Cancer Awareness Quotes

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We live in a universe devoted to the creation, and eradication, of awareness. Augustus Waters did not die after a lengthy battle with cancer. He died after a lengthy battle with human consciousness, a victim - as you will be - of the universe's need to make and unmake all that is possible.
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
Try yoga! Think about the good stuff! Keep yourself engaged! It’s all in your mind! Duh! It is! But is more of a chemical imbalance! I don’t know why people don’t take mental ailments as normal. People are accepting of AIDS, cancer, tuberculosis, etc. But mental ailments? They are just all in the mind!
Abhaidev (The World's Most Frustrated Man)
Stay positive, all other choices are pointless punishments to your psyche.
Joe Peterson (Help Me Live... As I Die, Cancer vs. the Power of Love)
Awareness Makes a Cure Possible.
Sydney Davies
Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a “gift,” was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before—one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate.
Barbara Ehrenreich (Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America)
Selling cakes and pies to raise money for research into cancer or any other health related issue, is like selling meat at a campaign to raise awareness about the environment.
Mango Wodzak (The Eden Fruitarian Guidebook)
It was then that I understood that my body is only a reflection of my internal state. If my inner self were aware of its greatness and connection with All-that-is, my body would soon reflect that and heal rapidly.
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change, or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words. And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me great strength. I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.
Audre Lorde (The Cancer Journals)
Just heard that Gus Waters died after a lengthly battle with cancer. Rest in peace, buddy. I knew these people were genuinely sad, and that I wasn't really mad at them. I was mad at the universe. Even so, it infuriated me: You get all these friends just when you don't need friends anymore. I wrote a reply to his comment: We live in a universe devoted to the creation, and eradication, of awareness. Augustus Waters did not die after a lengthy battle with a cancer. He died after a lenghthy battle with human consciousness, a victim-as you will be-of the universe's need to make and unmake all that is possible.
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
Offering care means being a companion, not a superior. It doesn’t matter whether the person we are caring for is experiencing cancer, the flu, dementia, or grief. If you are a doctor or surgeon, your expertise and knowledge comes from a superior position. But when our role is to be providers of care, we should be there as equals.
Judy Cornish (The Dementia Handbook: How to Provide Dementia Care at Home)
I’m at my strongest when I’m able to let go, when I suspend my beliefs as well as disbeliefs, and leave myself open to all possibilities. That also seems to be when I’m able to experience the most internal clarity and synchronicities. My sense is that the very act of needing certainty is a hindrance to experiencing greater levels of awareness. In contrast, the process of letting go and releasing all attachment to any belief or outcome is cathartic and healing. The dichotomy is that for true healing to occur, I must let go of the need to be healed and just enjoy and trust in the ride that is life.
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
So no, it wasn’t my beliefs that caused me to heal. My NDE was a state of pure awareness, which is a state of complete suspension of all previously held doctrine and dogma. This allowed my body to “reset” itself. In other words, an absence of belief was required for my healing.
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
Those who deny guilt and sin are like the Pharisees of old who thought our Saviour had a “guilt complex” because He accused them of being whited sepulchers—outside clean, inside full of dead men’s bones. Those who admit that they are guilty are like the public sinners and the publicans of whom Our Lord said, “Amen, I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the Kingdom of God before you” (Matt. 21:31). Those who think they are healthy but have a hidden moral cancer are incurable; the sick who want to be healed have a chance. All denial of guilt keeps people out of the area of love and, by inducing self-righteousness, prevents a cure. The two facts of healing in the physical order are these: A physician cannot heal us unless we put ourselves into his hands, and we will not put ourselves into his hands unless we know that we are sick. In like manner, a sinner’s awareness of sin is one requisite for his recovery; the other is his longing for God. When we long for God, we do so not as sinners, but as lovers.
Fulton J. Sheen (Peace of Soul: Timeless Wisdom on Finding Serenity and Joy by the Century's Most Acclaimed Catholic Bishop)
In which case, why not cancer of the brain? As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be “me.” (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)
Christopher Hitchens (Mortality)
My mother died of colon cancer one week after my eleventh birthday, and that fact has shaped my life. All that I have become and much that I have not become, I trace directly or indirectly to her death. ... In my professional and personal life, I have lived with the awareness of death's imminence for more than half a century, and labored in its constant presence for all but the first decade of that time.
Sherwin B. Nuland
If I can look directly at my life and my death without flinching I know there is nothing they can ever do to me again.
Audre Lorde (The Cancer Journals)
If there was a worse cancer he was not aware of it.
John Grisham (The Exchange (The Firm, #2))
I admire you. Everything you do for the people of Hong Kong, your work on behalf of breast cancer awareness…it’s made me become aware of my breasts in a whole new way,
Kevin Kwan (China Rich Girlfriend (Crazy Rich Asians, #2))
What I mean by being “centered” is experiencing being at the center of my cosmic web, being aware of my position. This is really the only place any of us ever are, and it’s important to feel our centrality at the core of it.
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line — maybe she’s not usually like this; maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who’s dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept. who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible — it just depends on what you want to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important — if you want to operate on your default-setting — then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren’t pointless and annoying. But if you’ve really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars — compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff’s necessarily true: The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship…
David Foster Wallace
But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down. Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it. This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.
David Foster Wallace (This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life)
Mark you, no Krishna can clear your eyes and make you look with a broader vision upon life in your march upward and onward, until the Self within you morphs into Krishna – until the Self morphs into Buddha – until the Self turns into Christ.
Abhijit Naskar (The Krishna Cancer (Neurotheology Series))
I had wanted to disappear, if only so the cancer could disappear with me. But the stars whispered that there was no such thing. You don’t ever disappear. You just change. You leave. You move on. But you never disappear. Even when you think you want to.
Amy Harmon (The Song of David (The Law of Moses, #2))
My parish is bored stiff; no other word for it.  Like so many others! We can see them being eaten up by boredom, and we can’t do anything about it.  Someday perhaps we shall catch it ourselves—become aware of the cancerous growth within us.  You can keep going a long time with that in you.
Georges Bernanos (Diary of a Country Priest)
Many people assume that terminal patients, especially those with cancer, will have pain. That’s not always so; some have no pain, others have mild to moderate pain that can be controlled with ease. A few people have pain so severe that expert assessment and care are needed to bring it under control.
Maggie Callanan (Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Co)
IT IS SENSIBLE of me to be aware that I will die one of these days. I will not pass away. Every day millions of people pass away—in obituaries, death notices, cards of consolation, e-mails to the corpse’s friends—but people don’t die. Sometimes they rest in peace, quit this world, go the way of all flesh, depart, give up the ghost, breathe a last breath, join their dear ones in heaven, meet their Maker, ascend to a better place, succumb surrounded by family, return to the Lord, go home, cross over, or leave this world. Whatever the fatuous phrase, death usually happens peacefully (asleep) or after a courageous struggle (cancer). Sometimes women lose their husbands. (Where the hell did I put him?) Some expressions are less common in print: push up the daisies, kick the bucket, croak, buy the farm, cash out. All euphemisms conceal how we gasp and choke turning blue.
Donald Hall (Essays After Eighty)
The moment a person learns he's got terminal cancer, a profound shift takes place in his psyche. At one stroke in the doctor's office he becomes aware of what really matters to him. Things that sixty seconds earlier had seemed all- important suddenly appear meaningless, while people and concerns that he had till then dismissed at once take on supreme importance. Maybe, he realizes, working this weekend on that big deal at the office isn't all that vital. Maybe it's more important to fly cross-country for his grandson's graduation. Maybe it isn't so crucial that he have the last word in the fight with his wife. Maybe instead he should tell her how much she means to him and how deeply he has always loved her.
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
The cancer had already spread to Laura’s liver and, considering her age, aggressive treatment wasn’t recommended; the doctors said she had about six months to live.
Maggie Callanan (Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Co)
When you choose self-love, you are reclaiming your awareness of your own power, which raises your vibrational energy and contributes to your healing.
Susan Barbara Apollon (An Inside Job)
Energy and vibration matter. They are proven to impact everything. The energy you allow into your life impacts your frequency and vibration, and it’s important to be aware of this.
Lisa Manyon (Spiritual Sugar: The Divine Ingredients to Heal Yourself With Love)
I started to walk the day I was told I was dying of cancer. I believe walking has kept me alive. I live with a constant, pressing awareness of death. Once I start to walk, I am not afraid anymore; all is well.
Edie Littlefield Sundby (The Mission Walker: I was given three months to live...)
Case in point: Warnings on cigarette packages can increase a smoker’s urge to light up. A 2009 study found that death warnings trigger stress and fear in smokers—exactly what public health officials hope for. Unfortunately, this anxiety then triggers smokers’ default stress-relief strategy: smoking. Oops. It isn’t logical, but it makes sense based on what we know about how stress influences the brain. Stress triggers cravings and makes dopamine neurons even more excited by any temptation in sight. It doesn’t help that the smoker is—of course—staring at a pack of cigarettes as he reads the warning. So even as a smoker’s brain encodes the words “WARNING: Cigarettes cause cancer” and grapples with awareness of his own mortality, another part of his brain starts screaming, “Don’t worry, smoking a cigarette will make you feel better!
Kelly McGonigal (The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It)
I have been aware for many years that most people do not think about aging in the same way that they think about cancer, or diabetes, or heart disease. They are strongly in favor of the absolute elimination of such diseases as soon as possible, but the idea of eliminating aging—maintaining truly youthful physical and mental function indefinitely—evokes an avalanche of fears and reservations. Yet, in the sense that matters most, aging is just like smoking: It’s really bad for you.
Aubrey de Grey (Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime)
In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one’s final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or “It’s O.K.” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.” People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system’s expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives.
Atul Gawande
ALS is, in my opinion, the cruelest disease. At least with cancer, there’s a glimmer of hope. You can come up with a game plan and you can fight. ALS is terminal. In all cases. Nobody has ever beaten ALS. I don’t say this to be callous or melodramatic; indeed, I saw its effects up close. Worst of all, it affects only the body, so as people become progressively and inevitably more paralyzed, they are keenly aware of everything that is happening to them. Think about that: You are 100 percent aware of your own paralysis. The
Bryan Bishop (Shrinkage: Manhood, Marriage, and the Tumor That Tried to Kill Me)
What was glimpsed in Aquarius—what was envisioned, believed in, prophesied, predicted, doubted, and forewarned—is made, in Pisces, manifest. Those solitary visions that, but a month ago, belonged only to the dreamer, will now acquire the form and substance of the real. We were of our own making, and we shall be our own end. And after Pisces? Out of the womb, the bloody birth. We do not follow: we cannot cross from last to first. Aries will not admit a collective point of view, and Taurus will not relinquish the subjective. Gemini's code is an exclusive one. Cancer seeks a source, Leo, a purpose, and Virgo, a design; but these are projects undertaken singly. Only in the zodiac's second act will we begin to show ourselves: in Libra, as a notion, in Scorpio, as a quality, and in Sagittarius, as a voice. In Capricorn we will gain memory, and in Aquarius, vision; it is only in Pisces, the last and oldest of the zodiacal signs, that we acquire a kind of selfhood, something whole. But the doubled fish of Pisces, that mirrored womb of self and self-awareness, is an ourobouros of mind—both the will of fate, and the fated will—and the house of self-undoing is a prison built by prisoners, airless, door-less, and mortared from within. These alterations come upon us irrevocably, as the hands of the clock-face come upon the hour.
Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries)
Self-love is about slipping up, having the bad days and loving ourselves despite of them, forgiving ourselves and, most importantly, having compassion for ourselves and how we’re feeling. So, give yourself permission to fall down, but don’t give yourself permission to stay there.
Saskia Lightstar (The Cancer Misfit: A Guide to Navigating Life After Treatment)
In 1946, a new advertising campaign appeared in magazines with a picture of a doctor in a lab coat holding a cigarette and the slogan, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” No, this wasn’t a spoof. Back then, doctors were not aware that smoking could cause cancer, heart disease and lung disease.
Anonymous
I summon the courage to go for what I want. Having cancer has left me less afraid than I used to be. I’m painfully aware that life is short and we’ve got to seize the moment, especially when the moment is lying in my arms, hard and hot and sexy and so tormented. … “Time wasted is time we never get back. I don’t believe in playing games or mincing words.
M.S. Force (Delirious (Quantum, #6))
when I feel an incredible desire for where I want my life to go, I know that if I were to pursue it aggressively, this would only cause me to fight against universal energy. The more effort I have to put into trying to attain it, the more I know that I am doing something wrong. Allowing, on the other hand, doesn’t require effort. It feels more like a release, because it means realizing that since everything is One, that which I intend to get is already mine. The process of allowing happens by first trusting, and then by always being true to who I am. In this way, I will only attract that which is truly mine, and it all happens at the rate I’m comfortable with. I can keep focusing on what worries me or what I think I need or find lacking, and my life won’t move toward what I’d like to experience. It will just stay the way it is now, because I’m paying attention to my fears and what upsets me or leaves me feeling unfulfilled, instead of expanding my awareness by trusting and allowing new experiences. So I can let the picture materialize slower or faster, depending on how quickly I want to let go of my worries and relax into the process.
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
Cassie, you need to understand that he only agreed to undergo treatment because of you. He made this choice solely for you, and no one else. Despite being aware of the limited time he has left and the financial burden the treatment will impose on his family, he chose to stay by your side.” I knew, had known the moment he’d agree to undergo the treatment. I hated myself for being the cause of his pain. He continued to push. “Xuan is doing the cancer therapy stuff even though he didn’t want to. He loves you that much. And because you asked him to do this, he is. And one day, because of love, you will stand by Xuan until the end and you’ll have to watch him die. And because he loved you, you will eventually have to let him go, because that’s what he would want.
Kayla Cunningham (Fated to Love You (Chasing the Comet Book 1))
While we cannot say that any personality type causes cancer, certain personality features definitely increase the risk because they are more likely to generate physiological stress. Repression, the inability to say no and a lack of awareness of one’s anger make it much more likely that a person will find herself in situations where her emotions are unexpressed, her needs are ignored and her gentleness is exploited. Those situations are stress inducing, whether or not the person is conscious of being stressed. Repeated and multiplied over the years, they have the potential of harming homeostasis and the immune system. It is stress — not personality per se — that undermines a body’s physiological balance and immune defences, predisposing to disease or reducing the resistance to it.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
Both women were mothers of children caught up in mind control cover-up, one of which paralleled Kelly’s and my case. She, too, had volumes of documents and evidences whereby it was inexcusable that justice had not prevailed. The other mother conveyed a story that touched me so deeply it undoubtedly will continue to motivate me with reverberating passion forever. This mother was very weak from the final stages of cancer and chemotherapy, and tears slid down her pale gray cheeks as she told me her story. When she reported sexual abuse of her three daughters, the local court system took custody of them. The children appeared dissociative identity disordered from their ordeal, yet were reportedly denied therapy and placed in Foster care “since the mother was dying anyway.” When she finally was granted brief visitation with her precious daughters, they looked dazed and robotic with no memory of her or their sexual abuse. Mind control was apparent to this mother, and she struggled to give voice to their plight to no avail. She explained how love and concern for her children had kept her alive far longer than her doctors thought possible. She embraced me and said, “Now I can die in peace knowing that you are out there talking, raising awareness with the same passion for justice and love for children that I have. Thank you. Please keep talking. Please remember my daughters.
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
Dr. Richard Selzer is a surgeon and a favorite author of mine. He writes the most beautiful and compassionate descriptions of his patients and the human dramas they confront. In his book Letters to a Young Doctor, he said that most young people seem to be protected for a time by an imaginary membrane that shields them from horror. They walk in it every day but are hardly aware of its presence. As the immune system protects the human body from the unseen threat of harmful bacteria, so this mythical membrane guards them from life-threatening situations. Not every young person has this protection, of course, because children do die of cancer, congenital heart problems, and other disorders. But most of them are shielded—and don’t realize it. Then, as years roll by, one day it happens. Without warning, the membrane tears, and horror seeps into a person’s life or into the life of a loved one. It is at this moment that an unexpected theological crisis presents itself.
James C. Dobson (Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future)
KF: Are you saying that if one changes their diet from animal-based protein to plant-based food that the disease process of cancer can be halted and reversed? TCC: Yes, this is what our experimental research shows. I also have become aware of many anecdotal claims by people who have said that their switch to a plant-based diet stopped or even reversed their disease. One study on melanoma has been published in the peer-reviewed literature that shows convincing evidence that it is substantially halted with this diet.
Kathy Freston (Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World)
Dying isn’t the end of the world,” my mother liked to joke after she was diagnosed as terminal. I never really understood what she meant, until the day I suddenly did—a few months after she died—when, at age thirty-eight, the breast cancer I’d been in treatment for became metastatic and incurable. There are so many things that are worse than death: old grudges, a lack of self-awareness, severe constipation, no sense of humor, the grimace on your husband’s face as he empties your surgical drain into the measuring cup.
Nina Riggs (The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying)
ultimately, most of us would choose a rich and meaningful life over an empty, happy one, if such a thing is even possible. “Misery serves a purpose,” says psychologist David Myers. He’s right. Misery alerts us to dangers. It’s what spurs our imagination. As Iceland proves, misery has its own tasty appeal. A headline on the BBC’s website caught my eye the other day. It read: “Dirt Exposure Boosts Happiness.” Researchers at Bristol University in Britain treated lung-cancer patients with “friendly” bacteria found in soil, otherwise known as dirt. The patients reported feeling happier and had an improved quality of life. The research, while far from conclusive, points to an essential truth: We thrive on messiness. “The good life . . . cannot be mere indulgence. It must contain a measure of grit and truth,” observed geographer Yi-Fu Tuan. Tuan is the great unheralded geographer of our time and a man whose writing has accompanied me throughout my journeys. He called one chapter of his autobiography “Salvation by Geography.” The title is tongue-in-cheek, but only slightly, for geography can be our salvation. We are shaped by our environment and, if you take this Taoist belief one step further, you might say we are our environment. Out there. In here. No difference. Viewed that way, life seems a lot less lonely. The word “utopia” has two meanings. It means both “good place” and “nowhere.” That’s the way it should be. The happiest places, I think, are the ones that reside just this side of paradise. The perfect person would be insufferable to live with; likewise, we wouldn’t want to live in the perfect place, either. “A lifetime of happiness! No man could bear it: It would be hell on Earth,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman. Ruut Veenhoven, keeper of the database, got it right when he said: “Happiness requires livable conditions, but not paradise.” We humans are imminently adaptable. We survived an Ice Age. We can survive anything. We find happiness in a variety of places and, as the residents of frumpy Slough demonstrated, places can change. Any atlas of bliss must be etched in pencil. My passport is tucked into my desk drawer again. I am relearning the pleasures of home. The simple joys of waking up in the same bed each morning. The pleasant realization that familiarity breeds contentment and not only contempt. Every now and then, though, my travels resurface and in unexpected ways. My iPod crashed the other day. I lost my entire music collection, nearly two thousand songs. In the past, I would have gone through the roof with rage. This time, though, my anger dissipated like a summer thunderstorm and, to my surprise, I found the Thai words mai pen lai on my lips. Never mind. Let it go. I am more aware of the corrosive nature of envy and try my best to squelch it before it grows. I don’t take my failures quite so hard anymore. I see beauty in a dark winter sky. I can recognize a genuine smile from twenty yards. I have a newfound appreciation for fresh fruits and vegetables. Of all the places I visited, of all the people I met, one keeps coming back to me again and again: Karma Ura,
Eric Weiner (The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World)
WHEN I DESCRIBED THE TUMOR IN MY ESOPHAGUS as a “blind, emotionless alien,” I suppose that even I couldn’t help awarding it some of the qualities of a living thing. This at least I know to be a mistake: an instance of the pathetic fallacy (angry cloud, proud mountain, presumptuous little Beaujolais) by which we ascribe animate qualities to inanimate phenomena. To exist, a cancer needs a living organism, but it cannot ever become a living organism. Its whole malice—there I go again—lies in the fact that the “best” it can do is to die with its host. Either that or its host will find the measures with which to extirpate and outlive it. But, as I knew before I became ill, there are some people for whom this explanation is unsatisfying. To them, a rodent carcinoma really is a dedicated, conscious agent—a slow–acting suicide–murderer—on a consecrated mission from heaven. You haven’t lived, if I can put it like this, until you have read contributions such as this on the websites of the faithful: Who else feels Christopher Hitchens getting terminal throat cancer [sic] was God’s revenge for him using his voice to blaspheme him? Atheists like to ignore FACTS. They like to act like everything is a “coincidence.” Really? It’s just a “coincidence” [that] out of any part of his body, Christopher Hitchens got cancer in the one part of his body he used for blasphemy? Yeah, keep believing that, Atheists. He’s going to writhe in agony and pain and wither away to nothing and then die a horrible agonizing death, and THEN comes the real fun, when he’s sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire. There are numerous passages in holy scripture and religious tradition that for centuries made this kind of gloating into a mainstream belief. Long before it concerned me particularly I had understood the obvious objections. First, which mere primate is so damn sure that he can know the mind of god? Second, would this anonymous author want his views to be read by my unoffending children, who are also being given a hard time in their way, and by the same god? Third, why not a thunderbolt for yours truly, or something similarly awe–inspiring? The vengeful deity has a sadly depleted arsenal if all he can think of is exactly the cancer that my age and former “lifestyle” would suggest that I got. Fourth, why cancer at all? Almost all men get cancer of the prostate if they live long enough: It’s an undignified thing but quite evenly distributed among saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers. If you maintain that god awards the appropriate cancers, you must also account for the numbers of infants who contract leukemia. Devout persons have died young and in pain. Betrand Russell and Voltaire, by contrast, remained spry until the end, as many psychopathic criminals and tyrants have also done. These visitations, then, seem awfully random. My so far uncancerous throat, let me rush to assure my Christian correspondent above, is not at all the only organ with which I have blasphemed. And even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it’s hello darkness my old friend. In which case, why not cancer of the brain? As a terrified, half–aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be “me.” (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)
Christopher Hitchens (Mortality)
I didn’t realize Farrah Fawcett had died of anal cancer. There were references to her ailment as cancer “below the colon.” It was like my mother, when I was a kid, calling the vagina “your bottom in front.” Up through 2010, anal cancer had no nonprofit society, no one to organize fund-raisers and outreach, no colored awareness ribbon. (Even appendix cancer has a ribbon.)* Like cervical cancer, anal cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus; people get it via sex with an infected person, and that seems like something they ought to know when making decisions about using a condom.
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
Mike the Cat was already a senior citizen by the time I met him, a reality I had trouble adjusting to. I had never owned a pet, yet from knowing people who did I was aware that we bring animals into our lives in tacit acknowledgment of the heartbreak to come, recognizing that in the normal course of events we will eventually have to watch them grow arthritic and rheumy, then say a final, wrenching goodbye. From the minute I met Mike the Cat, I lived in fear of the day we would find him splayed on the living room rug, seized by respiratory failure or colitis or the final agonizing throes of cat cancer.
Katie Hafner (The Boys)
Here is another example that demonstrates the tightly linked interests that both cause and treat cancer. In 1978, Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), one of the largest companies in the world, specializing in agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, developed the cancer drug tamoxifen. In 1985, along with the American Cancer Society, ICI founded the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month with the aim of promoting mammography as the most effective tool against breast cancer. In 1990 Imperial Chemical Industries was accused of dumping DDT and PCBs, known carcinogens, into the Long Beach and Los Angeles harbors. Zeneca, producer of tamoxifen, demerged from ICI in 1993, and later merged with Astra AB in 1999 to form AstraZeneca. Astra AB had developed the herbicide acetochlor, classified by the EPA as a probable carcinogen. In 1997 Zeneca purchased Salick Health Care, a chain of for-profit outpatient cancer clinics. Subsequently AstraZeneca launched a major publicity campaign encouraging women to assess their risk factors for breast cancer, downplaying the dangers of tamoxifen in order to create a market for its prophylactic, or chemopreventative, use and, more recently, for the breast cancer drug Arimidex (anastrozole), approved in 2002 and used as an alternative to tamoxifen (Arimidex went off patent in 2010).
S. Lochlann Jain (Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us)
Sorry to inform you...but as a fellow failed miner, the problem is there's nowhere left to dig. We're real poets man. And whatever. But it's the digging, it's the holes! Its these burrows to half nestle in just to pass the time, to chafe the inner thigh of boredom and that level of power-demanding pain is only in existence because you really, really know that there isn't anything else. The holes. And me missing a shovel, that has created the voids, the tears, the fucks, the sucks, the shame, the stares, the songs, the words, and in admittedly, even more holes. Not having one of my shovels has somehow overcompensated the digs in which I've dug. The holes. The holes are why you smoke aware of cancer, a disease to take over years of boring lives, and give us a bone to gnaw on, overcome, defeat, lick-dry, or die. The holes are why you drink with your last dollars, when you know you're going to throw it up tonight anyway. The holes are why you think you're in love, and that's a hole that you might not climb back from. The holes, the holes the holes, making you question everything standing at a bus stop...smelling like cigarettes and perfume...signing up for classes you wont go to... hand covered in club stamps... face covered in guilt... Maybe go to a protest and just stand there...Or lay in bed when there's no way you can sleep...
Wesley Eisold
But then a peculiar thing happened. I became extraordinarily affected by the summer afternoons in the laboratory. The August sunlight came streaming in the great dusty fanlights and lay in yellow bars across the room. The old building ticked and creaked in the heat. Outside we could hear the cries of summer students playing touch football. In the course of an afternoon the yellow sunlight moved across old group pictures of the biology faculty. I became bewitched by the presence of the building; for minutes at a stretch I sat on the floor and watched the motes rise and fall in the sunlight. I called Harry’s attention to the presence but he shrugged and went on with his work. He was absolutely unaffected by the singularities of time and place. His abode was anywhere. It was all the same to him whether he catheterized a pig at four o’clock in the afternoon in New Orleans or at midnight in Transylvania. He was actually like one of those scientists in the movies who don’t care about anything but the problem in their heads - now here is a fellow who does have a “flair for research” and will be heard from. Yet I do not envy him. I would not change places with him if he discovered the cause and cure of cancer. For he is no more aware of the mystery which surrounds him than a fish is aware of the water it swims in. He could do research for a thousand years and never have an inkling of it.
Walker Percy
On the eve of my move to New York, my parents sat me down to talk. “Your mother and I understand that we have a certain responsibility to prepare you for life at a coed institution,” said my father. “Have you ever heard of oxytocin?” I shook my head. “It’s the thing that’s going to make you crazy,” my mother said, swirling the ice in her glass. “You’ll lose all the good sense I’ve worked so hard to build up in you since the day you were born.” She was kidding. “Oxytocin is a hormone released during copulation,” my father went on, staring at the blank wall behind me. “Orgasm,” my mother whispered. “Biologically, oxytocin serves a purpose,” my father said. “That warm fuzzy feeling.” “It’s what bonds a couple together. Without it, the human species would have gone extinct a long time ago. Women experience its effects more powerfully than men do. It’s good to be aware of that.” “For when you’re thrown out with yesterday’s trash,” my mother said. “Men are dogs. Even professors, so don’t be fooled.” “Men don’t attach as easily. They’re more rational,” my father corrected her. After a long pause, he said, “We just want you to be careful.” “He means use a rubber.” “And take these.” My father gave me a small, pink, shell-shaped compact of birth control pills. “Gross,” was all I could say. “And your father has cancer,” my mother said. I said nothing. “Prostate isn’t like breast,” my father said, turning away. “They do surgery, and you move on.” “The man always dies first,” my mother whispered.
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
The first step in retracing our way to health is to abandon our attachment to what is called positive thinking. Too many times in the course of palliative care work I sat with dejected people who expressed their bewilderment at having developed cancer. “I have always been a positive thinker,” one man in his late forties told me. “I have never given in to pessimistic thoughts. Why should I get cancer?” As an antidote to terminal optimism, I have recommended the power of negative thinking. “Tongue in cheek, of course,” I quickly add. “What I really believe in is the power of thinking.” As soon as we qualify the word thinking with the adjective positive, we exclude those parts of reality that strike us as “negative.” That is how most people who espouse positive thinking seem to operate. Genuine positive thinking begins by including all our reality. It is guided by the confidence that we can trust ourselves to face the full truth, whatever that full truth may turn out to be. As Dr. Michael Kerr points out, compulsive optimism is one of the ways we bind our anxiety to avoid confronting it. That form of positive thinking is the coping mechanism of the hurt child. The adult who remains hurt without being aware of it makes this residual defence of the child into a life principle. The onset of symptoms or the diagnosis of a disease should prompt a two-pronged inquiry: what is this illness saying about the past and present, and what will help in the future? Many approaches focus only on the second half of that healing dyad without considering fully what led to the manifestation of illness in the first place. Such “positive” methods fill the bookshelves and the airwaves. In order to heal, it is essential to gather the strength to think negatively. Negative thinking is not a doleful, pessimistic view that masquerades as “realism.” Rather, it is a willingness to consider what is not working. What is not in balance? What have I ignored? What is my body saying no to? Without these questions, the stresses responsible for our lack of balance will remain hidden. Even more fundamentally, not posing those questions is itself a source of stress. First, “positive thinking” is based on an unconscious belief that we are not strong enough to handle reality. Allowing this fear to dominate engenders a state of childhood apprehension. Whether or not the apprehension is conscious, it is a state of stress. Second, lack of essential information about ourselves and our situation is one of the major sources of stress and one of the potent activators of the hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal (HPA) stress response. Third, stress wanes as independent, autonomous control increases. One cannot be autonomous as long as one is driven by relationship dynamics, by guilt or attachment needs, by hunger for success, by the fear of the boss or by the fear of boredom. The reason is simple: autonomy is impossible as long as one is driven by anything. Like a leaf blown by the wind, the driven person is controlled by forces more powerful than he is. His autonomous will is not engaged, even if he believes that he has “chosen” his stressed lifestyle and even if he enjoys his activities. The choices he makes are attached to invisible strings. He is still unable to say no, even if it is only to his own drivenness. When he finally wakes up, he shakes his head, Pinocchio-like, and says, “How foolish I was when I was a puppet.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
It may seem paradoxical to claim that stress, a physiological mechanism vital to life, is a cause of illness. To resolve this apparent contradiction, we must differentiate between acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is the immediate, short-term body response to threat. Chronic stress is activation of the stress mechanisms over long periods of time when a person is exposed to stressors that cannot be escaped either because she does not recognize them or because she has no control over them. Discharges of nervous system, hormonal output and immune changes constitute the flight-or-fight reactions that help us survive immediate danger. These biological responses are adaptive in the emergencies for which nature designed them. But the same stress responses, triggered chronically and without resolution, produce harm and even permanent damage. Chronically high cortisol levels destroy tissue. Chronically elevated adrenalin levels raise the blood pressure and damage the heart. There is extensive documentation of the inhibiting effect of chronic stress on the immune system. In one study, the activity of immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells were compared in two groups: spousal caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and age- and health-matched controls. NK cells are front-line troops in the fight against infections and against cancer, having the capacity to attack invading micro-organisms and to destroy cells with malignant mutations. The NK cell functioning of the caregivers was significantly suppressed, even in those whose spouses had died as long as three years previously. The caregivers who reported lower levels of social support also showed the greatest depression in immune activity — just as the loneliest medical students had the most impaired immune systems under the stress of examinations. Another study of caregivers assessed the efficacy of immunization against influenza. In this study 80 per cent among the non-stressed control group developed immunity against the virus, but only 20 per cent of the Alzheimer caregivers were able to do so. The stress of unremitting caregiving inhibited the immune system and left people susceptible to influenza. Research has also shown stress-related delays in tissue repair. The wounds of Alzheimer caregivers took an average of nine days longer to heal than those of controls. Higher levels of stress cause higher cortisol output via the HPA axis, and cortisol inhibits the activity of the inflammatory cells involved in wound healing. Dental students had a wound deliberately inflicted on their hard palates while they were facing immunology exams and again during vacation. In all of them the wound healed more quickly in the summer. Under stress, their white blood cells produced less of a substance essential to healing. The oft-observed relationship between stress, impaired immunity and illness has given rise to the concept of “diseases of adaptation,” a phrase of Hans Selye’s. The flight-or-fight response, it is argued, was indispensable in an era when early human beings had to confront a natural world of predators and other dangers. In civilized society, however, the flight-fight reaction is triggered in situations where it is neither necessary nor helpful, since we no longer face the same mortal threats to existence. The body’s physiological stress mechanisms are often triggered inappropriately, leading to disease. There is another way to look at it. The flight-or-fight alarm reaction exists today for the same purpose evolution originally assigned to it: to enable us to survive. What has happened is that we have lost touch with the gut feelings designed to be our warning system. The body mounts a stress response, but the mind is unaware of the threat. We keep ourselves in physiologically stressful situations, with only a dim awareness of distress or no awareness at all.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
Notice that Jesus knows exactly who he is asking to lead his community: a sinner. As all Christian leaders have been, are, and will be, Peter is imperfect. And as all good Christian leaders are, Peter is well aware of his imperfections. The disciples too know who they are getting as their leader. They will not need—or be tempted—to elevate Peter into some semi-divine figure; they have seen him at his worst. Jesus forgives Peter because he loves him, because he knows that his friend needs forgiveness to be free, and because he knows that the leader of his church will need to forgive others many times. And Jesus forgives totally, going beyond what would be expected—going so far as to establish Peter as head of the church.11 It would have made more earthly sense for Jesus to appoint another, non-betraying apostle to head his church. Why give the one who denied him this important leadership role? Why elevate the manifestly sinful one over the rest? One reason may be to show the others what forgiveness is. In this way Jesus embodies the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who not only forgives the son, but also, to use a fishing metaphor, goes overboard. Jesus goes beyond forgiving and setting things right. A contemporary equivalent would be a tenured professor stealing money from a university, apologizing, being forgiven by the board of trustees, and then being hired as the school’s president. People would find this extraordinary—and it is. In response, Peter will ultimately offer his willingness to lay down his life for Christ. But on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he can’t know the future. He can’t understand fully what he is agreeing to. Feed your sheep? Which sheep? The Twelve? The disciples? The whole world? This is often the case for us too. Even if we accept the call we can be confused about where God is leading us. When reporters used to ask the former Jesuit superior general Pedro Arrupe where the Jesuit Order was going, he would say, “I don’t know!” Father Arrupe was willing to follow, even if he didn’t know precisely what God had in mind. Peter says yes to the unknowable, because the question comes from Jesus. Both Christ’s forgiveness and Peter’s response show us love. God’s love is limitless, unconditional, radical. And when we have experienced that love, we can share it. The ability to forgive and to accept forgiveness is an absolute requirement of the Christian life. Conversely, the refusal to forgive leads ineluctably to spiritual death. You may know families in which vindictiveness acts like a cancer, slowly eating away at love. You may know people whose marriages have been destroyed by a refusal to forgive. One of my friends described a couple he knew as “two scorpions in a jar,” both eagerly waiting to sting the other with barbs and hateful comments. We see the communal version of this in countries torn by sectarian violence, where a climate of mutual recrimination and mistrust leads only to increasing levels of pain. The Breakfast by the Sea shows that Jesus lived the forgiveness he preached. Jesus knew that forgiveness is a life-giving force that reconciles, unites, and empowers. The Gospel by the Sea is a gospel of forgiveness, one of the central Christian virtues. It is the radical stance of Jesus, who, when faced with the one who denied him, forgave him and appointed him head of the church, and the man who, in agony on the Cross, forgave his executioners. Forgiveness is a gift to the one who forgives, because it frees from resentment; and to the one who needs forgiveness, because it frees from guilt. Forgiveness is the liberating force that allowed Peter to cast himself into the water at the sound of Jesus’s voice, and it is the energy that gave him a voice with which to testify to his belief in Christ.
James Martin (Jesus: A Pilgrimage)
came to understand for the first time ever the importance of being healthy, and I don’t mean the universalizing and troubling concept of “diet conscious” our culture currently prefers, but the kind of healthy that encourages and cultivates a knowledge and awareness of your unique body and what it can be reasonably asked to do, and to never feel shame if your body does not operate by the same rules as someone else’s body. I’m talking about a healthy that is rooted in self-determination and individual autonomy, and is thus applicable to a spectrum of bodies, including professional athletes, cancer survivors, gym rats, the doctor-phobic, the poor, joggers, and folks with a limited supply of spoons, a healthy that excludes no one and that is specific and relative to the individual.
Lesley Kinzel (Two Whole Cakes: How to Stop Dieting and Learn to Love Your Body)
This Breast Cancer awareness month, lets eradicate the spirit of cancer once and for all in the name of Jesus Christ. You have an eBook for instant download and a Paperback/softcover to order online for your breakthrough. You should try these miracle working cancer breaking books breathed by the Holy Spirit of a Sovereign God for your healing and salvation. No more hopelessness and desperation, you have the power and right to receive healing from God our Father in the name of his Precious Son Jesus Christ...Conquer Cancer. Don't waste time,
Stellah Mupanduki (Be Healed From Breast Cancer)
Being love also means being aware of the importance of nurturing my own soul, taking care of my own needs, and not putting myself last all the time. This allows me to be true to myself at all times and to treat myself with total respect and kindness. It also lets me view what may be interpreted as imperfections and mistakes with no judgment, seeing only opportunities to experience and to learn with unconditional love.
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
When I’m being love, I don’t get drained, and I don’t need people to behave a certain way in order to feel cared for or to share my magnificence with them. They’re automatically getting my love as a result of me being my true self. And when I am nonjudgmental of myself, I feel that way toward others. In light of this, I’ve learned that it’s important not to be too hard on myself if I’m experiencing challenges. Oftentimes, the problem isn’t the cause of the apparent conflict. Instead, it’s the judgment I have for myself. When I stop being my own worst enemy and start loving myself more, I automatically have less and less friction with the world around me. I become more tolerant and accepting. When we’re each aware of our own magnificence, we don’t feel the need to control others, and we won’t allow ourselves to be controlled. When I awoke into my infinite self, I was amazed to understand that my life could be dramatically different just by realizing that I am love, and I always have been. I don’t have to do anything to deserve it. Understanding this means that I’m working with life-force energy, whereas performing at being loving is working against it. Realizing that I am love was the most important lesson I learned, allowing me to release all fear, and that’s the key that saved my life.
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
In your food and mood journal, in addition to what you are eating, note the following as well: What’s going on at home? Do you feel supported? Are you a caregiver for loved ones while trying to take care of yourself? Is there childhood trauma in your background or in your parents’ background? Do you have a meditation or spiritual practice? Are you living your purpose? How these questions are manifested or suppressed often shows up in our relationship to food and mood. The process of keeping a journal helps to release stored emotion and bring awareness to what you are feeling, and can reveal if you are self-medicating with food or alcohol.
Nasha Winters (The Metabolic Approach to Cancer: Integrating Deep Nutrition, the Ketogenic Diet, and Nontoxic Bio-Individualized Therapies)
I am Sebastiano, and your name?” he asks. “Violet,” I say as we step over the threshold. “Violetta!” he says, throwing his arms wide. “English girl, Italian name!” And across the room, I see a dark head turn in our direction. That much taller than the rest of the boys, he stands out, his straight black silky hair falling over his face, his blue eyes as bright and cold as the water of the fjord next to my grandmother’s summer rental cottage. I was looking for him before and couldn’t see him anywhere; now that I’ve been distracted by dancing and a Chianti-drinking donkey, he’s spotted me. His gaze flicks like a knife between me and the boy, who’s at the gigantic wine bottle now, filling cups and handing me one. “Salute!” Sebastiano says, touching his cup to mine, and I glance up at Luca, seeing that he’s taking this in, too. A rush of confusion fills me as I toast. I’m glad that Luca’s seen me with someone else, that I haven’t been a wallflower at this party, that I’ve proved him wrong, even a little bit, because there’s a boy here who seems to like me, who’s talking to me, anyway, getting me a drink. In films, in books, flirting with a boy is a surefire way to get the one you actually like interested in you, draw him over to your side. They’re supposed to like competition, the challenge of going after a girl who’s popular. But maybe real life doesn’t quite work that way. Because Luca arches one black eyebrow, his mouth quirks up on one side in a sneer, and he turns pointedly away sliding a cigarette into his mouth, and lighting it with a flip of his Zippo. Disgusting habit, I think as firmly as I can. I’m glad he’s not coming over, smoking a nasty stinking cancer stick. It’s awful when you lie to yourself. I do think smoking is foul, but I’m also more than aware that if Luca strolled over to talk to me, with that cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, I wouldn’t walk away, complaining about the smoke; I’d stand there staring up at him, trying not to grin as widely as a five-year-old meeting Cinderella at Disneyland.
Lauren Henderson (Flirting in Italian (Flirting in Italian #1))
Many of us are not aware of our optimistic tendencies.… Data clearly shows that most people overestimate their prospects for professional achievement; expect their children to be extraordinarily gifted; miscalculate their likely life span; expect to be healthier than their peers; hugely underestimate their likelihood of divorce, cancer, and unemployment; and are confident overall that their future lives will be better than those their parents put up with. This is known as the optimism bias—the inclination to overestimate the likelihood of encountering positive events in the future and to underestimate the likelihood of experiencing negative events. —The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain (TALI SHAROT, PANTHEON BOOKS, 2011)
Bob Knight (The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving Positive Results)
The way I see it, if we were encouraged to express who we truly are, we’d all be very loving beings, each bringing our uniqueness to the world. Problems and strife come as a result of our not knowing who we are and not being able to show our inner beauty. We’ve created so much judgment about what’s “perfect,” which leads to doubt and competitiveness. Since we feel as though we’re not good enough, we go around acting out. However, if each of us became aware of our magnificence and felt good about ourselves, it seems to me the only thing we’d have to share is our unique nature, expressed outwardly in a loving manner that reflects our self-care. It follows that the problems we see in the world aren’t from the judgment or hatred we have for others but for ourselves. Just as the key to my healing was unconditional self-love that eliminated fear, the key to a better world is for everyone to care for themselves the same way, realizing their true worth. If we stopped judging ourselves, we’d automatically find less and less need to condemn others. We’d begin to notice their true perfection. The universe is contained within us, and what we experience externally is only a reflection. I believe that at the core, no one is truly bad—that evil is only a product of our fears, the same way my cancer was.
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
I've never tried to assert my views unless they are self-evident, not reliant on an argument from me to prove or disprove them: Breast-cancer awareness and AIDS prevention are good. Illiteracy is bad. Historic preservation will allow future generations to understand what life used to be like and in so doing will help Americans chart a path forward. The issues and decisions that are more complex I have left to others, to those confident of their own rightness.
Curtis Sittenfeld (American Wife)
I was aware that people from my culture thought of me as strong-minded, rebellious, idealistic, stubborn, and opinionated—all of which were not desirable traits for a woman.
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
Love, Medicine, and Miracles by the Yale surgeon Bernie Siegel (New York: Harper & Row, 1986). Dr. Siegel began his career as a surgeon, became aware of the social and psychological dimensions of cancer, and began to work with patients accordingly. His book is highly inspirational and, because of its popularity, has introduced many people to the idea that the mind can be mobilized to combat cancer.
John E. Sarno (Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection)
Perhaps all Creation as we know it is an extraction from a totality, which I have chosen to call the ‘Source'. Three psychics have told me the same thing: ‘You’ve touched Source energy.’ Though I don’t know what that means, sometimes I do have an experience of traveling to a place in which everything I need for healing is in infinite supply. My mind moves into super-consciousness and a sense of higher intelligence, then past that into peace, and past that into Nothingness – a place of pure potential where all possibilities exist at the same time. The higher I go, the less I feel. The Source doesn’t do anything, it just is. The best way I can describe the Nothing that contains Everything is through the metaphor of white light. Physicists tell us it contains all other colors: when we see red or green or yellow, that’s a subtraction from white. Perhaps by touching the Source I can give my patients what they need to heal, because the Source offers an infinite number of simultaneous existences transcending time and space. Just as I speculate that Creation may be a subtraction from the perfection of Nothingness, I see disease as a subtraction from perfect health. I find that I am unconsciously drawn to physical need in others, and that somehow I’m able to offer a patient what he or she requires. Instead of time travel backward or forward perhaps I’m able to access some kind of universal energy, intelligence, awareness, or information beyond my perception. I can’t describe any of this more clearly – that’s why we have poets!
William Bengston (The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healing)
What I am sure of, through personal experience, is that this kind of healing is a natural system, not a magical one, which is why it’s also an imperfect one. Sometimes I can help, and sometimes I can’t. What I endeavor to do is to offer patients the whole spectrum – metaphorically, white light – in hopes they can subtract from it what they need in order to return to health. That’s different from my healing them, though out of habit I still use that word. It’s also why I’m always surprised when patients thank me for restoring them to health. While those were my hands moving around, I never feel as if I was the healer. But is it really necessary for me to tell you these things? In a national survey forty percent of all Americans admitted to having had at least one profound mystical experience that took them beyond time and space, with many others perhaps too shy to report such experiences. That was touching the Source. And the Source doesn’t pay attention to national borders. In countries where the spiritual is woven more firmly into daily life, the numbers are likely to be much higher. My hope is that all those who read my book take from it an expanded sense of the resources offered by the Universe, along with a greater awareness of their own potential in calling upon that abundance, not only for healing, but for all aspects of life. The possibilities are infinite. The limitations are our own and we need not faith, not belief, but trust.
William Bengston (The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healing)
The mean-spirited, unpredictable cancer beast had changed all of our lives. There were unspoken details of our life before cancer. Now, only the stark reality of life after cancer remained. I was acutely aware that, regardless of the treatment’s outcome, we were bound in a race against time. A relentless clock, damnably ticking away, measured the fleeting seconds of Xuan’s life. Its insistent rhythm served as a re- minder of our finite journey. Though it may have momentarily paused, the clock would invariably resume its steady wind down toward zero.
Kayla Cunningham (Fated to Love You (Chasing the Comet Book 1))
Cedar Capital Group Tokyo Review of Stats Shows Decrease in Mortality Rate in Construction Sites Cedar Capital Group in Tokyo Japan construction industry is one of the riskiest industries to work with. Not only do they have to deal with falling debris but workers also have to be aware of faulty wirings, defective equipment and weather warnings. Workers even sometimes have to lose their lives in the midst of construction. These circumstances are inevitable and precautions were already implemented even at the start of training. Yet, it cannot be denied that construction is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world today. Everywhere we go, we see buildings being built and establishments being constructed. We see new structures in developed nations. New York, America, Tokyo, Japan, Beijing, China and Seoul, South Korea are some of the leading cities which feature new construction projects almost everyday. Singapore is also not left behind. Considered as one of the most flourishing countries in the world, the little island-city has prided itself with new infrastructure projects and promise a thousand more to come. It came no surprise that the country’s journey towards urbanization was held liable for the deaths of hundreds of construction workers in the previous years. Just recently, though, Singapore has declared their concern on the number of fatalities there are in a construction project. If not of deaths, accidents resulting to fractures and minor and major injuries are also experienced in other neighboring countries. Cedar Capital Group in Tokyo Japan, one the distributor of heavy capital equipment in the country, reports to have dozens of death in the last 4 years of their operation. This, as they claim, is one of the reasons why there is a large scarcity in job application related to construction. Many companies are also faced with numerous complaints because of these deaths and injuries. According to further review, approximately one-quarter of the deaths result from exposure to hazardous substances which cause such disabling illnesses as cancer and cardiovascular, respiratory and nervous-system disorders. Analysts even warn that work-related diseases are expected to double by the year 2020 and that if improvements are not implemented now, exposures today will kill people by the year 2020. Surprisingly, though, while people are being troubled with the number of casualties in the construction sector, recent studies and statistics show fewer deaths in construction sector in the first half of the year. Specifically in Singapore, Manpower Ministry has announced only 8 death reports compared to the 17 deaths in 2014. Although this is not a reason to celebrate since there are still fatalities, Singapore’s Contractual Association stated that this is an improvement as it shows the effectiveness of the recent awareness programs and training seminars conducted across the island-city. The country aims to clear all fatalities for the next succeeding years.
Jackie Legaspi
Kazakh nomadic herders have always been well aware of the implications of closely related breeding and have forbidden marriage between relatives with common ancestors within seven generations. As a result, cases of autism, Down’s syndrome, breast cancer and many other hereditary diseases are much less frequently observed among the Kazakh people.
Karmak Bagisbayev (The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer)
The log officer handed me a pair of examination gloves. Pink. Everyone else wore red or black. “Thanks.” I glanced at her name tag. “Officer Kennedy.” “You’re welcome. They support breast cancer awareness.” I snapped on the gloves. “I knew that. I’m always willing to do my part to keep breasts safe.” “We appreciate that, sir.
Greg Mongrain (To Kill a Sorcerer (Immortal Montero, #1))
I’m a spokesperson in raising awareness of male breast cancer. There’s not a platinum record or lifetime achievement award that can touch the news that a person’s life has been saved because he heeded my warnings, went to his doctor and got treated in time.
Peter Criss (Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss)
Most Americans are not aware that the diet they feed their children guarantees a high cancer probability down the road.13 They don’t even contemplate that eating fast-food meals may be just as risky (or more so) as letting their children smoke cigarettes.14
Joel Fuhrman (Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss)
Wayland was the shock. Suddenly they were stuck, her parents aware that they faced a life sentence of being foreign. In London her mother had been working toward a certificate in Montessori education, but in America she did not work, did not drive. She put on twenty pounds after Rahul was born, and her father put away his mod suits and shopped at Sears. In Wayland they became passive, wary, the rituals of small-town New England more confounding than negotiating two of the world's largest cities. They relied on their children, on Sudha especially. It was she who had to explain to her father that he had to gather up the leaves in bags, not just drag them with his rake to the woods opposite the house. She, with her perfect English, who called the repair department at Lechmere to have their appliances serviced. Rahul never considered it his duty to help their parents in this way. While Sudha regarded her parents' separation from India as an ailment that ebbed and flowed like a cancer, Rahul was impermeable to that aspect of their life as well. "No one dragged them here," he would say. "Baba left India to get rich, and Ma married him because she had nothing else to do." That was Rahul, always aware of the family's weaknesses, never sparing Sudha from the things she least wanted to face.
Anonymous
Twelve minutes into the talk, he did something uncharacteristic. The humble scientist “called out” Weinberg for omitting the Warburg effect from his list of hallmarks. He said, The hallmarks of cancer have been listed in a very well-known book now by Bob Weinberg of MIT, and he lists six hallmarks of cancer. One of these, the first and most important one, he omitted. This broadcast I understand is being broadcast throughout the world, so he’ll get this probably in the mail tomorrow…many of us are aware of the list, but the one he omitted from this list is the Warburg effect. It is the oldest known property of cancer, and it is a characteristic of every cancer.
Travis Christofferson (Tripping Over the Truth: The Metabolic Theory of Cancer)
Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, the ICI spin-off that now exclusively funds and controls Breast Cancer Awareness Month, earns more than $300 million a year from the sale of a carcinogenic herbicide (acetochlor) while simultaneously marketing Tamoxifen, which has now become the world's bestselling cancer therapy drug.
John Robbins (The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World, 10th Anniversary Edition)
By the time we hit our forties, we've all known pain--it's been layered on us like so many coats of paint. Who's to say which heartbreak is the greatest: Losing a child or never having a romantic relationship? Surviving cancer or having a mentally ill son? All painful life events gouge deep furrows and cause emotions to bleed out of us--shock, sorrow, and dismay. Through these tragedies, we are constantly rediscovering ourselves, peeling off the personas we've created to fit in socially and reaching for the unaltered seed of self within us. We'll never completely know our raw core--never completely be able to separate the white of external influences from the yolk of our true selves. But we can ask the questions, keep on with the quest.
Wendy Staley Colbert
The moment a person learns he's got terminal cancer, a profound shift takes place in his psyche. At one stroke in the doctor's office he becomes aware of what really matters to him. Things that sixty seconds earlier had seemed all- important suddenly appear meaningless, while people and concerns that he had till then dismissed at once take on supreme importance.
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
It’s okay. There’s no one to contact or worry.” “No one?” Leigh asked and she could hear the frown in her voice. Valerie shook her head. “I was an only child. My grandparents died one after another of heart attacks and cancer as I was growing up and my parents died three years ago in a car accident. There’s just myself and an aunt who moved to Texas thirty years ago. I’ve only seen her twice since then. At her parents’ funerals.” She shrugged. “Other than Christmas cards, we don’t stay in touch.” “Oh,” Leigh said softly and fell silent. “What about friends?” Anders asked, and Valerie nearly jumped out of her skin. Both at his sudden joining of the conversation and because of his chest brushing her back as he reached around her to set a small Petsmart bag on the counter. “Waste pick-up bags,” he murmured by her ear, his fingers drifting lightly over her bare upper arm as his hand withdrew. “Since Lucian was here to keep you safe, I popped out and picked them up for you.” Valerie stared blankly at the bag, aware that shivers were running down her spine and goose bumps were popping up on her skin where his breath and fingers had passed. She had to wonder how she could be staring at something so unsexy and be so turned on at the same time. A muffled laugh drew Valerie’s confused gaze to Leigh and the other woman grinned at her as she said, “That was sweet of you, Anders.” “Yes, it was,” Valerie said and then paused to clear her throat when it came out froggy. “Thank you.” “Mind you,” Leigh added. “Red roses might have been sweeter than red doggie pooh bags.” “I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Anders responded. Valerie flushed and turned back to the pancakes. What Leigh was suggesting would have been appropriate if they were dating or something, but they weren’t, and she did appreciate his running out to get her the bags. She didn’t want to repay Leigh for allowing her into her home by leaving little Roxy gifts all over their yard . . . And what did his response mean exactly?
Lynsay Sands (Immortal Ever After (Argeneau, #18))
People feel free to cry more, are more adept at pulling differentiated emotions into consciousness. The awareness of death tends to make life’s trivialities seem…trivial. “Cancer cures psychoneuroses,” one of Irvin Yalom’s therapy patients told him. “What a pity I had to wait till now, till my body was riddled with cancer, to learn how to live.
David Brooks (How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen)
Though my mother's cancer was her trauma first and foremost, its aftershocks reverberated through my life as well. Her illness almost loomed larger in hindsight, because the initial jolt had faded, and in its place was a new awareness of my family's vulnerability. I remember feeling less sure, less safe, as if anything could befall us now. I found it harder to relax, struggled to fall asleep at night. My greatest fear was losing my mother, my father, or both - to illness, fire, a car accident - and her cancer seemed to justify every anxiety I'd ever harbored.
Nicole Chung (A Living Remedy: A Memoir)
Wyndham Lewis made this a theme of his group of novels called The Human Age. The first of these, The Childermass, is concerned precisely with accelerated media change as a kind of massacre of the innocents. In our own world as we become more aware of the effects of technology on psychic formation and manifestation, we are losing all confidence in our right to assign guilt. Ancient prehistoric societies regard violent crime as pathetic. The killer is regarded as we do a cancer victim. “How terrible it must be to feel like that,” they say. J. M. Synge took up this idea very effectively in his Playboy of the Western World.
Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man)
It is an absolute miracle that I am alive right now and I am aware that my future is not guaranteed
Tara Coyote (Grace, Grit & Gratitude: A Cancer Thriver's Journey from Hospice to Full Recovery with the Healing Power of Horses)
Queer contagion, including the anxiety triggered by gender nonnormativity, found its viral materiality in the early 1980s. The diagnosis of gay cancer, or GRID (gay-related immune disorder), the original name for AIDS, was a vengeful nomenclature for the perversion of existing in a world held together, at least in part, by trans/queer undoing. Found by chance, queers began showing symptoms of unexplainable illnesses such as Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP). Unresponsive to the most aggressive treatments, otherwise healthy, often well-resourced and white, young men were deteriorating and dying with genocidal speed. Without remedy, normative culture celebrated its triumph in knowing the tragic ends they always imagined queers would meet. This, while the deaths of Black, Brown, and Indigenous trans and cis women (queer or otherwise) were unthought beyond the communities directly around them. These women, along with many others, were stripped of any claim to tragedy under the conditions of trans/misogyny. Among the architects of this silence was then-President Ronald Reagan, who infamously refused to mention HIV/AIDS in public until 1986. By then, at least 16,000 had died in the U.S. alone. Collective fantasies of mass disappearance through the pulsing death of trans/queer people, Haitians, and drug users - the wish fulfillment of a nightmare world concertized the rhetoric that had always been spoken from the lips of power. The true terror of this response to HIV/AIDS was not only its methodological denial but its joyful humor. In Scott Calonico's experimental short film, "When AIDS Was Funny", a voice-over of Reagan's press secretary Larry Speakes is accompanied by iconic still images of people close to death in hospital beds. LESTER KINSOLVING: "Over a third of them have died. It's known as a 'gay plague.' [Press pool laughter.] No, it is. It's a pretty serious thing. One in every three people that get this have died. And I wonder if the president was aware of this." LARRY SPEAKES: "I don't have it. [Press pool laughter.] Do you?" LESTER KINSOLVING: "You don't have it? Well, I'm relieved to hear that, Larry!" [Press pool laughter.] LARRY SPEAKES: "Do you?" LESTER KINSOLVING: "No, I don't.
Eric A. Stanley (Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable)
Castaneda talks of living with death as your guide, that sharp awareness engendered by the full possibility of any given chance and moment. For me, that means being—not ready for death—but able to get ready instantly, and always to balance the "I wants" with the "I haves." I am learning to speak my pieces, to inject into the living world my convictions of what is necessary and what I think is important without concern (of the enervating kind) for whether or not it is understood, tolerated, correct or heard before. Although of course being incorrect is always the hardest, but even that is becoming less important. The world will not stop if I make a mistake.
Audre Lorde (The Cancer Journals)
TO HEAL THE GUT, LIGAMENTS, TENDONS, AND SKIN: The peptide BPC-157 may promote speedier recovery from ligament tear reconstruction and rotator cuff tendon injuries. As we’ve already mentioned, this peptide has shown outstanding results in treating debilitating gut problems. I found that out firsthand after my bout with mercury poisoning, which does brutal things to the body. BPC-157 was one of the tools I used to help rebuild my gut, and it was extraordinarily effective. 5. TO INCREASE MUSCLE MASS, STRENGTHEN BONES, REVITALIZE SKIN, AND RESTORE YOUTHFUL METABOLISM: The two peptides sermorelin and tesamorelin mimic the action of growth hormone–releasing hormone (GHRH), a hotbed for new drug development. GHRHs stimulate the pituitary gland to secrete natural growth hormone. They’re a lot cheaper than synthetic human growth hormone (HGH)—and, unlike HGH, can be legally prescribed off-label. What’s the downside? If you take growth hormone or these peptides, you should be aware that growth hormone elevates levels of insulin-like growth factor-1, which has been shown in some studies to have “a modest association” with cancer risk.9 So it’s critical that you work closely with your physician to determine what options are best based on your symptoms, blood work, and careful monitoring.
Tony Robbins (Life Force: How New Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine Can Transform the Quality of Your Life & Those You Love)
Most people, including their physicians, simply accept that diarrhea, constipation, gastritis, bloating, abdominal discomfort/pain, inflammatory bowel syndromes, or almost any other gastrointestinal condition is largely inevitable and typically occurring for seemingly no clear-cut reason, or just the inevitable consequence of growing older. The standard therapeutic goal aims to lessen the gut-related symptoms as best as possible with a variety of prescription and over-the-counter agents. Similarly, there is virtually no awareness that CPC sets the stage for the inflammation causing and sustaining some gastrointestinal cancers, even though chronic inflammation in the gut is recognized as an important factor in the development of cancers there.
Thomas E. Levy (Rapid Virus Recovery)
Today, the IDF Instagram page regularly features pro-gay and pro-feminist messaging alongside its hard-line militaristic iconography.13 On October 1, 2021, the IDF posted across its social media platforms a photo of its headquarters swathed in pink light with this message: “For those who are fighting, for those who have passed, and for those who have survived, the IDF HQ is lit up pink this #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth.” Palestinian American activist Yousef Munayyer responded on Twitter: “An untold number of women in Gaza suffer from breast cancer and are routinely denied adequate treatment and timely lifesaving care because this military operates a brutal siege against over 2 million souls.” On Instagram, however, most of the comments below the post praised the IDF.
Antony Loewenstein (The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World)
as people get older, emotion often takes the place of rational thinking. People feel free to cry more, are more adept at pulling differentiated emotions into consciousness. The awareness of death tends to make life’s trivialities seem…trivial. “Cancer cures psychoneuroses,” one of Irvin Yalom’s therapy patients told him. “What a pity I had to wait till now, till my body was riddled with cancer, to learn how to live.
David Brooks (How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen)
In terms of ESP, Rawls and Davis discovered that the “third eye,” or sixth chakra area of the brain, stimulates inner vision or awareness. Subjects experienced an increase in this ability, as well as peace and calm, by holding a magnet in the left palm or on the back of the right hand. In 1976, Davis and Rawls were nominated for a Nobel Prize in medical physics. In summation, the electrical flow in the body is maintained by certain ions, such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Imbalances in these fundamental materials can cause disease—and can occur because of disease. These imbalances will alter the electrical activity of the body and therefore the actual appearance—shape and form—of the various magnetic or auric fields outside of the body. This might explain the ability of certain “auric readers” to use their psychic skills to perceive deep-seated problems in the body even before medical technology can detect them, as well as the reverse ability to heal the aura and therefore, heal the body. The link between the meridians and the electrical system of the body, as Nordenström proposed, also provides an explanation for healing through the meridians and acupoints. The glial cells act as yet another major player in the body’s microcircuit system, receiving information from the magnetic spectrum inside and outside it, thus adding another dimension to Nordenström’s discoveries. Nordenström used his theories to cure cancer, sending electrical charges into a tumor to shrink it. What did Rawls and Davis discover but one of the primary concepts of healing? There is polarity to every aspect of life. Humans are electrical and magnetic, yin and yang, and health is dependent upon maintaining the appropriate balance of each. Humans are L-fields, acted upon by electricity. And humans are T-fields, acted upon by magnetism. Through the bipolarity that is “L,” or electrical, humans generate life, movement, and activity. Through the bipolarity of our “T,” or magnetic self, we attract what we need and what we can become. Humans are composed of the stuff of thought—and matter. FIGURE 3.6 FORMS OF MAGNETISM In his book A Practical Guide to Vibrational Medicine, Dr. Richard Gerber outlines many forms of magnetism.83 Here is a brief description of each, along with a sample of its effects.
Cyndi Dale (The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy)
The Israeli social media strategy aimed to involve both domestic and global supporters of its military missions. By doing so, and asking backers to post their own supporting tweets, Face-book posts, or Instagram images, the IDF created a collective mission that other nations could easily mimic by stirring up nationalist fervor online. During Operation Pillar of Defense, the IDF encouraged supporters of Israel to both proudly share when “terrorists” were killed while at the same time reminding a global audience that the Jewish state was a victim. It was a form of mass conscription to the cause through the weaponization of social media.12 This was war as spectacle, and the IDF was spending big to make it happen. The IDF media budget allowed at least 70 officers and 2,000 soldiers to design, process, and disseminate official Israeli propaganda, and almost every social media platform was flooded with IDF content. Today, the IDF Instagram page regularly features pro-gay and pro-feminist messaging alongside its hard-line militaristic iconography.13 On October 1, 2021, the IDF posted across its social media platforms a photo of its headquarters swathed in pink light with this message: “For those who are fighting, for those who have passed, and for those who have survived, the IDF HQ is lit up pink this #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth.” Palestinian American activist Yousef Munayyer responded on Twitter: “An untold number of women in Gaza suffer from breast cancer and are routinely denied adequate treatment and timely lifesaving care because this military operates a brutal siege against over 2 million souls.” On Instagram, however, most of the comments below the post praised the IDF.
Antony Loewenstein (The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World)
I still don't know to this day how she managed to climb the 94 stairs; she was dying from an overdose. The gate at the bottom of the stairwell did not make a sound when she entered the building, being so ill and alone. It was odd. Where could she have been? Almost as if she had been dropped off at my doorstep like a package silently by a (Polish) giant. She was pale and could barely open the door with her keys. When she entered, she fell into my arms; she was drunk and high, her legs buckling so that she couldn't stand. I tried to figure out what she had taken and what she had drunk, but she could barely talk; her eyes were rolling back in her skull. She was crying with her head in the toilet bowl, unable to stop the cramps running through her insides and her entire body shaking. - What did you drink? - Two … beers. - I am not your father. What did you take? Where have you been? - Beers and tequila - she mumbled, saliva drooling out of her mouth and her head hanging down like she was dead already. Then I asked her what else she had taken. She still wouldn't answer, so I repeated. - Answer me Martina, who gave it to you?! - I shouted. - Where have you been?! But she didn't answer, and her condition was critical, so I had to rush her to the hospital in my arms as she was about to lose consciousness. I had to grab her and take her to the closest hospital across Parallel, two blocks away. This was the first time I had taken her to the hospital since she'd split her chin by falling off my bicycle allegedly before, although it wasn't the last. Interestingly, whenever she got involved with a new group of criminals, she wound up in the hospital both times, and both times I took her there. She had no energy to lift her head out of the toilet bowl. As soon as I entered the hospital with her, the staff and I had to put her in a wheelchair. They took her inside and 20 minutes later when I was sitting by her bed, she already felt better with an IV dripping slowly into her vein, but she was unable to move; she was lying in her hospital bed, barely able to open her eyes to look at me. She was between life and death, or between real life and just a dream. I remembered less than a year earlier she was so full of life and happy and healthy when I put her up on that set of chairs that night when we took off the 'for sale' sign. The doctors told me after she fell asleep that they wanted to rinse her stomach, but she didn't authorize that. I was not fully aware that she was on drugs time to time or all the time and with what kind of people she was associated with. She almost only showed up at home in September 2014 when she overdosed. I was in love and worried for her so much, so I filled out the forms while they treated her in the hospital. I prayed to God to save her, asking for Him to show her the Truth. All I had was a prayer—50/50 if it worked. And I remembered that two years before, I had prayed for the life of our kitten Sabrina was playing with, making friends. This time, however, I had to rush to the hospital, not the vet, with my 20-year-old girlfriend who would soon be 21 in October 2014. And I felt like Sabrina, trying to make friends again but by the wrong people was the reason why I, an atheist, was praying for a puppy or a kitten or a bunny's life this time again. I didn't know that lies and secrets were eating away at her from deep inside once in a while as well, it wasn't just the drugs that were killing her insides like cancer. Just like her brother's intestines silently began to consume him and her, unbeknownst to them, but I could almost sense it like a dog if I could not see it, smell it inside them like X-ray. They were unaware of what my eyes had seen, as I watched their vibrations and faces silently change.
Tomas Adam Nyapi (BARCELONA MARIJUANA MAFIA)
Each and every one of us can contribute because each and every one of us can promote Awareness. If not for yourself personally, since you may be exhausted and disappointed by this Earthly existence, and understandably so, then please find the courage for the future generations still to come. Contrary to what the Eugenics Establishment would have us believe, Humanity as personified through the innocence of the untainted child is profoundly beautiful; It is Elitism and its unending encroachments that characterize the true cancer that cripples our society.
Gavin Nascimento (A History of Elitism, World Government & Population Control)
Though my mother’s cancer was her trauma first and foremost, its aftershocks reverberated through my life as well. Her illness almost loomed larger in hindsight, because the initial jolt had faded, and in its place was a new awareness of my family’s vulnerability. I remember feeling less sure, less safe, as if anything could befall us now. I found it harder to relax, struggled to fall asleep at night. My greatest fear was losing my mother, my father, or both—to illness, fire, a car accident—and her cancer seemed to justify every anxiety I’d ever harbored.
Nicole Chung (A Living Remedy: A Memoir)
Nobody craves normalcy more than us! If only it were so simple and easy to move forward, tossing a match behind you and burning the whole ugly experience to the ground. Burn the pink tchotchkes while you’re at it.
Cara Sapida
BECAME AWARE THAT WE’RE ALL connected. This was not only every person and living creature, but the interwoven unification felt as though it were expanding outward to include everything in the universe—every human, animal, plant, insect, mountain, sea, inanimate object, and the cosmos. I realized that the entire universe is alive and infused with consciousness, encompassing all of life and nature. Everything belongs to an infinite Whole. I was intricately, inseparably enmeshed with all of life. We’re all facets of that unity—we’re all One, and each of us has an effect on the collective Whole. I
Anita Moorjani (Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
THERMOGRAPHY Misinformation abounds as to the true nature of breast cancer and what causes it. With so much public focus on breast cancer awareness, very little attention is given to breast health, which we know is governed by things like clean eating, routine detoxification, energy balance, and stress reduction, among other things. These other things include not blasting radiation at the breasts in the form of mammograms, which only exacerbate breast cancer risk. Dr. Martin Bales, L.Ac., D.A.O.M., a licensed acupuncturist and certified thermologist at the Center for New Medicine in Irvine, California, has for years been administering one of the best-known alternatives to mammograms: thermograms. As its name suggests, thermography utilizes the power of infrared heat—hence the root word “therm”—to detect physiological abnormalities indicative of a possible breast cancer diagnosis. Dr. Bales’s father first pioneered the technology in the late 1970s with the development of the world’s first all-digital infrared camera, which was used for missile detection purposes during wartime. Its capacity to track the heat signature of missiles was applied to the field of medicine in the 1980s, which eventually gave way to thermographic medical devices. Dr. Bales opined during a recent interview: “In the early eighties, a group of doctors approached my father and said, ‘You know, we’ve heard the body—obviously with its (blood) circulation—we can diagnose a lot of diseases by seeing where there’s hot spots and where there’s cold.’ He said, ‘Okay, I’ll make a medical version for you.’” And the rest is history: thermography machines that identify hot spots in the breasts later hit the market, and select doctors and clinics offer it as a safe, side effect–free alternative to mammograms. “The most promising aspect of thermography is its ability to spot anomalies years before mammography,” says women’s health expert Christiane Northrup, M.D., about the merits of thermography. “With thermography as your regular screening tool, it’s likely that you would have the opportunity to make adjustments to your diet, beliefs, and lifestyle to transform your cells before they became cancerous. Talk about true prevention.
Ty M. Bollinger (The Truth about Cancer: What You Need to Know about Cancer's History, Treatment, and Prevention)