Tag: guided imagery

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“Waiting is … Grocking in Fullness”

March 28, 1997 – “Waiting is … Grocking in Fullness”

Today we begin the long wait for the results of the induction chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Frankly, I am quite pleased with the results so far, and I am thankful for possibly adequate time to build up my immune system so as to eliminate all cancer cells, dysplasia, and atypia. Using Broffman’s protocol and other supplemental and conjunctive approaches, I plan to be free of cancer five weeks from now when I have my TURBT.

In case you have forgotten the above quote is from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, which is wonderful entertaining reading while you’re recovering from any illness.

This morning I had another wonderful guided imagery session with Leslie Davenport. The focus of the session was on what guidance I need to make it through this period of waiting. Most of what came up was being in the present with my breathing (“breathing in, I’m healing myself, breathing out, I’m clear of cancer”). The other part of it seemed to come from my past experience with my son. My friend B. C. and I performed certain magical rituals that I think had an effect on his health. I’m now on the lookout for such magical thinking. At the group session which followed my guided imagery, this concept came out in a drawing I made of a healing spot in the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. Perhaps tuning into that healing spot well enough will do the trick, but I certainly want to do some more exploring.

I came home to nap and then had a visit with A Ce Diamond. I plan to do a web page for his non-invasive form of Body Sculpture. Stay tuned!

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Stranger in a Strange Land

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Bagel and Lox Cream Cheese Spread

March 26, 1997 – Bagel and Lox Cream Cheese Spread

My mother would have been 81 today had she not died of an osteosarcoma almost ten years ago. I have been thinking about all the cancer in our family, and it is really outrageous. Something must be going on here that we have no control over.

Today’s treatment went more quickly than yesterday’s, and lunch was great! All I needed to feel quite good by 6:00 PM was a guided imagery tape of Leslie Davenport and a short nap. My wife and the kids have been very supportive, and I expect to fly through these days quite well.

While the cisplatin was being infused I had another massage with Nora. Because of the IV, and the time limitations, all she had time to do were my shoulders and neck, but it felt good.

In the meantime, I worked on the professional services web page.

I have decided to photograph the drawings I’ve done at Anna Halprin’s classes. One of them was linked into the day before yesterday.

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Visiting J. B.

February 22, 1997 – Visiting J. B.

The first thing I did this morning was to fire off an email message to John Gray. Hopefully, he’ll write back or phone me. His daughter will be in middle school with mine next year!

I spent a large part of the morning and early afternoon working on the Sniffer and making copies of video tapes. I have mentioned that I had viewed two Nova episodes that we recorded sometime last week, and a lady at Cancerport on Thursday wanted to see them. I also made several copies of the In Search of … Faith Healing that my son appeared on to distribute to the various cancer support libraries around the county. My son will convert segment about him to a Quicktime movie and I’ll post it on this web site as soon as it becomes available.

Can the power of the mind cure cancer?

One of the nicest things to happen today was my visit with J. B. She had surgery last Monday and is doing fine. However, a friend of hers is having difficulty with lung cancer and J, feels that she would benefit from guided imagery. I offered to train her and J. thought this would really work out fine for her friend financially. So, we’ll see what happens when I re-launch my career as a guided imagery teacher! J. also gave me updated wallet photos of Meher Baba, who originated the affirmation, “Don’t worry, be happy!” I have carried one of these cards in my wallet for the last twenty-five to thirty years. Her husband makes annual journeys to India to visit his ashram.

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It’s All Downhill From Here

March 21, 1997 – It’s All Downhill From Here

Once again, I spent the morning playing tennis. It was very nice to play with J., V., and C. These are some of my favorite partners and we all get along so well. On the court next to us was another foursome that I often play with. D. F. and E. M. even visited me in the hospital during the second TURBT. I felt comfortable and excited to have the opportunity to play again.

C. was having a tough time getting into her game. She had not been playing much lately, because of work obligations, so her game was a little off. I coached her to remain anchored in her body and focus on her belly breath. From then on, her game improved. Nevertheless, we all had a marvelous time!

I had a conversation with my son in which he told me about two productions that he could play in. One is a Victor Herbert production of Naughty Marietta. The other is The Barber of Seville, with the same production company that produced La Boheme. He was telling me that the lead role in The Barber of Seville may be too difficult for him and maybe he should settle for a more limited role. He seems to be quite confused about this matter. So, being a good dad, I expressed to him how I thought that the people who succeed in the entertainment business really stretch themselves and go for the top productions that they can get in to. He is taking my advice under consideration.

In the afternoon I had the best guided imagery session that I ever had with Leslie Davenport! After talking a while about the details of my recovery, I decided to simply see what came up for me in the session, rather than have a planned agenda. The session was so incredible that I decided to incorporate a large portion of it in the transcript of the session (see Guided Imagery Transcript). It really speaks for itself, and I invite you to explore it!

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Massage and Tennis

March 19, 1997 – Massage and Tennis

Today was another wonderful day! I had a massage at the Marin Oncology Center from Nora O’Toole, a Certified Massage Therapist who donates her time and energy to work with patients. This is also a part of the Marin General Hospital Humanities Program, along with the guided imagery sessions I’ve been having with Leslie Davenport.

After the massage, I couldn’t help but drive by Boyle Park to see whether I could play some tennis. I sat for a while, amazed at the empty courts, and rubbed sun block over the exposed parts of my body just in case the 5FU was still active. I was feeling so normal that when the opportunity to hit with someone came along, I took the opportunity! Man, was it fun! I found myself hitting the ball with the out breath, just as planned, but not consciously thought of. I played only for about forty-five minutes, but it felt great!

On the way home, I bought a new tennis racket to celebrate my recovery. After trying out several rackets, I settled on a Prince because it felt intuitively correct for me. This was a direct experience from my study of Practical Intuition.

Later on in the day, I received a call from Jeff Barber, a Reiki practitioner. He was given my name by a friend of ours who utilized his healing abilities for serious burns suffered by their daughter as a result of an automobile accident. They reported wonderful things about Reiki and I wanted to find out how it could help me. Since Jeff also has a home in Lake Tahoe, I wasn’t able to speak with him until today. I have a feeling that the Reiki method is not to different from many of the healing techniques I use with my children.

In addition to telling me about his Zen practice and his exposure to the teachings of some wonderful Tibetan Buddhists, he told me about a medical doctor who had people write about the reasons for their illness in pencil. Specifically, he suggested writing a letter to “Dear Cancer in My Body.” In the letter, you write emotionally about all the things that are bothering you about your illness, especially your anger, irritation, concerns, broken dreams and promises. You are to release all of these things thorough this writing. It should be done in pencil with your own hand writing and later burned with or without ceremony.

The theory behind this lies in the three carbon factors involved: the human body, the pencil (graphite), and the paper, which turns into carbon when burned. He has seen and heard about people walking away from all kinds of physical and emotional distress. Through the process of writing, the incident you’re writing about becomes complete, and you are not holding on to it anymore physically, emotionally, or spiritually. This transmutation of emotion that led to the illness seems to work wonders.

When writing, release all the anger, irritation, broken dreams, promises, and other negative emotions that you have ever felt, as the illness could have be caused by factors in your childhood, and taken decades to develop physically. Release all of this through the writing and burning. The process lets you come more into the present because you are not bringing any of the past into the present. Write about every hard moment in your life and release the emotional charge so that it no longer has a hold on physical body. When writing to the cancer in your body, state that you’re releasing the cancer from your body and there’s no place for it and there is no longer any benefit from it. State that you don’t need the cancer to bring you in to the present moment. Write about anything that bugs you. Write to the fact that you are taking chemotherapy and radiation and they’re not going to have effects that the body doesn’t want. Remind yourself that you don’t have to buy into the results of the allopathic medical doctors.

In the end, he recommended the book, Reclaiming Our Health – Breaking the Medical Myth by John Robbins, heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune, which he gave up because he didn’t believe that ice cream (as good as it is!) is good for your health!

I am definitely looking forward to meeting Jeff Barber!

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Reclaiming Our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing

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Chopped Liver

March 12, 1997 – Chopped Liver

The night before last I couldn’t sleep because of the anxiety over the unknown effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Last night I couldn’t sleep because I was waiting for side effects, which didn’t come! So today, I really exhausted. I hope to get my energy up by the time we leave.

I spent the time listening to guided imagery tapes, Deepak Chopra, and surfing the news groups on the web. I had an interesting query from a reader of the news group, alt.support.cancer.

The second day of 5FU and cisplatin was similar to the first. This time I had a chopped chicken liver sandwich for lunch from Max’s! It went well again, although I fell a little exhausted.

After the chemotherapy, I had another guided imagery session with Leslie Davenport. The session was interrupted by an extremely urgent need to pee. Before then, I was visualizing how the chemotherapy and radiation were helping me either revert the cancer cells back to normal cells, or at their choice, bubble up and degenerate into something that could be easily eliminated by the blood stream, urine, and feces. I got some really good images to work with in the future.

We stopped by M. C.’s house to see the girls before the fly off to Palm Springs for the weekend while I recover from my three doses of chemotherapy and four doses of radiation.

I spent a lot of time trying to fix a bug (work for money), so there’s not much more to say. The fact that I feel like fixing is actually saying a lot.

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Jewish Penicillin

March 11, 1997 – Jewish Penicillin

We arrived at the Marin Oncology center at 8:10. Here it is now 9:03 and we’ve just been sitting around. Naturally, they had us down for 9:00, not 8:00. So now I’m really getting restless. I’m not comfortable starting a mind story, not knowing how far I’ll get or if I’ll be able to even begin. I tried working on Practical Intuition, but the same considerations play. The man next to me is getting his i. v. already. I guess that he’s been here before.

Last night was fairly difficult. I seemed to sleep fairly well in stages, but due to all of the hydration, I was up many times. Finally, at 3:00, I went downstairs and did a little writing. Next came a tape, and by the time it was time to wake up, I was ready to sleep.

I haven’t been that preoccupied with today’s treatment plan, but I still felt unable to concentrate on my breath. No one can tell what kind of response I’m going to have to the chemo, and I’m a little worried. To top it off, I have two rounds of radiation also today.

I had expected to be able to listen to guided imagery tapes, but with all the commotion going around here, I preferred to listen to the classical CD’s I brought. The Beethoven Choral Fantasy brought on a lot of emotion. I also listened to Dvorak’s Piano Quintet and Shubert’s Trout Quintet. These pieces of music are so calming and beautiful. I use my computer as my portable CD player.

Once the 5FU and cisplatin where into my blood stream, I felt a few minor discomforts, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad – just like Shipley predicted. I can probably have a decent afternoon. As soon as the cisplatin was finished, I got an urge for matzoth ball soup from Max’s! When I was growing up, this was called, “Jewish penicillin!”

I started having pains in my stomach and needed to pee again! The pains didn’t last long and I continued to pee frequently. At around 1:15 P. M., an hour and a half after the cisplatin was totally in, I went down for my first radiation treatment. Although I was a little nervous, I came through it OK. Within the next half-hour, we were back upstairs, getting the i. v. out and on our way home. Although I felt very tired, there were no other side effects. I was advised to take a sedative tonight to get some sleep, but now that the unknown is known, will I need it?

The second radiation treatment went really well. I was able to be relaxed and visualize the radiation helping the cancer cells to mutate back to healthy cells normal cells, or, if they choose, to self-destruct. This seemed to be really effective. The radiologist placed tattoos for the spots for focusing the beam and then explained the computerized care that I was getting.

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Practical Intuition

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La Boheme

March 7, 1997 – La Boheme

Today I have a busy schedule. I see Dr. Gullion in the morning, meet with co-workers in the early afternoon, and travel to Capitola for my son’s performance in La Boheme in the evening. We have planned to spend the night in Capitola. I have prepared a list of questions for Dr. Gullion.

Once again, Dr. Gullion showed up with a heart pin on his shirt pocket. I believe that he is quite open to what Andy Weil calls integrative medicine. We spoke about all the issues on the list and the thing that struck me the most was his willingness to allow guided imagery and massage along with chemotherapy. He said that this is what they were trying to do at the Marin Cancer Institute.

As far as Keith Block is concerned, Dr. Gullion thought that with Michael Broffman and all that I was doing, it amounts to the same thing. He said that he had always had difficulty getting Dr. Block to be specific about what he is doing, and that he had proprietary supplement preparations that no one else had. I felt confident that I was on the right path because of Michael Broffman, Marty Rossman, Van Vu, Elyse, and the combination of all the other things I am doing.

As far as the chemotherapy is concerned, he was no more worried about my response than Dr. Shipley. He had given cisplatin and 5FU together before, but not combined with radiation and not in the doses that I will be getting.

After our visit with Dr.Gullion, we headed down to Network General and then to Santa Cruz. We checked in to the Apple Lane Inn and took a nap before meeting M. and G. for dinner in Capitola before the opera. M. seemed quite relaxed in spite of having one of the leading roles in the production. I was feeling quite proud of him and also felt excited to be able to be there. You may recall that on my first visit to Dr. Neuwirth’s office when he described my illness, I wanted to be able to see La Boheme.

La Bohem, SF Opera

The performance was rather good for the first performance of a new opera company. Of course my son had the best male performance as Marcello, Rudolpho’s friend! The woman who played Mussetta was also excellent. But the orchestra and chorus left something to be desired. All in all, it was very enjoyable and I recommend it to anyone living near Santa Cruz.

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Healing the Body – Healing the Mind

March 3, 1997 – Healing the Body – Healing the Mind

The morning started out with a Feldenkrais class incorporating arm movements. I couldn’t believe how exhausted I was when returned home! I found it necessary to settle into another guided imagery tape after lunch to even have a chance of making my day.

Next came a very revealing guided imagery session with Leslie Davenport at Marin General. I began talking about my fears of the upcoming chemotherapy and radiation and traced the fears down many, many levels to my fears of abandonment and treatment with indifference that experienced as a child. While there wasn’t time for a complete resolution of the situation, I think that there is much more work to do in this area. I feel rather pressured to perform because I have expectations of completing the Shipley protocol with a complete response and not have remaining cancer at the end of April or the beginning of May when my next TURBT will be.

After this session, I took a thirty minute walk on the pathway near the hospital to absorb what I had learned from my meditation and to allow the images to integrate into my life. As I was walking back to my car, I had this wonderful feeling of making myself lovable, not only to myself, but to everyone I saw and came in contact with. I took this feeling into Anna Halprin’s group and it turned into one of the most healing events of my life. I was open to receiving and giving love and there was plenty to go around! We had a large discussion on alternative healing prior to our movement program.

The movement program focused on prayer, and I don’t know if Anna picked up this idea from me, or I got it several minutes before she said anything, but it was the exact word I would have chosen! This intuitive flash led to an immensely moving dance, which brought the whole group together in one circle, filled with healing energy and love.

I drew a picture of myself kneeling in the prayer position with my hands drawn together in the traditional prayer position. The hands were way out of proportion, but as the drawing developed, I began to realize that I was also drawing the healing space around my hand and the healing energy radiating from them. I wrote,

all hands
healing hands
kneeling hands
a Buddha is a rose is a giver of qi
a 1000 petal lotus

Something remarkable is taking place as I focus on healing my cancer. I find that I can’t but help heal my whole self. Without healing my whole self, there can be no healing of my cancer. They are strongly interconnected as all phenomena of the universe are. And, I believe, this is the essence of holistic health – healing the body and healing the mind. This is what I’m striving for and what I want to achieve.

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Qi Gong

March 2, 1997 – Qi Gong

My friend, Itzzy, came over today to teach me qi gong once again. He had taught me several years ago, but I wanted a new lesson because of Michael Broffman’s recommendation. Itzzy has been practicing and teaching tai chi and qi gong for almost twenty years. His teach is Fong Ha.

We started with sitting meditation. It turned out to be very closely related to the Vipassana meditation that I was already doing, except for the emphasis on the out breath. The posture is upright with the buttocks on the edge of the chair and the spine erect. The hands are either placed on the knees with the thumb and forefingers making a “U” and facing each other, or interlocked in front of the point between the navel and the pubic bone (the da tien point in qi gong or hara in Zen). The process is to watch the breath fill up a balloon in the lower abdomen and return to the breath whenever the mind wanders away.

The second form is standing meditation. Here, the breath and attention work the same from a standing position. The feet are parallel and shoulder width apart, and the hands are either at the side, or somewhere in an arc from the da tien point to the throat, where ever the optimum comfort and/or awareness lies. We tried various configurations, all of which seemed to work quite well.

The next thing we tried was walking meditation, which is similar to walking meditation in Vipassana, except the feet are swung in a slight semi-circle from one placement to another. Finally, we did some rocking meditation, which is very comforting when you feel that you have to move a little more.

I loved being with Itzzy and being shown these various postures. We walked a while and then had pizza at my house.

After Itzzy left, I listened to another guided imagery tape and later started Practical Intuition by Laura Day. I was lucky to have met Laura at Eselan when I was invited there by Helen Palmer for an organizational meeting of the Center for Investigation and Training of the Intuition in 1988. Her book is a marvelous training guide and I plan to utilize it as much as possible in my healing.

Practical Intuition

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