Ever wish you could go to heaven just long enough to check it out and get some questions answered but then return to your life on earth? Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen until we die. However, some lucky people do die briefly but get the chance to come back. Then the rest of us have the opportunity to learn from their experiences and use that information to live our own lives better.
The book “Dying to be Me – My journey from cancer, to near death, to true healing” by Anita Moorjani is about this exact scenario. After a four-year-long battle with cancer, Anita briefly dies in a hospital and goes to “heaven”. This “near-death experience” (NDE) helped her see how her life on earth could be totally different, and much better, from what it had been.
In her book, Anita recounts the details of the first half of her life leading up to her cancer diagnosis and why she believes she got cancer in the first place. After dying she describes how her perception of life changed and how she was able to transform herself into a much happier, and more peaceful person.
Since that experience, she has committed herself to teaching others what she learned so she can help them achieve a more fulfilling life too.
I came across this book in a second-hand store and was immediately attracted to the title. I’ve seen a lot of cancer in my family and have always lived with a fear of being diagnosed myself. This book gave me a new perspective on how to lower my risk of cancer and live life in a more meaningful way.
Dying in the emergency room
“Dying to be Me” was published in 2014 and begins with a brief description of the events that unfolded for the author on February 2nd of 2006. On that day her husband rushed her to the emergency room one last time. After years of struggling with cancer that had spread, all of her organs were failing and her body was shutting down.
By the time she was admitted, she had fallen into a coma. She can remember hearing the oncologist say “It’s too late to save her”. So they put her on life support long enough for her family members to arrive and say goodbye. But while in that coma, she can remember being able to see and hear everything that was happening to her in the hospital.
She could hear the conversations her family and the hospital staff were having about her even when they were outside of the room she was in. Somehow she could also feel what they were feeling while they were grieving for her. It was as if their emotions were her own and she was spiritually connected to each of them.
As her body was shutting down, she felt like her soul was coming alive. In her words, “It didn’t feel as though I’d physically gone somewhere else – it was more as though I’d awakened” and “My soul was finally realizing its true magnificence”.
In this other realm, she felt only “pure, unconditional love”, joy, and acceptance. She was also aware of family and friends surrounding her that had already passed and could communicate with them. From this experience, she finally understood her “true purpose” for living.
A snapshot of her life
From that introduction, Anita then backtracks to describe how she had been living her life up to that fateful day.
Having been born in India but raised in Hong Kong, she was educated in many cultures and religions. All the opposing beliefs she was exposed to just made her childhood and what she was “supposed to” believe even more confusing. She spent most of her time not feeling like she fit in anywhere and was bullied for being different.
She admits to having a constant fear of disappointing everyone in her life, even from a young age. Her father was loving but strict and always reminded her that the only role she should aspire to was to marry and serve her husband.
By contrast, her mother was very loving and reassuring but also from a culture where being female meant being subservient to men. Therefore, Anita was never encouraged to follow her own dreams but to learn the duties relevant to being a wife and mother. She spent most of her life fighting those beliefs.
Then she finally met the man who was to become her husband which helped her start to relax and enjoy life more. But that was short-lived.
After watching her best friend and another family member fight and lose their battles with cancer, Anita started to research more about it herself. This only brought fear and anxiety back into her life. She describes in detail how her fears affected everything she did and how she felt.
Then in 2002, she was the one diagnosed with cancer. From there she writes of her struggles and worries about living with a life-threatening disease.
Her message
In this book, I think Anita does such a great job of highlighting the parts of her life that had the greatest impact on her overall outlook and health. From those details, she points out that what we think and how we feel are just as important as what we eat and how we move. Our thoughts about ourselves and others determine the quality of our lives.
She believes that if we live our lives in fear and value the opinions of others over our own, then we will pay a price. Having the NDE taught her that she is just as valuable as anyone else on this earth. Not because she earned it through deeds, but simply because she’s human and deserves it.
The lesson she teaches in this book is that we are all “magnificent” creatures, we just need to believe that about ourselves. We are all enough just as we are and we don’t have to prove that to anyone else. We just need to realize that we have everything we need within ourselves.
For Anita, her cancer was just a symptom of a bigger problem in her life. She makes it easy to understand how our thoughts make our lives what they are. And if those thoughts are negative then every part of our lives will follow that pattern.
She says if we love ourselves and do the things that bring us joy, then our true purpose will be shown to us. We don’t have to search for it. Once we trust and honor ourselves, things will happen the way they’re supposed to happen and when they’re supposed to. But we have to live without judgment of ourselves and others.
Anita feels that she got her cancer because she lived her life in fear of everything and never felt like she measured up to everyone else’s standards. All of her feelings of disappointment and failure were manifested in her body in the form of cancer that ate away at her.
My final thoughts
There’s no way I can describe as well as she does what she experienced and what she learned from it. You’ll enjoy reading the book yourself to get a full understanding of her experience and the lessons she learned. Hopefully, I’ve made enough sense to give you an idea of what you can learn from her book.
Anita believes that “one of the best-kept secrets of our time: the importance of self-love”. Learning to love and honor yourself is the key to living a happy, peaceful and fulfilled life. This is different from being selfish. Only when we love ourselves can we love others in the same way. If we’re judgemental of ourselves, we’re judgemental of others. And that limits us.
You may have a hard time accepting Anita’s ideas if you’re committed to a religious doctrine that promotes a higher being, or God, that is separate from us. She talks only about all of us being “One”, or part of a “Whole”, rather than separate beings from a creator. We’re all connected in a divine way and therefore, we all affect each other, either positively or negatively.
If you’d like a little preview of the book, then you can listen to her here on YouTube reading her description of the afterlife from her book.
I found this book fascinating and it gave me a new perspective on what it takes to live a happier life. What I learned is that I should be striving to accept myself as the magnificent creation I am and do what makes me most happy. From there, everything else will fall into place.
In my own religious teachings, I’ve been told that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. The trick is to believe that, or have faith, that we’ve been given everything we need. I think this is what Anita means by realizing that we’re all magnificent beings and we are enough. We have everything we need, as long as we believe it!
Related article: You need a mental health day!