Before I quit my job, I read many books written by other MDs, to try to persuade myself I wasn’t the only crazy one.
Seriously. I know it sounds silly. But I really liked reading books by other medical doctors, whose thinking was not conventional, or what I viewed as “falling off the wagon.” It honestly made me feel better. Because as an MD, we are trained to be nonbelievers, and perhaps even cynical, to the things that can’t be proven through a randomized control trial or evidence-based medicine. But what if there really is more to the physical world than we know?
And could there be others like me? I honestly needed to know.
There’s Dr. Mary Neal, an Orthopedic surgeon who drowned while kayaking on a South American river, and experienced life after death, and wrote the book, To Heaven and Back. She actually talked about (like out loud) experiencing God’s encompassing love! Then there’s Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, who wrote about his near death experience while under medically-induced coma when treated for meningitis, and wrote Proof of Heaven. These are already successful people, who didn’t need to write a book, but wrote a book and let it all out essentially. Then there’s Dr. Brian Weiss, another MD, who is a psychotherapist and wrote Many Lives, Many Masters, about one of his patients, who was recalling past-life traumas that seemed to have a key role in her anxiety and panic attacks. Quite honestly, I did feel a little better thinking that there could be other MDs crazier than me, but what if there could be truth to what they were saying?
And then there’s Anita Moorjani, who wrote Dying to be Me. Anita’s not a doctor, but I bring her up because her book messed me up Real Good. She talks about how she almost died, and how she has chosen to live life differently, after having almost died. And, well, her book helped me to think about life differently and made me wonder about how I wanted to live- if I were less afraid.
Not Crazy
