**Love Yourself: Bernie Siegel: Dynamic Health: Powerful Strategies for Healthy Living

I post my baby picture here for a reason.  Dr. Bernie Siegel tells a story of a phenomena that happens over and over.  He often talks to people, and holds up a baby, and everybody will ooh and aah and say how precious, how adorable.  He will then hold up an audience member, often a high school student, and every one will laugh and make fun, even the person being held up or asked to stand up.  And so the question, what changed in fifteen, sixteen years.  "Why were you a gorgeous baby, and now you're laughing at yourself?"... "So I really do tell people to get out their baby pictures and take a look at them.  I try to communicate to them that they're a child of God--to feel that they are divine rather than to tell them to do this, don't do that, it's not good for you, but to get them to love themselves so they then do what is good for them."
So I have posted my baby picture.  I am a child of God.  I am of divine worth.  I remember a saying our seminary teacher had in his office. "You are a child of God, and God doesn't make no junk."  When I feel down, I hope to see my baby picture, and remember my royal heritage.
Dr Siegel is a surgeon, and practices in the cancer field.  He began to realize hope and a lot to do with survival.  He and his wife established a program called ECaP (Exceptional Cancer Patients).  He talks of the importance of having love.  By this he means to love and be loved.  But he also is talking about having something you love, a passion.  He says it is funny, but now matter how ill you are, when you lose yourself in something you love, it seems to go away, you don't worry about the pain for awhile.  In my case, I don't hear my tinnitus.
Hope is important.  It improves your immune system.  It extends life.