Читать книгу You Can Conquer Cancer: The ground-breaking self-help manual including nutrition, meditation and lifestyle management techniques - Ian Gawler - Страница 12
ОглавлениеThe body’s natural ability to heal itself is really quite phenomenal. While we often take it for granted, this ability is nothing short of miraculous.
For example, take the healing of a broken leg. First there is a trauma, a solid bone is broken in two and the shattered ends displaced. There will be torn muscles, probably internal bleeding—a lot of damage. Surgery is often required to stabilize the situation, and perhaps a steel pin is inserted to fix the broken bones together and keep them stable. Yet, once the right conditions are created, that bone will automatically reunite itself, the muscles will regenerate, and normal function return. In six months’ time an X-ray will show the bone to be healed, and actually often where the break was, the bone will now be even stronger. What an amazing process!
Relaxation, Balance and Healing
Let us see this process in perspective. First, the right conditions were created and then the body healed itself. The medical intervention was necessary to provide those right conditions. However, the doctors did not actually heal anything. What they did achieve is that by realigning the bones, they created the first requirement for the healing of a fracture to proceed. The patient then had to look after the leg and make sure the healing process could continue. The patient did not have to think of the intricate process of the bones reuniting. The body’s natural healing power was what returned the leg to normal. The body, given the right conditions, healed itself—automatically.
The body’s normal state is health. It has a tremendously varied and complex set of mechanisms to maintain it in good health. Whenever the body is out of balance, these mechanisms swing into action to re-create health. If those mechanisms are thwarted or unsuccessful, then we have disease.
So, what is the problem in cancer? Why does the body appear unable to cope? It is just the same as with the broken leg!
If we are able to provide the right conditions, the body has the potential to heal itself.
In the acute situation of a broken bone, the medical intervention is a very obvious first step. Surgery provides the right conditions by realigning and stabilizing the bones. The patient maintains those conditions by keeping the leg still and having a diet and an environment that permit the normal healing functions to proceed.
However, cancer is a chronic, multifactorial, degenerative disease. It takes a long time to develop and has a multiplicity of contributing factors, as we shall discuss later. While surgery and other medical treatments clearly have their place in treating cancer, correcting the causes of the disease is more involved; while providing the correct environment to allow the body’s potential for healing to proceed is also more involved. All of this requires consideration of far more than the body mechanics involved in surgically repairing a broken leg. It involves consideration of the whole person—body, emotions, mind and spirit.
What we are concerned with here is investigating the potential for each of us to be directly involved in re-creating our own health. What we seek is the ideal environment for healing in general and cancer in particular. What we know is that this all comes back to that simple principle of balance. Balance equates with good health, and good health does not include cancer. Balance equates with healing.
Again, a healthy body cannot have cancer. There was a man in America who had kidney failure and was given a kidney transplant. Unbeknown to anyone, the kidney he was given in the transplant was already cancerous. Naturally, he was placed on immune-suppressant drugs to prevent his body from rejecting his new kidney and this meant his body’s normal defenses could not operate properly. In a very short time, not only was the new kidney engulfed by the cancer, but it had spread throughout his lungs. With his life threatened, the immune-suppressant drugs were ceased, the new kidney was removed, and he was returned to a dialysis machine. What happened? The immune-suppressant drugs wore off, his normal bodily defenses rapidly reasserted themselves, and all the cancer in his chest disappeared—automatically, with no outside intervention. His body’s normal ability to heal itself did just that. His body, with its immune system working again, had the ability to recognize the cancer should not have been there and so eliminated it.
We want to create the conditions in our body so that it can do the same thing. We want to reactivate our own immune system and provide the right conditions where healing can take place. We can do it.
There is a very close link between the function of our body and the function of our psyche. That is, if we are relaxed and easy in mind and emotions, our body will be relaxed. If, on the other hand, we have anxiety or are affected by stress, our body will suffer from subtle but far-reaching changes in body chemistry and it will also show up as physical tension. I believe that this reflex is a key factor which we can use in the process of getting well.
Equate stress, anxiety and tension with immune-suppression and illness.
Equate relaxation and balance with health and healing.
If our body and psyche are relaxed, we will be in a state of balance, and that balance means health. If we are deeply relaxed, our body’s natural tendency will re-create health for us—true, deep, meaningful health, including a healthy body.
The first step, the starting point that we can readily appreciate and learn, is to lead the body into deep relaxation. Relieving emotional and mental stress is hard to begin with, as causes of anxiety are difficult to isolate and often difficult to treat using conventional means. However, if we relax the body, that reflex produces relaxation of emotions and mind.
Mental anxiety, stress and physical tension are intricately connected and interdependent. They are all disease-producing factors. However, truly break that connection at any one point and relaxation spreads all through. Healing begins.
Pause to consider a cat. A lithe, graceful cat. Watch it on the move. It moves with an ease and smoothness that is a joy to watch. In slow motion it is a sight to behold. Yet, if it has to react in a hurry, it can—in an instant. It will pounce in a flash, or turn and run with amazing speed. So too, it will often stop, consider a situation at length and then go on with its business. Concentration and relaxation are mutually supportive. All so easy, so relaxed. This, to me, shows what relaxation is all about. It is being physically relaxed and so being free to make an appropriate response.
If we are relaxed we react appropriately. We do not rush into things and overreact; neither are we sluggish and unable to take appropriate action. What we do is simply appropriate.
There is no need to avoid the problems of everyday life. Life should have challenges and a zest of endeavor. Such challenges become causes for stress only when we do not handle them appropriately.
If we do not react to challenges well, tension and anxiety cloud our normal processes. They interfere with judgment and reactions, so that responses become inappropriate. If our mind is confused or anxious, we have great difficulty thinking clearly and are highly likely to make poor decisions. However, the more relaxed our being, the more calm and clear is our mind, the more likely we are to make good choices and to do the appropriate thing.
Common Forms of Relaxation
Where then, do we find this relaxation? Some of the common ways we relax in a healthy way are through sleep, exercise, hobbies and holidays. All have their place.
Sleep
Sleep is an excellent way of dealing with acute stress. Even sleep imposed by drugs will often provide the time and space necessary for adjusting to and dealing with a major, temporary stress. We certainly need a regular amount of natural sleep to avoid fatigue and added stress.
As an aside, here is an important tip. We can significantly improve the quality of our sleep by doing our relaxation exercises when we go to bed. When you get into bed at night, spend five minutes, perhaps ten, doing your relaxation. This is important. If you have muscular tension when you get into bed, your body is like a spring and you will spend half the night unwinding. Researchers have observed people sleeping and documented the muscles of tense people struggling to unwind. In a series of jerks and twists, the body tries to get itself relaxed. For some people this can take most of the night and so they wake up without having much profitable relaxed sleep. So do spend a few minutes before you go to sleep and practice the progressive muscle relaxation exercise. As you get that good relaxed feeling all through, you will find that you can put yourself to sleep. You could well find that you need less sleep than you used to, as well as waking feeling the better for it.
In chronic stress situations, however, while sleep may provide some relief, it changes very little. We wake up with the same problems and responses that accompanied us to sleep. We need to look further.
Exercise
Exercise is well worth considering. In the right amounts, it helps to relax physical tension by tiring the muscles and so creating a natural form of relaxation. Also, it certainly invigorates and makes the body feel better, as well as being well proven to relieve depression, promote well-being and aid the healing process generally. Exercise warrants being a feature of our healing program and more detail on the best forms of exercise for recovery comes in the next chapter.
Hobbies and Holidays
These can be very pleasant diversions. They also provide an opportunity to relax, to release and to let go a little. They can certainly aid our general level of well-being. They are well worth considering, but frequently they produce little change in our overall situation.
Meditation and Deep Relaxation
The practice of meditation has the potential to produce the most profound and effective levels of deep relaxation. Another reason the specific meditation technique we recommend for healing works so well is that it starts with deep physical relaxation. Then, relaxing the mind enhances the effect.
However, let us be clear about this. While meditating once or even three times a day is clearly beneficial, if we get up from our meditation and spend the rest of the day just as tense and uptight as ever, the benefits will be relatively small. What we need is to take the relaxation, along with the calm and clear mind, from the meditation into our daily life.
This is most important. The relaxation we feel during our formal meditation periods needs to become a way of life for us. We need to aim to be as relaxed as possible because except when we are faced with an immediate threat, relaxation is our hallmark of the balance we seek.
This is not to say we will be sluggish or lethargic. On the contrary, we will react quickly and be sharp and alert but, like the cat, be relaxed at the same time. There are a number of ways to achieve this.
Integrating Relaxation into Daily Life
The Automatic Flow-On Effect
As you begin meditating, you will notice the calm you feel during your formal sessions of practice remains with you for a short while after. Meditating regularly in this way throughout the day enhances this effect, so that one session’s benefits soon begin to flow on to the next. This is why it is useful to spread a number of meditation sessions throughout the day. While initially you will seem to have good and bad sessions, soon you will notice a cumulative effect that means you get more benefit from each experience of meditation.
This effect can be increased still further by improving the quality of the meditation and by becoming more aware of relaxation throughout the day.
Speeding Up the Process of Relaxation
Initially, as we learn to relax and meditate, the progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is a very helpful technique. Using the physical act of contracting muscles and letting them go leads to a very reliable experience of relaxation and helps us to appreciate what it feels like to be deeply relaxed. But we can then progress and learn to relax more quickly and, in fact, more deeply. Here is how we do it.
The next step is to experience the same level of relaxation we did through using the full PMR, only this time we do so without physically contracting the muscles. We simplify and speed up the process. So now, we focus our attention on the muscles in each area of the body, and using the same sequence as we did with the PMR, this time we feel those muscles relaxing without having contracted them first. Once we have mastered this step and can feel that same deeply relaxed body we felt with the first technique, we go even further.
Now we learn to relax the legs as one unit, rather than the feet, then the calves and the thighs. We learn to relax the torso as another “block,” and then the head and neck. Ultimately, it is like we can sit to meditate, bring our attention to our bodies, and, almost like throwing a switch, feel the whole body relax as one unit. Now we have arrived at that ultimate point where we do not even need to spend time relaxing individual areas. We can just sit down and feel a wave of relaxation move throughout the body, producing that total, deep calm.
However, there is no hurry to speed up the procedure. We need to feel confident at each phase before advancing. The accent is on ease. No effort, no striving, just a natural progression to a faster, easier way. Again, the point to emphasize is that we arrive at the end point where the body will be deeply relaxed and so will the mind. If we do need to employ the PMR exercise to achieve this, we do so. If we can relax just as effectively but more quickly, we do so.
Using Discomfort to Deepen Relaxation
Once we begin to develop the capacity to relax at will, we are ready to use a more uncomfortable starting position. What, more discomfort? Yes, just a little at a time. Why? Well, a measured element of discomfort makes the physical relaxation a little harder to achieve and this makes us focus more on what we are doing. Undoubtedly, this in turn heightens the effect of the meditation. It is like when you go to the gym, work out, and develop your physical muscles. Here, we develop our “relaxation” muscles. You really do need to try this, the results will be obvious.
The suggestion is that if you began learning to relax and meditate in an armchair, once the technique is working well, try it in an armless chair. The change is very little, but I am sure you will notice a different effect. Once you are comfortable with that and it has become easy and effortless, go on to trying it on a stool. Harder still, but still fairly easy and, again, a greater benefit. Then you could go on to experiment with sitting cross-legged on the floor, or going outdoors. In the open air the sounds and smells increase the potential distractions while adding to the naturalness of it.
In my own situation, I generally meditate sitting cross-legged on the floor or on a chair in the morning and at lunchtime. My back can often be tired after a day on one leg, so frequently I lie on a hard surface in the evening, as this allows it to relax better. I notice that lying down produces more benefit in terms of relaxing my body, but there is no doubt sitting cross-legged produces a better overall effect, particularly when it comes to the mind.
Using Imagery to Focus Relaxation—The Radiant Light Imagery Exercise
We will be examining the benefits and techniques of imagery in chapters 8 and 9; however, when it comes to deepening our relaxation and meditation, there is a particular form of imagery that is easy to learn and can be of great benefit. This is what we call the “radiant light” imagery exercise. This is an “extra” technique worth experimenting with. If you warm to it and find it helpful, continue on with it; if not, simply move on to the next step. What you may discover is that this exercise has the added advantage of leading on to a heightened body awareness. Using this technique you will be in better touch with your body and more responsive to its messages. Similarly you will be able to control it better.
To practice this technique takes around thirty minutes. It can be done in any position, but I find this particular exercise does work best if you lie down on a hard surface. The floor is ideal. Choose a carpeted area, or place a blanket underneath yourself to begin with. Lie flat on your back, hands loosely by your sides. Legs should be out straight, just comfortably apart and the feet allowed to flop loosely outward. Some find a pillow under the knees quite helpful.
When you have taken the time to practice this a little, and you can do it well, you will have a means to relax yourself deeply and revitalize yourself amazingly. Practicing this technique regularly, once a day for a few weeks, will produce a new dimension in body awareness and relaxation.
The clarity of visualization, how clearly you “see” the different body parts, is not so important. Obviously, someone with detailed anatomical knowledge will be able to build up a more detailed image than others. The important thing is to feel that close contact and awareness of each part of your body. So, in a large complex area such as the abdomen, you feel as if your mind is moving through the whole area. You feel the deep sense of relaxation and then the glow.
When it comes to areas affected by cancer or other disease, just do the same thing. No effort or striving, just feel your mind moving through the area, relaxing it and letting the light build up to the same level as in the rest of your body. This produces a feeling of uniformity throughout the body—a vital, healthy uniformity and it promotes the healing response.
Sometimes, relaxing areas affected by disease causes some initial discomfort. This is because we often have long-standing tension in the region around them as a defense mechanism. These exercises relax that tension and often produce sensations of temporary discomfort, occasionally tingling, even brief muscle spasms or jerks. Be assured this soon gives way to a feeling of warmth and ease. Also, this radiant light technique is very helpful for pain relief, and we will discuss this in detail soon (chapter 10).
The Radiant Light Exercise
Begin by putting all your attention onto just one big toe. Form an image in your mind of your toe and travel through it, examining each part in your mind. It is as if in your mind, you travel around the skin, under the nails, through the joints, tendons, ligaments and muscles. As you do so, you aim to relax each part in minute detail. So this is a process to take slowly. You really do dwell on each part of the toe, feel into it and feel it relaxing deeply and completely.
You may well notice feelings of warmth flowing into the areas you relax in this deep way; maybe even a light tingling almost like mild pins and needles. This is a sign blood is flowing more freely through the area and relaxation is deepening.
Next, you build up an image of radiant white light suffusing each area of the toe. It is as if that toe was a light globe with a dimmer switch. You turn on that switch and gradually increase the light until the toe is full of vibrant white light. You will find it feels marvelous. When you do it well, you will be thinking of nothing else, just experiencing the vibrancy of it all.
So, having begun with one toe, then move to the next and so on, until the whole foot is “lit up.” You may find that at the first session attending to just one toe takes all your time. That would be fine. Next session you will find that you can recapture the feeling in that toe more easily and more quickly and so you can start with the next toe. At each session work on more areas until you can capture the feeling throughout the body. It is the feeling of relaxation, lightness and vitality that is the main thing. You aim to complete the exercise feeling deeply relaxed, filled with the radiant, healing, vibrant light.
The aim of the radiant light exercise is to lead us to a point of profound relaxation, with an accompanying sense of wholeness and vitality. So this exercise really serves to add another means of reaching the stillness of passive meditation. It is that end point which is the really important thing.
Relaxation Trigger Points
As you become more aware of your body, you will almost certainly find that some areas feel more tense than others. Common areas of tension are the muscles of the forehead, jaw, shoulders, tummy, hands and lower back. You will find that when you are placed in a stressful situation, one or more of these areas may tense up first. Just watch what happens next time you are “pushed.” These areas are called trigger areas and they are very useful! Remember the reflex?
Anxiety + Stress = Muscular tension
Muscular relaxation = No anxiety, no adverse effect from stress
Having identified localized areas where tension shows up, we can concentrate on relaxing those areas, and when we succeed in doing so, we are well on the way to being relaxed. This is a very good defense mechanism to use if you feel stress is still affecting you. If you feel a situation is causing stress to build up, concentrate upon relaxing your trigger areas. You will find that if you keep your body relaxed, the whole situation will be defused.
Relaxation in Daily Life
Once you have experienced the “feel” of relaxation in your formal exercises, you will be able to recapture it at will during the day. Soon it will become your natural state. Free from tension, you will be able to react appropriately and will not be affected by stress.
Ideally, we aim to be relaxed all day and impervious to potentially stressful situations. Practicing these techniques goes a long way toward this end and we can do still more to achieve it. At every opportunity through the day, at every idle moment, take the time to check your level of relaxation. Do an internal inventory. Start with the trigger areas and make sure they are relaxed.
When you begin doing this, you may find that every time you think of your trigger areas, they need help to be more fully relaxed. That is fine. It is good to simply notice such a fact; and then to realize you can do something about it! That is why we practice. That is why we persist with these exercises. Relax. Smile. Know that the worse the tension to begin with, the more benefit you will get in the long run by relaxing!
Seek to experience the feeling of relaxation at every opportunity. After a while you will stay relaxed and you will feel a wonderful difference.
Relaxing Moments
Use your time wisely. When in the car, do not just waste those precious seconds at the red lights. Relax as much as you can and feel how good it is. Maybe take a deeper breath in; breathe out, and let go. The muscles softening and loosening. The feeling of relaxation all through.
And then remember the cat. Relaxed but alert. As we watch a cat in slow motion, the foreleg flows gracefully forward. All the muscles at the front of the leg are contracting to draw the leg forward. The muscles at the back of the leg are relaxed. There is nothing to hinder the flow of the leg or stilt the action. Look at a tense person walking—they jerk along in a most ungainly way. The relaxed cat flows. When the leg moves backward, the muscles at the back of the leg contract, and those at the front relax.
So even while driving along, be aware that your trigger areas are relaxed. Ideally, your whole body is inherently relaxed. And at the same time, you are quite alert, focused and mindful, ideally poised in body and mind for the driving.
The key to this is the principle that you use only the muscles you need for any given task of the day. To avoid stress, to maintain a relaxed state, muscles are either working at a specific function or at rest. They do not need to hold any residual tension.
I have seen many people take on a new elegance and charm merely by learning to relax properly. Perhaps this was most marked in Edna, an elderly patient. As she learned to relax, the worry and tension left her face. Coupled with the benefits of the diet, a new vitality and vigor came over her, producing a genuine, radiant glow that was obvious to all.
Very soon, using these techniques, your body will be relaxed, your mind also, and the benefits of the meditation will have entered your daily life. You will be reacting appropriately and you will be heading toward profound healing and long-term good health.
Putting it All together • The Main Meditation Practice: Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation
This completes all the background and preliminaries we need to be aware of and to have practiced so that we are ready for the main meditation practice of mindfulness-based stillness meditation (MBSM).
Remember the simple summary: having prepared well, we relax. Relaxing more deeply, we become more mindful. As our mindfulness develops, the stillness naturally reveals itself. We rest in open, undistracted awareness.
Here is the “script” we can learn to lead us through mindfulness-based stillness meditation:
The Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation—Main Practice
Take a few moments to adjust your body . . . and then, when you are ready . . . relax into your posture . . .
Now, let us begin by letting go of what we have been doing recently . . . and bringing our attention more particularly to this present moment . . .
To do this, it may help to bring the focus of our attention to the breath for a few moments . . . to simply be aware that as we are breathing in, we are breathing in . . . and as we are breathing out, we are breathing out . . .
And as you do bring your attention more particularly to the breath . . . you will probably notice that as you do breathe out, there is a natural feeling of relaxing a little with the outbreath . . . of letting go a little . . .
Breathing out . . . and letting go . . . relaxing . . . releasing . . . letting go . . .
Feeling it deeply . . . completely . . . and feeling it all through the body . . . and the mind . . . it is a good feeling . . . a natural feeling . . . just going with it . . . calm and relaxed . . . calm and relaxed . . . going with it . . . quite effortlessly . . . effortlessly . . . letting go . . .
And just allowing your breath to take up whatever rhythm feels comfortable for you at the moment . . . breathing out . . . relaxing . . . releasing . . . letting go . . . breathing out, and the breath becoming longer . . . finer . . . subtler . . . then a pause . . . and simply allowing the breath to come back in of its own accord . . . quite effortlessly . . . effortlessly . . . going with it . . . relaxing . . . releasing . . . and feeling the ease of it all . . . the ease of it all . . .
And now, it might help to take your attention to that point between the eyes, a little into the forehead . . . and notice there what is like a still, quiet center . . . a point of stillness . . . and relax your eyes . . . and soften your gaze . . . and hold your attention lightly, on that point of stillness . . .
And if you do notice any sounds coming to your awareness . . . just let them come when they are ready . . . and go when they are ready . . . a bit like white clouds, drifting across a blue sky . . . they just come when they are ready . . . go when they are ready . . .
Holding your attention lightly on the stillness . . . and simply letting go . . . letting go . . .
And if any sensations in your body do come to your awareness . . . just the same . . . just simply notice them . . . free of any judgment . . . free of any reaction, or commentary . . . and feel the letting go . . . your body relaxing . . . and releasing . . . holding your attention lightly on the stillness . . . and simply noticing whatever may come to your attention . . . simply being aware . . . a gentle focus on the stillness . . . and letting things come when they are ready . . . go when they are ready . . . letting go . . . letting go . . .
And if you do notice any thoughts coming to your attention . . . just the same . . . just let them come when they are ready . . . go when they are ready . . . gently holding your attention on the stillness . . . and feeling the ease of it all . . . the ease of it all . . . just simply letting go . . . letting go . . .
And then it is almost as if you can merge into that stillness . . . relaxing . . . releasing . . . simply resting in the stillness . . . aware . . . free of any judgment . . . free of any commentary . . . and feeling the ease of it all . . . the ease of it all . . . just simply letting go . . . and resting in the stillness . . . quite effortlessly . . . effortlessly . . . letting go . . . letting go . . .
LONG GAP—for your meditation
And if at any stage you do notice your mind wandering or becoming distracted . . . as soon as you become aware of that . . . gently bring your attention back to that point of stillness . . . relaxing . . . releasing . . . just going with it . . . melting . . . merging . . . simply resting in the stillness . . . quite effortlessly . . . effortlessly . . . letting go . . . letting go . . .
LONG GAP—for your meditation
That’s good . . . good . . . good . . . When you are ready now . . . just let your eyes gently open once again.
Meditation Conclusion
The aim of our meditation is to relax deeply and to rest in the balance of deep natural peace. In any given session of meditation, we do the simplest things that will help us to this end. So if we need to, it may be wise to start by taking the time to go through the complete progressive muscle relaxation exercise. But if we have practiced enough and it works for us, it may be enough to simply take a deeper breath or two and feel the body relax quickly and deeply.
Once we feel the body to be relaxed, we become more mindful. We notice whatever does come to our awareness, free of any judgment or commentary. We just allow things to come when they are ready, go when they are ready, and we remain in undistracted awareness.
As time goes on a deeper stillness becomes apparent. Sounds may come and go, thoughts may come and go. They do not disturb us. We rest in deep, natural peace. And as we do so, there is the knowing that we are in a state of deep, natural balance. And the healing flows.
Happy meditating. Happy healing.
