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Student and Therapist Newsletter Archive + Cranio sacral Therapy and cancer? - October 05 I'm devoting this newsletter to a
cranio sacral therapist's account of treating someone through terminal
lung cancer. It's an inspiring story, full of courage and beauty and it's
a cracking good piece of writing too. I started treating Jack once a week at his home in February 2004. He'd been diagnosed with aggressive and terminal lung cancer, with secondary cancer spreading throughout his bones, particularly his spine. The two largest tumours sat either side of his pulmonary artery. Jack had been having severe back pain for some months
until he was finally dragged along (by his wife) to the local doctor in
January. Before the doctor's visit he came to a meeting at our house during
that month and he could barely sit in a chair for longer than fifteen
minutes. I was going Jill rang me after seeing the doctor to tell me the
news. I offered then to go and see him about treatment. I felt that I
could help him with the They were immediately referred on to specialists at Prince Charles Hospital and, his prognosis? They recommended chemotherapy and radiation therapy to start immediately, which may give him an extra month or two, but he had less than a year. Jack gave them the big finger and decided on his own way of getting better. He took TBL-12, a foul-tasting mixture from Vanuatu made with sea urchins, plus special vitamins; but most of all he gave it up to his God. Jack believed totally that God would heal him. The cancer was a test of some kind and that there was a purpose in having this illness. He believed that he had something to learn. He read his Bible and the Book of Mormon - all the time. My biggest memory of Jack is how he was always sitting when I came to visit. Propped up in bed, with his right leg up, right hand rubbing his constantly painful thigh, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose and his treasured bible in his lap. Reading, always reading. I never took a full patient history from Jack. The first time I treated him I remember feeling that he was an intensely private man. Very secretive. Even though I've known him for about four years I have never really looked him in the eye, so to speak, because his physical stance was always the same. Slightly hunched over at the shoulders and looking down at his feet. He shuffled his feet and his eyes rarely looked up. Even when I treated him - mostly at his ankles - as he lay on his bed he averted my eyes. If he spoke to me (rarely at the beginning), his eyes where closed. His system however, was a seething mass of action compared to the surface. From the first treatment, I felt his body accepted and used the 'help' with a kind of voracity I had never experienced. There was so much to do. The cancer felt massive and almost untouchable. It had a 'brilliant' quality - as if it had its own power source. Our contract was for me to help with his pain. He had a lot. At the start, it was in his spine and pelvis and running down his right leg. The right pelvis was particularly bad. So, there was a lot of releasing and easing of the pain and I spent a lot of time settling. From the beginning, Jack had almost total relief from pain after treatment. But only for a short time - a day at best. After a few weeks I went twice a week to try and stretch out the pain-free periods for him. The pain moved and changed over the next month. It was in his upper chest and left shoulder and still in his right thigh. Both places were agony for him. He was always rubbing ointment into the flesh to no avail, so much so that the Nurophen cream actually burnt the skin. At this stage he was still not on any medication. Only the TBL-12 and vitamins. By April I was seeing Jack a few times a week. He said that he would never complain again if only the pain in his right thigh would go away. There were big releases during treatment, but the pain would only let up for a few hours. During this time I never felt that I my intention was in the right place. The restrictions were releasing, but within a couple of days they were back again, perhaps even stronger. The cancer felt bigger and more powerful, but at the same time, it still felt like just another part of his body. The 'shining star' quality was still there but it yelled 'untouchable'. It had its own impenetrable boundaries, but while it 'looked' alien, it didn't feel alien. Jack had been to the hospital a couple of times for further check-ups. This was only for Jill's benefit. He hated the notion of hospital, the control of doctors and being around sick people. Giving up control of his world was anathema to him. Every time he went to the hospital under duress, his system would take a couple of treatments just to get over the trip. This agitation in his body caused more pain as well. It was a very 'buzzy' feeling and it made the gap between his 'inner' and 'outer' further apart. It was harder to bring the two together and very hard to settle. From the first time I put my hands on Jack, his body felt harmonious. Even with all the 'action' and releasing, there was no sense ever of disharmony. His body was doing exactly what it wanted to be doing. Cancer included. Knowing the situation between Jack and Jill was very tricky, to say the least. Spending so much time with people means that they can't put on an act for your benefit. From my perspective their relationship was so toxic that I almost felt physically sick at times. If she came into the room during treatment his system would go awol. They were verbally abusive to each other and their whole way of communication was like an aggressive power play. However, both seemed genuinely contrite after the nastiness. He spoke well of her, described her as his soul mate; and she was remorseful after swearing at him in a way that would curl even my ears. During treatment Jack sometimes talked about himself.
I felt that he never really had that opportunity with anyone else. He
told me that he knew something was wrong with him 12 years ago. These conversations were always very quiet. Hushed tones. If Jill was at home, he spoke almost in a whisper. Jill was almost always watching TV while I treated Jack. Sitting only a few metres away in the lounge, but the TV was loud and she was often smoking. The smoke drifted past us and out the bedroom window. Something that always irritated Jack and I felt was such a lack of respect. To have smoke drifting past a man with lung cancer. 'Is there anything you need?' I often asked him if there was anything specific about his pain or treatment in general. It was May and I was going away for a five days. There was a long silence then, 'Sometimes, all I want is a hug.' I felt a huge rush of emotion. My eyes were closed and I was sitting as usual at his ankles. My drill was to go to the lounge and get the grey poof, then into his bedroom where I sat on the grey poof while I treated him from his ankles. I supported my weight on my knees and my legs splayed out beside me. Performing this very 'grasshopper-like' exercise almost daily allowed me to find my own centre of gravity and get past my own pain and discomfort very quickly. I really didn't know what to say. I couldn't just stop the treatment and rush to give him a hug, even though that was my first reaction. And I thought that he'd be getting hugs from Jill - surely? So I sat. A goodmoment to stay in 'armchair'. I felt so much pain. His and mine. But I didn't know if that was just because of what he'd said. It's a fairly gut-wrenching thing to hear from a man in his condition. I opened my eyes. There must have been a questioning look on my face. His eyes were very blurry, but he wasn't actually crying. 'Jill and I haven't had sex for 12 years. We haven't
been close for that long.' At the end of May I asked Jack to come to Resource Day so John could check him out. I had no idea if what I was doing was in the right direction, and I still had no idea about the controlling restriction. By then movement was extremely difficult for him and he had relented slightly about any form of pain relief. That trip, although painful, was very helpful for me. The information that John provided about Jack's system and his secret life gave me the ability to go to a new level with the treatments. Mind games - mine. My answer was mostly the same, along the lines of - I don't know, but your body's feeling very harmonious, it's doing exactly what it needs to do. Jack really got the 'harmonious' thing. That's exactly how he felt at the end of treatment. He felt the harmony and he loved the feeling very much. That's one thing I could really help with after taking Jack to see John. Getting the 'outer' to get closer to the 'inner'. Bringing the Jack who's saying 'I'm getting better', towards the inner Jack that's saying 'I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing (cancer included)'. The gap between the two was like an electrical force field. When that gap was wide, he had more pain and agitation. During treatment, the gap would lessen and the inner harmony melded with his 'I'm getting better' conversation. When the two 'worlds' dissolved together it was a beautiful thing. Awesome. I often had tears running down my cheeks from this feeling. It was a blissful state, a perfect place. If he was awake, Jack knew the exact moment of this happening. He'd say 'That's it' or a small groan would acknowledge relief from the pain. Sundays often brought a Mormon blessing. It was Jack's favourite time and the actual blessing made him so emotional from the beauty of the words and the feelings evoked. He was always very weepy and happy after that. There was a niggling feeling in me though - not about the blessing, but the content. Jack was being given blessings that were always along the lines of…. 'You'll get better. In about a year you'll be totally well. The cancer has stopped growing. It's not getting any bigger. You aren't getting any worse. You've turned a corner, and from now on you are just getting well.' Now I'm all FOR being positive. But it just didn't ring true. And in his system it created a new problem. It went against everything his body was actually doing. So his questioning at the end of treatment took on a new urgency. 'How much longer is this going to take - I'm supposed to be getting better. Six months? Do you think it will take that long?' (Not from where I was sitting) I had my own problem with this too. If I thought that he was getting worse, would he? I didn't want to be pointing the bone at him. He's dying and that's that - I didn't want to have that in my mind either. It's hard to put all that stuff aside at times and just do what you're there to do. In June, Jack had some people come for him to teach them about his pet subjects. The financial world and being a sovereign person. They were young and vibrant and into health in a big way. They got him out of the 'not being able to eat' rut that he was in, and by the time they left after a week, he was eating better than he had for months. He looked better and had more energy - it was a real revival. His system felt different. For a few weeks I wondered if he could really be turning this around. The harmony was still there, but there was something else that I couldn't grasp. It was like I was putting my hands on a totally different person. After that I got the flu and didn't go to treat him for about a week. When I went back, he was on oxygen. Jill had taken him for a check-up at the hospital and his lung capacity was tested. I had been working on that for a long time during treatment. It felt to me that he had less than half his normal lung capacity. At least having oxygen at home gave him more relief from the chest pain and slightly more energy. Jack's painful right thigh finally had a gigantic release. It took me by such surprise that I nearly fell off the poof. It was so BIG and 'mechanical' and violent and visual, I thought I must be making it up. Like something out of an Alien movie. He slept through the whole thing. I integrated and settled the area for a long time, not just for Jack, but for my benefit too. After he finally woke I asked him how his thigh felt.
'Just the same.' I couldn't believe it. The next morning when I arrived
Jill was very excited. 'Jack's leg's all better!!!!' That pain never came back. But there were new ones. Chest and shoulders. Agony for Jack. Mostly I was settling this pain. I admit I sometimes had the doctors' voices in the back of my mind. 'The two tumours are growing together and one day without warning they will just rupture the pulmonary artery and he will bleed to death in minutes - there's nothing you can do'. I imagined I could feel this death-grip already. The thought of encouraging big releases around that area was a little scary. I'd already made a pact with his body for him not to die while I was treating him. John suggested this and I set that agreement up almost at the beginning. There had been one release in particular that gave me a hell of a fright. I could taste blood in my mouth and my hands felt that they were completely awash in blood - that viscous, dark fluid up to my elbows. Shit, it's happened! I opened my eyes expecting blood to be pouring out of this nose and mouth. Nothing - he slept like a baby. Another discussion at the next Resource Day helped me through this. Re affirm your agreement - do not die while I'm treating you. Don't be afraid of encouraging releases. Don't just 'settle'. Treat what you find. Okay. His heart is what I found next. It felt like it was
breaking - and I told him so. Normally I would never say such a thing - but I had
to. It was so strong. It felt like 'breaking' in the sense of both physically,
and in the old black and white movie scenario. It was so overwhelming I cried all the way home. Even remembering it makes me teary now. Such sadness. It made total sense - he had a whole family estranged from him. He had a loveless life. Personal tragedy under all that biblical optimism. In July Jack was declining. He was still attempting the food thing to keep up his strength for when he got well, but he was not moving around the house any more. The long oxygen tube was like his umbilical cord. It was long enough to go to the lounge and the bathroom. He hadn't gone any further for weeks and he was looking more skeletal. Jill needed to have a day off. I agreed to take the afternoon shift, give him a treatment and stay until she returned home. There was a great chair in the lounge. Jill had bought it especially for Jack when he became ill. Big, comfy, laid back, foot rest. He never used it. Refused totally to sit in it. Said it was uncomfortable. After lunch in the lounge, I asked if he was ready
for his treatment. The chair was great. Easy access for me - more comfortable. Higher than his bed. I wished he'd been sitting there for months. He lay back, feet up, and asleep in seconds. I assumed my newly comfortable position, still on the poof, but much easier. Hands under his freezing cold ankles. The usual scanning, the usual 'stilling' thing. My hands and his body had a great thing going. It was instant. As soon as I had my hands in place it felt like I was almost obsolete. My hands could feel him even before I got into the house. As per the last few treatments I was drawn to his
chest area. His heart was in my intention. The television was on in the
background. He was missing his favourite show. Columbo - can you believe
it? Every day at 1pm after lunch. My peripheral hearing was listening
to that naive way the Columbo character has of asking questions and I
was thinking about therapeutic enquiry. Then the crooked finger brought
me back. A monstrously big heart came out of Jack's chest -
another Alien moment. Holding against this heart-ripping restriction was
taking all my strength. My right hand has getting painful. It felt like
it was taking forever. Totally in two now, the heart jerked up into the
air and then fluttered back into the chest cavity like a feather. I opened
my eyes. I wanted to laugh out loud, but restrained myself to a smile. I wondered if he remembered how sex felt after all that time and guessed it was like riding the proverbial bike. 'Did you feel that?' he asked. I had a short trip to make - another two days without seeing Jack. When I returned he was in the Palliative Care Unit. Jill had lost it and had him taken there for his, as well as her sake. I hated the idea of visiting him in hospital. Hospitals make me nervous. I talked to John - as always he said the right thing and I got there feeling okay. They'd put a drain in his right lung. The bag had been filled and emptied numerous times in less than a day. A bad sign to say the least. The fluid was very pink, indicating the cancer was damaging blood vessels. Just not THE blood vessel. Yet. Jack was beside himself. He wanted to get home. Now. I could see that Jill was doing everything possible
for that not to happen. She needed him to stay there. The second night
I arrived after dinner and he was alone. He was so grumpy. A nurse came in to check what he'd
eaten and he told her to fuck off. She did. Just then Jill came in. She had that brittle, hard quality of someone trying to be happy and light. Jack told her to get fucked which triggered a fast and furious battle, with me sitting in the middle, invisible. There was a lot of fucks and fuck you's and it ended with Jill walking out and slamming the door. It happened so quickly there had been no time for me to excuse myself. 'Right!' There were tears after that - his. He felt dreadful. On every level. He kept telling me what a good woman Jill was. The usual remorse after harsh scenes between them. He wanted a treatment and I sat on the end of his bed with his ankles in my hands. His system felt better than it had for ages. Cranio is full of surprises. The promised 'day' in hospital turned into five. Jack was livid, but he also looked fantastic. He was well rested and well looked after. He was in a smoke-free, Jill-free environment. His lungs were drained, his breathing easier. His face had plumped out a bit from the saline drip, so he'd lost that haggard look. He'd had his hair washed and I told him that despite the fact that he hated hospital, he looked beautiful and more rested and 'well' than he had in months. The Palliative Care Unit was actually very nice. It was peaceful too, unlike his bedroom which fronted a main road. Noisy as hell. I'd suggested months ago to Jill that she might like to get in touch with Jack's sons seeing as he didn't have it in him to make the first contact. I gathered from talking to him about it, that hispride was the main thing keeping them apart now. The only son living in Australia wanted to come and see him and that visit also happened while he was in hospital. It was wonderful for Jack. He glowed after that. Jill was back in the good books. His son stayed until Jack was back home and promised to come and see him again soon. By the time me was released from hospital, Jack had the drain in his right lung and a catheter to drain urine. Two tubes and bags that had to stay with him. His bladder hadn't been working properly for weeks. It also meant nurses visiting every day. So, seeing him at home now had the 'feel' of hospital. His room had been transformed. The hospital had organised all the equipment. A proper hospital bed that made daily nursing easier and all the other stuff that makes life better when you can't get out of bed. The air bed mattress was freaky for me. The air moves all over constantly, giving a massage-like feel. It took a few days for me to adjust to the movement - is that me, Jack or the airbed? The day care nurses arrived around 10am each day to attend to the drain and catheter and washing etc etc… There was one main thing left that needed attention. The Mormon blessing. I felt that the blessings lately had been adding to Jack's grief, not giving him the relief and peace of mind that they used to. I spoke to Jill about this. She had been having the same thought for a while. As a non-practising Mormon she understood what he needed next. A blessing with an 'out' clause. For a while, some weeks, there had been a change in my overall treatments. When I treat people, I kind of 'see' them, next to me. Their whole body is quite close to mine but my hands seem to go right under them the whole length. Hard to explain this picture, anyway, lately Jack hadn't been so close to me. He was getting further away. So, when I treated him, he was harder to reach. During treatment he would get a little closer, but the next time he was even further away. Little by little he seemed to be leaving. There was also the angel's wing. As Jack moved further away, he seemed to be enveloped in something. Light, gossamer, feathery. It was an incredibly beautiful scenario, and even though it disturbed me at some level, it was so esoteric and real that I could not question it or even discuss it. He left this gossamer-like bed to allow me to treat him, and then he moved back as I was settling his system. Jill spoke to the bishop. Finally, his blessing was one along the lines of 'thy will be done'. That whatever happens is God's will, which is good. What a relief. Mid-August brought more changes along with the angel's wing. Jack's body felt wet and it was always curling inwards during treatment. It was another out-of-the-blue change. My treatments were mostly after dinner now. Jack liked to have a treatment and then go to sleep for the night. One night as I was driving home it hit me - embryonic. That's what it was. It felt like his body was an embryo. That 'distance' and 'embryonic curling' continued. The new blessing gave Jack's system more harmony. He had been feeling like a failure because he had been previously told that the cancer had stopped growing and that he was getting better. Saturday and Sunday, the 21st and 22nd of August, both those days he was talking to me differently. His 'I'm getting better' conversation was over. He told me that he could not fight any more. He was spent. We spoke for a very long time each day about his wishes. His thanks. His love. Promises. All the time, his system still felt the same as it always had. Harmonious. I had been giving him a foot massage every now and then. After his 'all I want is a hug' statement, I realised that I could do more than just cranio. He loved the foot massages. His feet were like ice from having such poor circulation. Never enough oxygen. After a foot massage he used to say how spoilt he felt. Ialways hugged him too when I was arriving and leaving. I know how much that simple act of physical touch meant to him as well as the benefit of having treatments. A thousand distractions had come between me and 'treating Jack' since February. The biggest one that I was finding hard to ignore was a trip that would take me away for 8 to 10 weeks. Both Jack and Jill told me it was okay, that I should go. At one point I wanted to go, just bolt. I didn't want to go through this. The hassle, the drive to their house, their dark and dingy home, his Y- fronts, the revolting bedroom wallpaper, their relationship, her cigarette smoke, his spit bucket. I wanted to run. But at the same time, there had been something built in his mind. And her mind. I had been welcomed into their lives and into their home, no matter how humble. They both depended on me for very different reasons. She needed me to visit and talk. He needed me to treat him and talk. He was there when I woke up in the morning. My hands could feel him even when I wasn't there. When Jack had been in the Palliative Care Unit it had happened. Just a moment between us. I opened my eyes at the end of treating him. He was just looking at me. No words. I knew then that I would stay for however long it took. I told him that I wasn't going away. He smiled and just nodded. When I left Jill on the Sunday night (the 22nd of August), I told her to call me anytime. Day or night. Not to hesitate. Next morning the phone rang. Early, still dark. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, she was sobbing uncontrollably. 'I'll be there in ten minutes.' I thought he had died from the sound she was making, but when I arrived he was sitting up and breathing. But things were different. There was almost complete silence. There was no oxygen tube and no sound of the oxygen machine humming and thumping every two seconds. The vibrating noise of the airbed machine was gone - it was turned off. The silence was eerie. He was reading his bible. She was in the kitchen on the telephone to the hospital. 'What's going on?' They had obviously had a big night. Harrowing for her, resolution and more peace for him. But there was a genuine affection between them. They'd been through the photo albums and said all they needed to say to each other. He'd refused all pain medication for the last 2 days and now he couldn't keep any pills down. I made some phone calls to the hospital for Jill. She couldn't speak coherently anymore without sobbing. They needed to organise intravenous injections for Jack as the pain was too hard for him to bear. That took hours. During that time I parked myself out of the way between
his bed and the window. Sitting on a chair monitoring and treating him
with my hand on his arm. Every now and then he'd doze and I supported
his head with my other hand. His system felt faint. But very peaceful.
The pain ran through his body like an electrical current. It went in waves,
spasms. Like birth, I thought. He was adamant about getting that pain-killing injection.
He needed it badly. Sometimes, as we sat there, with Jill coming and going
and the rest of the buzz in the house (Jill's daughter had arrived to
help her call funeralhomes etc etc), it felt like he and I were in a vacuum.
Protected from the roar of the traffic outside, the wailing of Jill as
she'd come and give him a hug, making him squirm and get momentarily agitated,
the constant ringing of the telephone…. There was a moment too, when I re-negotiated our deal
- or thought I did. The one about not dying while I was treating him.
At that point, I was prepared to do whatever it took to make his transition
easier. To help his dying in any way. Every now and then he would stop breathing. His breathing
was shallow and laboured without the oxygen anyway, but when it stopped
it was a hell The nurses arrived in a flurry. Invading the quiet
space that we'd created. I was so glad to have a loo break and stretch my limbs. They were frozen after hours in the same place. Jill and I were sitting at the kitchen table when the nurse came in a few minutes later. 'You'd better come in. We've given him the injection, and his breathing's changed. There's not long….' We both raced in quickly. Jill went round and sat
on the chair by the bed. I stood on the other side of him. He was barely
breathing. The spasms had ceased though. He was obviously pain free. Time seemed to stop between those last few breaths. When Jack's breathing finally didn't start again it was surreal. He was gone. Really gone. And he'd kept his side of the bargain, despite my
attempt at re negotiation. After a few minutes I put my hand on his arm.
Nothing. I expected to feel his presence in the room still. But no, this was a man in a hurry. He'd made his peace with everything that mattered on the earth. The day before, his brother and half-sister had visited in the morning. Years of hatred, bitterness and silence had disappeared during that visit. Making peace also with one of his sons had been enough. The room filled with noise again. The traffic, the birds, the slamming of a door, the nurses busying themselves and packing up the hospital things. And life goes on. Hours later, before the funeral home guys took him
away, I went in to sit with him. There was not a hint of him still in
the room, something I have felt once before when a close friend died.
What did I learn most? There are lots of things - all important. But the thing that stands out most clearly is - stillness. It's what Jack demanded of me the most. It's what I needed to find the most of. And it's what he wanted the most in the final hours. It's also what all the people I treat want, but I didn't get that so much before. One thing I wasn't prepared for was how my hands felt. They have become separate entities, with a life of their own. My hands still miss Jack. I do too, but they miss him more, and they remind me of that every day. Another thing is the amount of meditation I have to do now to keep at that 'level' with my other treatments. Seeing Jack every day got me to a point where I could go deep, quickly. Now I have to work at that again. Also, there's the 'life or death switch'….. During the week after the funeral, I was talking with Jill. She was going on about how quickly he had died. (I didn't feel that it was sudden at all.) I asked her what was happening in their lives 12 years ago. She had to think a while before she answered. 'Twelve years ago… hmmm… we got married. And Jack suddenly stopped smoking. That's about all I remember……' Hi John Let me know if you have any
thoughts on the matter, I can provide more info if you need in order to
advise me >>>MY COMMENTS: Your question goes right to the heart of what we do. My answer, in typical cranio fashion, is not clear cut. Maybe . . Maybe her system will use your treatment to grow the cancer more aggressively. Maybe her system will use your treatment to get rid of the cancer completely. By 'system' I mean everything. Mind, Body, Spirit, the lot and anything else we don't know about. You see, all the warm and fluffy talk about us cranio sacral therapists not 'doing' anything but simply supporting the patient's system isn't hypothetical. It's actually true. And if you know that and you are treating people well, which means not imposing your idea of what needs to happen on their systems, then you really have to face the fact that you're not in control of what's happening. . . . or going to happen. That concept is easy enough to accept when you are dealing with something simple that isn't resolving. Everything feels ripe in the person's system for an old pattern of restriction to release but it just won't. It makes you sort of scratch your head and think, 'Well that's odd. I can't see any reason why it's not releasing.' Then you remember, 'Ah that's right, I'm not running the show here. There must be a reason that makes sense to this persons system and it just hasn't informed me of it yet.' But . . When the person is manifesting life threatening symptoms
the stakes are much higher. It's very easy to slip back into the mechanistic
view of health and WANT a particular outcome. In this case more life for
the But wait, it gets more complicated . . Being able to tell the difference between a patient who is thinking of finishing their life and one who is not, is difficult. Often what comes out of the person's mouth is very different from what their system says. In one case the person says, 'I am going to beat this.' While their system says, 'I can no longer live with this discord in me. I am finishing my life.' In another case the person says, 'I can't bear this pain any longer. I just want to die.' While their system says, 'I am fully engaged in my life and I want this discord in me to come into harmony.' Also. . In practice I've seen that there is a different therapeutic dynamic between a patient and I, depending on whether their situation is life threatening or not. When a person comes to me for help and I put my hands
on them, the unspoken communication from me to their system is always
the same. (Anyone NOT asking yourself those questions, go to the top of the class and bitch-slap the teacher. Then get yourself a better teacher.) If the patient's unspoken response is, 'I am fully engaged in my life and I want this discord in me to come into harmony.' Then . . it's on . . I'm the Aikido expert. No, not really - just for this analogy. The restriction is protected by many defences that come to the fore as the drive for harmony lets me in. I do my best to stay focused in spite of the barrage. I funnel all the energy they project in defence, back into their system, to assist the release. There is a back and forth struggle as I stay with them through the process of release and healing. All going well there is a sense of liberation at the end. For both of us. If, on the other hand, the unspoken response to my
question is, 'I can no longer live with this discord in me. I am finishing
my life.' then I am dealing with a totally different situation and
the dynamic is very No back and forth, no struggle. Why? I'll have to get a bit cosmic here to explain. Life threatening conditions are created at the core of the person. To effectively work with them requires deep respect for the origin of the choice. We are multi-layered, multi-faceted beings. The part of us that makes this choice is not in our awareness. The choice to conclude our life is made in the same place as the choice to begin our life. The reasons for both choices are extremely personal and by their nature, not in our awareness. Put aside for a minute, any information you might
have come upon from clairvoyants and channelers etc. Don't know? Me neither. If you don't know the answer to these questions for your own life, how are you going to know them for someone else's? . . and knowing that, helps you be HUMBLE and RESPECTFUL when working with someone dealing with these core issues. I can't over emphasis this point. Deep, for real, humility and respect are an important
key you are going to need if you really want to be of assistance. It can change. Cancer is very dynamic. Once it gets going it can
grow very fast. When you approach the person with humility, respect and NO AGENDA, a remarkable thing happens. You are allowed deeper access to the core of the person. No kidding. Here's why. There's a phenomenon in quantum physics called the 'Copenhagen Interpretation'. It says that the presence of the observer influences the experiment. But only in Copenhagen! No, not really. The significant aspect of this phenomenon is presence.
Your presence makes a huge difference. Your presence has been allowed into the part of the person that is making the life/death choice. A problem shared is a problem halved. Just being with the person at this level is of tremendous assistance to them. A friendly companion on a difficult stretch of the road makes the journey easier. In the silent comunication between their system and yours, you walk along together, them communicating, you listening, they start to tell you about why they are finishing their life. As they do this, more and more harmony comes into their system because of the effect of your respectful presence. Sometimes, as they tell you about why they are finishing their life, it becomes apparent to them that they've missed something, a piece of information or a perspective they hadn't looked at. Suddenly they stop. You are at a fork in the road that wasn't there a moment ago. They smile at you and say, 'I'm feeling somewhat Tasmanian, let's go down this way.' and . . . it's on. Other times they keep on the same road and their passage is made easier by your presence. Life for its own sake is not necessarily GOOD. Often the road you travel with a person dealing with this issue has many forks and they change their mind a lot. The main assistance we can give is easing the process, brokering as much harmony in their system as possible. Make no mistake it's very demanding. If you do decide to treat your friend, here are some things to look out for from a palpatory perspective. Bear in mind that palpation is a very personal affair and how I pick it up may not be the way you pick it up. What does it feel like? In the initial, PRE pre cancerous cell stage, it feels like an intensely bright point of light, incandescent. As the cancer becomes more materialised it becomes brighter and starts to grow legs like a spider. In time as it becomes 'aggressive' these legs connect up with other points of light and the whole thing becomes more solid. Eventually the center of this mass of white hot light becomes fleshy as the tumour proper forms. If the person changes their mind about finishing their life and the cancer starts to return to normal tissue it will go from the white hot quality to a sort of turgid yellow. This eventually turns into normal tissue. An exception to this pattern is prostate cancer, which feels like a white cocoon being spun around the prostate. It is made up of threads and not spidery. Benign tumours don't have this intense light quality and just sort of sit there like cellular couch potatoes, slowly getting bigger. If they are a problem, it's usually because they are pressing on delicate surrounding structures. Knowing what cancer feels like at its different stages of growth and decline is very useful in being able to pick up secondary or satellite growths. Here's why . . If someone is intent on finishing their life and they have received surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, at the main site of the cancer, it often works. The tumour is removed or shrinks and any new cancerous cells are killed too. But if the person is intent on finishing their life, their system will grow satellite cancer cells somewhere else and being able to feel this is very useful. As if all that weren't enough . . . Knowing what cancer 'feels' like can be terrible knowledge because it puts you in the very difficult position of choosing what to say to the person. CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! As a general rule. Keep your mouth SHUT! Remember what I said, physically it can change very fast. Here today, gone tomorrow. Literally. The life threatening symptoms are being created by a core part of the person. That part uses speech and words VERY INFREQUENTLY and then only as a last resort. FOLLOW ITS EXAMPLE. Obviously if you're asked a direct question, answer it but watch out for a tendency to answer questions that haven't been asked. If you wait, the person will probably tell you what you are feeling anyway and this is much more powerful for them. Chemotherapy and Radiation therapy? These treatments are effective at killing cells, particularly cancer cells but they are very hard on the body. Chemotherapy feels like a very sophisticated cocktail of poison. Which in a way, it is. Radiation therapy is like a very bad case of sunburn, repeated daily for 5 to 10 weeks. Both generate a, 'What the?' reaction in the body. You can be most helpful in negotiating with the person's system to not see these treatments as so much of a threat but as an aid to recovery. That's if you are getting the feeling that they want to recover. If not, you can only do the best you can in a difficult situation. Try not to turn away internally from their pain. Try and continue to be with them on this painful stretch of the road. Remain respectful of their process. So, Kylie,
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 Copyright John Dalton 2007 Top |