A Healing Journey...

towards life after breast cancer.

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22  Being

A new year, and a new mandate for how I live my life. I aim to be. Turn that arrow of attention right back to me. Every winter solstice, my friends and I draw an Angel card. For this year mine is BALANCE. Although the meaning unfolds over time, initially I see this as balancing my outer focus with a greater focus on myself and my inner needs. Probably self neglect is a huge factor in women with breast cancer (only guessing). A quote from Anita Moorjani’s interview on NDE website: “NDERF: Would you say that your purpose now is to just be here, in the physical, and express yourself in the physical, or is there something more? AM: To me, the purpose is BEING. And that is different from being HERE. The focus is different. When the focus is on being here, we can get lost here. The physical world is full of ‘other people’s version’ of life. Whereas when the purpose is BEING, it means being YOU, and only subscribing to YOUR version of life (or creating your version of life). To me, it means being an expression of exactly who I am.  My purpose is to be as much me as I can be! Before …, I used to pursue my purpose externally. But after my near death experience, I discovered there was nothing outside of myself. And there was nothing to pursue. I just had to be, and the external would fall into place. When we ‘pursue’ externally, we seem to see the world as being competitive and limited, and we use external measures to judge our achievements. To me, herein lies the illusion. There is no limited supply of ‘beingness’. We seem to measure our [value]… by the achievement of goals. I don’t, and neither do most people who are happy. My point is to shift your views. See the magnificence in your being whether you are rich or poor, physically impaired or not, with the one you love or not, and so on. I am now just focused on being, and am now the creator of my life - that is, the artist of my life. I no longer sit and think about the external competition. Each of us is unique, with unique traits and talents. I only have to express my own ‘beingness’ and ‘uniqueness’. A true artist doesn’t really care about whether there is anyone who can create as well as or better than he. He is too busy expressing himself, purely for the purpose of expressing. He has found something within, and is only expressing his inner beauty, and the world shares in it. The more inner beauty you uncover and express, the more the universe shares in it and reflects it back to you.”

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21  Guided Healing Journey

My friend, Susan, offered to guide me on a musical healing journey. Using carefully selected classical pieces, one allows imagery to emerge. She asked me to select a starting image, and I chose the one I have found earlier on in this journey, the feel of floating, of being held hand and foot by friends and family, all of us holding each other as we floated. As the music began I allowed myself to float, I needed to float, I needed to just be, held by the bonds of loving support that we give to each other. After a time, a new image emerged, a feeling of being in China. I saw those up and down green hills, and felt myself in a village, walking paths along the side of those hills. What was most profound was a feel of home, a feel that I belonged there, that I knew everyone in that village, and felt loved and accepted by all.  Tears welled up, then sobs. A deep yearning to be home was rising inside me. I next felt myself to be in Russia, a place of cold isolation and hardness. So opposite and yet I knew that all was good, that the isolation grew me. At the end I found myself in a green grassy field. I was all, the one who knew what true belonging felt like and the one who knew the aloneness, and I stood strong in that field, holding both worlds inside me.

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20   CANCER FREE!!!

I went to see my surgeon for a followup appointment to check on my wound and to discuss the pathology report of the tumor she removed. I was given the best news possible. All margins were cancer free, which meant she had cut around the cancerous cells and removed them all. The cells were not an invasive kind and there was no indicator that they had spread to the lymph system. I was cancer free! What a nightmare it would have been to go under the knife again. My surgeon found coming to our room to give us the news a respite, as she had been dealing with others that day who were not so lucky. We discussed options for the next steps. I would be referred to a radiation specialist and a medical oncologist. There is a 30% chance of the cancer returning, and following these treatments would reduce the chances to approximately 5%. As my cancer was estrogen positive, taking medicine to reduce the estrogen in my body would be one way to go, and radiation is another. And I could choose both. My aunt, Christine, told me she felt burnt to a crisp by the time she was done with radiation, which has been seconded by another friend. I have a lot to learn about this so as to make an informed choice. What I have noticed is that despite the good news, despite the joy that others have shown, I am rather lukewarm. Choices still loom in front of me, choices that affect the quality of my future life. Do I trust my intuitive sense that this was only meant to wake me up, make me get on with my purposes here, that I am not meant to have an enduring relationship with illness?

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19  Choices

I knew a psychologist who was 90 some years old. She was blind, hard of hearing, unable to do much, yet sharp as a tack mentally. Her voice touched me deeply. “When will I die? I wish I would die.” Her dilemma was not one I wanted to have. I think it was her experience that determined me to not use our medical system to artificially prolong my life. My mother, after a debilitating stroke, was told she had non-hodgkin lymphoma. The doctor told her she could have chemotherapy. She was already weakened and needed a lot of assistance. To put that strain on her body seemed crazy. She decided to just let the cancer take her. I so admired her choice. I have been given opportunities to choose to either go with nature’s obstacles or exert my will. On my first trip to Findhorn, I was caught in a blizzard and missed the plane. It was then that I had to decide whether to book another flight or go with the forces that seemed to be saying that this trip was not the right choice. I asked and asked for help in making this decision, and got nothing, nooo-thing. Finally on the day my new flight was to leave, I said inside “I am going anyway, whether it is the right thing to do or not.” The grey skies of my indecision parted, and all I saw, on signboards, on the advertisements in the elevated rail car, shining in the blue sky as I rode to the airport, was sunshiny messages of hope and optimism. Yes, I had made the right choice, because as I am learning and learning over my years, I am the creator of my experience. Cooperating with nature does not mean letting go of my ability to choose. So here comes cancer, and I am confronted with a fear that I will last longer than ‘my lessons’ last. I heard an MD talk about his thoughts on dying. He felt his father’s quality of life greatly reduced after the age of 75. He said he had seen this with many older people. So, for himself, he decided at the age of 75 to not treat any life threatening problem but to only seek medical help for issues that would impair his quality of life, such as a broken arm, etc. I thought that seemed reasonable. So I shared this with Beryl, one of my coworkers at our therapy office. She said, “oh, well, that’s my age.” What a shock and then I just cracked up. She is so healthy and high functioning. There went my assurance that I could go at a reasonable age. It became clear to me that, as I do know deep inside, my soul will know when the time is right, and I am to trust that all is perfect just as it is. Take the ride, allow the experiences to collect, be in the moment.

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18  Pain

I have not felt much pain from the surgery. At first I had no pain, perhaps from the swelling and shock to my system. Then I began to feel burning sensations. And now, almost 2 weeks after the surgery, I feel achings, especially after I do something physical. I am reminded of the roots of my ‘miracle’ bush, tiny little hairs extending to make contact with the soils around them. My body is reestablishing contacts between all the parts that are left after the disturbance, the path of destruction. And my movements mess up things again, a little. Hopefully they add to my body’s resilience as well.

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17  Sensitivities

I am on overload. My dizziness continues more subtly, and my ears are ringing, but there is something else going on. The sounds are too much. I have a lump in my throat practically all the time. I think I am more sensitive to the environment than usual. John thinks it is a result of the anesthesia. My nervous system was totally shut down, and now has to reawaken, readjust, develop resistances to life’s stimuluses again. Part of the process, I guess.

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16 OOOPS!!!

I am in the recovery phase, and have been told by my doctor to not listen to my mind, that tells me I am fine and can do almost anything. Although my scar is only 2 inches long, the internals have been messed with and my body is on notice to heal. I have experienced exhaustion after eating, as if I can energetically handle only one bodily function at a time. I took off this whole week from work, knowing I would need the time. Of course my resolve was tested. I was called by a client’s concerned mother. Before I returned the call, I rationalized that, if needed, I could respond to an emergency call. I could drive to my office for an emergency. I spoke of this to my husband, who answered me with silent rage. “I don’t want to hear about it!” he said.  I stopped short then. Wow! He was caring more about me than I was. Luckily it was not an emergency and I was allowed to think about what I was prepared to do. Oh, the slippery slope of setting oneself aside.

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15  Codependent lesson #.....

Quotes from Anita Moorjani from NDE website:

“There is a difference between 'being loving' and 'being love'.


‘Being loving’ means giving love to another whether you have any for yourself or not. It means giving what you yourself may or may not even have to give. This type of giving of love can eventually drain you, because we don¹t always have a limitless supply. And then we look to the other to replenish our pool of love, and if it is not forthcoming, we stop being loving ourselves, because we are exhausted.


‘Being love’, on the other hand, means loving myself unconditionally so that it overflows, and anyone and everyone around me just becomes an automatic recipient of my love. The more I love myself, the more it flows out to others. It almost feels like being a vessel for love to flow through. When I am being love, I don¹t need people to behave a certain way in order for them to be a recipient of my love. They are automatically getting my love because of me loving myself. So to stop being love, to me, means to stop loving myself. Hence, I will not stop being love because of another.”


NDERF: So how would you suggest someone elevate their own loving energy?

“

I feel it's my self-dialogue that either elevates or diminishes the energy I radiate outwards. When my inner dialogue turned against me, over time, it depleted my energy, and caused a downward spiral in my external circumstances. I was always really, really positive on the outside, effervescent, loving, etc., etc. and still my world was crumbling around me, and I was getting depleted, and sicker and sicker.
  Sometimes, when we see someone who is really positive and effervescent and kind, yet their lives are crumbling around them we may think 'see, this being positive thing doesn't work'. But see, here's the thing. WE DON'T KNOW that person's own inner dialogue. We don¹t know what they are telling themselves, inside their own heads, day in and day out.


Remember, I am not advocating 'thinking positive' in a Pollyanna-ish sort of way. 'Thinking positive' can be tiring, and to some people it can mean 'suppressing' the negative stuff that happens. And it ends up being more draining.  
I am talking about my own mental dialogue to myself. What am I telling myself, day in and day out inside my head. I feel it¹s so very important not to have judgment and fear in my own mental dialogues to myself. When our own inner dialogue is telling us we are safe, unconditionally loved, accepted, we then radiate this energy outwards and change our external world accordingly.



I also think it is very important to see perfection in the moment. The present moment is very powerful. Each moment holds promise, and each moment can be a turning point for the rest of your life.
I am often misunderstood when I say that each moment is perfect. And that everything is perfect. People are afraid of seeing perfection in a situation that is not of their liking, thinking that seeing perfection means not changing it. To me, seeing perfection does not mean keeping the situation static. It means seeing perfection in exactly where you are in your journey right now, no matter where that may be. Seeing perfection in the moment, wherever in the journey that moment might be. That is seeing perfection.”


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14 The Surgery

Just letting all of you who might be following this blog, that I have gotten my lumpectomy and now await the results. The question is, did she get all the edges of the tumor; do I have to go in again? I will find out in a few weeks. It was amazing to materialize in a totally different environment from the one I left a few hours before. The anesthesia effect was tough for me to wake up from, and I could tell the staff wanted me to get going. “Take all the time you need” they said, checking in on me every few minutes. I knew it was getting closer to 5pm and darkness was setting in outside, and they wanted to go home. So did I, but I was so dizzy that laying down was all I could do. I forced myself to sit up, and was helped to stand and get dressed by my sister. They wheeled me to the elevator, and down to the car. I was pale and carried an emesis bag, just in case. I get car sick, and this was just the same. Soooo, no pain at all, but anesthesia is a god send and a torturer. 2 days later and I feel no dizziness. Hallelujah.

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13 Perhaps the real reason...

I was in my backyard yesterday, when I had the thought that my bees might be cold. Out of that one thought tumbled fear after fear, that I had not done things right, that they might die, that I might have messed things up for them. Feeling my anxiety build up into a frenzy, it was suddenly clear how crazy this was, and how familiar, this pattern of anxiety around harming others. It has invaded my thoughts over and over again, and gotten worse as I have gotten older. It is funny how I can relish teaching others about their codependent traits, and not completely understand my own. I was the middle child, and worked hard to keep harmony in my family. And this relational pattern has repeated throughout my life. I tried to generate greater understanding between my friends and family, “here is what they mean,” “maybe they did it because of this.”  Always reframing other’s behaviors in the most positive light I could muster, I sought peace and harmony. This ‘job’ has obviously informed my work as a therapist. And yet I have suffered major difficulties because of it as well. At Findhorn, I broke down after someone criticized the workshop I and another were leading, the closest I have come to a nervous collapse. I spent a week unable to formulate words. And this codependent ‘work’ has never let up, for no matter how hard I try to ease situations between people, another situation always emerges. Being the mediator between two others puts me in a very safe position, in an odd way. I am doing my part in elevating the dialogue, but I am not the creator of the dialogue. It isn’t about me. If I truly create the ‘dialogue’, rather than focus on putting the fires out, that is about me. What harm am I doing when I make my own choices, create my own world.  I have felt this more acutely since my marriage. Creating a garden has been great joy, but I have had to manage the expectations I have placed on myself, the mistakes, the disappointments. Managing bees and losing hives has underlined the pain of loss over and over again, caused in part by my very human mistakes. I can handle my mistakes more easily now. But what seems to lie beneath all this is an essential lack of trust. I distrust that others can manage their relationships. I distrust that Nature has its own timing and ways of handling stressors. These are not things in my control, and yet I would try to manage them, fall short and suffer guilt and failure. Failure has always been a loaded word for me, and after a lifetime of striving to succeed, to force healthy and harmonious relationships, I now can see why it has been so loaded. I am tired, tired of trying, tired of that anxious feel when things go south between two people I love, tired of running around keeping plants alive at my home. (My husband has been a wonderful teacher in letting things die.) What soothes my spirit right now is that image of the web of support that is the love we feel for each other. It is not all on my shoulders, but something we all create together. That is a healing thought for me.

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12  I am the creator of my own reality

As I reflect upon it, it is almost funny how I manifested this slight cancer scare. I have thought so many times over the last years, “if I got cancer, I think I would let it take me.” This was based on the thought that my body knew better than my mind when it would be my time to go, and that the world did not need more people surviving into their 80’s and 90’s. I knew when I had that thought, that I would never really know what choice I would make until and if it emerged into actuality. I am not surprised that it emerged. Here I was daring the universe to test me. There is another reason why I am not surprised. For if I am to be here, I need to be fully here, not to waver, with one foot here on earth and one in the other world. I needed a reminder that I do want to be here. I did not always have such nihilistic thinking over the last years. I also would choose life, again and again, knowing that I had so much more to learn, knowing that others would benefit from my holding their hands (My State of Affairs blog). I wavered, in despair at times, joyful at others. This is a time in our history when the outlook for our future is bleak, and seeing our world from that perspective can be disheartening. The joy place was felt when I focused on my plants, or the birds in my backyard, or anything else in the here and now. Nature did not despair, at least from what I observed. So this slight cancer scare has led me on a journey, led me to learn more about creation. Anita Moorjani says that our world is created from our thoughts, collectively and individually. I clearly created this with my thoughts, my daring the world to give me this opportunity to say yes to life. I don’t think much about the cancer now, after my initial emotional roundabout. I think about how I can live better, with more love, gratitude and appreciation. I have entertained the idea that this early cancer may never blossom into more, especially if I live more wholly. It may dissolve away of its own accord. But I just lost a friend to breast cancer, who chose to heal her cancer cells with herbs and good living, and am loathe to try that route myself. Another friend, Christine, and I talked about how our beliefs shape our world. Coming from the west, there is a collective belief in western medicine’s way of treating cancer. Does it do me good to pretend that I have not bought into this, and try to treat it another way? Beliefs go very deep, whereas newer perspectives just skim the surface of our creative thought processes. No, following the medical regime is exactly what I want to do. It is an active affirmation towards life, that I am my creator of my life here, and not a passive bystander or victim of the seemingly external forces. I may not have control of the forces that be, but I do have choice, and choosing can be powerful indeed.

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11  The Gift

In the healing CD I was listening to I was told to imagine a gift, unwrapping a gift. Underneath the wrappings I envisioned a stone, gray and roughly pocked. The disparity between my soft breast and that hardness caused me a slight panic. How could that hardness be in me? How could I blend in love with this cold, dark thing? I carried that stone hardness in my awareness for a few days. What follows in the CD was to see that gift as one of complete acceptance - eventually I was able to imagine that stone rising up, melting in the light and showering me in it’s transformed state. My body and I are one.

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10  My state of affairs

I have put out to my closer family and friends what I am dealing with right now, now that I have met with the surgeon and have greater understanding of my situation. It felt a tad scary, especially revealing my blog. But the blog is perhaps reassuring to those who might hear ‘cancer’ and associate me with some of the horror stories we have heard. And what I received was so much love. And more, prayers and blessings, which also feels like so much love. What a powerful gift, to be encircled in love. I felt as if I were floating. I felt the hands of my beloved friends holding onto me. But more than that, I felt I held them as well, we floated together, supporting each other through our lives, through the many trials we experienced. Perhaps we only see this clearly in times of crises, but there we are, bathed in love.

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9  My Surgeon

I have met with the surgeon who will cut out this aberration in my body. She is lovely, a warm ‘friend’ who explained each step in the surgery with such detail, that I had little to ask. She allayed my fears by telling me that 1 in 8 women have this cancer, that the average age of onset is 63 (I am 64), and that it’s kind of a precancerous situation. The cancer cells have formed in a mammary duct and are contained in that duct. They can eventually escape, but she said only after a few years. Thus not a very scary prospect at all. She described my cancer cells as immortals, because the genetic switch which tells a cell to die is not functioning. What a fanciful term. (Has she read too many vampire novels?) So I am to have a lumpectomy (yeah) rather than lose my whole breast. And she recommends radiation therapy afterwards, as there is a 30% chance that this may reemerge. Radiation treatments can be extended to 6 weeks, 1x/day. Or I can opt for a more focused treatment that takes only 1 week, 2x/day. Either way I will be traveling in the medical system for a bit of time. Relief. I think I wasn’t so aware of how my imagination had taken me to more dire possibilities. Relief, because this is not unusual. Relief. Because the normality of her description, the dying of cells that were not sluffed off, but stayed around to create calcium deposits, the red flags of my mammogram, and the cancer cells that have gotten confused and not accurately transmitted the ‘normal’ information has taken a certain psychic load off of me. My body has not betrayed me. (I know it is irrational to think that it has, but I certainly am not above irrationality in such an emotional situation.) Again, I feel the gift in this. I doubted my health, knowing that I had this disease. And yet my doctor reminded me of my health, that I would be here on earth for many years to come, and it behoves me to do the radiation to ensure this will not emerge again. And so I will.

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8  Gratitude

I am so grateful for this kick to my butt that life has given me. It is only a kick, because I have learned to listen carefully to the small promptings I have been given over my life, and I act, knowing that things will get worse if I don’t. This kick has perhaps been the most profound, for it involves potential death.   Doing what makes my soul sing, I have started Zumba dancing. Doing what makes my soul sing, I have increased my time in nature, hung out with my sister and her horse, swam more. Doing what makes my soul sing, I have turned to this blog. Writing my insides down truly does bring me joy. I have questioned how pure my intention is in writing this thing. How much ego is involved in me publishing this diary? I can work my brain to come up with arguments either way, but the truth of the matter is, the deciding factor for me is ‘it feels really good to write this’. May I always remember to let my mind do it’s calculating magic and then look to a deeper source within me to get my answer.

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7 An Innocent Child of the Planet

I am waking up inside to my inner child, the one that was before all the layers of doubt, awareness of other’s reactions, fears, restrictions and desires to please developed a more complex me. My beautiful wakeup call has made all of that extra stuff unimportant, at least at this moment. This is life! This is spirit incarnate! I am an innocent, joyful to be here. That part is waking up. Anita reminds me in her CD to only do what makes me happy, what fills me, and let other things fall by the wayside. I have been given permission by her words, by the possible death sentence of my diagnosis. I don’t have to struggle anymore, try to push myself to live the way I imagine others would want, or in a way that is not a natural expression of WHO I AM. This is the message from Anita’s CD. Permission to be free to be yourself, your divine Self. My Divine Self. I saw my fear of disappointing others a few days ago. That is a big one for me. I have heard those words from others multiple times, ‘you disappointed me’. And each time I defend against the hurt I feel. But as much as I struggle to be what others want me to be, and be consistent, I cannot. I am inconsistent. I am there and then I am gone. I can say something fairly intelligent and in the next breath incredibly stupid comments come out. I can hold in multiple secrets, and yet blurt out sensitive material as if it was obvious to everyone. I have to accept that in me. I have to accept that I cannot be all things to all people. And that is okay.

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6  Dark Night

I had a difficult night, difficult because I could not think of anything other than ‘I want to die, I want to leave’, as I tossed and turned and tried to get to sleep. I felt so tired of trying so hard. The burden of healing myself was just one thing too many for me to handle. That day was not bad, and our evening was fine. I had promised myself that morning, after listening to my healing tape, that I would not listen to the news anymore, at least until this healing journey was over. The news depresses me too much, especially the news of environmental disasters and ugly politics and senseless murders. Having set this boundary, I knew it would be challenging for John. We normally listened to the news as we sat down for dinner. I would either have to eat elsewhere or John would have to watch the news at another time. But my resolve wavered over the day. I attended a course on Eastern Religions and we learned about Buddhism and the concept of ‘facing reality’ seemed to be in ‘bold print’, and I wondered if I was wrong in wanting to escape the harshness of what is going on on our planet. I felt I could be strong enough to bear with the news. And all seemed well until the 11:00 pm news. An oil spill in the Mississippi in Wisconsin, my beloved Wisconsin, our beloved Mississippi. The straw that broke my positive outlook’s back. “I want to die. I don’t want to be here anymore.” I knew that these repetitive thoughts are not the best for someone seeking to heal from cancer. I felt this ugly grinding in my psyche as I struggled to find something positive; and which I did not find. Perhaps acceptance helped me finally get to sleep. ‘Yes I have these thoughts of giving up, and that is okay.’ This morning I have emerged feeling better. But I am clear that I cannot hear the news at this time.