Cancer

The call to return home
 

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2009. Not only was it a very aggressive type, but it had positive hormone receptors, which meant that the growing rate of the cancer cell was much faster. The news, to me, came as an enormous opportunity more than a frightening reality. This was because cancer confronted me with the fear of death, and that helped me to put things in a much different perspective. Suddenly the NOW became of paramount importance, and in that 'now' there was stillness and an unfamiliar confidence never experienced before.

After two operations, and many infections and health conditions in between due to a completely flat immune system, the second shock was the realization that the journey was not yet started; now I had to agree to an aggressive plan of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone therapy if I wanted to survive.

 I was told of the risk of the radiation on the left breast affecting the heart, and having vessel disease (very small veins in the brain putting you at high risk of stroke), this was the scariest decision for me to make. What to do now? Where was my heart? Where was my head?

My heart told me to trust life as it was, in the present moment, with its good and bad, knowing that  there was no 'good' or 'bad', but things that work or not work for you according to “what you want to be, do and have”. At that moment I knew that all that I wanted was to be peaceful, contented and in harmony with all, and have the freedom to let go of mine and others expectations. To decide to refuse any treatment was to risk having to die soon afterward. But the treatment based on such aggressive attack seemed against my deepest belief of compassion. Suddenly death was less scary than the possibility of being left mind-damaged by any side-effect, and even though some family members asked me not to be selfish and think of my children first and surrender to the doctors’ advice, I knew that the answer was another way.

I started my own research through the Internet and soon found other approaches, more holistic, more integrative, and more transpersonal. I declined the allopathic recommendation and embraced a new plan based in:

·       A new understanding of life. I was stricken by Johanna’s explanation on the importance of the sun and the photons making the very core-energy and fuel of life in plants, animals and men. I became more aware of the way we are witnessing a much bigger cancer that is eating our planet through the frantic consumption of our resources; I realised that the driven motivational force behind that was our endless and eternally unfulfilled search for happiness: We thought that more was better; more time, more quality, more speed, more money, more safety... and the list could go on and on. I was looking for happiness in the wrong direction; I was looking outside when I needed to look inside myself.
 

·       New diet based in natural organic fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds and grains

·       A new understanding of what I call myself. I became aware that what I was looking for was already within myself; and it was in the silence of a quiet moment. In that space I was able to sort out 'facts' from 'the meaning I was giving to those facts' and realised that the world out there was my total creation. In that silence I was able to see how those meanings were interwoven in patterns of behaviour where the enemy that seemed to be outside, was inside, rooted in the irrational beliefs that fuelled the endless proliferation of those meanings. I discovered how much hatred I was feeling for myself! I discovered how much I was rejecting the way I was, and to what extend I had abandoned myself. It was as if suddenly all my projections had been liberated from their prisons and I saw for the first time the real face of my family members and friends.

·       New priorities. Meditation was my number one priority, meaning the inner observance of whatever was there without adding any label, meaning or judgment, but embracing all with the same attention, with the same interest. Meditation became not something to be done, but a way of being in acceptance with whatever arose in my mind. So I observed the fear to die and the fear to lose control; I observed the violence enmeshed in every judgment I was making of myself or others; I observed how this was affecting my body, my quality of mind, my thinking and my actions.

Under this new light, the way I relate to myself is slowly changing. An attitude of compassion started developing. And as my meditation continues to deepen, the awareness is like a bright light where I see the many ways in which I get caught up in identifying with form, feelings, and thoughts parading in this mind. Awareness of this inner dynamic and the attitude of compassion toward it, for me, are paramount. In time, I will come to be (in a very Jungian way) the king of this little city inhabiting my psyche. In this little inner city, all inhabitants need to be listened to, especially those dwelling in the shadow side, the ones we find the most difficult to accept.

Through meditation, awareness is developing, and through awareness and compassion I have been able to face the citizens of my shadow side. One thing I observe is that what I most hate in others is exactly what I most dislike in myself. Of course; out of the need to be accepted, I push these qualities to the back where they could not be seen, heard or contacted. This new relationship with this shadow side is in itself, transforming, because as the murderer anger, the fired envy, the monumental craving and selfishness are allowed to express themselves, something almost magical happens, something underneath is revealed, something that I was looking for always outside surfaces in the quiet here and now: the peace, the contentment and the harmony. The joy is limitless.

Today, almost five years later, I am free from cancer although oncologists told me that I would not survive without the standard treatment. I am in the middle of this work, so I cannot tell you yet of the ending with lights and trumpets.
As life is a constant process unfolding of participation, whether I want it or not with its goods and bads, its high and lows, its failures and successes, and my inner voices struggling to regain control, I am constantly reminded of this inner space, where time and space dissolves, duality is a mirage, and joy is the only reality. For me, this place is the place of real healing, because this place is the essence of limitless bliss.

I want to share with you this because now you are travelling the same country. And I say country because the path is not yet there; you will make the path as you walk. So what I am sharing is the way I am making my own path. You need to find the map of your path in the middle of your heart.

Written in Summer, 2013