Let's Put Down Our Swords for a Minute

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.[1] [2][3]  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 9^th 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

---

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21870057[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10565372[3] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058725

About Lisa Jackson, RN, CHC, RYT-500

Lisa is an author, inspirational speaker and coach with a mission to inspire others to feel and look their best at any age. 

She is also the Executive Director of the Integrative Wellness Program for the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. Lisa's book, Savvy Secrets: Eat, Think and Thrive outlines her seven step process that is fun and transformational. 

Lisa is part of the New Self Health Movement and the Wellness Inspired Network. When she is not coaching, speaking or writing, you can find her practicing yoga and joyfully sharing Carpe Diem Dance.