Healing is a Committment and a Process

When I recall hearing the words, “You have cancer,” I remember wanting to fall to the floor. I felt and heard my heart beating like never before. Everything seemed to turn into slow motion. The unexplainable emotions grip the soul, the sleepless nights, the pacing in the dark, that feeling of forgetting to breathe all took hold pretty quickly. The first few nights I spent walking around in the dark, feeling lost, scared, and confused, similar to being lost in a corn maize with no visible way out. I even started to watch tele-evangelists at 3 in the morning, searching for hope and words from God. There were some moments I felt as if they were talking directly to me. Yes, I received some helpful words of wisdom tuning into the 700 Club! We filter and take in what we need, right? At that moment, at 3 in the morning, I heard words that helped me get through the night.

7 years ago now seems like a life time ago. I immediately found personal support, books, and alternative healing. Incredible women like Louise Hay and Doreen Virtue kept my head up high and my positive thoughts streaming through my head day and night. I stopped pacing and kept reading and calling in the light. At night when I could not sleep, I meditated and called in every color of the rainbow, each with its own healing frequency.  I asked everyone I knew to send prayers. I felt those prayers and kept on leaping forward through every obstacle. I surrounded myself with loving, compassionate people, some healers who gave me tools for life. My Reiki Master, and her Reiki Share Circles, that was my true place of healing and solace. The love and support I found there was immeasurable and gave me all I needed that year. Friends. Nurture. Support. Love.

What I learned then, and continue to apply to my life to this day, is that healing doesn’t end. It is a lifelong process. Scars often remain, physically and emotionally. There are lessons to be learned from dis-ease and tragedy. I will sometimes read or hear about someone with cancer or in an abusive relationship or having had a loved one pass away. This brings me back to my own experiences , a sign that it is time to revisit a situation, to go back and see if there is more to learn from it. Well, today I did just that. I read a blog that shared how to get through the hard times after hearing one has cancer. It was what I was planning on writing about today. But then I discovered something else. Part of the blog discussed being aware of what your body is telling you when it is in pain.

I looked back on the first few weeks after receiving my news, and tried to distinguish what my body was experiencing. I revisit the anguish. It is shocking to recognize that where my body felt fear and anxiety was my heart! I honestly sit here for the first time and am aware of this new piece of information that my subconscious mind is now revealing to me. It is now 7 years later and I am happy, healthy, and teaching Reiki and Angelic Healing to adults and children all over Portland, Oregon. I sit here right now and realize I have some more healing to do and it wasn’t at all what I expected. Heart, we have some work to do. I love you and will never again ignore you.