One sentence. That’s all it took. One sentence and my body shut down. Immediately. Entirely
I’m so sorry.
You have incurable ovarian cancer.
I didn’t hear another word the doctor said. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t walk. I sat motionless with one thought in my head: I’m going to die.
How long the doctor spoke for, I have no idea. My husband listened. My body and mind were elsewhere.
Finally, I was jolted back to reality …
I will get you a wheelchair
so you can take Jenny to your car.
No! There was no way I was going to be put in a wheelchair. Mustering all my strength, I pulled myself out of my seat and, with the supporting arm of my husband, slowly made my way to our car.
I had arrived at the doctor’s surgery concerned but still feeling healthy and optimistic with a spring in my step. I left like an old lady barely able to walk.
Forming the belief that I would die had had an immediate and drastic impact on my body. I was, indeed, far closer to death than when I had arrived. It is somewhat ironic then that an understanding of the physical effect of those words would ultimately form the basis of my healing. But I didn’t know it. Not yet.
I had worked professionally as an Intuitive Healer and Massage Therapist for ten years prior to my diagnosis and had done a lot of personal development and healing on myself. I couldn’t believe I ended up with a diagnosis of incurable cancer and felt a lot of shame as I had professed to be able to heal others, but hadn’t healed myself. At the time of my diagnosis in December 2012, I looked and felt healthy but had noticed a lump in my lower abdomen.
I wasn’t too concerned. I just thought it was a fibroid. Cancer never ever entered my mind. In hindsight, there were other symptoms but I had put them down to menopause. This is why ovarian cancer is known as “the silent killer.” It is not usually diagnosed until the later stages.
After the diagnosis, shock gradually turned into terror as I shook like a leaf from sun up to sundown. Sleep was intermittent and fitful. My mind had only one thing on it. I didn’t want to share the news with those closest to me as I wanted to spare them the worry but I knew I would be unable to hide the truth from them. So, it was with a heavy heart that I shared my news with my loved ones. I had never wanted to be a burden and cause grief to anyone. Then, ten days following my diagnosis, I was abruptly woken early one morning to a voice in my head telling me that I was healed. This wasn’t just wishful thinking. It was a palpable relief and knowing that flooded my body. I liken it to the feeling a mother would have if her child were lost in the bush. Searchers are scouring everywhere as her anxiety grows with every passing hour. Then her phone rings with the news her child has been found. She hasn’t yet laid eyes on her child but she knows it will be only a matter of time before she does.
I didn’t yet know how I would heal but I KNEW I would.
Because of my profession I had a highly developed intuition and I believe, when I was in fear from the diagnosis and facing a life and death situation, my reptilian brain (where our automatic self-preserving behaviour patterns which ensure our survival originate) took over from my thinking mind. That voice in my head was my intuition guiding me.
In my journey of healing, I uncovered six steps to healing which I call HEAL-U. This was my first step.
H – Hope and Believe.
In the weeks following my diagnosis, people rang and visited. Some of these connections were helpful and some were destructive. When I conveyed the news to my spiritual friends, they almost jokingly said,
You’ll get this sorted.
You have the skills and knowledge to heal.
This is just part of the plan.
On hearing these words, my confidence grew and I believed in my ability to heal. However, one friend came to visit me and told me of another woman who had just been given the same diagnosis as me ….. but she had died. I was astounded that my friend would even consider conveying this news to me. Immediately, I felt my body constrict with fear.
However, that friend did me a great favor. I decided then and there to become discerning about who I would share my journey with. I would only surround myself with people who believed I could heal. I have since come to understand that, once you have set an intent or said a prayer, the Universe will always work FOR you. I had set the intent to heal and everything that took place in my life, whether perceived as good or bad, was an opportunity for me to move one step closer to manifesting that intent. My friend had given me an opportunity to take that one step closer.
This was my second step to healing.
E – Encouragement and Support.
I believed I could heal. I was surrounded by people who believed I could heal. They encouraged and supported me. But how was I going to do it? I knew of no formula that I could follow.
I had no other option than to follow my intuition. And, when I doubted my intuition, I would ask the Universe for signs to confirm what I believed to be the right path.
The body is the barometer to the soul, so I decided to ask my body for an answer. I set this intention and then went into meditation. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to take some gentle breaths as my body relaxed. As I intuitively scanned my body, I was drawn to one of the tumors. I could “see” it as a foreign object in a perfect body. Growing and pushing its way out. In my mind I “asked” it why is it here and what has it come to teach me? Surprisingly, these words sprang into my awareness.
You look good, Jenny.
You feel great
but you are out of alignment with your soul.
You are not listening and living
from your authentic self.
The veneer is cracking
as the truth tries to come to the surface.
Follow the signs your body gives you
and you will heal.
And this became my third step to healing.
A – Aware of Your Inner Knowing.
I shared what I had uncovered with a good friend Jude, who had undertaken similar training to me, and invited her to come over and hold space for me as I got to the root cause of what had created this cancer. I wanted to know where I had stepped out of alignment with who I really was.
My husband, on the other hand, didn’t really get it. He was an engineer and found it difficult to understand the concept of what I was doing. However, that didn’t stop him encouraging and supporting me to do whatever I needed to and felt right for me.
Jude and I settled ourselves down in the sacred space of my warm and cozy healing room. We offered up a prayer to both be guided during meditation to help me uncover this root cause. We asked for whatever needs to happen to take place, in order for me to heal.
I closed my eyes as Jude gently guided me down ten steps. Inviting me to relax and surrender into the unknown with each step I took. When I reached the bottom step, she encouraged me to enter through a special door, one that would unlock the key to my healing.
As I entered, a scene began to unfold in front of me. I couldn’t see it completely but I could sense it and a strong musky smell filled my nostrils. I waited for a moment as I could feel fear, shame and guilt beginning to rise up from the depths of my being. I was being held in a dungeon, chained to a post. There were three younger people with me also chained up. We were all petrified. I was in Switzerland back in the 1500’s and I was a witch, doing what I do now. Witches, in those days, were held responsible for natural disasters and I was being used as a scape goat. The three younger people were my under-studies. My punishment was to watch them get burned at the stake before it was my turn. As this scene unfolded, my emotions became stronger. Tears streamed down my face as relief engulfed my whole body. Lifetime upon lifetime of anxiety, fear, feelings of abandonment, and a myriad of other suppressed emotions surfaced to be released. In that moment, I GOT IT!
The revelation of this past life uncovered a life transforming (and saving) realization.
It isn’t my fault.
I am innocent.
In that lifetime, I was only trying to help and heal others but, not only did I lose my life, I also caused the death of others.
Jude then gently asked me to cut, what is known as, energetic cords and attachments to that lifetime and when I felt that this had been completed, guided me back up the stairs and invited me to open my eyes when I was ready. Upon opening my eyes ,we looked at each other in wonderment and Jude gave me a great big hug. We then discussed how I had also carried these beliefs in to this lifetime. I had been emotionally, physically and sexually abused and had a deep-seated belief (which, up until that point, I was unaware of) that somehow, I was to blame. I must have done something wrong to deserve these abuses. My guilt and shame played out in this lifetime by making me a chronic people pleaser, a high achiever – doing anything I could to feel good and find love, anything to prove that I was okay and not flawed. Throughout my life, I believed that I wasn’t good enough, even though on the outside, it looked like I had everything together.
I tried so hard to be the best at everything. The best at every sport I played, the best wife, mother, friend, housekeeper, cook and employee. Everything I did was driven from the fear of not being good enough. I ‘over gave’ to my own detriment. Ten years before my cancer diagnosis, I had burned out in the Corporate world.
Uncovering this past life not only released suppressed emotions that had built up over many years, but it allowed me to finally get angry. Many people said to me,
I can’t believe you got cancer.
You are so nice.
Well, that is exactly why I got cancer. I had stuffed that anger down, ignored my soul and my own needs, and put others first.
As Dr. Candace Pert, a cellular biologist and author, discovered and wrote in her book Molecules of Emotion
Every time we suppress an emotion,
it physically gets stored in our cells.
Over time, there is the propensity
to develop dis-ease
where that suppressed emotion is stored.
No wonder I got ovarian cancer. Our ovaries are where we create life. I didn’t know how to create a life for myself. I was out of touch with my own boundaries and needs. I was too busy quashing my needs in order to accommodate others. As a consequence of continually living in fear and trying to pre-empt things going wrong, (because of the belief that it would be my fault) I lived constantly from a place of flight and fight. I had done this for so long that my body had forgotten how to activate my para-sympathetic nervous system. The para-sympathetic nervous system is used to rest, digest, and restore but even when I was supposedly resting, my para-sympathetic nervous system was still not activated so I was always feeling stressed. (I was clinically diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). It is through the breath that we can activate the para-sympathetic nervous system. I had to relearn how to breathe properly.
This is where true healing began for me. As I connected with the anger that arose and then asked myself what I was going to do about it, I began to learn to say NO, to speak my truth and to make decisions for myself.
A common theme for the healing of victims of abuse is for them to have strong boundaries and take back the personal power that has been robbed from them.
Another gift that came from uncovering that past life took place for my son. I recognized him as one of my under-studies in that lifetime. He had been struggling with drugs in this lifetime and, once again, that belief played itself out for me. I felt shame and guilt, thinking I was to blame. I wasn’t a good mother and I must have done something wrong. I was living from a place of believing I would be responsible for his life and he could die, as had eventuated in that past life. We are energetically connected to our children. As I released this belief, he began to heal and take responsibility for himself. I am so proud of the man he has now become.
This was my fourth step to healing.
L – Led to the Root Cause
Because the cancer was diagnosed in early December, no operation was possible until January 4. During that time, the tumor grew exponentially, to the extent that, when I lay down, there was a melon-sized lump protruding from my abdomen.
I prayed and begged to be healed without surgery but my intuition knew that this wasn’t possible. Remember step one. For something to materialize, you must first believe it. I didn’t honestly believe that I could heal the cancer without some assistance from conventional medicine. Consequently, I had major surgery. I was extremely ill following my operation and, four days later, I was informed that they wanted to do a gastroscopy, as stomach cancer was also suspected.
Lying in my hospital bed on the morning of the procedure, I was terrified. I just did not know how much my poor body could take. But I knew that our thoughts create our reality, so I summoned all my strength to turn those thoughts from fear to a place of trust.
I surrendered and said “Okay. GOD, you take care of this”. I refer here to the word GOD as an acronym of the Grand Order of Design (a phrase coined by the great Dr Wayne Dyer). My mind and body immediately became calmer as I saw myself handing over this worry.
As I was wheeled into theatre, a doctor of Indian descent and dressed in his scrubs approached. He shook my hand and introduced himself.
Hello, I am Dr Shiva.
I will be looking after you today.
I couldn’t contain myself and burst out laughing.
If you are doing my procedure for me today,
I will be fine.
Shiva is a Hindu God. My prayer had literally been answered. I surrendered and handed over my concerns. GOD was taking care of me.
I knew at that point that I was being watched over in my journey of healing and was being supported from all realms. I found out later that laughing produces endorphins which relaxes the esophagus and also relieves pain, so I had no after effects from the gastroscopy. And the good news was, the cancer had not metastasized into my stomach. A few days later, I was released from the hospital to recover for six weeks before I was scheduled to begin chemotherapy.
The surgeon who performed the major abdominal surgery, for some unknown reason, whenever she saw me, she would always reiterate that she was unable to cure me. However, a couple of days following my hospital release, she phoned with my pathology results which confirmed what she had already suspected. The cancer was Stage 3C and supposedly incurable. As a parting shot, she once again said,
I can’t cure you
and you can’t cure you
BUT between the two of us,
I believe you are an A1 student.
She knew I was following a spiritual path to healing. I took this as a sign that I was on the right path.
In fact, I received many signs that my intuition was guiding me to a place of wholeness and health. Any time I didn’t totally trust my intuition, I surrendered and asked for a sign. I had had one-third of the recommended chemotherapy when I knew that I had had enough. My intuition told me, but fear and doubt crept in and overtook my inner belief. Waiting to see my oncologist and then go for another round of chemo, I once again surrendered and said to my grandmother in spirit.
Nanny,
I know I have had all the chemo I need.
Can you please give me a sign that this is correct?
Immediately my attention was drawn to the television playing softly in the corner of the room and, to my astonishment, the words LIVING WELL were plastered across the screen in capital letters. This boosted my confidence no end but I still wasn’t completely convinced. I found it scary to go against what my oncologist was recommending. When I got in to see him, he informed me that my platelets were not recovering enough from the previous chemo and that they would have to cut the dosage significantly. I was relieved. This was another sign but, still, I didn’t have the courage to cancel this next infusion.
With my mind bouncing from fear to belief about whether my decision was right and that my journey with chemotherapy had come to an end, I eased myself into the treatment chair to receive the cocktail of chemicals which would supposedly prolong my life for a few more months. However, someone or something else had other plans for me. One nurse after another repeatedly jabbed me trying to find a vein to administer the chemotherapy. Finally, following five nurses’ unsuccessful attempts, I thought to myself,
If I don’t believe it now, I never will.
It was being made impossible for me
to receive any more.
I called an immediate halt to any further attempts. The flurry and panic of the medical staff could not disrupt my confidence and belief that my intuition was right. I skipped down the corridor of that hospital knowing that life was about to get a whole lot better.
This was my fifth step to healing
L – Let go and Surrender.
If in doubt, hand your fears over and allow yourself to be guided.
There is also another aspect to this step of surrendering. Many people believe the way to healing is to think positive. However, this is unrealistic and unhealthy. There were times when I was fearful and doubted my ability to heal. When those instances arose, I would surrender to those feelings. Emotion is energy in motion. If we feel it fully, it can then move through the body. I believe I had created cancer by not feeling my feelings. I certainly wasn’t going to continue to do that. The trauma of my past experiences had been locked into my body and every time I acknowledged an emotion and changed the belief that was connected to that emotion, I was releasing the past as well as the present. This would then enable me to go forward and create a whole different future for myself.
I was searching through youtube one day when I came across a scientist called Dr Bruce Lipton. He is a cellular biologist and the author of Biology of Belief. He had discovered that
It is the perception of the environment that controls a cell.
In human terms,
perception is belief.
It is our beliefs that control our cells.
When we change a belief, we release suppressed emotions and reframe our mind and body. Not only have I physically healed from cancer, as I have learned to love myself, change my beliefs, and listen to what is right for me, my relationships have grown, my wealth has grown and I am living a life beyond my wildest dreams.
The last step to HEAL-U is
U – Unleash your Plan
This is where you create a plan to follow what feels right for YOU. When I created my plan, I felt like I had control and it gave me a job. This allowed me to step out of fear a lot more easily. It also boosted my immune system. We all know that when our immune system is strong it gives the body the greatest opportunity to heal itself.
My plan involved:
Eating healthily which incorporated lots of fruit and vegetables and small portions of meat.
Swimming in the ocean and walking daily barefoot on the beach.
Qi Gong, which is an ancient Chinese exercise and healing technique that involves meditation, controlled breathing, and movement exercises. Sometimes I would have to do this lying down and visualizing it when I was very ill.
Dancing to music I loved which, at times, was merely my head moving as I “lost myself” to the sounds.
Making a conscious effort to be around positive and uplifting people.
Doing things that I enjoyed without allowing myself to get tired.
Regular massage.
And most importantly being true to myself and recognizing beliefs I hold that no longer serve me. This allows me to learn to love myself more and I believe LOVE is what heals us. The bonus is, when we love ourselves, we can live our lives to our fullest potential.
However, my story does not finish there.
It is a shame that some of us wait until we realize that our lives are finite to take stock and make changes. My husband and I were certainly guilty of that. We had been living in a small rural town that was cold in the winter. Neither of us liked the weather there, and we had been wanting change for a long time. We were warm climate people who loved the beach and water. So, we decided to up stakes and move from the South Island of New Zealand to the beautiful beachside town of Mount Maunganui in the North Island. Consequently, I had to be assigned a new medical team.
By this stage I had chosen not to have any more blood tests as I had decided I would not have any more chemotherapy. I had been told there was nothing more that could be done for me when cancer returned, except more operations to cut the cancer out to give me a little longer. I continued with my six-monthly check-ups simply to stay in the system to become a statistic … one of those who had beaten the odds. When I was first diagnosed, no one was able to give me any statistics on people who had survived and what they had done.
Here I was in the consulting room of my newly assigned gynecologist. He had just finished examining me when he said
You need to have blood tests
so that I can see where you are
at with your cancer markers.
I explained to him my position and said I was surprised it wasn’t written down in my notes.
His response was
Oh no.
I need to see where your cancer markers are at.
Once again, I reiterated my position.
Totally ignoring me, he took out a laboratory form and began filling it in. Placing it on the desk in front of me he said
No. I need to know.
Here is a form for you to take to the laboratory.
Furiously, I picked up that form and walked out of his office. Anger built up inside. I wasn’t being listened to. NO seemed not to mean NO.
I sat with that form for two whole days, then defiantly went off to the lab.
I’ll show him.
Ten days later as I was sitting at my office desk, the phone rang. It was my new MD (whom I had not yet met).
Has anyone rung to give you the results of your blood tests?
No.
Oh.
I am so sorry to tell you
that your cancer markers have shot right back up.
You will need to make an appointment
with your oncologist as soon as possible.
Then she hung up. I was in shock. This wasn’t part of my plan. I believed I was healed. What had gone wrong?
Five minutes later, the phone rang once more. My MD must have had second thoughts as she informed me that she was here for me if I needed to talk.
I made that appointment with my oncologist and, in the meantime, also decided I would talk to my new MD.
With the wind knocked out of my sails, I sat dejectedly in my MD’s office as she went over the information that I had just filled out as a new patient.
To my surprise she said to me,
I see what you do for a job.
I had filled in Intuitive Healer as my occupation.
Why do you think your cancer markers have risen?
Thrilled to have chosen an MD who was on the same page as me, I replied
Because I haven’t finished my healing yet.
Exactly.
I left her room knowing that I still had more healing to do.
The only option my oncologist could give me was to begin chemotherapy straight away. I declined and informed him I would be back in three months’ time for another blood test.
During those three months, I looked at how I had allowed a man (my gynecologist) to persuade me to go against my intuition. Why hadn’t I simply taken that form and thrown it away. Why had I responded to him in such a way that he didn’t respect my decision?
Three months later, my cancer markers had dropped right back down again. Of course, my medical team were perplexed as to how that could happen. But I knew exactly.
Remember … I said the Universe is always working for you? Even though that wasn’t part of my plan, it was part of GOD’s plan. I now had medical evidence of what suppressing emotions can do and what happens when they are released. Suppressing emotions leads to chemical changes in the cells that, in turn, can lead to cancer. Releasing emotions relieves stress, boosts the immune system, and allows the body to heal naturally.
I was a woman who lived in fear. I now live in faith, peace, and love!
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