Women Beyond Cancer
“A journey into how mind, body and spirit are inseparable;
We are hard-wired for Bliss”
~Dr. Candace Pert
“I have another community,” I announce to Michael while he’s doing the dishes after dinner. He pauses, takes a deep breath (is he rolling his eyes?), and turns toward me. “Which one is it now?” he inquires. His voice communicates complete resignation. He knows me all too well and realizes the futility of struggling against my desire to be inclusive.
I cradle his face in my hands and squeeze his cheeks together, pursing out his lips for that “chubby baby” expression. I kiss him, slowly and thoroughly, then take a step back.
“Well, it’s actually a sub-community under the guise of a larger community.”
His eyes are tired. After the dishes, his kids are waiting for him upstairs to play “tickle-monster.” He is thinking, “How much time is this one going to cost me?”
My A Quality Life Community class has now formed a core of regulars who help each other as much as I have helped them. This sub-community is unintentionally exclusive in its inclusiveness. We rely on each other and support one another outside the studio. We are bound to each other by a common illness but it is our wellness that nourishes us.
Women Beyond Cancer is a non-profit organization that serves the emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of women with any type of cancer. They emphasize not just surviving but living beyond it.
“We’re Cancer thrivers!” our Q of Lifers proclaim.
Ten women from my class accepted the invitation of Women Beyond Cancer to retreat in a beautiful home resort in the nearby mountains for free. I had asked the director to be one of the group, not the yoga instructor. It was a conscious decision to pay attention to my own needs.
We gathered to share continuing stories of life with and without cancer in the amber glow from a huge stone fireplace. The hearth warmed our bodies from the outside, and the conversation warmed us from the inside. We already knew each other, but saying, “My biggest fear is that I will die from this” never becomes easier.
Carrie has been part of our program since its inception. She is a cancer survivor, a wife, a mother of two young children. She is also an infectious disease pediatric specialist, a wealth of terrifying information at her fingertips. I don’t know how she manages to let her children leave the house to face our contagious, germ-infested world but she does. “Ignorance is bliss,” I say with a smile.
Carrie told us about her first “Race for the Cure” experience. “I’m not a runner,” she began. “I exercise, but I don’t really run.” Somehow, she and her seven-year-old son got in the crowd of runners and were being encouraged to “move on up, move on up.” She described, “I was in the middle of treatment, and my bald head and grip on my child’s hand told pretty much the whole story.” Before she knew it, she was “encouraged” right up to the front starting line in the group of seeded runners who not only planned on running the entire race but planned on winning it as well.
“Um, I’m not a runner. I’m not a runner” she called out, but no one was listening. Everyone was too focused on beginning this race. Suddenly the starter’s gun sounds. “And they’re off!” the race director announced. Carrie ran, clinging to her son’s hand. Both of them ran for their lives! The crowd of runners continued to push them. They ran faster than they ever have before. “But I’m not a runner! I’m not!” she called out. Still, no one listened.
By the time they reach the first mile marker, the clock reads “7 minutes.” These two non-runners ran a seven-minute mile in their very first race!
Mare, short for Marilyn, our over-energized leader from Women Beyond Cancer, took us on a three-hour snowshoeing adventure. The snow was deep and glistened in the aspen tree branches when the morning sun hit them.
“Gorgeous! If ever I dreamed of a place where we could be together outside of the yoga studio, this would be the place.” My tone was enthusiastic and completely filled with joy as I gazed upon our group, poised against the backdrop of the pines.
Mare led us to a snow-covered meadow surrounded by trees. We stood on the side of a mountain. The peak loomed overhead to our south, the valley floor lay to the north. The air was crisp, our noses cold to the touch; but our bodies were warm and our hearts were filled with adrenaline and love.
“Where are we going now?” one of the women asked nervously. I snicker. I love hiking alone or with my dog. I forgot that being outside without a sidewalk in sight may not be the norm for some. When I was younger, I led groups of troubled kids into the wilderness for days at a time. People often asked, “Aren’t you afraid they will run away from you?” My response was always the same: “The wilderness terrifies most people. Being alone in the woods is their biggest fear.”
Lovely Mare asked us to make our own path. She was instantly met with resistance.
“Do what? What do you mean--our own path?” “Trust me,” she smiled back. We snowshoed off in ten different directions, into the trees halfway up our
mountain. The trees masked the sound of the other nine, but amplify the sounds of nature: the animals, the birds, the restful, peaceful sounds of quiet. The trees protected us. We
trusted them. The sky was blue. Sky, snow, mountain, meadow, woods, solitude--the combination provided a balance to the chaos that brought us here, equilibrium for the world that awaits us down in the valley.
I surrendered to the power of silence and the harmony of nature moving before my eyes, I remembered that I am part of this harmony, not separated from it. I don’t have to fight this movement. Resistance only encouraged more resistance. I became the silence for that moment.
When we all returned again to the meadow, it was as if we had all received the same memo: “Move with the flow, for we are the flow.”
Snowshoe yoga. You don’t know if you can do it unless you try.
We bend forward and twist our bodies, with our huge platformed snowshoes, we form a circle of friends encircling our inner circle of friends. We reach to the sky as a symbol of higher consciousness. We open our bodies and our minds to be receptive to our world. We long to live so that we may live longer. Michael has taught me: “If I surrender and trust that this is what I truly desire, then and only then, will I be available to receive what I truly need.”
Laughter promotes laughter. Love promotes love. Internally, there is no difference.
Dr. Candace Pert, a neuroscientist who discovered the cellular bonding site for endorphins in the brain states, “Supporting the soul by cradling it promotes the growth of healthy cells. When we smile, laugh, and love, our body responds with a cascade of events that promote only health.” In Dr. Pert’s book, Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d (Hayhouse, 2007), she writes, “We know that our body heals with prayer. We know we feel better when we’re in a loving environment. When people support one another, we can venture farther down the path of recovery.” She continues, “The mind, body, and spirit are inseparable; we are hard-wired for bliss, which is both physical and divine.”
Our beautiful meadow is like the eye of a hurricane: calm, serene, beautiful. The challenge lay at the meadow’s periphery where trees led to steeper peaks. It crests turbulently, in unsettled snow.
The tree line, our destination, opened up to bluer skies; and we were drawn to
meet this edge. We stood above the valley and felt the glory of being on top of our world. “Can you make it to the peak?” Mare asks us. “Yes!” We exuberantly replied. Some of the women had never put on snowshoes in their lives. For others, it had been years. It did not matter. Our trek to the top took three hours. By the time we were home again, we were hungry, but we could hardly contain our excitement. With each step, our cancer, however we defined it, was being conquered. Stopping before attaining the peak somehow represented defeat, giving in, retreat. Not today!
The retreat was our sanctuary. We were a diverse group of women. We wore many hats, had many titles: physicians, teachers, accountants, massage therapists, architects, counselors, biologists, mothers, wives, lovers.
Friends. We were all friends. We were all absolutely brilliant women. There was not one among us who didn’t
share a story about the powers of healing. The retreat took on the tone of a healing workshop.
“What if we were to believe that we could heal ourselves? What if this belief was a common one, never subjected to disbelief?” asks Erin. She is a biochemist and taught my A Quality Life Community class while I was in Australia. When she is not in her lab, she is in the yoga studio.
She tells us about a five-year old boy with cystic fibrosis. This child, however, has had no inflammation events or hospitalizations since birth. She continues: “What if the environment of the cell could be altered by something we cause? The cell within the cell wall--the cell’s interior environment and its exterior--they can change when influenced. What if we can influence that change?” Erin poised her question toward us. A pause dominated the room while our brain contemplated the idea.
For Dr. Pert, the mind is not just in the brain -- it is also in the body. “The vehicle that the mind and body use to communicate with each other is the chemistry of emotion.” The chemicals in question are molecules, short chains of amino acids called peptides and receptors, that she believes to be the ‘biochemical correlate of emotion.’ “The peptides can be found in your brain, but also in your stomach, your muscles, your glands and all your major organs, sending messages back and forth.” After decades of research, Dr. Pert is finally able to make clear how ‘emotion creates the bridge between mind and body.’ Our bodies have natural body triggers. “The fight or flight trigger,” Erin explained. We all nodded. “We calm our bodies through breathing techniques, allowing our minds to process information without the panic.” When I had an allergic reaction to Taxol, a chemotherapy modality, I used breathing to stave off my body’s terror at the poison’s invasion. Understanding calmness on a cellular level may encourage our doctors to be more empathic to patients’ requests to be treated on other levels than just the medical one.
“What if we could practice influencing the environment of the cell in such a way that it changes it completely, thus, changing our life completely?” Erin pauses and looks around the room at all of our faces. We are rapt.
Dr. Pert explains in her book that, “Perception and awareness play a vital part in health and longevity.”
We understand that the secret of cancer is to not feed it, not give it any recognition beyond what is necessary, not give it attention. Rather, the secret is to love the working, healthy parts of our bodies--love the parts that are nourishing and loving our bodies. Self-acceptance begins with the self.
“Does the mind come first, or chemistry?” Dr. Pert asks, “It is the crux of the difference between Eastern and Western thought. In Eastern, consciousness precedes reality. In Western, we think consciousness is a secretion of the brain, like urine is a secretion of the kidneys.” As our group of women continue to contemplate and discuss these thoughts, I continue to read aloud, “There is a very close correspondence between the highest, most concentrated areas of enrichment of a certain neuropeptides and where the chakras are classically supposed to be –the eastern system of seven energy center.”
Do we treat physical conditions from an emotional point of view or vice versa? The answer is you simultaneously do both, because they're flip sides of the same thing... The key word is balance.
The conversation continues, drifting toward areas of our lives that feel unfulfilled. Could this be our illness? In reality, has cancer just tapped us on the shoulder, getting our attention so that we can give it to these other areas of our lives? That was true for me. Cancer made things clearer, brighter, simpler. It woke me up.
What areas of our lives are we turning away from? The doctor in our group is highly respected, her walls thick with awards and recognition certificates, yet she retreats from this demonstrated esteem and affection. The stay-at-home mother in our group expresses disorganization in all aspects of her life--mentally, physically, and familial. She struggles to release the clutter. What is it symbolizing? The writer in our group cycles uneasily between her fear of writing and her desire to trust her impulse to write. She resists being identified in photographs. She pauses long over signing waivers, even the one allowing her to participate in this retreat; yet she knows that remaining invisible conflicts with her belief that she must be accountable for her life.
Carrie, tells about rafting on the Colorado River. This is an activity she could never do before cancer because she was much too fearful of the waves and the current. The “what-ifs” would storm her imagination with rafts being flipped, her children sailing through the air. She always opted out when her family suggested a river trip vacation. After cancer, she was the one to ask, “Would you like to raft down the Colorado?” Her family rejoiced at her newfound strength and bravery! She backpedaled, but only a little:
“Now, not a Class 5 rapid. Class 3. Well, maybe Class 4. This is our first trip. Let’s not get carried away!”
I know how much suffering this room contains and I ask myself, “Why isn’t there more sadness? I hear only laughter.”
A previous WBC survivor had crocheted a pair of large breasts with a gorgeous set of nipples, then sewed them on a crocheted band that wrapped around the chest. The fortunate wearer appears to be quite endowed. We passed it around at the dinner table. Every one of us wanted to try it on. We all wanted photos of ourselves with breasts again.
We finished the meal on waves of laughter, then started telling stories of never having to wear a bra again, of choosing our preferred breast-size. This was the “woman” part of “women beyond cancer”: hot flashes, sore joints, bone density tests, menopause before age forty-five, and total lack of a sex drive.
“Don’t get me started on vaginal dryness,” one of the women shouts. “Ahhhh, yes!” we all confirm simultaneously. Within a year of weaning Abigail, I was told that I was perimenopausal. Now I’m living on the other end of the menopause spectrum, transported quickly due to my own cancer adventure.
Anecdotes of raising fourth graders in our forties, husbands’ socks and holey underwear . . . it never really mattered if a particular story-line came to a neat conclusion. Someone always had a contribution to make to this particular theme.
More laughter.
Locker-room satire. Our children are too young to manage their ice hockey uniforms alone but too old to have any of their peers witness Mom assisting them. “Well, then, why am I here? The odor alone, honey, is killing me!”
We’re sitting in a room filled with love, with laughter, tears in our eyes, bellies aching, and our sorrows weakened.
Our bodies have brought us this laughter, laughter drawn from underarms and underwear, unleashing our playfulness remembered from years ago. The sadness dissipates, and the belief in magic returns. All things are possible. We hold hope in our cupped palms. Love surrounds our hearts and pumps through our veins. We are now feeling more well than ill, more alive than sick--essentially, just feeling more.
