When I feel good, I find it much easier to eat nutritious foods. When I feel like crap, I am drawn to crappy food to self-soothe, but it always backfires and I end up feeling worse. One way to circumvent this tendency is to allow myself a small amount of the junk food — like a small handful […]
Marcia McMahon, in radical remission from stage 4 breast cancer, and I talked on her Peaceful Planet podcast recently.
Among our topics were Mary Magdalene, Thriver Soup’s cover art by Margaret and Keith Klein, music by Sunflower, when I had an idea my cancer was over (a dream I had), energy healing, healthy eating, and of course, how to manage emotions. We also did a brief version of the guided visualization, A Conversation with Dis-ease.
The interview starts at 7:55. Enjoy!
“Meditation isn’t what you think. It has nothing to do with the contents of your thoughts. Meditation is where your brain waves are when you are having those thoughts. A person doesn’t need to have a calm, quiet mind to achieve the healing, regenerative, and perception-expanding benefits of meditation.”
– Tai Chi Grandmaster Vincent J. Lasorso Jr.
Purposeful meditation has killed cancer, healed tumors, cut holes in the clouds, and transmuted the toxic chemicals in water and air, according to Tai Chi Grandmaster Vincent Lasorso of Cincinnati. “It has lowered the crime in Cincinnati and cities around the world. It has prevented wars.”
Meditation Heals
According to the medical staff of the Mayo Clinic, medical research has demonstrated that regular meditation has improved the following conditions:
“Above it all, meditation provides inner peace while you practice, which continues long after the practice is over,” Lasorso said. A combined study of Yale, Harvard and MIT universities demonstrated that regular meditation actually develops new brain neurons and functioning. This new generation may occur in as little as twelve weeks.
Meditation is a skill anyone can learn
Our common conception of meditation is monks sitting quietly contemplating a calm, still mind. These monks are to meditation as Beckham is to soccer: gifted professionals, Lasorso said. The rest of us just have fun knocking the ball of consciousness around, getting some great exercise.
“You don’t have to become a monk to get fantastic benefits from meditation. But you do have to be better than just randomly knocking the ball around hoping you’ll get good at it. Meditation, like any exercise, takes practice and coaching to know what to do.”
Meditation is a naturally occurring state of mind
Every day you move in and out of the brain-wave states called meditation. In fact, your sleep technically is meditation. What makes meditation different from sleep is lucidity, clearness of mind, and the ever-presence of self, he said.
“Let’s say you’re sitting in a classroom and you begin to daydream about walking in a park. As long as you are aware that you are sitting in the classroom and not in the park, and you are observing the park and your actions, you are meditating. Your body is relaxing, regenerating, and healing. The second you forget where you are, who you are, stop observing, and begin to participate, then you are asleep.”
The secrets of meditation are to relax and pay attention
Your brain is moving you into meditative states several times each day, he said. But while that’s happening, you are usually lost in a daydream or some other distracting stimulation, not paying attention to your body or the world around you. You’re poised for relaxation but forget to do it.
“The difference between being lucid and asleep, in both life and meditation, is not getting absorbed by the distractions. You have to pay attention to yourself and your body or you will lose them both. You have to learn to stay awake, and that is what meditation training is about.”
Meditation is easier than you think
Although the concept of daily meditation may seem daunting and unobtainable to you, the immediate reduction in stress, pain, and improved peace of mind are reason enough to try. And you might even kill off some cancer with some practice.
Thriver Soup Ingredient:
Seek out a meditation class or practice in your area. Try a mind/body integration meditation (Mindfulness), Qigong meditation (using breath, sound, and movement), progressive relaxation and visualization practice, or moving meditation through Tai Chi. For more information, contact the White Willow School of Tai Chi, 7433 Montgomery Road, Cincinnati, OH 45236, 513-791-9428, http://www.whitewillowtaichi.com
The video of my live talk, “Subduing the Cancer Dragon: The ABCs of Creating Conditions for Healing” during the 2018 national Annie Appleseed Complementary & Alternative Cancer Therapies conference, is now on youtube: “Subduing the Cancer Dragon”
Discover 3 key ingredients cancer patients need to improve their chances of survival. Important attitudes, behaviors, and major life choices that can help you thrive beyond cancer will be explored during the presentation.
In radical remission since 2011 from highly aggressive end-stage sarcoma, I share genuine hope and realistic options with listeners. I earned the 2014 Voices of Women Award for outstanding achievement in personal growth and transformation from Whole Living Journal, and the 2017 Champion in Cancer Care and 2017 Unsung Hero awards.
My third traditionally published nonfiction book, “Thriver Soup: A Feast for Living Consciously During the Cancer Journey,” is physician-endorsed with 250 practical healing solutions. http://thriversoup.com/book/
Find o
ut how to identify ineffective cancer treatment products, how to deal with emotions, which supplements to prioritize, what I put in my green smoothie every day, whether to go to nontraditional cancer centers, how to do a body-centered sitting practice, and more.
This is what Beth Ann Gilmer and I talked about during her Sacred Journeys blog talk radio show Tuesday.
Listen to the interview from the beginning to 1:01:00, and then skip to 1:22:28 to finish it out: https://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/066/show_10668921_2018_03_21_01_05_29.mp3?cId=f647eb4c-8c6d-4867-b705-9a603583e167
Create conditions for radical Healing in your life. Find simple solutions by updating your attitudes, behaviors, and making major life choices to influence cancer and other dis-ease outcomes. If you have cancer, ALS, Parkinson’s, or other “incurable” dis-eases, find relief and personal healing by using these concepts.
I was told to get my affairs in order after two years of conventional treatment for highly aggressive end-stage sarcoma. Yet against all odds, I have enjoyed radical remission since 2011, free of evidence of cancer and free of cancer treatment. Find out what I discovered about changing attitudes, behaviors, and making major life choices that can assist you with turning the corner and thriving.
This short series comes in 4 brief parts and is posted on youtube.
Part 1: How I healed from highly aggressive end-stage cancer.
Please enjoy and share, and let me know about speaking engagements where I can share this important message.
Many thanks to Jim Gray, with Gray Solutions, for creating this new video for Thriver Soup!
Please join me
Sunday, May 7, 1-3 pm
250 East Main Street, Batavia, OH 45103
Your Take-aways
+ Consider how to transform attitudes to support healing
+ Learn how to reconstruct behaviors and make better choices to support your body’s efforts to create health
+ Gain your own insights through a guided visualization that will involve exploring any dis-eased part of the body
Feedback:
Thanks for a most thought-provoking talk. I’ve done little else but think since we were together. Who am I? What matters most to me? What do I hope to be when I grow up? How big is my part in the scheme of things?… The talk was a wonderful thing for me.
The ABCs of healing was eye-opening and can help with my health issues.
Beautiful, heartfelt, easy. I gained an understanding of the power of healing through all modalities.
He restores my soul. He leads me in the path of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
– Psalm 23, discussed on MySevenChakras Episode 198 with Aditya
Aditya asked Heidi Bright:
These were just some of the questions , so if you’re curious about how Heidi overcame cancer…. listen to the podcast till the end: 198: From an aggressive end stage Cancer to radical remission. It’s possible! with Heidi Bright
Alternative Practice – Holistic healing.
Action Step – Going out, doing everything I can to be healthy. I was not going silently into that dark night so I picked myself back up. I worked with that fear and sorrow and that absolute powerlessness. I continued all my healing processes.
Major Life Lesson – There is a genuine hope, and there are always options.
Life Purpose – To share my message about healing our attitudes, behaviors and being able to make major life choices that we need to.
Wisdom Round:
Best Advice – Get to a therapist. Manage my emotions in a healthy way.
Personal Habit – It’s the map of emotions, and that’s the practice of experiencing the sensations in my body without thinking about them until they leave.
Book Recommendation – Waking the Warrior Goddess by Dr. Christine Horner
The greatest method of praying is to pray the Rosary.
-St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622)
Is the Rosary, a series of meditative prayers, the greatest method of praying, as this 16th century saint proclaimed? If so, would using the Rosary–or any other method of intercession–have any influence at all on the deceased?
What are your thoughts on this?
St. Francis de Sales must have had some reason for making this seemingly absolute statement. Catholics say the Rosary using a string of beads to keep track of where they are in the process so they can free their hearts and minds to focus on the connection this method makes with the Divine. Each prayer of the Rosary is said to represent the offering of a rose to Mary, mother of Christ, and when the cycles are completed, the person has symbolically given Mary a complete crown.
Maria Luisa Giuliberti, my former neighbor, asked if I would like to come pray the Rosary with her to mark the one-year anniversary of my son Brennan’s passing. Sure!
Synchronistically, Vince Lasorso, a tai chi grandmaster in Cincinnati, sent me a draft of his book, Healing through the Heart of Mary: A Miraculous Journey to a New Spiritual Way. “Mary teaches us, from her supernatural perspective, a spiritual process, The Rosary, that enables us to meld the two realities [the supernatural and the mundane] together in our lives,” he writes, “[to] heal ourselves, our loved ones, and our world through a heart-driven technology of inner peace and resonance.”
Maria and I sat at her dining room table and she showed me a pamphlet containing the rosary prayers. We set the intention of praying that Tristan would let go of shame, guilt, and remorse, and to experience peace. Holding our rosaries, we intoned together for an hour, raising up our intentions and prayers.
I am grateful to my friend for remembering the anniversary and for her willingness to spend time praying with me on my son’s behalf. What a beautiful gift. Was it the greatest method of praying for my son? Did it have any influence on him? I don’t know, yet I felt like I had done something meaningful, a gift from my heart to his and Mary’s. That is enough for me.
Thriver Soup Ingredient:
If praying the Catholic rosary interests you, here is a link to instructions and prayers: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-rosary
Sources:
www.catholicgallery.org/quotes/quotes-on-rosary/
Francis de Sales, a Catholic saint, was a Bishop of Geneva.
Vince Lasorso, Healing through the Heart of Mary: A Miraculous Journey to a New Spiritual Way, draft, pg. 7.
Tapestry: Cleveland Museum of Art
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Portion of a Hail Mary prayer, Western version
For the past nine months, my prayer life had succumbed to grief after losing my son.
Recently I visited with Vince and Connie Lasorso, owners of Whatever Works Wellness Center. Vince had written a special healing rosary prayer for me to use while I was in cancer treatment. The rosary is a necklace of beads used for meditative prayers. One Hail Mary prayer is said for each bead, and the beads are strung on Catholic rosaries in groups of ten. Those who pray the rosary use the beads to track where they are at in their prayer process.
Vince had expanded his rosary into a book about Mother Mary and the rosary. He talked about how persistent use of the rosary can take us into new areas of consciousness and can open us up to healing energy.
I badly needed this conversation. During cancer treatment, I had no energy for prayer. Then for years I poured intense prayer energy into my son Brennan, yet still lost him to a heroin overdose. Deeply discouraged, my prayer life had withered. Vince could tell—so he reminded me that for years people had been pouring their prayers into me, and here I am healthy with my third published book, Thriver Soup, to share what I learned about healing during cancer.
Synchronistically, my friend Gay had given me my first rosary as a Christmas gift this past year. It is beautiful—the prayer beads are made with lavender-colored amethyst. Amethyst is believed to be sacred to the Buddha, so Tibetans make prayer beads from the purple quartz. The crystal has long been associated with healing.
Okay, time to return to prayer.
The next day, for the first time, I prayed the healing rosary Vince had developed for me years earlier, using the gift from Gay. Before I even finished, a call came in from a cancer patient wanting to know where I would next be presenting my talk about the ABCs of healing.
Mother Mary was already extending her healing blessings through me to a cancer patient. I only had to be available and faithful.
Thriver Soup Ingredient:
The word “bead” comes from the old English noun “bede,” which means “prayer.” Prayer beads are used in most religious traditions. Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs use 108 beads; Eastern Orthodox Christians use prayer ropes with 100 knots; Muslims use 99 or 33 beads; Baha’is use either 95 or 24; Catholics use 59. Each number has significance, yet the main point is to meditatively pray using the garland of beads. For example, if you want to say ten Hail Marys, use ten beads. By moving your fingers from one bead to the next with each prayer you repeat, you don’t have to keep track of how many you’ve said; you can simply focus on saying the prayer from your heart. If you don’t have prayer beads and want something quick, tie knots in a piece of string to use for meditatively praying.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amethyst
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_beads