Today I got up and felt pretty good. It's day three without steroids - in fact I haven't taken so much as an Advil yet today. I don't feel nauseous and the bone pain from the immuno-booster has subsided. I say this fully knowing that I'm only at the beginning of the journey in chemo, but if you told me I'd had chemotherapy not even a week ago I wouldn't believe you. I feel actually pretty good. I don't want to jinx myself and say I feel "good" but I don't feel awful. I'd contend this is due in large part to the fact that I haven't eaten anything irritating in any way. No raw vegetables, except for my daily juice, no sugar, nothing at all that is non organic, not even the slightest preservative. I am taking my essential fatty acids, I am taking magnesium, Vit D and so much melatonin. I'm gradually upping my dosage of European Mistletoe and I drink between 15-20 glasses of water or tea a day. I attend a Wednesday morning restorative meditation yoga class and I walk 30 min a day outside in the fresh air. It's a full time job. But it's paying off so far. Today I had a salad for dinner, with avocado and tahini and some cilantro. By far my most adventurous meal. The physical seems to be manageable up until now....the mental, now that's another matter.
Or it was.
Today I drove to Brooklin, Ontario to see a Shaman. I was put in touch with him through a mentor from IHN and gifted healer in his own right - Brett Hawes. I'm giving him a plug here because his podcast "Holistic Health Masterclass" is awesome, and I really enjoy listening to it. I used to put it on when I'd go and get my eyelashes done. Now I just listen to it. LOL.
Anyway, he put in touch with this Shaman after I'd asked him one day when he called me to chat about my recent diagnosis.
Disease occurs on many levels, and since the beginning of time people have always sought the counsel of elders and experts to deal with the disease in all the levels, physical, emotional and spiritual.
The man he put me in touch with deals with the spiritual. He is a middle man, between this world and the world of spirit. He has been trained, and taught by elders and Shamen who have passed down their knowledge to him. He heals on a different level.
So, I showed up to his house and we went into the room he has set up for his sessions and he explained how it was going to work.
Basically he said to me that part of my soul (being that part of us that existed before we were born into the physical world, and will go on after we die) had departed.
My session today would be threefold and he proceeded to explain:
Firstly, he was going to remove any negative energies from my being. Negative energies attach themselves to us any kind of way, it can be people, experiences or just energies, like walking through a crowd. Some things stick. These energies stay with us and if left unchecked can cause a whole range of problems, the worst being serious physical or mental illness. He was going to remove these energies to clear the way for healing.
Secondly, he was going to retrieve the part of my soul that his spirit guides had told him that I had lost. Apparently, at some point before now something traumatic happened to me to cause part of my soul to depart, going to safety in the spirit world, until called back. When this happens, we lose some of our personal power. Today he was going to go into the spirit world, find my soul and attempt to bring her back to me. If she would come. The soul can't be forced, not even by the Shaman.
Thirdly, he was going to find my spirit animal. We all apparently have one, some call it a totem. Hence the totem pole...this isn't a new concept. He pointed out very simply that if these things didn't have some history of working, or being true they just wouldn't have made it this far. They would've died out centuries ago. I thought it was a valid argument. Plus he seemed like the real deal. He wasn't pushing it. He had a real air of certainty and absolute confidence about the whole thing. Anyway, he was going to find my spirit animal and bring it back to me and then it was my job to take care of it, and to call upon it when I needed it for protection or guidance.
So, I laid down on the floor and he did some chanting, and shaking of rattles and all those things you imagine when you think of a Shaman. He drummed and went into the spirit world. And over the course of the next hour or so he did what he said he'd do. I will also point out that he asked where my cancer was and all I said was breast. I didn't specify which one. When he was doing his thing he was hovering above me close to my right, and directly over where the tumor is. I don't think it was by chance.
When it was done, he told me I had quite a lot of negative energies hanging around but they were easy to remove. He didn't have to really pull them off. He told me that it was at some point in my teenage years that my soul departed. He said this isn't uncommon, it's a difficult time for a lot of people. He said my soul came back, and I now had some more personal power. In a manner of speaking, I am now more me than I was yesterday.
He told not to be alarmed if I feel more sure of myself, if it's easier for me to say no to things not meant for me. If I feel less need to explain myself or make excuses for putting myself and my needs first, that's just my power that's come back.
I will admit, when he said all this I realized I hadn't been doing those things much and I had felt for a long time that I need to justify and explain my decisions and choices in life. When you don't put yourself first, you will come second and you will get sick and tired and lose a part of yourself.
Now, whether you believe in the spirit world, or teachings of sacred texts or the wisdom of elders - that shit is true regardless. When you give too much of you, you lose you. Even if it's to your partner, or your parents, or work, or your children. You have to look after you. This is something cancer has shown me. I was forgetting about me.
So the last thing, the spirit animal. I won't talk too much about. Apparently, it's not advised or something we should do. We keep our totems to ourselves and call upon them for protection and guidance, they walk with us in the spirit world and in this one. I'm not surprised at what mine was when he told me. It's almost like I knew already. He said when we are children we know our totems, but like friends we don't talk to as we get older, we sort of forget about them. They don't forget about us, they just hang around until they are needed, like trusted pals and protectors.
After all that, he released and thanked the helping spirits and sent them on their way.
I shit you not when I say I felt better. Legit.
I felt a little stronger and a little more sure that things were OK. I didn't feel so scared anymore, I didn't feel so alone. I felt there was so much more to life that maybe I was missing.
I won't say I got "woke" because if you ask anyone who really knows me, I've always believed there's more to this than just the physical world. I've always trusted the wisdom of the ages, elders and indigenous teachers. These people for centuries could communicate on another level, could determine which plants could heal and could see dimensions of being we aren't yet able to. All of modern pharmaceutical medicine is built on the backs of these herbalist or Shamanic teachings across all indigenous cultures and through ancient wisdom. That is a fact.
Cancer doesn't just exist in me on a physical level, there's more to me than just my body.
Today I had chemo for the soul. Sorry, no pictures.
The negative and what wasn't meant for me was cleared and my source of personal power was retrieved. Now, I walk a little taller in this world despite battling this disease . I do it with my totem and the wisdom of the helping and healing spirits that exist all around me.
I go back again in two weeks for another session. I'll get some more power back and continue to learn how to heal myself on this level and be more fully me.
And so, I continue to learn and grow everyday and give thanks for this life's journey.
Sometimes, the worst things bring out the good things we may never have seen and force us to look at ourselves and our existence with a little more mysticism and hope in a higher power of good.
For all of us.
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