Theme song : Across the Universe by the Beatles (Noting’s gonna change my world…)
The first and most import way to beat this is belief. You do have an effect on what is happening inside your body. Find out what you are living for and unmovably believe and work to stay alive for your reasons. In this rough world it’s easy to get lost, to stop caring about life because life can be really hard, and it can often feel like doom or destruction is inevitably approaching and as a species we are ignoring it. There are plenty of changes humans need to make but for you to get through this you need to put your focus on yourself. You need a reason to live and you need a unbreakable determination to make it happen.
When I was diagnosed I went from dead to alive. I was a zombie in this world, passing time, and that brought me to cancer. If you ever need a wake up call right? So how do you get through chemo and the vast array of scary contemplation cancer brings into your life? I found mediation and focusing the mind helped me to live better moment to moment in a positive mindset. And the more I focused on my mindset, the more I was aware of it, the more I could control it. During chemo my positivity fell plenty but more I didn’t give up the easier it was to not give up five minutes later. I used yoga and mediation and walks in the forest primarily. Working out is a good option for many, there are many ways to you get your energy levels up and aligned, and plenty I won’t list here or be aware of. Below is what got me through. It is very important not to overdo it when doing chemo, because it can take days to bounce back. Stress yourself but do not overstress.
The Seven Chakra’s: These are fairly key to most of the energy work described on this page. I imagine most have a general idea of them but educate yourself. This is trial and error work and understanding. The more you practice feeling energy move through your body the more you can feel it, understand it and control it. Each chakra has a color. Imagining these colors can help you feel them. When you fill a chakra with energy you cant exactly prove it, but you can feel it and choose to believe it. Explore and feel your chakra’s and energy system for yourself and let your skill grow.
Breathing in White Light: In general I found great comfort in breathing in white light from the infinite universe through my crown. If I was scared or depressed, I’d close my eyes and breath in god’s light, white light, and felt relief. Interpret this as you will, for your will, but breath in positivity and love and be filled with it. One step further: the more I did this, the more I was able; if I had done yoga or meditated earlier, it was easier to feel the positively and to control it, and to control my own emotions.
Breathing Out the Bad: Here is a simple exercise. Optionally you can do this with reverse breath, which means breath into your dantien or third chakra at solar plexus while pulling your stomach in, and breath out while letting your stomach out. When you do it breath white light into solar plex chakra from all your pours, the tips of your fingers and the crown of your head. Take from the infinite energy source all you can. And breath out slowly all the bad from your pancreas, (or heart chakra if you don’t have pancreatic cancer). Imagine all the negativity, fear, sickness as a black smoke or black ashes released through breath and imagery back into the infinite universe. Don’t feel bad about this, the universe does not care about good and bad, it can handle everything, just let it all go. Again. Breath in the white light from the infinite universe, through every pour and hair of your body, down into the third chakra, and slowly release all the negativity out of you, breath out freedom, and relax. In with the light, out with the fear. In with the light out with the sickness. In with love out with negativity. Do it until want to stop. Let it all go. You can make it through this struggle. You have amazing strength that you didn’t know you had, or even know you could tap into. The universe loves you and will take care of you, let it. In with the good, out with the bad. Release…. Good job.
Qigong/Tai Chi: These are breathing and energy moving exercises and artforms. Do whichever forms you are drawn to, there are many for each. This is a low speed, low stress workout to help get your blood and energy flowing, as well as put you into a more positive space. Blood heals your body by binging in oxygen and taking away waste. Increasing your energy and blood flow promotes strong blood with lots of WBC, RBC and platelets, which all fall with chemo. Moving and stretching also helps your organs move around and not sit in one place in your body, stagnate. Combat stagnancy in all forms. When you are done and during you will notice your energy has turned positive, like life is not so bad, like you are proud our yourself, like you can get through this. I know I have repeated this, but bringing yourself into a positive energy is contagious in that it will make it easier to notice when you’re in a negative space and easier to make the switch. Get into the positive. This is a part of choosing life.
Yoga: Yoga is awesome. It stretches you out, helps you breath, relaxes you the way mediation does and builds muscle. Its does everything. Yoga does not need to be a strenuous work out, don’t stretch harder than feels ok, maybe just a little past actually, but it shouldn’t be very hard. Go to classes if you like, find videos on the internet, get books. Yoga is way to mainstream to act like you can’t learn. I was lucky enough to have a yoga guru cousin to teach me. We usually do praise the sun, warrior, chair, inversion, tree and child’s or corpse at the end. Cat and Cow also feels especially good with chemo as it stretched the stomach gently and is relaxing. We would go slow and focus on doing three to five slow breaths in each pose or parts of the pose.
Light Working Out: Building muscle, like all of these exercises strengthens blood flow, increases energy and gets you breathing. Increased lung compacity from working out strengthens the lungs which are tied to the immune system in your body’s internal energy systems according to according to ancient medicines such as acupuncture. On a simple note working out increases your desire to hydrate, a very important thing to do. It again brings oxygen into your blood and strengthen your organs in turn by keeping things moving and forcing them to work. This is primarily seen in lungs, heart, brain, colon and your cellular system but everything is effected by a little healthy stress. Yoga and Qigong/Tai Chi, though very low stress, build muscle too. Working out does not have to mean pumping iron, but if that’s what you like do it, just be careful not to overdo it.
Walking: Go out and walk, preferably in nature if you can or by the cleansing sounds of waves crashing in the ocean! Nature is uplifting in itself and walking makes you feel good, is low stress and even if you feel crappy it can be done.
Acupuncture: This is probably the only alternative medicine that your doctor will accept and collaborate with. Acupuncture is accepted by western medicine. My health insurance even paid for mine! Thank you Oregon. Tell your practitioner what symptoms you need help with, for example nausea, neuropath, fatigue etc. They will likely take your pulse and treat you based on what they find as well as what you ask for. I would not be afraid of the needles. The first few might feel weird or even painful as you feel them tap into your damaged energy system, kind of like a slow arc of a shock. But the vast majority you feel next to nothing. And they align your energy flow, your chi, when sometimes breathing and mediation at home cannot.
Grounding: Also called earthing to make it sound extra hippy. Put your bare feet on the ground for one hour or day or better yet, lay out on the grass and look up at the trees. Connect into the earths magnetic energy to stabilizes your physiology and mentality. Said to reduces stress and improve sleep as well as effect your general well being. Be with the earth, she is beautiful.
Massage: I’m weary to put this in because it sounds lazy, but if you can afford it, get your health insurance to pay for it or have a friend who knows what they are doing, why not? I took a course in Thai massage years ago in Thailand and it followed the blood flow equals healing principle. Massage through sore muscles and down blood channels to free them up and increase blood flow to the injured areas, then let the blood do the healing.
Move You Ass!: This is for any chemo, any cancer, any life challenge or activity. Get up and move your ass! You may not feel good but do it anyway, but again: just don’t overdo it. Stagnancy is an ally of cancer. Get your blood and energy moving. Get your motivation moving. Get going. Get it?
Embrace the Emptiness: There is no spoon. There is no spoon. The spoon is a perception of this reality, but you are more than this reality. The universe is empty, and from that emptiness springs all the life and reality we see around us. I probably sound like a nut by now, but there is definitely something to be gained by looking past this one life, or the things in this life that we perceive. We will all die, and when we do, who can say what is next? You find comfort in letting everything go, in accepting the chance of your death as equally as you accept the chance of living through this struggle. Buddhism teaches good and bad are part of the same dichotomy. That when we find nirvana on a hundred foot pole, we should take another step. It means stopping the necessity to name and understand the world around us. That nothing is permanent, or more so that the only permanent is nothing. When you are in mediation and something comes into your brain or a sound distracts you, don’t explore the distraction or condemn yourself for allowing it, instead acknowledge it and move on. Say hearing-hearing, not I am hearing, bringing in the ego. Thinking-thinking. Not, Oh no, I’m thinking again! In emptiness lies peace and freedom. It is detached from the outcome of worldly affairs, and human emotion. It means just being. There are many philosophies based around thoughts like these. Yoga as well, when explored as a philosophy, is practiced all day everyday and it strives for this emptiness, or something equal to it. To be empty means no fear and no hope. It means no nothing. Nothing-nothing.
Love Someone or Something: Find those that need love and give it to them, and you will not only be appreciated but it will fill you with love as well. Love a dog, a friend, family or a partner. Love the forest and the birds in the sky. Fill your body with love and give it away freely. When you give love you get love. Its circular. We should see this in all life. When you do something nice for someone it also benefits you by giving yourself gratitude for helping this other person in need. It feels good to be nice. It’s nourishing to do good in the world. Somehow this is not the way we talk about success or giving in this world, we have forgotten that to benefit someone else benefits us as well. It’s an example of the infinite energy above that we can tap into, and give back to in mutual benefit to all.
My Favorite Meditation: Here is the Spring Forest website and the meditation is called Small Universe, but it is a little pricy. I was given the CD by a friend. The CD is nice because it times out your inhales and is very soothing to just listen to. Here is how you do it:
Stand or Sit lotus, in a chair or lay down. Tongue to roof of mouth. Breath in and out through the nose. When you breath in, focus your energy to filling a chakra, when you breath out push the energy to the next chakra. It will follow the seven chakras in the front then in the back, hitting the first and seventh only once. It is a circle. I will describe where to focus the energy as the cd does, not exactly the same as the picture below, but these locations feel right. Begin by saying inside your mind “I am in the universe. The universe is in my body. The universe and I combine as one.” Take a few breaths into your dantien deep behind the navel, feel it swirling clockwise and growing bigger. Breath out and push down to the bladder. Then breath into the bladder filling it. Then down to the root chakra, and then into it. Breath out and push the energy up to tip of tail bone. Up to lower back. Up to kidneys area. Up to spine at base of neck. Up to the penial gland. Up to crown. Down to third eye. Down to throat. Down to Heart. Down to dantien. And back around again. 9 times total. When you are done picture the energy in your dantien swirling clockwise smaller and smaller and tuck it back in behind your navel.
Thank you for reading.
Arriving at Departure 