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Rick Burnett:  Let's talk about Possibility Living versus the outdated healthcare paradigm.  In Chapter 2 you have the Expression of Life Graph that's on page 23 for folks who want to look in the book.  Can you give us a "picture" of the Expression of Life Graph?

Dr. Robert A. Schuller: The best description of Expression of Life is to live life to the fullest and being healthy.  So many people think they are healthy and the next day they may die of a heart attack.  The question is, when a person dies of a heart attack, was he healthy the day before?  The answer is, of course not.  His heart was degenerating and there's lots of different ways to look at that, but the fact is he was not healthy.  He probably had clogged arteries; problems with arterial walls because there may have been some kind of ulceration with caused a blood clot, which caused him to die - so he was not healthy.  On the other hand, there are people who think they are healthy because they don't have any symptoms.  The fact is they are taking high blood pressure medication, so they've got their blood pressure under control.  Or, they're taking steroids and that keeps their adrenal glands under control - and they think that because they have everything under control with their medicines, they are perfectly healthy.  I was like that with my sinuses.  I had chronic sinus infections.  Whenever anyone asked me about my health, I always said I was in excellent health, I just had to get antibiotics once a month for the sinus infections.  God only knows what kind of damage I was causing to my body with all those antibiotics.  The body has the ability to regenerate and to move from sickness to wellness.  We have a test in the book, which will tell you where you fit on that graph.  The test includes spiritual, emotional and physical things that we do to get well.  Doug, I know that you have more to say on this..

Dr. Douglas DiSiena:   Those are great points!  You know, Jesus said, "I came not only that you may have life, but that you may have the abundant life."  That abundant life of body, mind and spirit is Possibility Living.  In the abundant life when we are experiencing maximum life, 100% expression of life, we are healthy!  The people who get sick, as they move along the graph from 100% to 0%, which is death; somewhere in the middle is when we begin to have dysfunction which leads to disease.  You cannot simply be healthy and then go into a disease process.  The body must go through a slow degradation to a point where it becomes diseased.  Your body doesn't just healthfully function and then all of a sudden somehow a whole bunch of cancer cells develop.  It just doesn't work like that.  There has to be a whole series of dysfunction to allow that to occur.  So, our goal for people is to move closer to that 100% of Expression of Life as possible.  As we do that, the resiliency towards things like cancers and diseases, and sickness becomes increasingly diminished.  So therefore, it doesn't even become a part of our life.  That's the potential that we all have.  That's the gift that's the hope we have. 

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:   When Doug's says all, I'm convinced that there is no disease that is not reversible.  For example, I was at a function recently and I met a women who looked like she was about 70 - I'm quite confident that she is 70!  She just exuded health and vitality!  I discovered that four or five years ago she was in a wheelchair; she couldn't dress herself, hold a glass, or feed herself.  She has Multiple Sclerosis.  She was under the Doctor's care, she was taking medicines, she was in a wheelchair and her state was continuing to degenerate.  When the Doctors said there was no more they could do for her, she decided to take responsibility for her health.  She started exercising, she started eating right, and she threw away her medicines because she didn't think they were doing her any good.  Now, a few years ago, she is walking - she stood up at this function for hours.  My back was sore, my feet were sore from standing and she was still going strong!  She danced with her husband and she says she has M.S.!

Rick Burnett: There are so many stories like that, where people are told by Doctors they have a certain number of months left to live. 

Dr. Douglas DiSiena:   She made a decision, and that decision was to choose life.  It's like I always tell my patients - would you ever give your child a drug?  If they were well, would you give your children an antibiotic?  The answer is no.  In fact, just recently, the FDA now has warning labels on antibiotics - they can cause serious immune deficiencies.  If an antibiotic - "anti-life", we don't want to give that to a well person because it's going to make us sick, then how can it make a sick person well?  I don't know the lady Robert was referring to, but you see she chose life - she chose to do things that would make her well - and not just fight the disease.  That's the difference!  Instead of just taking antibiotics, which is anti-life and will kill the bug, but what does it do to the immune system?  Instead, we should choose things that will promote life, and therefore heighten the body's ability to fight the disease and allow you to get well from the inside. 

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:  That's exactly what she did!  She decided to choose life instead of fight disease.  That's the choice we make - it's a paradigm choice we make.  When you're sick you have to decide if you're going to fight the disease, or if you're going to support life.  Because by fighting the disease, you cannot support life.  Such as antibiotics which does not support life.  It is against life - that's the translation of the word - it's against life.  That's the way drugs work - we have to choose whether to support life or fight the disease. 

Rick Burnett:   In the Expression of Life Graph it basically starts at critical care and then we go up to Possibility Living which we said is the full and abundant life that God has created us to be.  Were there any areas you want to talk about such as disease versus symptom care and then the preventive care.

Dr. Douglas DiSiena:  Critical care is the point where we really begin to lose choices.  That's when you're on a respirator and at that point in time you do whatever you can to give yourself time.  Many times, in critical care, that's the best part of medicine to be honest with you.  I think that's where medicine is at it's best.  For example when a person gets in an auto accident and they are in critical care - thank God for surgery and I applaud that.  But as we move from critical care into disease and symptoms, we can't treat people in a critical care like manner, when they are in the disease/symptom care stage.  In the disease/symptom care the whole goal is removal of the symptom, not to promote life.  That's the difference.  For instance, if a person has a cough, what people will due is take a cough suppressant.  Or, if a person has a fever, what will they do - they take something to stop the fever.  And, what do we know about the cough and what do we know about the fever?  The fever is actually critically important to kill the virus or bacteria.  The fever is absolutely essential - God made and God ordained.  In our limited wisdom we think that's a mistake by God and so we try to abase the symptom such as in this case, a fever, or whatever it may be.  Then, we move towards preventive care, which is even a better form of healthcare. 

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:   I am amused when mainline medicine talks about prevention - it's rarely prevention, it's almost early detection.  If it's early detection, you haven't prevented a thing!  You've just detected it earlier.

Dr. Douglas DiSiena:  I'll give you a prime example.  The biggest push in breast cancer now is what - get a mammogram, which is controversial as we speak within the medical community for early detection for prevention of cancer.  Well, if you detect cancer earlier, you really haven't prevented it.  You may have prevented a worsening condition, but you didn't prevent the cancer.  In the meantime, what are we doing to hundreds of women?  By the time they are 50 we are placing them on hormones, estrogen which has just been placed on the carcinogenic list. So, now we have for a fact, what Robert and I've known for many years, that estrogen in fact causes cancer.  Are we talking to young women about getting off the birth control pill - or, are we talking to middle age women about hormone replacement therapy - or alternatives to that?  We're still pushing that you see - now instead of saying what's causing the cancer, we're dealing with this earlier detection thing.  The prevention is getting rid of the toxicity - promoting life - that's prevention - that's the paradigm shift.  That's the message we're struggling to get out to people.  The time is now; W. Clement Stone used to say "Do It Now!" That's what we need to tell people - Do it Now - Start Now - enjoy a Possibility Life - because you don't pay the price for health - you enjoy health - you pay the price for sickness!!