Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul (12 page)
Read Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul Online
Authors: Jack Canfield
Suffering is intimately connected to wholeness. The power in suffering to promote integrity is not only a Christian belief, it has been a part of almost every religious tradition. Yet 20 years of working with people with cancer, in the setting of unimaginable loss and pain, suggests that this may not be a spiritual teaching or a religious belief at all, but rather some sort of natural law. That is, we might learn it not by divine revelation, but simply through a careful and patient observation of the nature of the world. Suffering shapes the life force, sometimes into anger, sometimes into blame and self-pity. Eventually it may show us the freedom of loving and serving life.
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
I
t is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult undertaking which more than anything else, will determine its outcome.
William James
Today, when I awoke, I suddenly realized that this is the best day of my life, ever!
There were times when I wondered if I would make it to today; but I did! And because I did I’m going to celebrate!
Today, I’m going to celebrate what an unbelievable life I have had so far: the accomplishments, the many blessings, and, yes, even the hardships because they have served to make me stronger.
I will go through this day with my head held high and a happy heart. I will marvel at God’s seemingly simple gifts: the morning dew, the sun, the clouds, the trees, the flowers, the birds. Today, none of these miraculous creations will escape my notice.
Today, I will share my excitement for life with other people. I’ll make someone smile. I’ll go out of my way to perform an unexpected act of kindness for someone I don’t even know. Today, I’ll give a sincere compliment to someone who seems down. I’ll tell a child how special he is, and I’ll tell someone I love just how deeply I care for her and how much she means to me.
Today is the day I quit worrying about what I don’t have and start being grateful for all the wonderful things God has already given me. I’ll remember that to worry is just a waste of time because my faith in God and his Divine Plan ensures everything will be just fine.
And tonight, before I go to bed, I’ll go outside and raise my eyes to the heavens. I will stand in awe at the beauty of the stars and the moon, and I will praise God for these magnificent treasures.
As the day ends and I lay my head down on my pillow, I will thank the Almighty for the best day of my life. And I will sleep the sleep of a contented child, excited with expectation because I know tomorrow is going to be the best day of my life, ever!
Gregory M. Lousig-Nont, Ph.D.
Having a goal based on love is the greatest life insurance in the world.
If you had asked my dad why he got up in the morning, you would have found his answer disarmingly simple: “To make my wife happy.”
Mom and Dad met when they were nine. Every day before school, they met on a park bench with their homework. Mom corrected Dad’s English and he did the same with her math. Upon graduation, their teachers said that the two of them were the best “student” in the school. Note the singular!
They took their time building their relationship, even though Dad always knew she was the girl for him. Their first kiss occurred when they were 17, and their romance continued to grow into their 80s.
Just how much power their relationship created was brought to light in 1964. The doctor told Dad he had cancer and estimated that he had six months to one year left at the most.
“Sorry to disagree with you, Doc,” my father said. “But I’ll tell you how long I have. One day longer than my wife. I love her too much to leave the planet without her.”
And so it was, to the amazement of everyone who didn’t really know this love-matched pair, that Mom passed away at the age of 85 and Dad followed one year later when he was 86. Near the end, he told my brothers and me that those 17 years were the best six months he ever spent.
To the wonderful doctors and nurses at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center at Long Beach, he was a walking miracle. They kept a loving watch on him and just couldn’t understand how a body so riddled with cancer could continue to function so well.
My dad’s explanation was simple. He informed them that he had been a medic in World War I and saw amputated arms and legs, and he had noticed that none of them could think. So he decided he would tell his body how to behave. Once, as he stood up and it was evident he felt a stabbing pain, he looked down at his chest and shouted, “Shut up! We’re having a party here.”
Two days before he left us he said, “Boys, I’ll be with your mother very soon and someday, some place we’ll all be together again. But take your time about joining us; your mother and I have a lot of catching up to do.”
It is said that love is stronger than prison walls. Dad proved it was a heck of a lot stronger than tiny cancer cells.
Bob, George and I are still here, armed with Dad’s final gift.
Agoal, alove and a dream give you total control over your body and your life.
John Wayne Schlatter
W
hen one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
Helen Keller
I always feel good when I’m in Angela Passidomo Trafford’s office. I feel validated, nurtured and somehow better about myself. On this occasion I was there to talk about the workshop she was co-facilitating that month with well-known author and surgeon, Bernie Siegel, M.D.
When I asked how she chose the title of the workshop, “The Power to Choose,” Angela explained, “Most people are paralyzed in their ability to make a decision and in their ability to choose. They are paralyzed with their conditioning of the past and with the guilt and shame of the past.”
Angela speaks from personal experience. As told in her book,
The Heroic Path,
she recalled to me the low point of her life that led her to Bernie’s book. She hit rock bottom after finding out on the same day that she lost custody of her children and that she had cancer. “I fell on my knees and let go of my life to God. I asked God to take my life and show me how to live because I realized that I did not know how.
“Afterward, I found myself just wandering through the public library; I didn’t even know what I was doing there. The librarian came up to me—I didn’t even know her—and she had Bernie Siegel’s book,
Love, Medicine and Miracles,
in her hand. She asked me if I had read it. When I shook my head no, she said, ‘Well, you should!’ That was the beginning of what I referred to often as a divine plan, how one thing leads to another and puts you in touch with the idea that there is a plan for your life. Getting in touch with that connection to a higher intelligence inside each and every one of us, that’s what healing and life are all about.
“My divine plan continued unfolding when I took Bernie Siegel’s book home and found this eminent surgeon saying things that I had felt all my life. He had put forth this whole philosophy of taking charge of your life, and taking charge of your health and being responsible for your feelings. And going within to heal.
“I began waking up early in the morning and giving thanks for the gift of life. I realized that even though everything had been taken from me, I still had this amazing awareness that life itself is a great gift, and I felt tremendous gratitude for that gift.
“I would ride my bike and then go home and do the meditation and visualization exercises outlined in the book. One day a visualization came forth from a creative source. I visualized these little birds eating golden crumbs; the little birds were the immune system cells and the golden crumbs the cancer cells. I followed this visualization by imagining a white light coming through the top of my head, flowing through my body, healing me.
“During the three weeks before my scheduled surgical biopsy, I continued meditating each morning after my bike ride, until one morning, all of a sudden I felt this tremendous, powerful white light coursing through my body. I was alarmed and my rational mind screamed in all its conditioning of fear and mistrust, ‘Get out, get out, you’re having a heart attack, stop the experience.’ But I chose to let go and allow my being to become one with the beautiful light, that powerful energy.
“Afterward I just slumped over on the couch. And for the first time in my life I had no thoughts at all. Just this tremendous feeling of peace. And I knew something wonderful had happened to me.
“My next visit to the doctor’s confirmed what I already knew. The cancer had disappeared.
“This experience changed my life. I began a mission to share my experience with others facing the illness of cancer. Lots has happened since then. I acquired the custody of my children, opened my business, Self Healing, and wrote my first book,
The Heroic Path,
describing my journey from cancer to self-healing.
“I believe this is a time in our world that people are awakening to the possibility of more joy in our lives. The universe offers us endless opportunities to let go of the fear and the guilt and the shame and the anger, all the repressed issues of the past.
“Health is a choice. We choose to be healthy, we choose joy, we choose happiness. These are all choices that we make when we have the power to choose. But in order to feel that power, we have to learn what it means to love ourselves and be empowered as individuals—and I have discovered how to do that in day-to-day life.”
Sharon Bruckman
Many years ago, Norman Cousins was diagnosed as “terminally ill.” He was given six months to live. His chance for recovery was one in 500.
He could see that the worry, depression and anger in his life contributed to, and perhaps helped cause, his disease. He wondered, “If illness can be caused by negativity, can wellness be created by positivity?”
He decided to make an experiment of himself. Laughter was one of the most positive activities he knew. He rented all the funny movies he could find—Keaton, Chaplin, Fields, the Marx Brothers. (This was before VCRs, so he had to rent the actual films.) He read funny stories. He asked his friends to call him whenever they said, heard or did something funny.
His pain was so great he could not sleep. Laughing for 10 solid minutes, he found, relieved the pain for several hours so he could sleep.
He fully recovered from his illness and lived another 20 happy, healthy and productive years. (His journey is detailed in his book,
Anatomy of an Illness.
) He credits visualization, the love of his family and friends, and laughter for his recovery.
Some people think laughter is a waste of time. It is a luxury, they say, a frivolity, something to indulge in only every so often.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Laughter is essential to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our aliveness. If we’re not well, laughter helps us get well; if we are well, laughter helps us stay that way.
Since Cousins’ ground-breaking subjective work, scientific studies have shown that laughter has a curative effect on the body, the mind and the emotions.
So, if you like laughter, consider it sound medical advice to indulge in it as often as you can. If you don’t like laughter, then take your medicine—laugh anyway.
Use whatever makes you laugh—movies, sitcoms, Monty Python, records, books,
New Yorker
cartoons, jokes, friends.
Give yourself permission to laugh—long and loud and out loud—whenever anything strikes you as funny. The people around you may think you’re strange, but sooner or later they’ll join in even if they don’t know what you’re laughing about.
Some diseases may be contagious, but none is as contagious as the cure... laughter.
Peter McWilliams
Reprinted by permission: Tribune Media Services.
T
here ain’t much fun in medicine, but there’s a heck of a lot of medicine in fun.
Josh Billings
When I was in the hospital, I had a “We” nurse. She began each sentence with “How are we today?” “We need to have a bath.” This really irritated me, so I decided to play a little joke on her.
