#000502
Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing
Anita Moorjani
Anita Moorjani's 2012 memoir recounts a dramatic personal story: diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2002, she declined conventional treatment for years, and in 2006 slipped into a coma as her organs failed. During roughly thirty hours near death she describes a vivid near-death experience — an expansive awareness, a sense of unconditional love, and a choice to return — after which, she writes, her cancer receded with startling speed. The book braids that experience together with reflections on fear, self-love and cultural expectation, and it became a *New York Times* bestseller, boosted by a foreword from self-help figure Wayne Dyer. It has comforted many readers facing illness, while raising pointed questions about how much of the recovery it can fairly claim. It speaks to readers drawn to near-death accounts and mind-body ideas.
more…less ▴
The author
Anita Moorjani, born in Singapore to Indian parents and raised largely in Hong Kong, was working in the corporate world when her illness and 2006 near-death experience redirected her life toward writing and speaking. Dying to Be Me was her first and best-known book.
The book
The memoir moves between the coma-state experience and Moorjani's interpretation of it: that fear and a lack of self-worth had shaped her illness, and that releasing them opened the way to healing. Its message of radical self-acceptance is the real engine of its appeal.
How it reads — and the medical view
Moorjani's own oncologist, Dr. T.K. Chan, confirmed she was gravely ill on admission, but has stressed that Hodgkin's lymphoma is highly treatable and that she did receive chemotherapy, which he credits with her turnaround. Critics of the broader "heal cancer with your mind" genre — including academics who have written on positive thinking in cancer care — warn that such narratives can be dangerous if they lead patients to delay or refuse effective treatment. Read it as an inspiring personal account, not medical guidance.
For more context
Compare with the near-death-experience research literature and with clinical accounts of Hodgkin's treatment.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Anita Moorjani
- Publisher
- Hay House
- Place of publication
- Carlsbad, CA
- Year
- 2012
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Biography & Memoir
- Location
- Colorado