This morning, I received a call from an old friend, Rabbi Zalman Schachter, who is now on the faculty at the Narpoa Institute. He called me because of an email that he received from Sylvia Boorstein. Zalman was quick to wish me well in my recovery, and his demeanor was full of loving kindness. I really appreciated hearing from him at this time.
Later in the day, I helped my daughter with her school project on “Zen Buddhism – It’s Beliefs and Effect on Society.” I really enjoyed reading the material with her and helping her understand the concepts of Buddhism, in general, and Zen Buddhism in particular. The quote which really got to me this time through was,
“This earth on which we stand, is the promised Lotus land, And this very body is the body of the Buddha.”
Bhagwan spoke quite often on this subject, and I feel connected to the spirit of the quote.
I played tennis this morning in Eastwood Park with the gang that was there. I was really in the “zone” today! I made a lot of shots simply by not thinking too much about them, which is exactly the space I like to be in when I play tennis. Again, it took me two hours to recover. I took an hour bath and also slept for about an hour.
In the evening, we went to my brother’s house in Los Altos for a little sader. My son and his girlfriend were there, along with my sister, her husband, my brother’s daughter with her entire family, and my brother’s girl friend with her son. The gathering was very nice and quite spiritual. Somehow, it felt good for us all to be together to celebrate the festival of freedom.
Leslie Davenport’s group today was quite special. She led a guided imagery experience which was quite similar to the one I had earlier this week. We started with deep breathing, as usual, and switched to relaxing the body, starting with the eyes, working up to the forehead and to the top of the head. Then we moved to our face and then on down to the feet and toes. From there, she had us imagine bubbles of energy rising from our fully relaxed feet and legs on up through our torso and winding up at the top of our heads. The visualization was very effective for me, and I felt very relaxed during the whole process. I probably could have fallen asleep several times. I later found out that most of the people in the room felt a deep sense of relaxation also.
In response to a question from one of the members of the group, I had an opportunity to speak about managing your own health care and how to make appropriate medical decisions. I explained how I had to make a tough decision back in early February regarding radical cystectomy versus the Shipley approach with I eventually decided upon. I also spoke about integrative medicine as the approach I took. This gave rise to comments by many other people supporting what I had to say and enhancing my viewpoint. I shared that I really wanted to come to the group mostly when I was feeling good so I could share my healing experiences with other people and not be so needy. All in all, I felt really supported and that I had contributed to the healing experience of others in the room.
Last night, I had a dream. In the dream I was running away from an impending nuclear disaster to a space ship that was to take a number of people to safety. The “mother ship” had a lift that would allow one person at a time to be speedily transported into the ship. I noticed that the entry mechanism was rather weak and decided to redesign it. As I did so, the space ship seemed to grow in diameter and I was able to try out my new designs rather easily. Naturally, I woke before the disaster. I wonder what it all means.
At Cancerport today, I offered a copy of Yellow Stream to the group. I explained how each day had it’s own title and that some of them were quite funny. I shared how the book became known as Yellow Stream and everyone laughed. Earlier, someone mentioned that laughter was really good for healing, so we had plenty of it!
At night, we had another meeting of our Evolutionary Circle. The theme was once again based on healing through laying on of the hands. Before we actually did any healing work, we each had an opportunity to check in with the group. I could feel such love and support from everyone, as I shared what had happened in the last week. We are such an unlikely group of people that somehow we’ve managed to stay together for over a year now.
Today was a very nice day! I went to Menlo Park around 11:00 A. M. and spoke with my boss once more about my annual review. Next, my son came for lunch and we had a nice time with the V. P. of my group. I received such tremendous support from everyone at work today that it really made me feel happy.
My little enneagram support group met in the afternoon. This was the first time we were all together for a very long time, and it really felt wonderful. In this group, we use our combined knowledge of the enneagram to help each other through good times and times that are not so good. We were all trained by Helen Palmer and completed our certification in 1991. We have been meeting regularly since September of 1994.
V. R. was describing how she had used email to end one relationship and begin another. At each step of the way, she had to decide on whether or not to send a specific message to one of her friends. This gave rise to the phrase of the day, “to click or not to click!” (Another example of “to click or not to click” occurred in the morning. I had just pressed the send button on an email message to D. K. when he phone me to answer the question I was asking in the email!) As I shared what was going on with me, I felt totally supported, and each of us got enough time to share what we wanted to.
April, 22, 1997 – Weird Old Women Who Wear Purple!
Today I went to Leslie Davenport to work on my sleep problem. She led me in a hypnotherapy session which focused on deep relaxation and then led me into several visualizations that seemed to help me recover my ability to let go and allow myself to sleep. The tape recording was messed up, however, so I am going to have to reconstruct the session from memory while it is still fresh.
From focusing on deeply relaxing my physical body she went into deeply relaxing my mind through a technique of unraveling a loosely woven fabric of burlap or some similar substance. The purpose of this was to unravel the mind from it’s objects of attention. Next, we went deeper with a count down followed by a visualization of a relaxing place. I chose China Beach in Point Lobos State Reserve.
The final scene was a library in my mind in which there were books of a positive nature on the right side of me and books of not such a positive nature on the left. The books on the left were stories about stress, illness, heartaches, pain, suffering, and the like. I took each of these books one by one and placed them in a receptacle which was then taken out of the library for good!
I came out of the session feeling very relaxed and as if I had taken a nap. I’m sure there was more to the session, so I’m going to ask Leslie about it and try to recover the tape.
Later, I went to see Gail Teehan. She did a Feldenkrais session on twisting of my spine, which was very good. She also showed me exercises for my back and knees. While we were working together, she spoke about how much Feldenkrais has helped stroke victims. During the discussion, she mentioned that she thought she’d be around to be a weird old lady dressed in purple! I love doing work with Gail, but I won’t see here until May 15 because she’ll be in Feldenkrais training.
In the evening, my wife and I went to separate support groups at the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Sausalito. The support group I attended was the “Life Threatened” and my wife attended the “Care Givers” group. I first contacted The Center for Attitudinal when my son had Wilm’s tumor back in 1976 and spoke with the founder, Dr. Jerry Jampolsky. Later, 1987 or 1988, my wife and I completed the Volunteer Training, but we got busy with our young children and never did much with the Center.
The support group was different from the others I’ve been attending in that it started and ended with everyone holding hands and one of the facilitators offering a message of hope. I enjoyed that aspect. When I had an opportunity to share, I really felt supported. Everyone was interested in my meditation of “healthy… free” and invited me to teach it, but as time was limited, I’ll have to wait until another opportunity presents itself. I think people felt inspired by my story.
I was able to play three sets of tennis this morning, but I was so exhausted that it took me more than two hours to recover. I took a long bath and the got into bed for a long “mind story.” Both of these were very relaxing and I found myself quite able to concentrate on my breathing and visualizing healing in my bladder. My poem became:
Lying still,
Breathing in, Breathing out,
Healthy cells grow all by themselves.
I am free of cancer.
The meditation became “healthy cells grow all by themselves” on the in breath and “I’m free of cancer” on the out breath, or simply, “healthy… free.”
In the evening, we went over to A. and S. M.’s house for a lovely sader I was able to participate fully, and even had a few cups of wine. It was a very enjoyable evening.
When I was a boy of around twelve or thirteen, I studied and played the game of chess. I studied the masters like Lasker, Reinfeld, Alekhine, Botvinnik and Capablanca. In fact, when Reshevsky played a simultaneous exhibition at Purdue University in 1959, I played him to a tie by playing the Lasker variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined. My favorite master was Aaron Nimzovich, who published My System in 1925. This was my favorite book on the subject and I studied it long and hard. One of the strategies that Nimzovich taught was called overprotection. He maintained that if you have a pawn in a strong position, especially in the center of the board, you should do everything in your power to overprotect that pawn, which, in turn would lead to a very strong position. Overprotection became my primary strategy in chess, and perhaps in life.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Overprotection is a good strategy for raising children if you consider expressing your love and affection for them consistently throughout their childhood. I’m not talking about protecting them from the outside world so much as assuring them that they are loved and cared for in a way in which they feel secure and protected. My girls and boy have been raised this way and are wonderful people.
I think that overprotection is a good strategy for healing from cancer also. What I mean here is that the more you can do for yourself, the better. For me, this means being a support group junkie, doing “mind stories,” having guided imagery sessions, doing Feldenkrais and other massage therapies, acupuncture, and all of the other activities I’m engaged in to support and overprotect my health.
I came to this realization early this morning after a very difficult night of little sleep. I was looking deeply into my feelings and remembered how I played chess and bridge as a youngster.
I studied the game so much so that I could feel like a winner. I had felt like such a looser as a child that I needed something to win at and I chose chess. Almost every time I played a good game with a good player with a chance to win, I would get heart palpitations and start to shake. I would get very nervous and feel compelled to win. I needed to win at something. This attitude and nervousness carried over into my college days at Purdue University to the game of bridge. I quickly became one of the best bridge players on campus, but winning was still an issue. When Mike Sears and I entered a tournament in Terra Haute, Indiana, I was nervous and shaking as usual, and we did not win. Mike was very disappointed in me. However, when Charles Goren visited Pudure, I was his partner in a tournament and we won.
Now my life is on the line and I’m playing for keeps. I get the same heart palpitations and shaking when I think of the possibility of actually helping someone with my ideas and guidance. I get nervous when I think about publishing this web site as a book and actually speaking to people about how they can learn to make appropriate decisions for their medical treatment. Now that the word is out, I may be able to control my nervousness and shaking enough to heal myself and realize my goal to deliver this message far and wide. This is serious stuff, and I am committed to getting well again. My girls are still young enough that they need overprotection – overprotection in the sense of feeling loved and protected.
Today was my wife’s birthday and S. G.’s Bat Mitzvah. The Bat Mitzvah was a joyous occasion and many people wished me well. They were happy that I appeared to look so well and continue to visualize my complete recovery.
When I got home, I felt quite exhausted. I proceeded to do a “mind story” using Leslie Davenport’s tape. Not too much else is happening on the healing front today!
Today was rather a strange day. I was supposed to play tennis at 8:30 A. M., but the ground was wet, so we postponed it to 10:00 A. M. By 10:00, the courts had not dried, so tennis was cancel led. By now, I was going over some bugs with a colleague at work, and by the time we finished our conversation, it was too late to go to Leslie’s group. So I settled into work until about 1:45, when my wife called to tell me she was having car trouble and I needed to pick up the girls. So, off to the tennis courts I went for just about an hour! At last!
I didn’t take time to relax this afternoon. I got caught up in computer stuff and now it’s dinner time! I guess I won’t make Anna Halprin’s open house this evening.
