Holistic Healing, May 05

Imagine There's No Illness
Methods of thinking outside the cancer treatment box.

By Lisa James

   Learning you have cancer can feel like being dragged out to sea by a powerful undertow. The disorientation is intense as you struggle to avoid drowning in an ocean of fear, anxiety and anger...at the same time you have to grapple with treatment decisions, medical paperwork and altered life plans. But there’s a way to free your life from being held hostage.
   You can teach your mind to help your body through such techniques as meditation and guided imagery. When used as part of an overall holistic approach to treatment that includes nutrition, exercise, play and emotional support, mind-body practices help place the afflicted person at the center of the healing process. “The patient becomes the healer,” says Dr. Michelle Leclaire O’Neill of The Mind/Body Center for Complementary Medicine in Pacific Palisades, California (310-454-0920) “and the physician becomes an aid to the healing.”
   Besides providing the willpower needed to stick with a new diet or fitness plan and making symptoms easier to bear, mind/body therapies can directly influence the immune and hormonal systems. “The germ is nothing, the terrain and soil are all,” as O’Neill puts it. “It’s not the disease, but the patient who has the disease.” Mind/body methods also reduce the stress that invariably accompanies serious illness.
   Studies of women with breast cancer enrolled in programs that deal with mind, body and spirit have found that these women not only achieve considerable relief from depression and an increased ability to manage side effects, but they also enjoy a greater sense of well-being and meaning in their lives.
   Unfortunately, some people confuse mind/body work with a simplistic “think positive” approach. “We talk about healthy belief, not positive belief,” O’Neill says. “You have to deal with the underlying feelings.”

Mind Over Matter
   Meditation, which teaches you to quiet the internal chatter we all experience, is now often a part of cancer treatment plans. “People think it’s difficult to teach but it’s easy to do, really,” O’Neill insists. Meditation classes are held in nearly every community across the country.
   Guided imagery involves creating a sharply focused mental picture that helps you deal with your illness. “There’s no one standard visualization—each person is unique,” O’Neill explains. “For some people it’s very gentle, for others it’s very harsh.” So if such commonly used visualizations as seeing yourself walking along a peaceful seashore or lying in a sun-filled meadow don’t do it for you, do not be shy about going into attack mode: Drop some bombs on those cancer cells or charge at them headlong like a medieval knight on his steed. As the noted poet Wallace Stevens once said, “The imagination is man’s power over nature.” Guided imagery harnesses the power of your imagination over disease, and helps give you a sense of control.
   Ultimately, all mind/body techniques are about cultivating your inner resources to fight a disease that is one of humankind’s most powerful foes. “The most important thing is to first treat the spirit,” O’Neill advises. “It’s not about blame, it’s about knowledge and the truth.”

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