Return to Wholeness: Embracing Body, Mind, and Spirit in the Face of Cancer

"Over the course of a lifetime, almost half of all North American men and nearly 40 percent of North American women will get cancer." Those petrifying statistics, and a profound interest in mind-body medicine, drew Dr. David Simon, director of the Chopra Center for Well Being, to write Return to Wholeness. Where most books on cancer focus on treatment for eradicating the disease, this book refreshingly combines Eastern and Western healing principles to focus on helping the whole person heal--emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

Simon's book answers many questions that the newly diagnosed may have, among them, "How can I stimulate my inner healing response to maximize the benefit of my medical treatments? How can I be an active partner rather than a passive participant in my therapeutic journey?" It covers alternative therapies, including meditation, prayer, Ayurveda, journaling, visualization techniques, art and music therapy, and nutritional programs including vitamin, mineral, and phytochemical supplementation.

Return to Wholeness should be of special benefit to survivors living in constant fear or recurrence, or those who have had no obvious risk factors. "When a heavy smoker develops throat cancer, we may not question why his illness arose," Simon writes. "When someone [with excellent health habits] gets sick, our sense of order is threatened, and we search, often unsuccessfully, for some reasonable explanation. But, even if we cannot easily understand why someone's mind-body system allows cancer to arise, we can at any moment make choices to strengthen our immunity and improve our overall quality of life." --Erica Jorgensen