I developed breast cancer five years ago and I knew it was a ‘wake up call’ for me to change my ways. I had spent most of my life focused on helping other people instead of first caring for myself by living in a way that is loving and honouring of me.
Focusing mainly on others proved to be detrimental to my own body. I had been disregarding of how I was living. By being constantly on the go, propelled by the nervous energy that seemed to be energizing but in fact was extremely exhaustive. At the time, I didn’t feel the degree to which I was exhausted and how tired I was as I hadn’t been focusing on how my body really felt.
Could it be that our body’s intelligence knows what is true and what is not and therefore brings to our awareness behaviours that do not support our health and wellbeing? Could it be that all illness and disease is our body’s way of healing aspects of ourselves that are not true? This is certainly my experience with breast cancer. Through cancer I have found out that my body had another reality about life.Continue reading “Breast Cancer – How and Why?”→
In 2008 I had breast cancer at the ripe age of 33, and now every year I choose to have both a mammogram and ultrasound as part of my overall breast care program.
Over the past couple of years I have become more aware of how I am as I go into having my mammograms. I realized that for the first few years, I would pretty much check out so as to not to feel what was really taking place – which is that your breasts are being squished several times uncomfortably between two glass plates!
I stood in front of the mirror and was drawn to my eyes… they were shining and so full of light that I stayed there for quite some time, mesmerised by the beauty they radiated and promised. The sheer sweetness and delicacy in my face reminded me of the beautiful little girl inside me – a sweet, moment… a soul-full moment… I was alive because I had discovered a new way of living.
4 years ago when I looked in the same mirror, my eyes reflected a dullness, a tiredness, sadness, struggle, a giving up and an ache, a longing to know that there had to be more to life than my painful existence. I tended to avoid looking deeply into my eyes because truth never hides when sought and the truth was painful – my eyes spoke volumes.
Jacqueline in the Bahamas aged 44
So what happened in the short space of 4 years? I changed… I changed my life, or it could be said that life changed me, and I was more than ready.
The diagnosis of breast cancer in July 2011 was a life changing event for me in a magnificent way, mainly because it was the catalyst of letting go of an old way of living (from my head) and beginning to live from my body – a whole new experience. From the intelligence of my body I knew which choices would truly support and that is why they were so successful and brought a new quality to my life.
What Were The Choices I Made?
My very first decision was to put myself first in my life.
My second decision was to give myself all the support my body and I needed.
From these three decisions, all other choices I made naturally unfolded… I made changes to my diet, sleep, exercise… but mainly I slowed down and in this slower pace it was clear to see what mattered and what didn’t. It was heaven to take all the rest and sleep my body needed at any time of the day… for as long as I needed.
It took me to develop breast cancer to break this life-long pattern of putting all others before myself, so ingrained and unconscious this habit had become. By doing so, by cutting this old energy of self-abuse, I was saying “No More!” to a lifestyle that led to my breast cancer and I was saying yes to a new way of living that was truly self-supporting. Without realizing this then, I was actually building a new foundation for my life that would not only greatly support me during treatment, but how I was going to move forward, that is, how I was going to live after treatment ended.
My second decision was born from the first and was very powerful because I turned my old pattern of being unable to receive or ask for support on its head to: “I need all the support that is available to guide me through a land I had never travelled before – breast cancer”.
My third decision was born from the second. I just knew that the combination of both medicines (conventional and Esoteric Medicine) would provide all the support my body needed, addressing all the parts of me that desperately needed attention – the whole me and not just my right breast. This proved to be a very wise decision.
And in that very wise decision came a new insight, which was;
I had a significant part to play in my own recovery.
All of a sudden, there was me, there was my medical treatment and esoteric medicine; so much support for me. This feeling of so much support, something I had never had before, somehow comforted me on many levels, so much so that there was no way I could feel powerless, or feel like a victim, or go into ‘fight’ mode as is expected as soon as you get cancer. When I allowed the support I could let go of the struggle of having to do things on my own!
To Fight or To Surrender?
Had I not met Serge Benhayon and had his loving support, I too feel I would have taken on the fight, making it impossible to surrender – making it impossible to accept what I had created.
But as it was, not one bone in my body said, “I have to fight this cancer”. My whole life had been a battle and I was so done with the struggle, I had no fight left in me to either fight life or my breast cancer. The moment I gave up the ‘fight’ was the moment I could surrender, was the moment I allowed grace to enter… and this was the moment I could have all the support I could handle.
Now I have come to understand why I always felt a lack of support in my life was simply because I was not ready to take responsibility for my life or my choices. When I did take responsibility so much support was there for me, and having adequate support in place was crucial for me as it took away so much of my fear which initially had overwhelmed me, as fear had kept me in resistance to treatment.
The belief that we have to fight cancer, is a great distraction from truly seeing what learning is being offered to us by the cancer in our body, and what life style changes it is asking us to make.
For instance I have come to understand from what Serge Benhayon presents, that the breasts are the nurturing centres of the body, therefore my breast cancer was showing me the deep lack of self-nurturing I had for myself. I had no clue how to self-nurture, nor self-nourish, having always taken care of others first. I had to re-learn how to truly self-care and self-nurture, which flowed naturally when I started listening to my body and what it was communicating to me.
Life Is About Quality
Having surrendered and accepted my part in creating breast cancer my life took on a new quality. My quality of life changed because I was choosing to allow support, self-support, self-nurture, self-nourishment, which began a new relationship and reconnection with my body. Ah my body…
Truth never hides when sought, and truth can be painful. The painful truth for me was that I had given up on myself, then used many distractions not to feel this – not to feel how deeply disconnected and checked-out I was with my body. But, as I discovered: honouring myself reconnected me with my body and brought me back to truth and truth brought me back to myself and my sweetness…
Jacqueline aged 50 living with the sweetness of who she is
The beautiful, sweet little girl I had always been inside began to trust – trust herself, trust in people, trust in life, trust that her purpose in life was just to be herself, and with this knowing, she could let go of how serious, small and constricted her life had become, (her old way of living) and open to the grandness that life is, that she is, that we all are… This is such a sweet moment, a soul-full moment because I am alive; you just have to look into my eyes…
Jacqueline aged 50 radiant and loving life 4 years after being diagnosed with breast cancer
I am a Soul. We are all souls on this earth finding our way back home; self-love is the key.
‘True Power is in honouring who you truly are’.
Serge Benhayon.
Read Fiona McGovern’s deeply inspiring account of how she found herself in My Right Breast – Finding Me Beneath the Cancer “I have found the reflection of how to be a woman! It was with me all along, waiting for me to reconnect to her…I have met me.”
Fiona’s writing continue in My Marriage of Conventional Medicine and Esoteric Medicine
“People say cancer is a fight. I don’t feel it is. The battle for me was before, when I lived from ideals and beliefs, now I have reconnected to me there is no fight or battle, just a beautiful return to truth.”
In the media there has been a lot of coverage on breast cancer, mastectomy and the ‘very few choices’ a woman has when diagnosed. It feels there is no time like now to look at how prevention is better than a cure and how more choices become available when we come back to honesty, and truly listen to our bodies.
A simple question perhaps we should address is:
What do we women need to change in order to prevent a diagnosis of breast cancer in the first place, so that we never have to face the possibility of a mastectomy, or taking drugs likeTamoxifen to prevent a mastectomy (not forgetting that there are side effects that come with this drug)?
Where do we begin? The answer appears obvious….
We have to look at ourselves, in how we are living on a daily basis and the choices we are making, in the knowing that every choice we make has a consequence and catches up with us at some point.
‘…I just have to accept how I am and how I look …‘
These are the words from Laura May McMullan after being diagnosed with malignant melanoma (skin cancer). Laura had spent many years using sunbeds only to be hit with this diagnosis some 12 years after she stopped using them.
The above words from Laura are very poignant. After spending years of trying to change herself, look different and be what she called ‘Mahogany’ in the end she’s had to accept her natural skin colour just as it is.
Have you ever considered whether we are being controlled by the latest information? – Take Breast Cancer and Mastectomy, for instance.
In the media there has been a lot of discussion around women having a mastectomy (and in some instances, double mastectomies) as a form of prevention against breast cancer. Much of the information being put forward is that women have one of two choices: “Currently, women facing a strong likelihood of developing breast cancer have only two real options – to have both of their breasts removed (a double mastectomy) or hope that it will never actually happen”. (BBC News Online, 14th May 2013)
This stopped me and got me pondering –
Are these really a woman’s only choices?
And if so, what does this do to a woman’s state of being, when both are based on breast cancer being a pre-determined outcome? When people believe they have no power or choice over a situation they begin to feel a sense of hopelessness – this is termed in the psychological world as ‘learned helplessness’ – a condition by which a person feels they have no control over a situation. In this state they behave in a hopeless manner, overlooking any opportunities for a different choice and feeling they have no ability to change (Peterson, 1996).
BREAST CANCER & MASTECTOMY – PRESENTING AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A DIFFERENT CHOICE
How many women, due to what is being reported in the media etc, are giving up, thinking that their only choice is having a mastectomy if they want to prevent breast cancer and because of this, are overlooking opportunities for a different choice?
In recent months there has been a lot of media portrayal about preventive mastectomy (also known as prophylactic mastectomy or risk-reducing mastectomy) re-ignited by Angelina Jolie’s high profile decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.
I have been wondering about this subject as I am a woman and also someone who in the past has had breast health issues.
From my own experience over many years of making lifestyle choices that support me and in taking far more care of myself, I have found that my general health and well-being has improved immensely – so too has my overall health as a woman.
by Fiona McGovern, BA PGCE, Isle of Arran, Scotland
For some months now, when I lay in bed or in a warm bath I have been holding my right breast, the one where the cancerous tumor is… the tissue is softening around the tumor.
At first I expected to feel something, waiting to feel that womanliness I had always missed. I wanted to feel something grand or perhaps simply warmth – but in truth there was nothing. What I was feeling was the deep level of disconnection I had to me and to me as a woman. Continue reading “My Right Breast – Finding Me Beneath the Cancer”→
by Eunice J Minford MA FRCS Ed, Consultant Surgeon, N. Ireland
The world’s media was recently focussed on Angelina Jolie and her decision to have a prophylactic or preventative bilateral mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing breast cancer. Some celebrated her bravery and courage in being so open with her decision, and for taking the decision in the first place. Many felt it would help other women going through the same dilemma to see a leading world actress, renowned for her beauty and sexuality, undergo such a major operation. Others were critical of her decision, calling it ‘fearful’ rather than brave and that there were other options available.
Women in Livingness Blog 