In this episode, Oriana Gliessman and I hold our first book club meeting! We discuss Anita Moorjani’s memoir, Dying to Be Me. It’s the book I most recommended to my patients to read, as a doctor working in primary care. What if we can all take a more active role in choosing our authentic life experiences, without experiencing a near-death experience to get there!?! Dying to Be Me is about Anita’s near-death experience and how she has chosen to live differently, having almost died. Anita also brings up her spontaneous remission from stage 4 lymphoma. When I first read her book, I was truly impacted by how she was going to live, having almost died, and, well, it shook me. I started to wonder why I was wasting precious time, how we can all choose to live differently, if we are less afraid. I also pondered the fact that there are some things the practice of medicine cannot explain. Although spontaneous remissions are rare, there exist documented cases that have been published in medical journals throughout the world. I’m not sure how they can happen. For Anita, her getting sick and healing from her illness was very much a part of her spiritual journey, weaving the tapestry of her life, and, in turn, affecting all of ours. Join us in this fun discussion as we talk about this fascinating book!
