Tag: Meditation

Gratitude

This is one of a series of three posts on connections between faith and healing. The others are on Meditation and on Love. These three are not of course exclusive to the Christian faith, or even to faith at all, but they are integral to the Christian faith. And they all support healing.

You might well think “I’ve got cancer, what do I have to be grateful for?” Actually for quite a lot, probably including the cancer.

Gratitude is scientifically proven to have health benefits. Quoting from the Mayo Clinic website ” Expressing gratitude is associated with a host of mental and physical benefits. Studies have shown that feeling thankful can improve sleep, mood and immunity. Gratitude can decrease depression, anxiety, difficulties with chronic pain and risk of disease”. Who would have thought it?

This is yet another area in which healing parallels faith. The Holy Bible has a vast number of statements or exhortations concerning giving thanks to the Lord in both the Old and New Testaments. As a Christian, I am so fortunate in being able to thank God for the wonder and beauty of His creation and for all the blessings I have received in my life. When the cancer or its treatment gets on top of us, it may be hard to think of the things we have to be grateful for, but there is always something or someone to be grateful for.

I try to make it a habit at the end of each day to think of everything that I have to be thankful for that day and thank God for the things and people that have been a blessing to me. If you don’t believe in God and believe the universe created itself, your health will still benefit from gratitude for the good things and good people in your life. Gratitude is an overwhelmingly positive emotion that drives out the negative emotions that hinder healing.

And we must remember to thank people personally for the good things they do for us. When Jesus healed ten lepers, only one bothered to go back and thank him. We must make sure we are the one in ten. The person we thank invariably appreciates it too, so they benefit as well as ourselves.

What rather surprised me was that a number of people who specialise in treating cancer said that patients were grateful for their cancer. It forced them to take stock of their lives, reassess priorities and recognise what was most important to them. So yes, some people are even grateful for what their cancer has done for them. Certainly, however dire our situation, we need to be grateful for the good. Concentrating on the good generates more good.

One way of training ourselves in gratitude is to keep a “gratitude diary” in which we jot down things and people that we are grateful for at the time. Then when things are bad, we can look back and see that there is a lot to be grateful for. Training our mind to be positive through Meditation, Love and Gratitude can only improve our lives and our health.

Love

This is one of a series of three posts on connections between faith and healing. The others are on Meditation and on Gratitude. These three are not of course exclusive to the Christian faith, or even to faith at all, but they are integral to the Christian faith. And they all support healing.

Dr Flavin wrote a lovely article on Love and it’s role in healing. I strongly recommend reading it HERE: In particular she emphasised loving ourselves. And illustrated her article with examples of people who unconsciously sabotaged their healing by not thinking they were worthy of it. Here again, health connects with faith. Christians absolutely believe that God loves each and every one of us. So who are we not to love ourselves? (And others!)

This is a bit of an eye-opener. Love in relationships is already well-documented to have a beneficial effect on health. But there isn’t so much on the importance of loving oneself and feeling worthy of love and worthy of healing. The importance of the mind in healing the body is now well-recognised, so we need to do everything we can to make our minds healthy, so as to promote healing rather than hinder it. I hope these three posts – Meditation, Love and Gratitude will help. These are things that we have to work on ourselves, all the time. They are the perfect medicine – without harmful side effects.

A necessary part of loving ourselves is also forgiving ourselves for the things we wish we hadn’t done (to put it mildly). But as Christians, we believe that God forgives us. So our reaction has to be to forgive ourselves and, where possible, apologise to those we have wronged and make amends where we can. Of course people may still not forgive us. It took me a while to recognise the blunt truth that it’s their problem. As we say in the Lord’s Prayer “Forgive us our sins (trespasses) as we forgive them that sin (trespass) against us”. That makes very clear our responsibility to forgive others, and this is now known to be essential for our mental and physical health.

Not forgiving leads to anger and resentment, which only hurts the person who doesn’t forgive. If we can make it easier for others to forgive us, we should do so, but ultimately it is their responsibility to themselves. Forgiving ourselves is not always easy, but we have to learn to do it. Guilt is a very negative emotion that can sabotage our health or prevent healing. It helps to be able to confess it to the Lord and ask for forgiveness and for help forgiving ourselves.

Loving ourselves means wanting to be the best we can be. We all have different gifts and different limitations, so we need to make the most of what we have and the least of what we don’t have. If we are sick, it means striving to be well and making the most of the life we have. It is not a case of “I’ll be happy if ….. “. Happiness is knowing where you are going and taking the journey. I am reminded of The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. Christian starts on his journey which is filled with joy, learning, struggles and mis-steps. And he gets to his destination. Not everyone does, but you have to love yourself enough to keep on trying.

Meditation

This is one of a series of three posts on connections between faith and healing. The others are on Love and on Gratitude. These three are not of course exclusive to the Christian faith, or even to faith at all, but they are integral to the Christian faith. And they all support healing.

According to healthline “Meditation has been shown to offer many benefits. Although it’s well known as a technique to reduce stress and anxiety, research shows that it may also help enhance your mood, promote healthy sleep patterns, and boost cognitive skills.”. And there are other potential benefits too, which you can search on the internet. But even without digging further here are 3 or 4 major benefits for the cancer patient – reduced stress and anxiety and better mood and sleep.

The Bible has many references to meditating on God’s word and in the words of Psalm 46.10 “Be still and know that I am God”.

In the case of Christians, we can meditate on Scripture. I recently read a book on Biblical Meditation, which advocated meditating on a verse or short passage of the Bible, and finding that helped to receive better understanding of the passage and meaning for our lives.

Also, we can meditate on the glory of God and His creation and all the wonderful things He has done which brings us back to “Be still and know that I am God”.

Prayer too can be a form of meditation. Prayer is not just a matter of “asking for stuff”, but a matter of communicating with God. Thanking him for His blessings, recognising where we have fallen short, and requesting His help. And staying still to understand His response.

Inevitably, I think of meditation in a Christian context. But if you are not a Christian, you can still obtain benefit from meditation. There is a lot of on-line help to do that. And while you are meditating, God just might speak to you if you ask Him. Who knows? As with all things, keep an open mind.

The human body, including the mind, is a wonderful thing with a huge capability of healing itself. Think of all the injuries and diseases that we overcome without medical intervention. When it more seriously breaks down, as with cancer, then we need to marshal all our body’s resources to combat it. Our mind is such an important part of our healing and we have to give it our full attention, That is what these three posts are about – Meditation, Love and Gratitude. in the words of the Roman poet Juvenal “mens sana in corpore sano” which translates as healthy mind in healthy body. We need to strive for both.

September 14, 2023 Appointment

I had an appointment with the oncologist last week, at which I got the result of my scan of a couple of weeks ago. Good news and bad news.

Head MRI Scan Results

The good/bad news was that the size of my brain tumour had increased by 3mm to 17mm. As mentioned before, I had declined further medication at my last appointment, about 8 weeks before this one. so whereas an increase in the tumour is disappointing, it could have been a lot worse.

I think the reason that it was probably a bit better than it might otherwise have been was that I modified my diet to cut out high sugar foods and most red meat and eating more fruit (it is blackberry season after all) and vegetables and making vegetable smoothies. I have also been taking some supplements with known anti-cancer properties.

What I didn’t do was detox, which most holistic cancer practitioners say is essential, and I didn’t cut out all dairy, which is also much recommended. I do have this weakness for butter and cheese, which I had probably best put behind me.

Next Steps

I decided to go back on the medication – daily 5mg of Everolimus and 10mg Lenvatinib, down from 14mg. My reasoning was that if the tumour grows too big, I will be seriously impaired as it reduces the connection between my brain and the rest of my body. It was the effects on my balance and speech that led to the discovery of the tumour in the first place. I am hoping this return to medication will be temporary while I learn more about detox and diet and natural healing.

As noted in my last post of August 4, “Feeling Good”, I was having a really good time off the medication – less tired, more appetite, no nausea, no pain, more energy and able to enjoy exercising, mostly riding a bike or walking. So going back on the medication was not an easy decision and it remains to be seen whether the lower dose of Lenvatinib reduces the severity of the side effects.

The reason that I am looking at alternatives is that the choice with conventional therapy is between living with the side effects of medication or a shorter life feeling good. Either way, it will get a bit unpleasant at the end, either because the tumour grows unchecked or because the medication stops working. nobody is making any predictions how long it will take in either case.

So what I have started doing is seeking the help of a natural healing doctor who has a record of success in helping people overcome their cancer, in order to get the advice I need about detox and diet. I am glad that, as a Christian, I have a positive outlook and can meditate and pray, because the mental and spiritual aspects of healing are not to be underestimated. Watch this space.