Let’s put down our swords for a minute. My last blog, I
talked about fear, fright or flight. This week I want to talk about courage. How
do we turn fear and overwhelm to empowerment?
Education is empowerment.
What if we took a different stance; opposite to the war on
cancer? What if we stopped fighting, we put down our swords and our defenses
for just a moment.
So we could take a pause and let new thoughts, new ideas, new healing opportunities to enter our
body.
What if instead of asking ourselves, “What’s wrong with me”,
we asked a different question.
What if we asked, “What is my loving body trying to tell
me?”
What different answers and solutions might we come up with?
Last post I shared that Brad, my Son-in-Law, was recently diagnosed with
stage 4 renal cell carcinoma. Sounds really scary, sounds like something we
have to defend our life over. Yes, this is super scary and yes, you have to defend your life…the life force inside of you. You have to
honor, love and support that internal flame and life source. Nurture it; nourish
it.
I’ve been studying functional medicine and functional
diagnostic nutrition. This focuses on restoring health in a non-specific
manner. We look at diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction and supplementation
as tools to restore the body’s natural ability to heal. The pharmaceutical model
studies one drug for one action.
But nature isn’t linear, it’s web-like, it’s
multi-dimensional.
Case in point. If you take vitamin D, it will
turn on your tumor suppressive genes, your cancer fighting genes.
It’s
going to turn off your oncogenes, cancer causing genes, at the stem cell level. Not even chemotherapy, surgery or radiation
can do this. In fact stem cells are smart, they become resistant to
chemotherapy just like antibiotics.
Vitamin D will
protect the tight junctures in your cellular, gut, and brain barriers. It will have multiple positive effects. Vitamin
D is actually a hormone and is “the conductor of your genetic orchestra”,
according to Victoria Wood, CNS. In fact, if pharma could patent it, Vitamin D
would be a number one seller. An optimal
vitamin D level between 60-80ng/ml decreases mortality from every disease.
If I look at this frightful diagnosis from a functional medicine
viewpoint, the function of the body, I have to ask, what do these three organs
have in common? Cancer in the kidney, the lung and the liver are all organs of
detoxification. So what does that say to me? The body needs to be detoxified.
There are many paths to healing. No matter what treatments
you choose, have faith in your innate ability to heal and repair. We teach in
our Integrative Wellness Program at The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders,
what I learned from my functional medicine guru, MIT trained, cellular
biologist, Tracy Harrison. The body needs three things for optimal health:
1. We need to maximize what your unique body needs. This is
personalized medicine. The body needs clean air, clean filtered water,
nutrition, the right vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants. Love, the right
thoughts we are putting in our minds. Are we positive and optimistic? Are we
fulfilling our passions and our dreams? Are we open and honest with ourselves
and our relationships? Minimize
toxicity and inflammation. What is toxic in our life? Is it the air, the water,
the food, the relationships, the job? I’m asking these questions. Only you can
answer them for yourself. What loving responses can you make to that? Can you make
more loving and nourishing choices? Maximize what is good. This can be fun! This isn’t about
diets or deprivation. This is about life, living and loving the life force.
Minimizing toxicity and inflammation. It’s all around us. We can put our head
in the sand and easily get overwhelmed,
“OMG I can’t do this or do that.”
OR we can make loving choices. I am now saving a hell of a
lot of money since I got rid of toxic cosmetic, hair, skin care and cleaning
products. AND my skin has never looked better! I’m even saving money on my
grocery bill. Even though I only buy organic, my grocery bill has gone down as
I buy less meat, alcohol and acidic junk food. A green tea costs far less at
Starbucks (today and in future healthcare costs) than the addictive coffees and
sugary drinks. Green tea has both calming and anti-carcinogen properties. I
love my food, people love my food, but most importantly, I love how I feel when
I’m eating what my body needs.
2. Minimize toxicity
and inflammation. We’ve known for over a decade that inflammation is what
causes oxidative stress and free radical damage leading to DNA damage. These
rogue DNA-damaged cells mutate, refuse to die, and eventually interfere with
functions in the body. There is a natural cycle of life and death for us, as
well as our cells. Cells need to die and regenerate. In fact we get an entirely
new body every 7 years.We are NOT defined by whatever label or dis-ease we’ve been
given. In fact, we are not defined by our genes. Diet and lifestyle are far more influential
and can change the expression of our genes as proven by studies of epigenetics.
Here’s a quote from Craig Venter, PhD who mapped the Human Genome:
“Human biology is actually far more complicated than we imagine.
Everybody talks about the genes that they received from their mother and father
for this trait or the other. But in reality, those genes have very little
impact on life outcomes. Our biology is way too complicated for that and deals
with hundreds of thousands of independent factors. Genes are absolutely not our fate. They can give us useful
information about the increased risk of disease, or the actual fear incidence of somebody getting it. Most
biology will come from the complex interaction of all the proteins and cells
working with environmental factors, not driven directly by the genetic code”-Dr.
Craig Venter, PhD
Fear makes us do irrational things. Angeline Jolie made
headlines when she had a double mastectomy for fear of cancer when BRAC1 and BRAC2 genetic mutations were
discovered, and sadly many women have followed. Do you know when these genes
were first discovered, the incidence of breast cancer was 40%? It is now 80%. What has changed in the last
20 or 30 years? The genes haven’t changed. Our diets, lifestyle, levels of
toxicity and fear has changed. One of the largest studies, the Framingham
Nurses study looked at the 20% of women with BRAC1 and BRAC2 that did NOT get
cancer. The #1 differentiating factor was the diversity in the diet.
The
more phytonutrients and phytochemicals that down regulate inflammatory
responses, the less risk of cancer.
The body follows the mind and the mind follows the breath.
Simple breath work. Learn meditation and how to quiet the fear and automatic
negative thoughts, ANTs in your head. Do what one Radical Remission Thriver
did. Get up before sunrise and go to the
rooftop and watch the sunrise. Take slow deep breaths when the oxygen level is
highest in the atmosphere. Breathe in life affirming thoughts and healing
loving thoughts to your tumors and body.
Spend time with yourself and allow these thoughts and healing
opportunities to occur.
3. Prioritize Self Care. This is the most challenging. Every
time you over commit, every time you say yes but your body needs to say no, you
are saying no to yourself. This takes a toll. I know this as well as anyone. It
is very hard for me to say no and to realize that it’s not my job to heal
anyone. No one can heal you. Your body heals itself. People can guide, coach or
educate you. The original role of the doctor was to teach. Unfortunately now,
with our pharma and insurance run healthcare system, the physician has little
time to spend educating himself or patients. Unfortunately, they’ve been given
10-15 minutes to make a quick assessment and to write a prescription. Worse,
yet, nutrition and functional medicine have not been taught in medical or
nursing schools.
How many people know how to listen to their bodies and then
co-create a plan for healing? I loved listening to The Quest for Cancer’s 9th
episode of interviews from those who healed their cancers against all odds, in
spite of the limitations of conventional medicine.
I particularly loved Jordan Rubin’s interview. He was told
if he didn’t do surgery on his aggressive testicular cancer, there was 100%
chance he would die within months. He said he was going to take 40 days and
heal himself, and he did. He put away
his iphone and communications for 6 weeks. This was not easy for him as a
successful entrepreneur and business man. He told his employees they would not
hear from him for 40 days. He made a commitment to himself and prioritized his
own healing.
My ultimate goal and mission in life is to inspire wellness. The Chinese symbol for crisis, equals danger or crucial point, opportunity and change. Every healing crisis is an opportunity for healing and positive change.
This is NOT saying that if you are ill it is your fault! This is not about guilt. Guilt serves no purpose. Worse yet, guilt is counter-productive and an excuse to beat yourself up. This is about taking an honest
personal assessment and then lovingly responding with uplifting, life affirming
choices. Yes, you can change the terrain to make cancer un-hospital in your
body.
Cancer cells feed on sugar and are anaerobic. Simply starve them and
flood them with oxygen.
I leave you with a final quote from Victoria Wood, RD, MPH,
CNS, “The power on your plate is profound”. You cannot do chemotherapy every
day of your life. Your life will be miserable and short. But you can do
chemotherapy on your plate through food and herbs three times a day. Most of
our medicines were derived from natural food and herbs. Here’s just one powerful example, Curcumin is
one of the highest antioxidants and can turn off the transcription factor NFkB,
deemed cancers master switch. Curcumin is the active ingredient in the spice
turmeric. See this chart comparing it to many common chemotherapy drugs.
Spices, like nature are web-like and have multiple beneficial affects.
Chemotherapy targets just one affect and has negative side-effects. One choice
is simple and loving. The other creates war on the body.
Curcumin is the highest antioxidant and can turn off the
transcription factor NFkB, cancers master switch. Sulforaphane Glysinolate
(SGS) found in cruciferous vegetables can cause cancer cells to die, a process
called apoptosis. We have supplements for both of these phytonutrients. You can
take them prophylactically to lower inflammation and at therapeutic levels if
you have cancer.
Food for thought. Make Love Not War.
Carpe Diem,
Lisa
