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I’m writing this on a plane on my way to Madrid, Spain, starting a four week trip with two friends, Carol Purin and Robbie Lambert.

At the train station in Toledo, Spain

We are going to Morocco, many Spanish cities, and ending up in Barcelona. I haven’t taken a vacation like this for 45 years. I wonder what it will be like to not focus on work or personal health challenges. This is my time to have an adventure.

I have a surgery date of June 17 to take out the lump under my arm that is metastatic breast cancer, based on the biopsy done in March. It’s a slow-growing cancer and I wasn’t willing to give up this long planned trip to have it out sooner. My intuition says this trip is part of my “treatment” and all is in divine order.



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My feelings are my life force. It’s how I experience spirit moving through me. I can only heal when I let myself feel. When I repress my feelings, there is no movement. When I allow myself to feel, transformation is possible. Feelings are not meant to be fixed, but to be experienced.<

This all makes sense to me theoretically, but it's so hard for me to practice, especially when the feeling is anger. I’m so uncomfortable with anger that I often don’t even let myself know that I’m feeling it. That’s repression, and it means it won’t move, and when that happens, it can run my life.

I’ve been practicing expressing anger when I’m aware of it, and have been surprised that it really has changed. Last week when I journaled about feeling angry at a friend, I got in touch with the underlying feelings of the deep love I felt for the person I was angry at, and my fear of losing her. When I could express all of that, I felt tender and warm and loving. What a transformation.

It’s scary to go beneath the anger and feel the vulnerable feelings that are usually there. And my experience is that it’s worth it. Expressing those vulnerable feelings with someone I love brings us closer together and I’d rather have that connection than to stay on my position and be right.

For most of my life, feelings haven’t been encouraged or valued. When I studied Non-Violent Communication, developed by Marshall Rosenberg, I discovered that I had a very limited vocabulary for feelings. It helps me to get in touch with my feelings when I have a list of words to choose from. Here is a list on the NVC website that you can use when you are trying to identify or express feelings.

As I am dealing with another cancer recurrence, one of the strategies I am using is to value and address my feelings more. It’s not because I think that will get rid of the cancer, but because my feelings are how spirit moves through me. It’s what makes me feel alive. Feelings are what make me excited to get up in the morning. I want to stimulate them, feel them, express them, and transform through them. It’s about quality of life, and that’s what feels most important right now.

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In the Spirit of Healing,

Jan Adrian, MSW
Founder and Executive Director

www.healingjourneys.org

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For several months I’ve felt a lump under my right arm. It lit up on a PET scan in late February. I had a needle biopsy last week and heard once again, “it’s breast cancer.” I don’t have the full pathology report yet, so don’t have treatment recommendations.

My first reaction was the usual “Oh shit!” I’ve gone through this so many times that I quit counting. More than 10 times in the last 23 years. Each time it seems like I go through some of the same questions, and some new ones come up. Am I responsible for this in some way? What have I done wrong? I wish there was an answer to this because it seems to follow that if I have done something to cause it, I can do something to eliminate it. It all comes down to wanting some control. And bottom line is that I’m not in control of whether I have cancer or not.

I have two opposing points of view. One is that if I have no control anyway, I should just do whatever I want. Eat whatever appeals to me. Have fun. Don’t worry. Be happy.

The other option is that I become more self-disciplined than ever; maintain a rigorous exercise program; eat only the “right” food; make sure I get enough sleep; do guided imagery regularly; meditate; go to more cancer conferences; study the research; take supplements; this list could go on and on. My guess is that I will again choose something in between these opposites.

My therapist suggests that everything “given” to us has a purpose of helping us to learn to know and trust ourselves more. She says to go inside, be quiet, and trust my intuition. I know there will be benefits to doing that no matter what. If this leads me on a path of trusting myself more, that’s a good thing. In making decisions about treatment (or no treatment), she believes that the method of getting there is more important than what the decision is.

I’m grateful that this cancer is again under my arm, close to the surface, and not in a vital organ. It has my attention, but isn’t an immediate threat to my life.

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Last year I attended a conference offered by the Healthy Medicine Academy called Advanced Cancer Strategies.  It was a conference for doctors, given by doctors who are studying new approaches to treating cancer.  It’s where I learned that an ablation might be a good strategy to treat my lung tumor that was diagnosed as metastatic breast cancer.  (I had this done successfully in November, 2012.)

One of the speakers was Dwight McKee, MD.  Dwight McKee is a Board Certified Medical Oncologist, and Hematologist, and is also Board Certified in Nutrition, and Integrative and Holistic Medicine.  He created some of the treatment protocols I followed in my 23 years of living with cancer, and I have great respect for his work.  His talk at that conference was a great analysis of why we haven’t been able to find a cure for cancer with the current medical model, and how that is changing.  I have wanted to share that talk with you and finally have a way to do that.

Healthy Medicine Academy just introduced a new journal called Cancer Strategies Journal. The inaugural issue came out in January and includes that talk as an article by Dr. McKee.

He says that “Integrative oncology” is an oxymoron. Oncology is the study of tumors and ways to attack them.  We also need to consider the person who has the malignancy and the terrain that is the microenvironment within which tumor cells are living.  He says “Integrative cancer medicine” is what science is discovering to be the most effective way to treat cancer.

One of the basic ways to alter the terrain of the microenvironment in which the tumor is growing is through nutrition.  Healing Journeys has been offering The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen workshops. This year is the first opportunity to experience this popular workshop in South Carolina.  Because of the funding provided by the local community in South Carolina, the workshop in Greer on April 13th is being offered for an incredibly low price.  I can guarantee it will be a fun, informative, inspiring, and empowering day, and you will love the food. Healthy and delicious really can go together.

If you can’t attend the workshop, the DVDs of this workshop offered last year with Jeanne Wallace and Rebecca Katz are available for purchase in our webstore.

In Dwight’s article, he says, “The microenvironment is finally beginning to be a focus of laboratory researchers and we are at the dawn of that era.  There is a huge amount happening in the interplay between the tumor and its microenvironment, and the interaction of that tumor and its microenvironment’s interaction with the body of the person who has that tumor. We are now learning from basic research that stress can powerfully facilitate the process of metastasis in animal models.”

You can read the rest of the article here.

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In the Spirit of Healing,

Jan Adrian, MSW
Founder and Executive Director

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A few weeks ago, I attended a workshop led by Julie Interrante called Wisdom of Anger.  I’m not in touch with feeling angry very often and thought it would be useful to learn to know and be comfortable with that side of myself. With Julie’s guidance, we each wrote about something we were angry about. I was surprised to discover how angry I am at having to deal with cancer so many times. I’ve done so many things “right” — I’ve worked with a nutritionist perfecting my diet; I’ve reduced the stress in my life; I’ve deepened my spiritual life; I’m having more fun. I’m pissed off that I still have cancer.

This doesn’t mean I don’t also feel grateful. I’m often aware of feeling opposite feelings simultaneously. I’m grateful that having cancer has led me to the fulfilling work of Healing Journeys and to the many friendships that have developed through that work. And I’m grateful that the new lump under my arm that lit up on a PET scan last week isn’t in a vital organ. It’s close to the surface and will be easy to remove. I’m grateful that the cryoablation of the tumor in my lung appears to have been successful. It hasn’t grown since the November ablation, and is less “active” on the PET scan.

Even though I am feeling all this gratitude, I am also really angry that my body has continued to grow cancer cells for 24 years. One feeling doesn’t negate the other. One of the challenges of life is to be able to embrace opposites as equally true.

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I’ve had some phone calls from people wondering where our free conference is this year. I’m sad to say that we’re not offering one in 2013. It takes a year to raise the money and plan such a large event. Since we offered two of them in 2012, we didn’t have the time to raise the funding to create one for 2013. We are now starting the planning process for the 2014 free Cancer as a Turning Point conference. It’s not too early to contribute to making it happen next year.

Even though we don’t have a free conference this year, we have some very exciting smaller events, in Sacramento, South Carolina, and Mexico. The first event, coming up in March, is the two-day workshop called Saying Yes: Cancer as a Catalyst. I’ve heard from several people who have expressed a reluctance to sign up because they might have to feel their pain. We live in a culture that says if something is difficult, scary or painful, run like hell. It seems we have made an unspoken agreement that we cannot tolerate our own fear and discomfort. This is not serving us because it turns us away from the invitation of our souls.

Julie Interrante, MA, is an experienced and gentle guide, who creates a safe and supportive environment, to help us say yes to the invitation of our souls and go for the transformation. Rather than push pain and fear away, we will invite it in; we will listen; we will stay present; we will love ourselves and love and support one another on the path of transformation. And we will celebrate life. Here is a 3-minute video introduction to the workshop.

This year is the first opportunity to experience the popular workshop,
The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen, in South Carolina. Because of the funding provided by the local community in South Carolina, the workshop in Greer on April 13th is being offered for an incredibly low price. I can guarantee it will be a fun, informative, inspiring, and empowering day, and you will love the food. Healthy and delicious really can go together!

I hope to see many of you at these events.

Leave a comment.

In the Spirit of Healing,

Jan Adrian, MSW
Founder and Executive Director