In the media there has been a lot of coverage on breast cancer, mastectomy and the ‘very few choices’ a woman has when diagnosed. It feels there is no time like now to look at how prevention is better than a cure and how more choices become available when we come back to honesty, and truly listen to our bodies.
A simple question perhaps we should address is:
What do we women need to change in order to prevent a diagnosis of breast cancer in the first place, so that we never have to face the possibility of a mastectomy, or taking drugs like Tamoxifen to prevent a mastectomy (not forgetting that there are side effects that come with this drug)?
Where do we begin? The answer appears obvious….
We have to look at ourselves, in how we are living on a daily basis and the choices we are making, in the knowing that every choice we make has a consequence and catches up with us at some point.
This breaks the illusion and delusion that we get off scot-free when we make ill choices with regards to our health and somehow, it has to be said, that when we have ‘youth on our side’, this fact does not seem to register.
Many women today experience stress, anxiousness, overwhelm, chronic fatigue, varying levels of depression and exhaustion, which have just become ‘normal’. As women we have become very creative with our coping strategies to get through the day, but the essential point is as long as we accept this way of living as ‘normal’, that is, choosing to give our bodies a constant bashing day in, day out, it is just a matter of time until our body says “Enough! Time to stop the body bashing.”
How does our body make us stop? Illness and disease stops us in our ill momentum, and gets our immediate attention. It can be anything from a broken ankle/leg/arm to cancer, diabetes, the flu, back/heart problems, etc. Thus the day comes to face the consequences of our choices because we did not listen to the countless messages from our body to stop, slow down, rest and change.
Why does it then come as a huge shock when our bodies break down, or malfunction and make us stop?
Let’s talk about the shock. The huge shock of the diagnosis of breast cancer in July 2011 shook me up, woke me up and was when I started getting honest with myself. For the first time ever, I started making different choices that I had always wanted to make, but just couldn’t, as my numbing habits/patterns and self-neglect had become so ingrained and so ‘normal’ I felt trapped.
Much later, my body whispered; ‘you needed the shock to wake you up, and you needed the cancer to make you stop and change your life’.
My body showed me that we cannot live how we want to without consequences.
What would happen if we as women stopped with the coping strategies and what would happen if we women stopped ignoring and rejecting our bodies?
Is it possible we might really feel how our bodies are actually feeling, and then we would feel the neglect, the disregard, the exhaustion and dishonesty we have been choosing, and even worse, we would discover there was no one to blame but ourselves?
Being dishonest with ourselves is what we need to change and Being Honest With Ourselves Leads to More Choices….
When I came back to honesty, somehow the view of my life expanded as the thick fog cleared and I could see and admit how I had been living in total disregard to my body. I also got to see how totally disconnected I was to living as a woman. My constant rushing and relentless pushing, driving-to-do-more attitude, never feeling enough and giving too much all meant my body became so hard, I could not feel anything thus, my ‘shock treatment’ (breast cancer), literally shattered my walls of protection and hardness before I could make the shift from dishonesty to honesty – in other words I made the shift from living from my head to living from my body.
This made it easier to be honest with myself and created the space, for me to reassess my life lived thus far; for me to accept all I had lived and chosen to that point, and that:
My life had been my own creation… including my breast cancer.
Owning what I had created was hugely significant in terms of my treatment, my recovery and my healing and my positive experience with breast cancer.
This honest space opened up the tiny, little world I was living in – like coming out from a long time in a small dark cave into the sunlight, I had to take baby steps to find my way in the light again. Going at my own gentle pace supported me to feel what my next steps were and what felt right for me, and in this slower pace, I came to realise I had a choice in every moment:
- To surrender or not
- To accept responsibility or not
- To ask for support or not
- To accept my body or not
- To truly heal and lovingly understand my past choices, or to have a quick fix
- To change nothing and go back to the same old
Being honest with ourselves allows us to truly feel how exhausted our bodies are, and from that awareness, we have a new choice – to continue the same old, the neglect, rejection and abuse of our bodies, or to make a change; Change How We Feel About Our Bodies.
If we live in the knowing that we have a choice in every moment in every day, and that every choice catches up with us, it becomes clear our health is our responsibility, and our lack of health is our own doing, then perhaps our body will not need to malfunction and deliver something unpleasant to get our attention. The question is: will your body get your attention today, or will you wait for the ‘shock treatment’ because:
Prevention is also a choice and has to be better than a cure.
In deep gratitude to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for all the support I received during my breast cancer and for the true understanding and awareness I gained of what illness and disease truly present; a clearing, a healing and a cure if we so choose.
by Jacqueline McFadden, BA in Computing and Human Resources; Teacher and Esoteric Healing Practitioner, The Netherlands
Further reading:
Lifestyle Choices and Breast Cancer Prevention by Jane Keep
Having a Mastectomy … Prevention against Breast Cancer: A Woman’s Choice – or is it? by Caroline Raphael
How Sacred Esoteric Healing Helped Support Me Through Breast Cancer by Lee-Ann Bailey