As an honored physician and teacher, Rachel Naomi Remen has spent a lifetime immersed in the world of science. Yet today, after four decades of face-to-face experience with cancer patients, medical academia, and her own chronic illness, she has come to see that life is best defined not by science, but by mystery.

In The Will to Live and Other Mysteries, this bestselling author and beloved healer of the heart probes the experience of mystery, and illuminates its power to literally transform our lives. We are a culture that worships science, Dr. Remen begins, even though science is unable to fully explain the mystery of how we heal. In her own words, Dr. Remen shares compelling frontline stories of people who―against all odds―embodied the will to live, and opened to the power of mystery as a healing resource. This source of wonder and hope, she says, is available to all of us at any time.

Complete with step-by-step exercises that Dr. Remen has taught to thousands of people, The Will to Live and Other Mysteries will touch you, strengthen you, and awaken you to the mysterious innate power to heal that is within us all.

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is one of the earliest pioneers of mind/body health. She is Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine and Director of the UCSF course, The Healer's Art. She is Co-founder and Medical Director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program featured in the Bill Moyers PBS series, Healing and the Mind. She is Founder and Director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, a professional development program for graduate physicians who wish to develop a greater personal capacity for empathy, compassion, understanding and communication. Dr. Remen has a 45-year personal history of Crohn's disease and her work is a unique blend of the viewpoint of physician and patient. She is the author the New York Times bestseller Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal.