OK, here we are all lined up for a good session. In review, we are talking about the nine factors that Dr Kelly Turner distilled from the thousand cancer survivors that she interviewed for the book Radical Remissions. For my own clarity we are tackling these nine in the order that I reshuffled them to go from my strongest to my weakest as I see it.

Having Strong Reasons For Living is number three for us. This seems like a sort of nobrainer and it is hard for me personally to come up with the other side of it. But then considering all the dear folks who suffer from depression before and as a result of their diagnosis of cancer it is clearer. It is coming into focus for me that cancer is mainly an assault against our mind and spirit. We see physical proof of it in our physical body but that is just it’s calling card. It’s main impingement is actually not physical. So we have to meet it in these arenas as well.

It is important to realize that we are one being in body, mind and spirit although culturally those are generally separated for us. We go to the hospital and we generally work on the body and the mind/spirit get placed on the back burner. There we can become fixated on our time left, our numbers, our scan results, our percentages. These all seem of maximum importance while our minds and spirits are dulled.

Getting back to a whole person is an important goal, body/mind/spirit, even though we are tragically wounded. When we establish this maybe we can see outside ourselves and come to a point of helping others for instance. That to me seems a strong reason for living. It provides a Way.

The best to you, love, Felipe.