I’ve got cancer right but does it have me?
I wrote a blog about living with my cancer with a similar title to this several months ago and I just wanted to return back to it and see if my thoughts and feelings have changed. This is also another of those similarities that those cancer patients who unexplainably healed themselves, did, they didnt let their cancer have them this is the third blog related to the sudden healings miracles spontaneous remissions or what ever you like to call them. A series of blogs I’m writing what will hopefully be a blue print for healing, if not for me then maybe for someone reading this in the future. I like to think that anything is possible if we have the right ingredients to add to the pot. So far it’s been a pinch of belief followed by a splash of acceptance and this one adds a dash of taking control of your cancer to the recipe that hopefully will kick start the self healing process from within.
Ok, so I’ve got cancer. It’s a big bloody deal, of course. But I am not my diagnosis, I am not cancer, I’m still Woody. I think for far too long I’ve let cancer have me, I’ve surrendered to the name cancer, I’ve walked on egg shells around cancer and done my best not to break them. My very identity has been stolen by cancer, well it’s time to take it back. I think back and realise that lots of my movement has been a kind of cancer oriented movement, I’ve walked like I’ve got cancer, I make strange noises every time I get up or sit down because that’s what my mind thinks someone with cancer is supposed to do. The weird thing is when I make a noise I feel the pain that goes with it but when I intentionally get up or sit down without making a noise I feel less of the pain, how strange. Mind over matter at work may be.
I’ve mentioned the power of the mind and how it’s intrinsically linked to the body quite a few times in my blogs, it’s something I strongly believe in. Each thought we have has a reaction that affects millions of cells throughout us. I wonder if thinking about pain makes me make a noise which in turn then tells my pain receptors that are primed ready to make me feel pain, it’s like a grunt or a grown sets off a pain release. I can switch thoughts on and off like presson a button, I can therefore switch pain on like a switch.I make the noises because I’m expected to, that’s how cancer has made me be. Today I’m making a concerted effort to not be cancer, to not live a day of being a cancer patient but instead to be just me.
I’m sitting outside, I try an experiment, my cancer is asleep. Let’s wake him up, so I think about how much my right knee is hurting (which it’s not) a few seconds later my right knee wakes up, “hey Woody it’s says I’m hurting, you, Yes I know you are because I told you too” it started hurting because I woke it up, I put my attention on it. I expected it to start hurting because my full attention was placed on my knee and nothing else, perhaps it only started hurting because I had forgot it wasnt hurting in the first place and because I was focusing on something else. Distraction seems a great way to stop pain, it hates being ignored for too long.
Cancer can cause incredible pain, I’ve had some of that, but how much of that pain was helped by my thoughts. How much worse did I make that pain just by my expectations? I’m not saying that cancer doesn’t hurt because believe me I understand just how much it can hurt, those days when I first discovered I had cancer and I was in undescribable pain, it was like my body was breaking apart and that I will not forget for a good while yet. It’s an interesting thought to explore as I go down the untravelled route with a sign post pointing to the journey ahead this way to not to be cancer. I chose that route today, nothing made me go down that route it was just me and my mind and my thoughts.
Walking the Monopoly board challenge
I’ve just done something that I never thought would be possible, I walked 17.5 miles and completed the monopoly board challenge, that was kindly set up by a good friend in my name, he called it walking with Woody. I never intended to do the complete walk , I didn’t think my cancer would let me, I thought I would turn up meet the guys and then jump in a cab and meet them at the end, this was my thinking before but it changed on the day to something far more important. The challenge became a quest, a quest to show my cancer what is possible. The walk was tough, I’ve got tumors and sciatic pain caused by cancer, but a point came during the day where I started to feel it was important to do this, to show myself and anyone reading just what can be done when you put your focus on a goal or challenge.You can read all about here
You can still help raise more funds by clicking this link thank you
Does this prove that my cancer only has me when I allow it too, this is the beauty of the super power that us humans posses that nothing else on this planet that walks and breathes possess in such abundance and that is our freedom of choice. No animal can chose how it feels they are all existing on programmes in their DNA that they have to follow. You never really see for example a gazelle that’s just been chased by a pack of hungry lionesses and just avoided becoming lunch, sitting down and pondering what’s just happened, he just stops running and when he knows he’s safe he starts eating again, he doesn’t need therapy or councilling he is what he is. We on the other hand have the freedom of choice. Cancer might be killing us but we chose how to deal with it. We either let it have us or we chose to not let it have us. Those miraculous healings happened I believe because the mind forgot to tell the body how bad it was supposed to be and then the body just started to heal itself. There are no medical explanations for sudden healing they just occur so no one knows the secret, the body and mind when they combine in harmony anything can happen.
As I said this was another of those remarkable similarities that happened in the thousands of cancer survivors who for no explainable medical reason healed themselves, they all took the choice to be in control of themselves and not let their cancer become them. They got on with their lives and didn’t become a servant to their cancer. They just got on with it. I can understand reading this and thinking how can I just get on with it. We just do our best don’t we! We refuse to submit, we keep believing in ourselves and our doctor’s and the medication they give us, but at the end of the day we need some control in us as human beings we need to be human.
This makes sense to me, that all of those miraculous healings all took control of their own lives, quite literally cancer became a back seat to everything else and slowly like a spoilt child that had been crying for attention and was getting none, it went away. This has got me thinking about other things, just how much do we use our energy focusing on the wrong things in life and how much do they then grow and become much bigger problems than they might be if left alone. Most of our problems start with a thought in the mind somewhere which like a seed if it’s given enough attention and watered will grow and grow. That seed will become what ever we think it will become, so surely if we focus on the growing seeds that have a positive outlook to them than that’s what we will grow and our harvest will be a rich and good one. By focusing on the positives I’ve discovered a better way of living with my cancer, yes it’s still there but certainly is much quieter now I’m not making it the star of the show the centre of the attraction.
So my plan from now onwards along with having total belief that I’m going to heal and full acceptance of my cancer see blogs below.
https://livingwithmycancer.org/2022/04/23/belief-in-spontaneous-remissions/
https://livingwithmycancer.org/2022/04/26/acceptance-of-cancer/
I now go forwards down a path where I change how I deal with my cancer, it will no longer be my first or last thought of the day except for my positive affirmations I do daily. I’m going to stop making the cancer noises and stop walking like I have cancer and I refuse to be cancer I am Woody a human who has accepted I have cancer but cancer certainly still does not have me.
Take care be kind be grateful and be positive
Love Woody ❤️
