3.4 ESTABILIDAD EN TRASTORNO BIPOLAR
3.4.3 Tendencias de futuro
I
n most ways, it was a day like any other back in 1985. I awoke at 5:00 a.m., did my concentrated hour of yoga and meditation, and hurriedly showered as I began, in my already over-full brain, to organize my busy day ahead. With two teenage kids to rouse from their usual deep sleep, breakfasts were always a challenge as I continually yelled those all-too-common words, “Get up now, or you’ll be late for school!”However for me, this morning was different. As I stood in front of the bathroom mirror after my delicious, steamy shower, deep in contemplation, I noticed that the little blue spot under my eye (from an extremely hard baseball that hit my eye when I was eleven) was not the same. Today it was shiny, hard, and kind of a mixture of black and purple, depending on how the light. It definitely would have been beautiful as the fabric of a dress for me, since those are my best colors.
But on my face, it was not a pretty picture! How had I not noticed this before? I guess like most moms, I rarely had the luxury of time to gaze in the mirror at my face when the day ahead always had so
many demands to meet. A quick make-up job, and then I was off and running.
That particular morning I’d awoke feeling on top of the world. I had arrived! My own professional association invited me to be a key-note presenter at our annual conference. As I showered, anticipation and a sense of incredible possibilities filled my thoughts. I planned my speech and visualized the room packed with more than a thousand of my peers. The thrill of this picture left me almost breathless. Until I looked in the mirror! Would you want to stand up there on a stage with that ugly thing on your face? No question about it . . . this had to be removed pronto!
That began a journey that I shall always remember. Here I was at the peak of my career and feeling like I had achieved amazing success, only to be slapped in the face with a diagnosis of cancer. Melanoma, to be exact! I had no idea how serious this illness could be. But, as if that weren’t enough, a week after I got out of the hospital from this diag-nosis, I was rushed into the hospital again with uterine cancer — stage four. I was only thirty-five years old! The women in my own family impacted by this were more than double my age when diagnosed.
Of course, I went through all of the same feelings everybody else goes through. How could this be possible? I was vegan, practiced yoga, meditated daily, used the most environmentally friendly products I could find, worked hard, and had the respect of my peers and busi-ness associates for always doing more than what was asked of me. I appeared to have more energy than most people I knew, and on the sur-face looked, very healthy. In other words, I went into complete denial, followed by immense, almost seething anger, and eventually felt like a completely hopeless victim. My frequent lament was — you guessed it — “Why me?”
Four years later, I found myself at the lowest point in my life, and health, imaginable. My finances were low — well let’s just say nil — and I had not been able to eat solid foods for months. I could only suck on ice chips in order to stay hydrated. My body wasted away simply from lack of nourishment. And, just as most of my seri-ously ill patients have done, I tried everything anyone suggested, from anywhere and everywhere in the world, in search of that magic bullet.
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By 1989, I weighed eighty-eight pounds and was in a wheel chair.
They said I wouldn’t live more than another week or so. That’s when the miracles began!
In an effort to get me out of the house, my family and friends dragged me off, or rather wheeled me off, to a local home show. There, a rather handsome young man with a Vita Mix machine (which I now fondly refer to as a 2-horsepower lawn mower for food!) introduced me to cantaloupe ice, with seeds and all included. After two months of this concoction, I had obviously outlived my prognosis by six weeks. Hope swept through my entire being. I was on my journey back to health. I included other fruits as tolerated, then vegetables, and eventually tofu, soy, and whole grains — in other words, whole foods in a whole food form; back-to-basics real food nutrition.
There’s much more, though. You know how we say that illness, or wellness, is a whole body experience — emotionally, mentally, physi-cally, and spiritually? Well, that same weekend, a close friend took me to a Bernie Siegel event — a full day seminar. Whew! Absolutely one of the least comfortable days of my life that I can remember! Not only on a physical level, but on every level imaginable. I faced so many things about myself and my life that I had avoided, ignored, buried, or denied, and otherwise never addressed. Cancer personality? Living everyday with endless shoulds, coulds, and woulds? “People pleaser”
be damned! I had things that had to get done! Taking time out for myself? There weren’t enough hours in the day for anything other than family and work responsibilities! Love my life and have fun? Life is an uphill battle, with no rest until you die! Stop constantly doing, and start being. Being? What in heaven’s name was this crazy doctor talk-ing about?
On the first break, the kind doctor came over to me and asked me my story. Reflecting back, I am quite certain that the huge block on my shoulder (block versus chip) expressed itself most clearly that day. I had a most definite victim perspective of the whole situation.
Poor me. It’s not fair! After all I had done for others, always putting them first — that’s right: the great big martyr story! Everything bad that could happen to anyone happened to me! Everything and everyone was doing it to me! I had no control and was at the mercy of all of the
odds against me. Poor little defenseless damsel in major distress! Ever meet anyone like that?
None of this deterred the doctor. His kind, compassionate, and loving gaze truly warmed my heart. He actually listened to me with-out interruption. And then he asked me a strange question: Did I see cancer as a friend? I was horrified! A friend? Indeed not! He assured me that my response was appropriate, asking what we normally do with a friend. We keep a friend around, of course. So did I see cancer as my enemy? “Absolutely!” I responded. His response to his own question of “What do you do with an enemy?” was that we also keep an enemy around. I sat expressionless, not sure how to reply. He continued saying that we do this from a negative stance; always looking for ways to get even with them, to get revenge for one thing or another, or just by con-stant feelings of anger, hate, resentment, or frustration toward them.
I had never thought of it from that perspective before. And, without question, I had spent most of my life with complete anger and resent-ment toward my mother, whose resent-mental illness and excessive violent outbursts resulted in massive turmoil throughout my entire life.
The last, and most provocative, question was — are you ready for this one? — “Can you see cancer as your teacher?” I’m sorry, I thought.
That was just stretching this whole experience way too far for me at that moment. “Well,” he asked, “what do you do with a teacher when you have learned all that you can from that teacher?” Oh my good-ness. I got it! You release that teacher and move on to the next teacher.
You let go of that teacher, filled with all of the learnings and growth that you have gained, so that you can then be open for the next level of learning and growth in your life. So then, the big question for me became, “What is this cancer journey trying to teach me?” As Dr. Siegel was wrapping up our precious moments together that wonderful and fateful day, he tried to hug me. He truly is a great hugger! I completely contracted and flinched. Smiling, he said, “Imagine if a hug a day could keep the doctor away, what might ten hugs a day do?” Quite frankly, hugs were never something I felt comfortable giving, or receiving. Well, at least not until that incredible day.
After the seminar completed, we left that hustling, bustling room, abuzz with an unprecedented level of enthusiasm, anticipation, and joy.
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My heart raced with excitement, and my mind swam with all of the conceptual frameworks introduced by this amazing doctor. And the question kept racing through my already-full mind: “What is cancer trying to teach me?”
That evening I attempted to journal again (something I had done off and on over the years), in an effort to find the answer to this chal-lenging question. I started a new type of journaling book: my book of gratitudes. What you focus on expands in your life. So, if you focus on what you are grateful for, you will attract into and create in your life a lot more to be grateful for. Without a doubt, this was a most difficult process I attempted that evening. I did not fare well at all. There was not one thing that the block on my shoulder would allow me to see as something to be grateful for in my life! I gave up and went to bed, com-pletely fatigued from such an intense day of inner work, yet filled with calm anticipation for the potential healing of my body and soul.
Very early the following morning I awoke with answers to my question. That’s right. Answers with an “s”! Life had become so full of commitments, perceived obligations, constant busyness, and a mile-long list of things that I was tolerating — constantly “shoulding” on myself — that I experienced absolutely no joy or love for, or in, my life.
And I was definitely not having any fun! I was very clear that all of this had to change. How was another story. The morning was extremely overcast and depressing. When I pulled out my gratitude journal to once again try to come up with five things I was thankful for, my mind drew a complete blank. Then I remembered the good doctor saying that if I could think of only one thing to be grateful for, just write that down five times. At that very moment, the sun forced its beautiful bright smile out from behind those dense dark clouds, just for a very brief few seconds. Wow, what a sight! Overwhelmed with gratitude for that exquisite moment of brilliance, I immediately wrote it down — not once, but five times. “Thank God for the brilliant sun shining upon me and helping me to heal my resilient body!”
A month later, I was writing at least a hundred different gratitudes in my journal, each and every day. A year later, I recovered. And to prove that I was on the mend, I ran a mile — in thirty minutes. Slow, yes, but a huge step forward from where I was! It’s been over seventeen
years now, and my life is brim full of wonderful new adventures and tremendously loving friends and associates. I love my life — and I have lots of fun! Every day, I awaken filled with gratitude for the opportu-nity to just be here, to live my purpose, and to experience purpose for life in general.
Some important laws I’ve learned, through my journey with cancer, for creating a healthy, abundant, and meaningful life, include:
1) Surround yourself with loving people who express gratitude daily for their own lives.
2) Take five — five minutes — throughout the day to just be still and experience the stillness deep within: emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.
3) Live in the moment. The past is like a canceled check, the future like a promissory note, and you cannot do anything about either one. Today is cash in hand. Spend it wisely. It is the “present”
you have been given, to unwrap and thoroughly embrace and enjoy — moment to moment! So, you see, you can change your life in an instant.
4) Live every day filled with gratitude. Write at least five things, large or small, that you are grateful for each day in your own Gratitude Journal. Focusing on the good in your life creates more of the same.
5) Gratefully take responsibility for your own life, and learn to discern. Ask questions. Go to the source. Awareness and knowl-edge, balanced with some wisdom and a generous dose of discipline, are the cornerstones of a healthy life.
6) Stop “shoulding” on yourself! You have choices. Make them based on your own — no one else’s — dreams, desires, goals, and personality.
7) Celebrate to accelerate (as my close friend Tim says). Gratefully honor yourself for your successes and a job well done. What you focus on expands!
8) Use balanced affirmation statements and visualization, along with “feelization,” to achieve success in anything you do. Feeling
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your success as you visualize it, before you have actualized it, opens you up to receiving/creating your desired results.
9) Write a long list of all the people you want to meet, and another long list of all of the things you want to do and places you want to go, before you die. People who do this generally live long, healthy lives. They have too much to do before they go!
10) See the sunny side of life. Laugh a lot, especially at yourself.
Read Anatomy of an Illness by Norman Cousins. And watch a lot of funny movies!
11) Do what you love, and love what you do. Be in integrity with who you really are, not who you think you should be to please others. Discover your mission and live it with purpose. This is your birthright!
12) Gratefully be of service to others with love and generosity. Rec-ognize the privilege it is to be alive and to be able to co-create, with others, a world filled with love, compassion, and gratitude for everything this life has to offer.
What I discovered during that often frightening, and most definitely challenging, journey of self-discovery, is that when I live according to my purpose, with sincere gratitude for everything that occurs every day, my life is filled with more love, joy, and abundance than one could ever imagine. And, as much as I realize that this is a cliché, it is amazingly true that within every seemingly dark cloud exists a miraculous silver lining. We just had to be open to see it — and then to act on it. What do you have to lose? Why not start right now with whatever is directly in front of you that you feel is an unfair hand of fate, and ask for the lesson. Then feel and express (in your Gratitude Journal) sincere and deep gratitude for the answer you receive — that answer may just save your life. It saved mine!
❤ ❤ ❤
Dr Marilyn Joyce, RD, The Vitality Doctor™, is an internationally acclaimed inspirational keynote speaker, seminar leader, trainer, writer, radio and television personality, and one of the world’s leading
authorities on overcoming and preventing degenerative illnesses five minutes at a time. For over thirty years, Dr. Joyce, Registered Dietitian, has been inspiring audiences around the world with her lively, informa-tion-packed seminars and workshops, which are loaded with powerful, proven, quick, and easy strategies for creating outstanding health and vitality. As a television and radio personality on such shows as Doctor to Doctor, Leeza and Jenny Jones, she has touched hundreds of thou-sands of lives. Marilyn is the author of 5 Minutes to Health, I Can’t Believe It’s Tofu! and the soon-to-be-released Instant Energy! She is the former Director of Nutrition for the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, and is herself a five-time cancer survivor — now thriver! For more information visit: www.marilynjoyce.com.
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