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Hope and False Hope

Cancer, Hope and False Hope?

My belief is that hope is absolutely vital when considering the healing process, yet, it is important to establish that hope is not the same thing as positive thinking. I do not suggest that anyone who is facing the challenges of cancer or other chronic illness merely tries to think in a more positive way and that all will be well.

complementary cancer bostonHope
The opposite of hope is hopelessness and hopelessness is a state of mind in which a person feels like nothing more can be done – they give up. Hope promotes activity, so if you feel hopeful you are more inclined to take action. An active state of being can boost and promote the efficient function of your immune system. And when you have a stronger immune system your body is better equipped to defend itself and fight any condition of ill health.

There are two powerful negative expectations that surround cancer and they are:

1. Cancer = Death
2. Cancer = Strikes randomly and is beyond your control

These are outdated statements which are no longer true. Advancement in medicine and technology as well as non medical practices such as hypnosis for cancer as prescribed in Immersive Healing ensure more people overcome the cancer today than ever before. This is not to say that everyone win this battle or that it’s easy to do so, just to state and acknowledge the progress we’ve made and that hope is empowering and vital component in the healing process.

Having said that, I want to emphasize that it’s not a simple matter of saying to a client “be hopeful and you’ll get well”. Rather to understand that if a person has hope in their life, feel hopeful and empowered, they will find themselves in a better position to heal.

False Hope
Some medical professional would argue that using complimentary alternative therapies in cancer treatment only give people false hope. As mentioned in my book The New Cancer Paradigm my answer to that is that false hope only exists when one guarantees an unrealistic treatment outcome.

My whisper to you is to avoid at all costs those practitioners who claim they can cure an illness. Instead, look for those practitioners who advocates reasonable hope – this is very different to false hope.
Reasonable hope is logical, after all the medical profession cannot guarantee that their approach will work either. None of us in any of the healing professions have all the answers.

False Hopelessness

holistic cancer brooklineIn his book Healing Psyche, Rob van Overbruggen discusses the possibility of false hopelessness. False hopelessness occurs when someone is told that their illness is untreatable and that nothing more can be done for them.

Many people store so much faith in the medical profession that this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The simple truth is that no one really knows who will heal and why they heal, but the fact is that some people do.

Hope and your ability to heal
All my clients know that I make no guarantees – my approach to healing may or may not be enough.
I do believe wholeheartedly that I can help a person with cancer or chronic illness takes control and ownership of their health.

The human body and spirit are more powerful than anyone at this time can fully understand. I aim to tap into this potential for the body to heal and help people move forwards into a state of mind that promotes reasonable hope and may facilitate the healing process.

The alternative to reasonable hope is false hopelessness – the idea that people should just give up.
Hope is a part of the human psyche. A life without hope is not realistic it is pessimistic – hope offers us a full, rich and more active way to experience life.

I believe it is fair to offer people the opportunity of reasonable hope, do you?

complementary alternative medicine cancer

Benefits of Complementary Alternative Medicine for Cancer

Cancer patients can benefit tremendously from a realistic and multidisciplinary approach to healing cancer or any other chronic illness for that matter. This is why it is essential that Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners will be open to and committed to working alongside with the researchers, scientists and doctors.

Holistic cancer bostonConventional cancer treatments, despite their high cost to patient’s quality of life (both physically and emotionally) do save many many lives and that’s the bottom line. This may explain why most doctors would not offer their patients any valid alternative. This is a missed opportunity because about 73% of patients will seek some alternatives therapy to supplement their medical treatment. Why is it a missed opportunity? because patients are left to figure things on their own and may end up wasting valuable resources in the wrong places, not to mention precious time.

So much has been written about the physical side effects of chemotherapy, surgery and radiation treatment. These are well documented and anyone who’s been through this medical process need no further evidence. It would have been to the benefit of the patient if their medical team would be able to guide them to some extent and teach them about their options.

Complimentary alternative Cancer treatment

hypnosis for cancer in Brookline and BostonIn a general way, CAM practitioners view the cancer tumor as only a part of the problem, a symptom of something that runs far deeper. For the most part, CAM practices aim is to heal the whole person not just one part of the person; this way health and wellness may be restored.

I could probably quote here a whole range of statistics showing the harmful impact of conventional treatment such as chemotherapy on the body. Likewise I could find a bunch of statistics showing that CAM is not a viable treatment for healing cancer.

However, if you read my blog before you already know I am not interested in proving who is right or who is wrong with statistics. My belief is that we must all work together to provide the optimum care program, with the common goal of healing the cancer.

The medical profession is waking up to the fact that CAM is a powerful partner for conventional medical cancer treatment. The hierarchy should be clear, medical care first and CAM second. Those who wish to integrate CAM practices into their treatment will maintain their safety and will benefit from this order in this relationship.

An example for this successful relationship can be seen just up the road from my Brookline  MA office, The Dana Farber Cancer Institute. This impressive medical facility is working medical miracles and provide a wide spectrum of CAM practices in its Zakim Center.

In my research I have found many other respected organizations recommending meditation, visualization acupuncture and hypnosis as an effective method for coping with the side effects of chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. Patients are the one to really benefit from this exciting partnership.

Here is why CAM such as Hypnosis for Cancer may be right for you;

• First, it’s designed addresses the the root cause of illness. In doing the body’s stress level is lessened and the immune response is revived. This will increase the effectiveness of medicine and improve your odds for recovery.

• Secondly the therapeutic aspect of  many CAM practices can help to alleviate some of the physical and emotional distress caused by illness.This ensure you can follow through on your treatment and maintain your quality of life before, during and after treatment.

• And finally CAM empowers you to see the bigger picture, take control of your health by taking part in your healing. It will and view your illness as a call to action.

Healing is more than just a medical process; the mind and body are powerfully interconnected so it makes sense that treating them both and using a multi-targeted approach to healing is the realistic option.

If you used any of form of CAM please share your impression with us?

biology and belief

Can our beliefs affect our biology?

New research shows that that DNA may not be entirely responsible for steering the biological ship, so to speak. DNA is actually greatly influenced by energetic messages (including those coming from our own beliefs, thoughts and emotions) coming from outside of our cells.

Thoughts and emotions are energy, mind’s energy. The type of thoughts we think i.e. stressful or comforting, negative or positive stem from our beliefs. If our beliefs system is toxic it is more likely to produce negative attitudes and limiting thoughts which will result in poor health. If however our belief system is healthy, we are more likely to enjoy a positive outlook on life and think the type of thoughts that cause a feeling of health and well being.

alternative cancer brooklineThe kind of thought “energy” we allow in our mind, signal the brain to produce either health promoting or health deteriorating chemicals and disperse them into the blood stream. These chemicals when absorbed by the cells strengthen the cell or weaken it thereby leaving it vulnerable to attacks and decay.

In the context of chronic illness and cancer, our ability to understand these factors that influence our biology means we may be able to prevent illness from appearing and progressing.

Currently we are still operating by the old cancer treatment paradigm which has remained more or less the same since the 1940s; remove as much tumor as possible and pump the body full of cytotoxic agents to kill what remains.

Imagine you needed a hip replacement surgery and your surgeon saying he wants to perform a seventy year old procedure on you? Would you allow it?

Thankfully, the field of Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) proposes a more integrated approach to the treatment of cancer and chronic diseases. This approach looks at the body as a whole incorporating multiple disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, behavioral medicine, pharmacology, and any other discipline relevant to the treatment of a specific disease in a specific person.

One of the few certainties in the medical field is that “one size fits all” medicine does not work; each person has a unique set of circumstances that must be addressed on an individual level, our beliefs about life and who we are included.

Can you find evidence of this relationship between your beliefs and physical experience?

cancer and blame

Should You Blame Your Mind for Your Cancer?

Many people are infuriated by the idea that illness, especially a life threatening illness such as cancer is created by the mind. The thought that we are somehow responsible for this terrible abnormality in our body is simply intolerable as well as offensive, and yet research suggests there is truth to this argument after all.

natural cancer bostonThe fact that our mind and body are interconnected is not breaking news. From our day to day experiences we know this mind-body relationship intimately, for example, when we get sexually aroused. This particular state of mind has many physiological effects.

But what about real health concerns, can our state of mind produce a life threatening experience in our body? The answer is yes, for example, we know that statistically most heart-attacks occur on Monday morning when the new work week begins.

Ample scientific research is supportive of the above claim and provides the necessary evidence? Research by Cohen et al. (1991) for example, drew a direct link between one’s mental state and one’s susceptibility to the common cold virus.

The findings of this research were very clear as Rob Van Overbruggen wrote in his book “Healing Psyche”. He wrote “Statistically, the risk of getting ill was directly related to the amount of stress participants had experienced in the past year. Stress was the only determining factor in getting ill. We now know that changes in the mental state are always accompanied by changes in physiology.”

As my new book, The New Cancer Paradigm state, today we know for a fact that our mind; or better say subconscious mind influences our body and biology. What is yet to be determined is whether our mind can influence our biology enough for illness to evolve?

We are emotional beings, there’s no doubt of that, and we are also a physical beings. In this respect it helps to see the body as an integrated system of psychological and physiological processes. When one system is affected the whole is affected.

This point highlights the truth that we are actively participating in our own creation. The type of food we eat, our lifestyle, thoughts and feelings are all factors to be considered.
Do you find the above insight empowering or aggravating?

principles for healing cancer

Do You Know the 4 Basic Principles for Healing from Illness?

The meaning of the word healing in Complimentary Alternative Medicine (CAM) practices may vary, but on the whole it means restoration of health, to restore one to a sound or normal state. For many of my clients, being healed simply means once again feeling the way they used to before the illness.

Allopathic medicine too uses the word “Healing” though it has neither an operational definition of healing, nor an explanation of its mechanisms beyond the physiological processes related to curing.

alternative cancer boston massachusettesOver the years, I have found some principles which worked best for those who did exceptionally well and healed. Here are the 4 main principles to healing:

1. Acceptance: Resolve to accept yourself and even love yourself despite of your current limitations and challenges. Your dynamic emotional and physical nature means you can improve – in both mind and body.

2. Let go of the past: Now is the only time you have to heal. Refuse to live in the past or worry about the unforeseen future for instead of prompting action they tend to overwhelm and confuse.

3. Change in focus: Shift your focus from mood-killing aspects such as your illness, thinning hair or not having enough energy to be everything to everyone, to what’s really valuable and important i.e. your spirit, personality and how you live your life now.

4. Meaning of Illness: The most central key to healing is finding the silver lining around the dark cloud of illness. Ask yourself which positive aspects in your life were highlighted by your illness. Remember that no one experience is truly negative or purely positive. We live in a universe with laws and structure where everything has purpose and meaning.

Consider the changes you made in your life since you’ve been diagnosed, people you met, friends who stepped up to help or simply the fact you spend more time with loved ones or with yourself.

Put these principles to the test and let me know which was the most meaningful to you?

heal cancer with hypnosis

Activate Your Healing Potential in 15 Minutes or Less

When it comes to healing and health, the relationship between our mind and body holds a promising potential. Although scientific research is ongoing to determine the best employment of this relationship and its mechanism, ancient cultures have long  utilized its healing potential through rituals, prayers and many healing practices.

This is not to say that we should resort to these practices or adopt their view, far from it, but imagine for a moment what would it mean if we could use this healing potential at will. Imagine that we could intervene and possibly even stop illness at its track. Well, this is a wonderful vision but we are not there yet.

complementary cancer, natural, brookline

Increase Your Odds for Cancer Recovery

Nevertheless, we all are equipped with the ability to pay attention to that which takes place within us, thoughts, sensations and feelings. Our thoughts, sensations and feelings provide accurate feedback from our mind and body. Some of the most common feedback we may pay attention to (and ignore) is headaches, nausea, fatigue, insomnia etc’.

The consequence of ignoring this feedback is poor health. Acknowledging this feedback and not just numbing it with medication or other numbing substances will be “health promoting” rather than “health damaging”.

Here are some ideas about how to tune-in and tap onto the flow of information your mind-body provides.

How to Activate Your Healing Potential to Fight Cancer

Follow the process below and practice it whenever you can, either when you wake-up, on your lunch break or just before you go to bed. In your mind’s eye, simply ask:

• How am I feeling right now?

• Listen to the most dominant or loud emotion/physical sensation.

• If the answer is “I feel good” or the sensation in your body is of comfort, acknowledge it and thank your mind-body for taking such good care of you.

• If a negative emotion arises, or you feel stressed, afraid or notice any physical discomfort, ask yourself what is this pain/stress/emotion is trying to tell you?

• Once again, listen, sense or feel the answer.

• Then ask yourself, what steps need I take to resolve this pain/stress/emotion?

• Resolve to follow through.

• Check in with yourself on a regular basis to make sure your attending to your needs.

This process should take about 15 minutes (for more advanced method visit Immersive Healing). Tuning-in doesn’t mean belly gazing or soul searching; it means you are checking-in with yourself, emotionally and mentally for greater clarity of your experience. Different people may get the answers to their questions in different ways. As humans use our senses to process information i.e. Visual (images), Auditory (sounds), Kinesthetic (touch and internal feelings), Gustatory (tastes) and Olfactory (smells).

If you are an auditory person it is likely that you would “hear” the message in your own inner-voice. If you were a person using the visual system it is likely that you would “see” the answer in your own mind’s eye, and so on.

Pay attention to what takes place inside of you. Once you know how, honor, acknowledge and practice it.

By listening and acknowledging your internal experience on a regular basis you not only you resolve the need for illness to manifest in your body but you also strengthen your immune system. In doing so you are allowing your innate healing system to function at its optimum level.

Please share some of your discoveries and insights?

three pros for complementary cancer treatment

3 Pros to Using Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) When Healing from Cancer

In the context of cancer and healing from cancer, people seek Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) usually as a last resort. Some seek CAM treatments because their conventional treatment failed to produce desired change. Others may choose CAM because of the prospect of treatment side effects.

A report from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) stated that about 38 percent of U.S. adults and about 12 percent of children are using some form of alternative medicine.

Here are the three pro’s people acknowledge:

cancer treatment brookline massachusetts

East meet West

1. Holistic Approach. One of the main draws for alternative medicine is its holistic approach which means treating the whole person. People are cared for on all levels, mentally, emotionally and physically.

2. One-on-One. Another draw for alternative medicine is the nurturing relationship between practitioner and client. Because the emphasis is on treating the whole person, practitioners tend to offer clients longer visits and more personal attention.

3. Ownership of the healing process. Clients get to feel more in control of their own healing process. Taking responsibility for one state of mind allow clients to become an active participant rather than a passive receiver. Many clients often report that this factor is the main reason for their choice of alternative treatments.

In this era of free internet information, people are smarter and more educated about their treatment choices. Despite of limited scientific research and even some potential risks, more and more people choose to integrate CAM into their treatment plan.

My recommendation is to suggest to your support team, both the MD as well as the CAM practitioner to converse. After all, they are getting paid to support you and make sure you get the best treatment possible. In my practice  in Brookline, MA this approach has shown to benefit clients the most.
Your health is in your hands. Do the research and learn about the facts behind the treatment offered so you can have some peace of mind.

Let me know if you can think of more pros to using CAM while healing from cancer?

stress and illness

3 Simple Ways to Let Go of STRESS while Healing from Cancer

Undergoing Cancer treatment is stressful and at times debilitating. It’s common to experience fear, confusion, sadness and even helplessness as we consider which treatment plan is appropriate for us. These powerful emotions in and of themselves need be addressed and managed separately from the cancer, so that the body can utilize its healing mechanism and ensure the immune system function at optimal level.

holistic medicine cancer boston

Stress Management for Cancer Patients

Stress Management Action Plan

1. Interrupt your mind.

If your body tense up and emotions rise to the surface, take control of the situation by taking a long deep breath. A deep breath forces the mind to focus on physical sensations thus interrupting the aggravating thought process.

2. Express yourself in the right time and place.

This option might be in your best interest if the situation allows it. Share your feelings with those who value and love you. Thought are scarier in the realm of the mind, put them down on paper or find another creative way to express the way you feel.

3. Release and let go (or forgive).

As a general rule we say things to ourselves and do things to ourselves that we would have not allowed anyone else to say or do. In that respect we may intentionally or unintentionally blame ourselves for our illness. The pattern of self blame and guilt breed more emotional suffering and negatively impact our health.

The remedy is forgiveness. Forgiveness is not condoning but understanding that you have done the best with what you knew at that time. When you know better you do better.

The negative impact of stress on our lives is well documented. Especially in the context of healing from Cancer or any other illness is it vital that we take responsibility for our state of mind and state of heart.

The foundation of stress management is a balanced mind and a healthy lifestyle. Using the above strategies, you too can enjoy a calmer mind and body. With that in mind, some people find it easier to relax and let go when working with written material or listening to a guided process such as guided meditation or self hypnosis audio. If this seems more appropriate for you, try any of our wellness programs. Each is geared toward a specific goal i.e. total relaxation or blissful night sleep.

Can We Heal from Cancer

Can We Heal from Cancer?

From the day we were born it was our body’s immune system that healed us. It healed our cuts and bruises, grew new skin when we got burn and even mended  a broken leg (if we needed one). Still scientists believe that it is unfounded and far reaching to assume we have the ability to activate this innate healing capacity at will, or that we can use this ability to heal from illness such as cancer.

alternative boston healing

Activating the Capacity of the Body to Heal Cancer

Even in face of ever growing body of data describing spontaneous remission such as in (O’Regan et al. 1993) most scientists continue to dismiss the notion of miraculous healing or spontaneous remission as anecdotal stories. What is it about the natural ability of the body to heal itself that is threatening to the medical profession? How come a powerful and positive event such as spontaneous remission is perceived as a folk story and easily dismissed?

I’m not a scientist and therefore can’t answer those questions objectively. However, if I was a scientist, my inquisitive mind would want to know how those who were able to heal themselves or those who have experienced spontaneous remission did it? Wouldn’t you?

Cancer, Hope and False Hope

In recent conversations with some medical practitioners, the issue of false hope came up again and again. They spoke of the danger in providing people with cancer hope in terms of a treatment outcome guarantee. To issue a guarantee that one would heal his/her cancer if they do as you say, is not only unethical but it also leads the patient away from other treatments which may be of help to them. False hope in that respect exists only in the form of false guarantee.

But hope is a powerful emotion, one which has shown in research to boost immune response. For me the question still remains how can we harness the body’s innate capacity to heal and how can we enhance its power?

As people we need hope to take actions and in the context of healing from illness that means taking better care of ourselves emotionally, physically and mentally. Telling someone they may not overcome their illness is just another form of wrong doing, it is false hopelessness.

If the pessimistic approach does harm and the optimistic approach does harm, we are left only with the realistic approach. This means focus more on the unlimited potential of the human body to heal and less on the statistics.

We are more than just our body, wouldn’t you agree?

Meditation and Yoga for Cancer Patients

More Doctors Prescrib Meditation and Yoga for Cancer Patients

THURSDAY, May 12 (HealthDay News) — Mind-body therapies such as yoga, meditation and deep-breathing exercises appear to be gaining more acceptance in mainstream medicine, according to a new study.

Meditation for Cancer

Doctors Prescribe Meditation for Cancer

Mind-body therapy is used by more than one-third of Americans, and that number is rising, the researchers noted. They found that one in 30 Americans using some type of mind-body therapy was referred to the treatment by a medical provider.

“There’s good evidence to support using mind-body therapies clinically,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, an integrative medicine fellow at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said in a news release from Beth Israel. “Still, we didn’t expect to see provider referral rates that were quite so high.”

Nerurkar and her colleagues analyzed data from more than 23,000 households that took part in the 2007 U.S. National Health Interview Survey. Nearly 3 percent of the people in those households, or about 6.3 million people, used mind-body therapies after referral by a mainstream medical provider, the study found. These people tended to be sicker and used the health-care system more than people who started using the therapies without a referral.

What We Have Learned

“What we learned suggests that providers are referring their patients for mind-body therapies as a last resort once conventional therapeutic options have failed,” Nerurkar said. “It makes us wonder whether referring patients for these therapies earlier in the treatment process could lead to less use of the health-care system and, possibly, better outcomes for these patients.”

The study is published in the May 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

“These data suggest that mind-body therapies have really become a mainstream approach to care,” Dr. Russell Phillips, chief of primary care at Beth Israel and the study’s senior author, said in the news release. “But more research is needed to guide physician and patient decision-making regarding their use.”

More information

The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more about mind-body therapy.
SOURCE: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, news release, May 9, 2011
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