What is the greatest antidote to cancer? Petrea King writes about her experience, insight and knowledge on creating the ideal physiology to regain and maintain our health.
“The greatest antidote to cancer is to be fully engaged in living the life you came here to live. When we actively engage in a fulfilling life and take care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, we create the ideal physiology in which our health can be maintained or regained.
Over the past 33 years, I’ve worked with tens of thousands of people living with the impact that cancer has on their lives and who are looking to actively contribute to their own healing.
Healing is different from curing
Curing focuses on the physical body. Healing focuses on the whole of the human being – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I know people who have been cured but are still in need of healing and people who have died healed of everything that ever stopped them from truly living. These are the paradoxes of healing.
When I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in September 1983 I was told I wouldn’t see Christmas. When I did see Christmas and in fact beyond, I started working with people with cancer as a naturopath and meditation teacher. I shared with my clients my knowledge of nutrition, supplements, meditation and other healing therapies. Over the years as I saw many people regain their health I realised there is no one pathway to health and healing. There is no one diet, no best meditation practice and no perfect supplement program for all people.
Outliving expectations
It became obvious to me that the people who were far outliving their prognosis or who attained unexpected remissions were not all doing the same things. They each found their own particular path to healing and in each case, it was a pathway that was right for them. What these people all have in common is a way of being rather than doing. In this lies the key to profound healing.
Focusing only on the physical aspects of healing addresses only part of the problem of ill health. It’s easy to focus on the aspects of healing that are involved in ‘doing’. Indeed, we feel reassured when we are busy ‘doing’. But our doing can be at the expense of our being.
The 4 keys to resilience, healing and peace
Real health is our capacity to embrace every moment, regardless of its challenges, with an open heart and a quiet mind. This definition of peace is embodied in the Four Keys to Resilience, Healing and Peace:
1. CONTROL
We regain a sense of control, choosing not to react from our history but making an appropriate response to the situation in which we find ourselves. This requires awareness and a desire to participate rather than feeling a helpless victim of our circumstance.
2. COMMITMENT
We care enough to be committed to getting emotionally up to date with our life so that we can be here now ~ in the present moment. We have healthy priorities: we nourish, rest, exercise and attend to our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self; we are in clear communion with ourselves and have the capacity to communicate with our loved ones.
3. CHALLENGE
We find our life positively challenging, recognising that we’re here to grow in wisdom and in our capacity to love and make meaning of our suffering.
4. CONNECTION
We feel lovingly connected to those we share our life with and to our own spiritual essence or we have a profound sense of connectedness to nature, our friends or family and our community.
These 4 qualities of ‘being’ are found in people who attain unexpected remissions, who far outlive their doctor’s expectations or who are now entirely free of their disease when that was never expected. People don’t always do the same things, but they generally have these same qualities of being.
Curing or Healing?
We don’t heal from something we resist or fear, we heal into that which we more deeply desire. Healing requires that we’re willing to examine every belief, judgment, value, desire, inhibition, expectation and assumption we hold. In time, we discard everything but those things that we find true in their depths.
Curing is only about the finite state not the process. Healing addresses the whole person, taking into account the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects thus leading to a deeper understanding and wisdom about ourselves. Life is not a competition to see who stays alive the longest. We value a life by the passion with which it was lived, by the love made evident, by the peace or joy given to others rather than its length.
Peace is always possible
When we desire to live with this sense of peace in our lives the outcome is guaranteed. Peace is always possible and regardless of the circumstances of our lives, peace becomes our reality.
The living presence of these qualities creates the ideal environment in which physical healing can take place. If a physical cure is not to be our lot we still have a profound peace. This is the peace that passes all understanding.”
If you are living with a cancer diagnosis, our Quest for Life residential program provides a recipe for peace and healing no matter your circumstance or challenge.
Learn more about all our residential programs and 1-day programs.
