Finally Feeling Better

I woke up twice this morning. The first time was the to sprinkler system in the back yard beginning to water the plants. The second time was when the phone rang. Now I am up and feeling better than I have for days.

During the night, I got some answers to the questions I raised yesterday about the foreground thoughts and feelings. I started thinking about what exactly was going on and I remembered two schools of thought about it.

The first school of thought comes from the teachings of the enneagram. In this school of thought, the we function from three centers of intelligence: the physical or body center, the emotional center, and the intellectual center. These are also referred to as the belly, heart, and head center, respectively. Because we function from these three centers, we have bodily based experience impinging on our consciousness whenever we feel a slight pain or discomfort. We have an emotional experience whenever our feelings are triggered. Finally, and probably most of the time, we are bombarded through our mental center with thoughts, memories, plans, images, dreams (really another type of image), and so forth. In addition, we must note that energy follows attention. That is, wherever we place our attention, our energy will follow. If we are focused on a goal we want to accomplish, we may be able to place all of our attention on that goal.

We can actually create pretty much at will each of these experiences. For example, don’t think of an elephant! What happened? You probably thought about an elephant and had an image of one in your mind. So basically, this is the contents of the mind, according to the enneagram.

The Buddhist philosophy about these matters is surprisingly similar, although it doesn’t deal with three centers of intelligence. In The Art of Happiness, Myrko Fryba talks about the four levels of experience on page 88:

  1. Immediate experiencing of real events, processes, and states (and the feelings and sensations associated with them) bodily taking place in the present moment.
  2. The bodily experienced meaning of represented (remembered) events, relations, constellations, situations, and scenes (and the feelings and sensations associated with them) that have led to current states of feeling and alterations of consciousness.
  3. Conceptual thinking related to the flow of immediate experiencing or to the felt meaning of entire situations, which are presently happening. From this thinking are derived matrices and programs for apprehension and action (to the extent that they are consciously accessible and thus also “thinkable”).
  4. Conceptual thinking whose content has no relationship to the current state of the thinker and thus which has no conscious relationship to experiential reality. This could be a kind of non-reality-related babbling that is unconsciously motivated and directed, or mechanical data processing (for example, calculation), or it could also be wise reflection on rules and programs with the help of the meta-language of Abhidhammic algebra-in other words, planning and coordinating of liberational strategies. The key point here is that this level of experience has no present bodily anchoring in reality.

Later, when describing Satipatthana-Vipassana exercises, he refers to these as the four foundations of mindfulness:

  1. Contemplation of the body (kayanupassana)
  2. Contemplation of the feelings (vedananupassana)
  3. Contemplation of consciousness (cittanupassana)
  4. Contemplation of mental contents (dhammanupassana)

When practicing mindfulness meditation, one becomes aware of the different categories of experience and systematically assigns what I have called “foreground” material to one of the categories and returns to concentration on the object of mindfulness. If the experience is related to light, color, sound, noise, warmth, movement, trembling, itching, stinging, pressure, lightness, etc., it is assigned to the body. If the experience is pleasant, enjoyable, pleased, amused, bored, sadness, pain, indifference, etc., it is assigned to the feelings. If the experience is concentrated, scattered, tense, greedy, hate-filled, freed, etc., it is assigned to consciousness. Finally, if the experience is thinking, wishing, planning, intending, trust, doubt, knowledge, etc., it is assigned to mental contents. One tries to make the assignments as quickly as possible and return to the object of mindfulness.

My wife and I went to the Center for Attitudinal Healing together tonight. I went primarily because she wanted to go and I am not sleeping well, so I thought I’d go. I was deeply moved by the experiences shared by the members of the group! I felt compassion and understanding come to the foreground of my consciousness, and I realized that my side effects from chemotherapy and radiation are pretty slight compared to what some of the people are facing. I did a short sharing of my treatment plan, Dr. Halberg’s surprise statement, and a few other things, but I got more out of listening deeply to other people.

>>>Next…

Art of Happiness: Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

Free of Cancer!

My first appointment this morning was with Dr. Gullion.  He was rather pleased that the induction phase of the Shipley protocol worked so well.  He was also a little concerned about the 3 mm growth that was cut out of the surface of my bladder. He basically said that that was the nature of my bladder, and I would have to be watched. Nonetheless, we are still on the Shipley protocol and we begin chemotherapy and radiation next week. The basic protocol is the same, with chemo on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with 5FU and cis-platin, and radiation twice a day on Tuesday and Thursday. The whole process repeats itself after a week off. Then I am finished with the protocol. I plan to call Shipley today to discuss the situation with him.

My next appointment was with Leslie Davenport. My major concern in speaking with her was about the 3 mm tumor that was removed. I am still confused about how it could be there, with treatments I’ve had so far, but now it is removed and my bladder is free of cancer. We worked on the sadness I felt as a result of having some cancer removed, and I connected it with a desire for intimacy, especially with my wife. I apparently still need to work out some personal problems having to do with asserting myself, while maintaining a close and intimate relationship with my wife.

To celebrate my recovery, T. R. took me lunch at Insalata in San Anselmo. We had a very nice lunch, followed by a stroll by Gelato and a chat in the park. T. is very grateful for my recovery and very inspired by it.

All afternoon I felt extremely tired. I suppose it was from too much running around on Monday and Tuesday. Therefore, I’ve decided to try to take it easy today.

I went to the Center for Attitudinal healing last night and shared my happy news. Everyone was happy for me, and I continued to express my mission of presenting alternative methods as something to be done in conjunction with convention medical practice. I shared the T-Up information with one of the patients who seems to be reaching the point of no return. This patient has a choice for surgery for which the recovery period could be as long as the remaining of his life if he doesn’t have the surgery. The poor patient really has some tough decisions to make, and perhaps I can help him.

>>>Next…

A Much Better Day

I’m having a much better day today, thanks to a decent amount of sleep (perhaps!) I worked in the morning before my appointment with Leslie Davenport. In the session, we did a guided imagery experience of what was happening in my life at the present moment. The threat of the pathologist finding cancer in my bladder was still the primary focus of my attention. Leslie, in her wisdom, asked me if there was a way that I could turn out good even if the results were not what I wanted. Although I am still wrestling with this concept, I feel more confident in my ability to use my mindfulness to stay focused on all the good work I have done until now.

Next, I had to register for my surgery of Friday and make sure that everything was OK for Julie Motz. I didn’t even have to wait, so I guess everything will flow smoothly on Friday.

Following my registration, I waited around for a neck and shoulder massage with Anna Pera at the Radiation Oncology Unit. It really felt great and came at a perfect time. I really allowed myself to relax into it and thus I got a lot of benefit from it.

In late afternoon, I had a complete physical with Dr. Belknap. The blood work was very normal and the rest of my health is surprisingly good! Dr. Belknap said with the blood tests and physical exam combined, he gave me an 80 to 90 percent chance of being free of cancer in my bladder! This information helped me to relax slightly.

At night, my wife and I went to the Center for Attitudinal Healing. Some people have been coming to the group for years, against which my three week barely measures up. However, I found it quite beneficial to speak once again about the dilemma I have with the outcome of my surgery on Friday. I am trying to hold either outcome as a part of my healing process, but I really, really prefer to be free of cancer now! I spoke a lot about my daughters reaction to my illness and how they were such wonderful children. “We don’t need a support group!” is what they always say! Their love and support is really helpful, even though I’m not quite sure that they know the worst case scenario.

>>>Next…

Fog in the Bay

I took a break from my normal working day to walk by the water in Sausalito, meditate, and do some of the strengthening exercises for my immune system. I noticed that I could not see San Francisco, Berkeley or Oakland because of the fog, but Sausalito was clear. The meditation period was quite nice, and I felt rather good to be doing the stretches again.

My surgery has been changed to 7:30 A. M. on Friday, May 9 and Julie Motz will attend!

In my session, today, with Leslie Davenport, I dealt with the anxiety I feel about the question of whether or not there is still cancer in my body that represents a threat to my life. She felt confident that this was a good session for more EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), and I thought it wise to allow her intuition to guide our work together. Several issues came up with regard to various stances about my current physical condition. The issues that were most prominent in my mind were the unattractiveness of radical cystectomy on the one hand, and the powerful healing session I had with Leslie on March 21 on the other. I needed to break through my resistance to allow the radical cystectomy to be part of my healing, and not seeing it as an invalidation of “healthy cells grow all by themselves.” In the end, I realized that I was doing my best to help my recovery, and that as long as I kept looking deeply into alternatives as they come to me, I don’t have to feel bad about anything I’ve done. It is this attitude that brought Julie Motz into my surgery, and gave me the opportunity to see Don Alejandro.

In the evening, I attended the “Life Threatened” group at the Center for Attitudinal Healing and my wife attended the “Care Givers” group. Our group was quite smaller than last week, and all but one person was there last week. It dawned on me how much worse off each of the other members were than me, and I was struck with a feeling of compassion for their suffering. When it was my turn to share, I offered a copy of Yellow Stream to the Center, and talked about Julie Motz. One of the people there had met her at the home where she is staying and said that she was pretty incredible. I believe her! I also spoke about Don Alejandro and my nervousness over next week’s biopsy.

>>>Next…

Weird Old Women Who Wear Purple!

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.

>>>Next…

Copyright © 2004-2018, Jerome Freedman, Ph. D.