Only you can do it.
The body’s natural ability to heal itself is really quite phenomenal. While we often take it for granted, this ability is nothing short of miraculous.
For example, take the healing of a broken leg. First there is a trauma, a solid bone is broken in two and the shattered ends displaced. There will be torn muscles, probably internal bleeding—a lot of damage. Surgery is often required to stabilize the situation, and perhaps a steel pin is inserted to fix the broken bones together and keep them stable. Yet, once the right conditions are created, that bone will automatically reunite itself, the muscles will regenerate, and normal function return. In six months’ time an X-ray will show the bone to be healed, and actually often where the break was, the bone will now be even stronger. What an amazing process!
Relaxation, Balance and Healing
Let us see this process in perspective. First, the right conditions were created and then the body healed itself. The medical intervention was necessary to provide those right conditions. However, the doctors did not actually heal anything. What they did achieve is that by realigning the bones, they created the first requirement for the healing of a fracture to proceed. The patient then had to look after the leg and make sure the healing process could continue. The patient did not have to think of the intricate process of the bones reuniting. The body’s natural healing power was what returned the leg to normal. The body, given the right conditions, healed itself—automatically.
The body’s normal state is health. It has a tremendously varied and complex set of mechanisms to maintain it in good health. Whenever the body is out of balance, these mechanisms swing into action to re-create health. If those mechanisms are thwarted or unsuccessful, then we have disease.
So, what is the problem in cancer? Why does the body appear unable to cope? It is just the same as with the broken leg!
If we are able to provide the right conditions, the body has the potential to heal itself.
In the acute situation of a broken bone, the medical intervention is a very obvious first step. Surgery provides the right conditions by realigning and stabilizing the bones. The patient maintains those conditions by keeping the leg still and having a diet and an environment that permit the normal healing functions to proceed.
However, cancer is a chronic, multifactorial, degenerative disease. It takes a long time to develop and has a multiplicity of contributing factors, as we shall discuss later. While surgery and other medical treatments clearly have their place in treating cancer, correcting the causes of the disease is more involved; while providing the correct environment to allow the body’s potential for healing to proceed is also more involved. All of this requires consideration of far more than the body mechanics involved in surgically repairing a broken leg. It involves consideration of the whole person—body, emotions, mind and spirit.
What we are concerned with here is investigating the potential for each of us to be directly involved in re-creating our own health. What we seek is the ideal environment for healing in general and cancer in particular. What we know is that this all comes back to that simple principle of balance. Balance equates with good health, and good health does not include cancer. Balance equates with healing.
Again, a healthy body cannot have cancer. There was a man in America who had kidney failure and was given a kidney transplant. Unbeknown to anyone, the kidney he was given in the transplant was already cancerous. Naturally, he was placed on immune-suppressant drugs to prevent his body from rejecting his new kidney and this meant his body’s normal defenses could not operate properly. In a very short time, not only was the new kidney engulfed by the cancer, but it had spread throughout his lungs. With his life threatened, the immune-suppressant drugs were ceased, the new kidney was removed, and he was returned to a dialysis machine. What happened? The immune-suppressant drugs wore off, his normal bodily defenses rapidly reasserted themselves, and all the cancer in his chest disappeared—automatically, with no outside intervention. His body’s normal ability to heal itself did just that. His body, with its immune system working again, had the ability to recognize the cancer should not have been there and so eliminated it.
We want to create the conditions in our body so that it can do the same thing. We want to reactivate our own immune system and provide the right conditions where healing can take place. We can do it.
There is a very close link between the function of our body and the function of our psyche. That is, if we are relaxed and easy in mind and emotions, our body will be relaxed. If, on the other hand, we have anxiety or are affected by stress, our body will suffer from subtle but far-reaching changes in body chemistry and it will also show up as physical tension. I believe that this reflex is a key factor which we can use in the process of getting well.
Equate stress, anxiety and tension with immune-suppression and illness.
Equate relaxation and balance with health and healing.
If our body and psyche are relaxed, we will be in a state of balance, and that balance means health. If we are deeply relaxed, our body’s natural tendency will re-create health for us—true, deep, meaningful health, including a healthy body.
The first step, the starting point that we can readily appreciate and learn, is to lead the body into deep relaxation. Relieving emotional and mental stress is hard to begin with, as causes of anxiety are difficult to isolate and often difficult to treat using conventional means. However, if we relax the body, that reflex produces relaxation of emotions and mind.
Mental anxiety, stress and physical tension are intricately connected and interdependent. They are all disease-producing factors. However, truly break that connection at any one point and relaxation spreads all through. Healing begins.
Pause to consider a cat. A lithe, graceful cat. Watch it on the move. It moves with an ease and smoothness that is a joy to watch. In slow motion it is a sight to behold. Yet, if it has to react in a hurry, it can—in an instant. It will pounce in a flash, or turn and run with amazing speed. So too, it will often stop, consider a situation at length and then go on with its business. Concentration and relaxation are mutually supportive. All so easy, so relaxed. This, to me, shows what relaxation is all about. It is being physically relaxed and so being free to make an appropriate response.
If we are relaxed we react appropriately. We do not rush into things and overreact; neither are we sluggish and unable to take appropriate action. What we do is simply appropriate.
There is no need to avoid the problems of everyday life. Life should have challenges and a zest of endeavor. Such challenges become causes for stress only when we do not handle them appropriately.
If we do not react to challenges well, tension and anxiety cloud our normal processes. They interfere with judgment and reactions, so that responses become inappropriate. If our mind is confused or anxious, we have great difficulty thinking clearly and are highly likely to make poor decisions. However, the more relaxed our being, the more calm and clear is our mind, the more likely we are to make good choices and to do the appropriate thing.
Common Forms of Relaxation
Where then, do we find this relaxation? Some of the common ways we relax in a healthy way are through sleep, exercise, hobbies and holidays. All have their place.
Sleep
Sleep is an excellent way of dealing with acute stress. Even sleep imposed by drugs will often provide the time and space necessary for adjusting to and dealing with a major, temporary stress. We certainly need a regular amount of natural sleep to avoid fatigue and added stress.
As an aside, here is an important tip. We can significantly improve the