Is The World Falling Apart??? Or Am I Collapsing the Universe??? Part 1: Creating Cancer
What a relief. Mom’s surgery went swimmingly. Many thanks to Dr. Lauren Cassell and the crackerjack team of medical professionals at Lenox Hill Ambulatory for providing such comprehensive and compassionate care. And thanks to everyone who sent good vibrations our way – surely Tessie has been embraced in grace …
Since the “procedure” (the medical euphemism for “surgery without an overnight hospital stay,” Tessie’s stoicism has spun into relief, even optimism. Dr. Cassell deigned her nodes “tiny” which usually indicates that things are a-okay. The pathology report later confirmed that yes, the c-word was indeed contained and does not appear to have spread. This made my mother eligible for the newer, shorter and supposedly side-effect free post-op therapy: a twice-daily, week-long local treatment that delivers the radiation/chemo directly to the site, rather than the general once-a-day, 6-week series. So far, she feels so good that she’s been commuting from/to home for the early morning (8am) and late afternoon (3pm) appointments rather than staying in town overnight, even taking the train! Though the shorter treatment has its caveats - she has yet another week to be poked and prodded, yet another week exposed to medical radiation (I fear she may glow like a gigantic night light at the end of this process), yet another week with an open wound impeding her movement and activities, yet another week sans showering (which would drive me mad) - Tessie will be able to get back to her life sooner rather than later. And so will her children. Hopefully without complications.
So it’s out with the bad … the big, irregular, malignant nasty is gone, gone, gone. Hooray! Now comes the equally daunting next phase of inviting the good. Allowing the recovery, the healing part. Not just the reknitting of the incision and the irradiation of the site of the cooties, but getting back to the business of life. This disease and its treatment has defined and steered the course of the last few months; now’s the time to leave the disease behind, physically and mentally. Leave the past in the past, begin a new present and create a clear and cancer-free future.
I remember a heated exchange I had with my friend E.B. on Nantucket a few summers ago. Our innocuous brunch conversation turned unpleasant when I introduced the idea that we are 100% in control of, and accountable for, everything that comes our way in life: the good, the bad and the ugly; the sickness and the health. Accident? An event or result we didn’t anticipate or desire, but still of our own (perhaps subconscious) making. Illness? A result of the energetic dis-ease we ourselves generate in our bodies from toxic thoughts and the unhealthy choices they inspire. (I was steeped up to my ears in “The Secret” and “The Course In Miracles” at the time.) E.B. took umbrage; she was dealing with her own health issues, and didn’t buy for a second that “we create our cancer.” I insisted that we have much more power and control over our destiny than we give ourselves credit for. Or take responsibility for.
I claimed that instead we point the finger, place blame, deny our own power by searching for (and ultimately finding) reasons, explanations, causes, rationalizations, justifications, excuses for our fate. Anything to shift culpability from the true cause. Here’s a glaring and mystifying example: my dad would never admit that his two+ packs a day habit of filterless Camels may have had something to do with the lung and heart disease that ended his life. (Incredibly, he maintained that his mother’s rich cooking was the culprit.) My mother blames her “bad feet” on genetics and a youth spent wearing tight shoes with high heels, rather than the many pounds of extra weight she’s been carrying for the past 20 years. In a failing marriage, it’s always the spouse’s fault; at work it’s always the boss or the difficult co-work who creates problems …
(I frequently find myself falling into the blame-game trap. My biggie: I attribute my singlehood to the lack of alluring, interesting men in the entire New York metro area, a region of 30,000,000.)
Yes, I became 100% convinced than we produce the 100% of the outcomes we experience. That our beliefs kick-start the process; they generate the energy and emotions we feel in our bodies and provide the fuel for the actions we chose to take with our bodies. That our “thoughts become things,” and whatever comes our way is a direct result of where we chose to put our attention and focus our mental energy. (Think about it: your body will always tend to follow your gaze.) That in health as in other aspects of life, we perceive, then receive, what we believe …
Both the scientists and the spiritualists backed me up on this. A physician friend told me nearly 70% (some sources say up to 80%) of all illnesses in this country are 100% (yes, 100%) preventable, the result of our lifestyle - the choices we make every day – and not our genetic predisposition or even environmental factors. These days, our bad American diet, inactivity (too much television and computers, not enough exercise), smoking, drinking, constant stress without release and the like probably lead to the degenerative diseases such as cancer, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, even perhaps Alzheimer’s, from which we suffer and die. It used to be that infectious diseases or childbirth or getting kicked by a horse would kill us; now we are killing ourselves.
New Agey types concur. In fact, they claim our health is truly a matter of mind over matter. Authors Louise Hay in “You Can Heal Your Life”, Carolyn Myss in “Anatomy of the Spirit” and others talk about how our beautiful but crazy mind has the ability to disrupt the natural flow of life force within our body. The destructive, catabolic energy ignited by our negative thoughts and self-talk – anger, depression, hate, worry, doubt, fear, etc. – and can eventually manifest as some from of ailment(s) in the body. Myss contends that specific negative thoughts block the flow in specific chakras, the body’s seven energy centers, and manifest as problems in specific organs. For example, breadwinners bearing the burden of their family’s safety and security frequently experience lower back and leg trouble, which is associated with the 1st chakra and family/tribal ties. (Interestingly, a friend’s latent back pain reignited when concerns about money - and her ability to take care of her children’s financial needs - began to mount.) Myss would make the connection between primary caregivers such as my mother, who tend to focus their energies on the needs of others while neglecting their own, and breast illness, centered in 4th or heart charka of love for others, compassion and forgiveness. Perhaps my history of skin problems (I’ve suffered pretty much everything under the sun save leprosy), a 7th or crown chakra - connection to the divine - issue, has to do with the many bumps and roadblocks I’ve encountered as I travel my spiritual path … if you believe that sort of thing.
The beauty part? We can promote not only our own good health and wellness, but our own best life as well, simply by becoming aware of and monitoring our thoughts: recognizing/acknowledging, then processing and releasing the toxic, learning ways to quiet the mind through meditation and other practices, and turning our attention more often to the good stuff in our lives. With both incidences of breast cancer, it does seem that my mother has somehow managed to master this; 40 years ago, and again today, she refused to let her diagnosis get her down. Instead, she chose to follow French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire’s advise; at the end of “Candide” he said something about how we must cultivate our garden …
And you can, too! Simple! “Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life” (Dr. Wayne Dyer) – “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life”(Dr. Daniel G. Amen) – “Change Your Mind, Change Your Life” (Gerald Jampolsky, Diane V. Cirincione) – pick something and take control!
Simple, yes. But for most of us, not so easy. Nonetheless, I do simply adore the power these philosophies grant me. The pure potential. The ability to chart my course, write my own script, promote radiant health, design my future. However, with this delicious freedom and power come responsibility. Which we westerners tend to shirk. Oh, yes - we take credit for “our” successes, but if things fall apart we deny our involvement, knowledge and/or culpability, place blame on something or someone outside of ourselves. “Oh, no. Wasn’t me. Nah-uh.” (One only has to look at the economic mess to find shoulder-shrugging and finger-pointing even at the highest levels of expertise and authority. Frank Rich wrote a great article on this called "No One Is To Blame For Anything": check out http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opinion/11rich.html?th&emc=th)
What if we truly embraced this notion of our ability to affect positive change, and were really able to create a healthier body, a healthier life, a healthier planet? As I consider the possibilities and responsibilities of placing my faith in this belief system which insists upon my personal powers, a few Big Questions come up: If this is so, if indeed we have the ability to generate radiant health and beauty within and without, how and why did my mother, or anyone for that matter, birth this potentially deadly entity within her body? Why, then, do we frequently, whether knowingly or unwittingly, use this power to create our own cancers? In our body, in our life, in the world? What steers us out of the light and into the shadow?
Hmmm … What if our thoughts truly did inspire the energy and emotions which lead us into action? What if we really did perceive, then receive, what we believe? (Not to be confused with the new/ancient school that claims that, whether we know it or not, we move into action first, make up a story about it second, then decide how we feel about it later … but that’s another blog.)
Now this can take us into some very deep waters. Science intersecting spirituality. Quantum metaphysics. If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound if there’s no one there to hear it? Does the perceiver influence that which he/she perceives, and, if so, how much? Does the universe or anything in it even exist without you the perceiver to experience it and say, yes, it does? Or is this all just an illusion, “much ado about nothing”?
Who knows where this mental meandering will take us next! We’ll start to untangle the mess of string theory and collapsing clouds of consciousness next –
Until then, keep cultivating your garden.
© 2010 Theresa Quadrozzi - A Muse In Manhattan
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