Much illness has its roots in unrecognized spiritual distress—issues of
isolation, of anger, the feelings people have that they don't matter or that
nobody matters to them. There is a general lack of meaning and purpose
and significance that seems to underlie illness. What we call stress might
really be spiritual isolation.

What is spiritual isolation? To me it seems that it is living with a closed
heart. Some people have said to me "If my heart was open, I could
forgive." But I think it's the other way around. Forgive first—and then your
heart can open.

The most popular surgery in this country, coronary bypass surgery, is
probably a metaphor. The problem with our culture is that we have
bypassed the heart, especially in men. And we keep acting that out, over
and over again, in the operating room.

How often the process of physical healing runs concurrently with the
healing of the heart. A greater altruism, a greater compassion, seems to
occur in people as you work with them through illness. We become open
to looking at the meaning of life, not just the meaning of one's own pain,
but the meaning of life itself.

~Rachel Naomi Remen, MD