Want to know a little secret? I’m going to let you in on one now. There’s a certain someone (I will not name names or genders so let’s just use the new gender neutral “them/they”)…There’s a certain someone who I spent an exorbitant amount of my time and energy wishing great harm to for what they had done to me.
I was often heard saying things like, “They have done such horrible things, Karma is going to bite them in the butt” or “They are so mean that its going to give them cancer.”
As far as I am aware, that person is fine…guess who got cancer?
Moi
Every time you point your finger at someone else, there are three pointing back at you.
I have to say, I think about this now often.
What did I do that caused me cancer? Besides the physical things that may have contributed, had my thinking gotten me here? I am all about thinking being just unseen actions, and I really have to consider everything if I want to continue my life on a more healthy note. Did the universe hear my calls to harm someone else and therefore send it back in my direction?
Hating my breasts
As a young woman I spent lots of time and energy focusing on my breasts, or the lack of them. I simply spent most of my childhood and early adult life hating the fact that they were not what I wished them to be. A part of me now wonders if I was putting hate in my body. Could that be why I got cancer in my breasts?
Metaphysical Meanings
This led me to do a little hunting. I used to be a massage practitioner and most people who do bodywork know that for every part of the body there are “representations” of why an illness can manifest. Chinese medicine has based their practice on this theory for centuries. Most therapists know that a survivor of trauma can manifest itself in the body.
So, I did what most practitioners would do, I grabbed my body bible, also know as Louise L. Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life off my bookshelf and looked up the words “breast” and “cancer.”
I read the following:
“Breast Problems – Over-mothering. Over-protection. Over-bearing attitudes. Cutting off nourishment”
“Cancer – Deep hurt. Longstanding resentment. Deep secret or grief eating away at the self. Carrying hatred. What’s the use.”
I don’t know if any of these things are ringing true in your case, but I know it made everything in me go, “Ding! Ding! Ding!”
It is a good reminder that I need to reread this book and change my thinking because, our thoughts do become unspoken actions.
Forgiveness
I also decided that I really needed to work on finding forgiveness if I wanted to be physically and mentally more healthy. I had done many years of therapy regarding the things that had happened to me when I was younger. But, obviously, there was still some lingering resentment that needed to stop if I really wanted to heal.
So today, and pretty much every day, I do a little something to clear my field around me. I practice forgiveness.
I’ve had to change my thinking and in order to do that, any time the person who I spent so much time being angry at pops into my head, I send love. How? It’s hard. But I don’t want harm to come my way and the simple fact is… most people don’t harm others intentionally.
I continually have to remind myself, “hurt people hurt people.” And I’m learning to move on with love.
Seeking from seekers
As you may recall from a previous post, a dear friend of mine died a few weeks before I found my cancer. My deep sadness and need to reconnect with her was unrelenting. This lead me – just a month after my mastectomy – to the Monterey Psychic Fair.
The Card Reader, The Medium & The Reflexologist
Although I’d previously lived in Monterey for 20 years, I had never gone to this event. I only knew it was happening because my friend (Lisa Marie of Prema Yoga) was doing a talk on “Highly Sensitive People.” She told me about the event and the different participants who were participating. I really was hoping that I would get a “message” from my friend who had passed.
When I arrived I was surprised at the large amount of participants and practitioners. There was a variety of booths from card readers to a plethora of different types of body workers. I have to be honest, while I am not at all the “hippy” type, I do like to try to be open to different experiences.
The way this organization works is that everything in the main area costs $25 for a 15-minute slot. You simply pick the person you want to get a reading or treatment from, pay at the front counter and get a ticket for the time slot you have booked.
They also have a few conference rooms where there are different talks and workshops happening back-to-back all day long that people can attend at no extra cost.
I perused the place and felt everyone out. What was I feeling for? I have no idea! All I knew was that I was gonna go with the flow and let the spirits in the room guide me. I picked a card reader, a medium and a foot acupressure practitioner.
The medium failed me.
It was useless. There would be no messages from my dear dead friend. Immediately frustrated, I asked myself “What is the point in staying?”
Loss of money. I’d already paid, so I figured I’d just stay.
Next was the foot reflexologist.
I slipped off my shoes and sat in a reclining chair.
“You have scar tissue,” she quickly said as she dug into my feet.
I told her that I had breast cancer and had my breast removed.
She sat me up and asked me directly, “Your left breast?” “Yes.” I replied, “How did you know?”
She pointed to my left foot and said, “Your tattoo is in the exact spot on your foot that represents your left breast.”
Does this mean that I will never get a tattoo again? No. Does it mean that I will I look up the Chinese medicine meaning before getting another tattoo on my body? Yes.
Lastly, I arrived at the table of the card reader.
She had several decks of cards, which you could choose from. I picked a pack that was round rather than oblong. I admired them and asked her where they were from.
“I got them in San Francisco on Haight Street in the 70s.” It was pretty clear that she had been conducting readings for a long, long time.
I picked a few cards and she laid them out in the order she needed for the reading. What came of it was this:
“Something was lost. But you have come full circle. Everything is in its place. You have arrived and the universe is calling you to speak about it.”
Needless to say, I didn’t get what I had come for.
No messages came to me from my lost friend. My despair of not getting what I had so wanted, mixed with this odd message of what I would have needed to hear from my friend (if she were still alive) were hard to swallow.
But strangely, I found that I felt grateful.
As my session was ending, I told her, “I had breast cancer. My breast was removed.”
“Oh,” she said. “Let me tell you what my mentor taught me that means.” “My understanding is that it partly over-mothering.” I responded.
She shook her head. “It’s more than that. Breast cancer is more complex. I don’t know you or your past, but I will tell you that it is when you give. You give everything to someone. You spend energy, time and your heart – all for nothing. It’s when that person you gave everything to walks all over you, walks away, and says, ‘F.U.’ All that you did was for nothing.”
I was gripped by her words. Like so many of us, I had given myself over-and-over throughout my life. And on a few occasions (those most important occasions) I did feel that it had all been for nothing.
“When you remove your breast,” she continued, “it means ‘all has gone to dust’. This is not a bad thing. When something goes to dust you are renewed. You send all that bad mojo away. Buried. You are new again.”
At last, something. Maybe I would have something to take away from this day. All in all, I felt like attending to this hokey-pokey, hippy event did paid off.
Saying Thank You
I was lying in bed one day and realized that I never say “Thank you” to my body! I remember telling my surgeon when he was trying to convince me to have a lumpectomy, “I need my feet. I need my arms. I don’t need my boob.”
But I never had really spent time saying “Thank you” to my body. Why not?
As a reminder that I am so lucky to be healthy today, I now spend at least 5 minutes before bed every night saying “Thank you” to my body.
I start from the top of my body and go all the way down.
Thank you brain for helping me think. Thank you nose for helping me smell. Thank you fingers for helping me create.
I thank everything I am grateful for with my body that day.
I think my body hears me.
**I will be joining Lisa Marie and Prema Yoga Healing at a retreat at Mount Madonna Institute in September 2018. Information on her retreat will be available in the next few weeks.**