The Role of Intention

Whatever reasons you have for writing in your journal, you can get more out of the experience if you start with an intention. Take a moment to think about what you hope to gain from journaling.

Write your intention down on the first page of your journal, if you like, but then place the goal in the back of your mind. Don’t worry about how you’re going to achieve it. Try to tap into the power of the subconscious. The mind and body relegate a good deal of high-level, sophisticated thinking to what is called the adaptive unconscious, which does an excellent job of sizing up the world, influencing our emotions, or initiating action.

Now that you have an intention, let go of it. Trust that small answers will gradually start to add up, and eventually something will click. Your mind may hand you a solution in a eureka moment. Maybe not today. Be patient with the process. Open up to the possibility that the subconscious and the body possess an internal wisdom. Give yourself permission to tap into the power inside.

Let Healing Happen

When you go to a doctor, he prescribes a medication for you to take, or a treatment you will undergo, your body starts the healing process before the medicine is in your system or the exercise or surgical procedure has taken place. For most people, just seeing a doctor gives confidence that healing will occur. Depending on the patient’s cultural background, this is true whether the physician is a neurosurgeon at the Mayo Clinic or a tribal witch doctor. What happens is that healing starts when you believe it will occur. Your mind buys into it and your body makes it happen. The great physician and humanitarian, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, said, "The witch doctor succeeds for the same reason all the rest of us (medical doctors) succeed. Each patient carries his own doctor inside himself. They come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work."

Exceptional Cancer Patients

Any cancer patient interested in learning more about the advances being made in diagnsis and treatment should read CURE magazine. Cancer patients can receive a free subscription by signing up at: http://www.curetoday.com/. The magazine focuses on updates, research, and education for cancer patients and survivors. The Winter, 2005 issue has an article called, “Diagnostic Tools.” A small excerpt from that article talks about the exceptional recovery of a patient named Mr. Carley:

When Carley awoke from his third surgery, the surgeon told him that he had 38 tumors ranging in size from a marble to a golf ball. "He said they just closed me back up because there was nothing they could do. But I remember him saying, ‘Chris, they’re always coming up with new treatments.’ "

Five months later he began taking Gleevec. Within a month his tumors vanished, a response his physicians described as "jaw-dropping." Now a 10-year survivor with eight grandchildren, Carley has since founded the Chicago chapter of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Carley Cancer Research Center.

The gentleman that they gave as an example, Mr. Carley, sounds like one of the exceptional cancer patients we sometimes hear about, who defy the odds. The CURE article doesn’t go into the specifics of how he made such a remarkable recovery. If he followed the pattern of other exceptional patients, he had social support, expressed his emotions, asserted his basic needs without endangering his relationships, and he felt empowered, first by participating in his recovery and, in his case, after his treatment by finding something that he got excited about doing.

• Social Support can come from family, friends, church, or a cancer support group, which are available in most areas. If your medical facility doesn’t provide a support group, you may want to volunteer to start one. When I started a journaling support group, I got more out of it than anyone else.
• Expressing emotions is possible by talking to a professional or family OR by writing a journal. People are surprised by the notion that they should express their deepest feelings, but research has shown that doing so is essential to recovering from cancer.
• Empowerment happens in a different way for each patient. It can be as simple as guided meditation or as complex as beginning a research center like Mr. Carley. Bringing a sense of control back into the one’s life is the third trait of exceptional cancer patients.
• And finally, exceptional patients have a passion for living. They find something that brings them joy, and they pursue it with renewed vigor.

Carley founded a research center, but the rest us can’t or won’t want to do that. What we can do is find things that comfort us. I chose a symbol of comfort (something very meaningful to me) and keep it near my bed. Each time I see that symbol I remember that everything in life can work out well. Then to bring back a sense of control I chose to do things for myself that bolster the immune system. For me, that was as simple as eating more foods that contain antioxidants and practicing yoga. I believe that it is not as important what a person chooses to do, as it is to investigate what feels right, to trust one’s intuition, and then to actually make some kind of physical change. Putting a symbol of comfort by my bed reminds me, “all can be well.” If I practice yoga three times a week, it becomes an affirmation that, all is well.