Fears

The second operation to clear the margins was done one month after the first one, in July 2009. I felt completely clear from cancer, however, I was advised to undergo an aggressive treatment of Chemo, Radio and Hormone Therapy to prevent cancer from coming back. They said I had an aggressive cancer grade 3 with all receptors positive.

From the beginning of the journey I had welcomed cancer as an opportunity to awake from the insanity that kept me stuck in an endless struggle, and now, I found myself stuck again, having to choose in between what my gut feelings were whispering: a holistic and natural approach focusing in the body, mind and spirit by adjusting diet, thoughts and behaviour patterns and the consequential relationship to my self and others, or the nasty and invasive chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone therapy advised by the doctors.

The fact is; when they were concerned with how much time I had to live, I was suddenly more concerned about the quality of my reminding life. My whole world had changed! My priorities re-adjusted: The meaning and purpose of my life was revealing.

Right at that point I was starting to confront "anger" and "hatred". Anger and hatred about myself, who else? About what happened, about letting myself down and having to come to this crossroad out of this massive stuckness. I could see that this was the way in which the ego had kept me always in an iron cage, frozen and eternally victimised. I could see that the iron cage was an illusion, and yet, it seemed so real to me...(2)

I needed God to exist, or some external power to whom to turn to and ask: -"Chemo?", "reconnection with essence?" or were both the same?

The truth is that I felt like taking my car and drive away, get lost in nature, feel the sand under my feet, and the fragrance of grasses touching my face...

Is playing with pebbles and shells, feeling the could water of the ocean in the hands, the way Spirit talk to us? Is this the calling?

But what about my children and what they were expecting me to do? How about their feelings? 

Hummm... I saw... Fears were illusions... they were not coming from the still mind... 

The truth was that I was also scared of chemotherapy and all those therapies... The truth was that cancer scared me less than those therapies... Perhaps because deep inside me I knew that I had created the cancer, not because I can create cancer, but because I have been so disconnected from the Whole, and that disconnection had created the conditions for cancer to develop. That was why I thought that I could cure myself. Not because I can cure cancer, but because by surrendering to the present moment (you can call it God), I could create the necessary condition for cancer to reveal itself as a total illusion.

And how to surrender? Here is where all my years of meditation, Buddhist retreats, Buddhist philosophy and reflections of the Buddhist teachings came to give me all the solid ground I needed to sort things out.

I believe that God is a mental state, always present, here and now; a pure state of unconditional love.

When the oncologist couldn't get me to sign for the treatment and made another appointment for the following Monday (four appointments in total), my stomach was already rebellious of any invasive treatment and my heart couldn't take it any more... But then... I though again of my family... I sensed their fears mixing with my own... I sensed their thoughts mixing with mine... I thought I was selfish! I didn't think of their pain! I was so stubborn!... Consequently, guilt, anger and depression developed... And there I was... Alone... in the worst possible aloneness... The one of our own creation.