity, alien from all duality. And in this one let us sink   down eternally from nothingness to nothingness. So help us God.   Amen.\" In keeping with Eckhart's view, perhaps I should call my   attitude not-optimism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    For me, linking optimism and the Absolute or Divine, however named,   is not hyperbole. The connection is natural: Optimism comes from   Latin words meaning \"highest\" or \"best,\" which is what we consider   the Divine to be. Julian of Norwich, England's sublime   fourteenth-century mystic, understood this relationship. At a time   when the Black Death was stalking Europe, she found no difficulty   associating optimism and the Divine. In enchanting prose she exulted,   \"But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of   thing shall be well . . . He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested,   thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be diseased,' but he   said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome'\" Or as poet Maya Angelou has   echoed in our day, \"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not   be defeated.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Optimism unanchored to the Absolute is hard to sustain. If one takes   the distant view of modern cosmology, the scenario is bottomlessly   depressing. Our expanding universe, scientists tell us, will   eventually undergo heat death and will descend into irreversible   disorganization. This means that life and consciousness will perish.   Against this backdrop, optimism is a worthless, pitiful Band-Aid. But   if consciousness is linked with the Absolute, the outlook changes.   The Absolute stands above all, including whatever may happen to the   cosmos. Our connectedness with the Absolute implies that we share   qualities with it--qualities which, much evidence suggests, include   infinitude in space and time. If so, we are in some sense eternal and   immortal: the ultimate justification for being optimistic, and a   finger in the eye of doomsaying cosmologists.Author of the New York Times bestseller Healing Words","brand":"Harmony","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302656102629,"sku":"NP9780307209900","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307209900.jpg?v=1767739254","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-extraordinary-healing-power-of-ordinary-things-isbn-9780307209900","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}