Simon: Cancer can be the biggest blessing that happened to you. It can improve your life and make you appreciate it more.

In this episode, I will talk about nine positive things about having cancer. Find out how to change your fearful state and feel great again.

Intro jingle: Welcome to the Cancer Wisdom Podcast. This podcast teaches you how to treat cancer with natural remedies without using toxic treatments.

Simon: Discover how to take charge of your health and not be a slave to big pharma medicine. Here's your host, Simon Persson.

Society sees cancer as the enemy and treats it with aggressive treatments. And there are several groups online that tell you that Cancer Sucks or F cancer. A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post about nine positive things about cancer.

I was reluctant to publish it because many people have a very negative view of cancer. But to my surprise, this blog post became one of my best-performing ones.

 In this blog post, I talked about cancer as a blessing. But how can I call it a blessing when cancer is the second largest cause of death in the world? Cancer is not good or bad. It's your perspective and attitude about it that will affect how well you deal with it or how to heal from cancer.   

Cancer can have negative consequences but also positive ones. Eckhart Tolle wrote the book A New Earth. In one part of his book, he said that every situation is neutral, and it's our interpretation that causes our suffering. He gives an example where you have 50 cents left in your bank account.

So this statement is a fact and is neutral. But what we tell in our head will affect how we feel. If I look at my bank account and say, "I'm ruined" because I only have 50 cents left, that's a story that causes stress.

But if I just face reality and accept the situation and look at what I can do to improve my situation, then I will not create suffering.

If you see cancer as a blessing and a way to teach you how to love yourself and take care of your body, then you will use natural remedies and make sure to feel good. And in the end, you will heal your body and feel happier.

But if you see cancer as the enemy and are afraid of it, then you will treat it with chemo, surgery, and radiotherapy.

Two perspectives can create two different outcomes. One person who sees cancer as a blessing will feel better than before, while the other one will create a lot of suffering and negativity. Henry Ford once said, "Whether you think you can or can't, you are right."

If you believe that you can heal from cancer, then you can. But if you believe that it's not possible, then you're also right because your attitude will affect your action steps.  

And the ones that survive have a more positive attitude about cancer and try to find the solution to the problem, and not treat cancer as the enemy but as something that can teach you more about health.

So the first blessing is that cancer saves your life. This statement can be shocking to you. So how can I say that it saves lives when cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world?

But cancer is misunderstood. We believe that cancer cells are rogue, evil cells that want to kill the body. Somehow some healthy cells decided to go against the body and kill it. But that's the furthest from the truth.

The body always wants to go back to a state called homeostasis. Everything the body does is to heal itself. Sometimes it needs to use unorthodox ways to return to health. And one such program is cancer. Cancer is part of a toxicity crisis and is not a disease and not here to kill you.

Cancer develops when your body is too toxic and not able to remove toxins from the body. In the first podcast episode, I told you that cancer is like, the garbage disposal system.

Cancer only develops in a toxic body, and because the body can't get rid of the toxins, it needs to use some healthy cells to absorb the toxins and protect the other healthy cells. Cancer cells are selfless and try to save the other cells.

And because cancer cells are surrounded by toxins, it needs to find an alternative way to get energy to survive so they can continue to absorb the toxins and protect the other cells. Therefore cancer cells use glucose to survive instead of oxygen like other cells.

So if cancer didn't absorb the toxins, then you would be dead in a couple of hours. Thanks to cancer, you can survive longer so that you can find a way to reverse your condition. It's actually the aggressive treatments that we use today, such as chemo or radiotherapy, that are to blame for the high death rate among cancer patients and not cancer itself.  
Cancer is not aggressive, and it doesn't have any weapons to kill anyone unless it blocks a vital pathway, such as the lungs or your digestion. If your body didn't need cancer, it could kill it on command, but it keeps it alive until you have dealt with the toxicity crisis.

Cancer is like when the garbage disposal system doesn't work anymore. Cancer cells are like plastic bags where you put your garbage. The plastic bag protects the house from toxins. And if no one picks up your garbage, then it will start to accumulate in your house.

And you can burn your bags, but that will only damage the house. The only way to solve the situation is to let someone pick up your garbage bag and dispose of it. So without cancer, you wouldn't be able to survive this long. It gives you a second chance to fix your underlying issue so that you can survive.

The second cancer blessing is that cancer lets you let go of your anger and emotional trauma. After doing some research, I have found that many cancer patients suffer from anger or emotional trauma from childhood.

So they often felt rejection by one of their parents or had difficulties with them. Cancer patients often suppress their desire to please someone else.

And our emotional trauma can affect our health and create cancer. There was a German called Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer who worked at a cancer clinic in Munich, Germany.

And one day, he got testicular cancer after his son died, and then he started to wonder if his cancer had to do with the trauma from the death of his son.

And then he tried to talk to his cancer patients about their trauma, and he discovered that everyone had experienced something traumatic before their cancer. And he also did CT scans of their brains and found a correlation between a particular cancer and a specific emotional trauma.

Hamer was able to pinpoint where in the brain that activated a specific cancer. And every patient had the same spot in the brain activated, and they also had the same emotional trauma.

Cancer tells you to let go of your emotions from the past and live a happy life, or continue to be angry and die. So sometimes, you need an ultimatum to make changes.

Forgiving someone is hard, but the reward is a peaceful life and happiness. Louis Hay is the author of You Can Heal Your Life.

She was a holistic practitioner interested in finding the emotional cause of different diseases. So one day, she got diagnosed with vaginal cancer, which terrified her.

But because of her research, she knew she had to detoxify her mind and body. In her movie and book, she explained her rough upbringing, where she got raped and abused by family members.

And Louis knew that cancer was because of anger and resentment. And her journey consisted of forgiving the people that violated and caused her suffering.

She managed to heal from cancer within six months without using any chemo or radiation. And the one thing that made her let go of her anger was her cancer.

She knew she had a lot of resentment towards the family members that abused her, and this negative energy was stuck in her body. And it was when she got cancer that she finally decided to let go of it.

Cancer can make you let go of your emotional trauma that you suppressed your whole life when cancer forces you to look within and work on yourself.

Another cancer blessing is that it can make you appreciate life more. It's easy to just go on with life and hate it. In the Western world, we have a lot of material stuff that we take for granted. We're often impatient and ignore the small things in life, such as nature, the smile of a baby, or our family.

But when cancer threatens your life, you can begin to appreciate it a lot more. I have a friend that went to Africa, and he saw some kids that didn't have any parents anymore. They died in some kind of conflict. These kids maybe ate once a day if they were lucky.

But my friend was shocked that these kids were the happiest people he had ever met in his life. And he almost became irritated by them. The reason why they were so happy was that they couldn't get validation from external things like in the West.

So they had to accept the moment as it was. They had to appreciate the small things in life that we in the West ignore.
When you have cancer and are in a life-and-death situation, you can appreciate life more. Small things like the scent of flowers, the sunset, or kids playing in the park can fill your heart.

Before your cancer, you could have ignored these things. But when your life is threatened, you are more focused on living life and can appreciate everything that you have. Cancer can make you open up to the small things in life that you were unaware of and now can cherish every day.

You can stop taking life for granted and focus less on the negativity. Cancer can teach you to live more in the now and learn that external things are fleeting and that everything that you have can be lost when your physical form dies.

Another cancer blessing is that cancer can make you eat healthier. Chris Wark is an author, speaker, and health coach. He's famous for his blog Chris Beat Cancer.

Chris told his followers that before his cancer diagnosis, he didn't care about his diet. He and his wife worked a lot and didn't prepare fresh meals often.

 So a typical breakfast for them was bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits, cereal, and waffles. He also drank sodas and ate candy, chips, microwave foods, and chicken breast. But then, in 2003, he started to question his awful lifestyle.

One major thing he did to beat his cancer was to change his eating habits. He started to drink vegetable juices and converted to a raw food, plant-based diet. And after a couple of years, he was cancer-free, and now he eats a lot of raw, organic fruits and vegetables, seeds, and nuts.

And he also drinks smoothies and vegetable juices almost daily. If his cancer hadn't forced him to rethink his diet, he wouldn't be as healthy as he's now. Cancer can push you to do something about your health and learn more about your diet.

I have made a lot of cancer survival videos on my YouTube channel, and when I listen to their stories or read about them, one common theme is that they change to a plant-based diet.

So science tells us that eating a plant-based diet can decrease our risk of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Animal products contain a lot of components that can develop cancer, such as IGF-1, heme-iron, saturated fat, cholesterol, and more.

Before a cancer diagnosis, most people don't care about their diet and believe you can eat animal products and processed foods and still be healthy. And when they get sick, they blame their genes.

But if you use cancer to grow, then it will force you to eat a better diet or die. But the good thing is that if you eat a plant-based diet, you will feel better and have more energy than you had in your twenties.

The fifth cancer blessing is that cancer can accelerate your spiritual growth. Cancer can be the start of your spiritual awakening.

I and everyone else have noticed that suffering is the best teacher. When you get a cancer diagnosis, the suffering can feel terrible. But every challenge in your life brings an opportunity to evolve. Facing death can be the best motivator to seek the solution to stress.

Enlightened people usually had the biggest egos and suffered the most. Pain can be the best way for you to seek the truth. So there's a saying that heaven and hell are only inches apart.  

So before you can become happy, you need to experience suffering to motivate you to work on yourself and reach heaven.

Most people had to go through hell before they could reach heaven. Suffering is extremely painful, and most people don't want to experience it.

So that motivates us to do something about it. Some people may use drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes to numb their feelings.
But other people who survive cancer can use cancer to evolve as human beings.

So when you are on the brink of losing it all, you will see that external things could never make you happy. You will learn to focus more from within, even if your life collapses. Cancer can teach you to seek happiness from within instead of external things.

So most people are wasting their lives chasing goals and external things that won't make them happy. They believe that money or success will make them happy, but instead, it'll only make them unhappy because they can always lose it.

But when you are in a life-and-death situation, you don't care about external things as much, and you have to learn to appreciate your life and work on yourself.

So cancer can make you slow down and reflect on your life. Thanks to cancer, you can become more content with less and get more joy than everyone else.

You don't have to chase all these goals and instead choose to do things that inspire you. And if you can't achieve your goals, you will still be happy because it's not about the goal but the journey.

Chasing goals and success to try to feel good about yourself only causes stress and can destroy your life balance. People can work to death and never appreciate their life when they're part of a materialistic world. But cancer can teach you how to connect to your higher source and live more in the now.

Another cancer blessing is that cancer shows you who your real friends are. I have heard stories about partners that left their spouses because of their cancer diagnosis. But later, they found someone else that was a better match for them.

The surprising thing is that the people you thought didn't care about you might be the best people in your life. Even if being abandoned by your friends can be hard, it lets you weed out toxic people from your life and replace them with someone who loves you no matter what happens to you.

You will know which people are the best for you and feel their love, and cancer can make you appreciate your family more. Kelly Turner wrote the book Radical Remission.

She talked to cancer survivors and learned nine things they did to reverse their cancer. And in chapter seven, she talks about embracing social support. So many cancer patients use their social support to survive.

Kelly mentioned several testimonies. One survivor was Nancy McKay. She's a devoted wife, mother, and minister. And she was about 54 when she got metastatic myeloma discovered in her lymph nodes. And her doctor told her that she had only two years to live. But Nancy refused to believe him.

She tried the natural route,  but what she was not expecting was the outpouring of love that she received. The love came from many directions.

So one major source was her husband, that held her and embraced her. And she also found out that every person in the church where she was a pastor for ten years wrote or called her.

And her two cats also snuggled with her even more than before and would never leave her alone. Nancy experienced a sense of warmth and caring from other people, and that was one of the components of her healing. Another testimony that Kelly wrote about was Diana. She was 61 when she was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer.

In the beginning, she tried conventional medicine, but later she tried natural remedies. The emotional support and physical touch that she received from her husband helped her get through her difficult journey.

Diana was in the hospital for 115 days, and during that time, her husband never left her side, and he even crawled into bed with her and held her.

Another testimony was from Kathryn Alexander. Kathryn was a single, divorced, self-employed woman that lived on her own. So no one was there to help her. She continued to live month to month on her small teaching income. It was too expensive for her to buy an individual health insurance.

But when Kathryn's friends and church community heard that she had stage three liver cancer, they gave her a lot of support, both financially and emotionally, and one person she didn't know that well promised her to pay her rent as long as she needed. So this act filled her with tears, and Kathryn gratefully accepted this proposal.

She had done a lot of fundraising for her church in the past, so her church community returned the favor by organizing a fundraiser in her honor, and the funds helped her to pay for the expensive hospital bills.

So this kind of generosity filled Kathryn's heart with gratitude and humility. Before her cancer, she lived alone and took care of her own needs.

But she wasn't aware of the loving and strong community around her. She had to wait to get cancer before they were able to show their love and appreciation for her.

Another cancer blessing is that it can make your dreams come true. Many people are stuck in jobs that they hate because they are so afraid of losing their income.

Even if they want to leave their job, they still have bills to pay and mouths to feed. But when you face death, and you have nothing to lose, then it's easier to chase your dreams.

When cancer spreads,  you are not able to fulfill your role and are stripped of what you do. Cancer can be the biggest wake-up call and can make you question everything. So one example of that was Rebecca Loncraine. Like anybody else, she had a narrow view of life and success.

She expected herself to go to the university, have a career, and get married. But in July 2009, everything changed. She discovered that she had breast cancer, and that put her life upside down.

So Rebecca discovered that she had a lump under her arm and chest. After the initial shock, she gave up her rented home in Oxford and moved back to her parents' farm.

And on the farm, she contemplated her life and decided not to return to her corporate life. And one day in April 2011,  she walked with two friends near the Black Mountains Gliding Club.

Rebecca wanted to do something brave before it was too late. So she started to fly a glider, and she loved the experience and had a feeling of joy and bliss.

And then, she began writing about flying and gave talks to organizations supporting people with cancer. Rebecca's only ambition was to keep enjoying every day. Cancer made her find her passion in life and enjoy life more than she had ever before.  

Valerie Yates decided to leave a stressful marketing job after her breast cancer diagnosis. In the hospital, she realized how exhausting her work life was. After the initial shock of the diagnosis, she felt relief when she had to rest for a week.

So Valerie didn't work for as long as possible and became more interested in personal development. And ten years after her diagnosis, Valerie and her husband opened the family home to guests, and again, it was cancer that forced her to find her joy in life.

 When you are on the brink of dying, there are less things to be afraid of. You will stop pushing your dreams forward because you know that you can die, and therefore you can live more bravely.

So cancer challenged you to do what you always wanted but was too afraid to do. And because of cancer, you can now live a more fulfilling life doing what you love.

If you didn't experience cancer, you might have been stuck in your horrible job and suffered your whole life. And you would feel regret about not doing what you wanted to do.

The eighth blessing is that cancer can make you less irritated about the small stuff. People that live in the city can be easily irritated by small things. So waiting in a queue can cause a lot of irritation and anger.

But when you get a cancer diagnosis, you start to appreciate life more, and the small things that caused you anger are no longer that because you will see life as a blessing.

Byron Katie is a spiritual teacher, and she has a method called The Work, where she teaches people to let go of their emotional trauma by working on their thoughts. And I saw a video of a woman at a Byron Katie workshop, and I found out that this woman had cancer.

And this woman talked about her struggle with a man over money. When she got cancer, she said money didn't mean anything to her after the diagnosis. She didn't care about the negative situation with this man or with money. Instead, she appreciated life more.

So when you have cancer, it can motivate you to focus on the now and heal yourself, and not wasting energy on becoming irritated by people or minor problems.

So the kids screaming in the background might have caused you a lot of anguish, but now you can enjoy when you see kids having fun with their friends and have more patience than before.

The final cancer blessing is that cancer teaches you how to love yourself. Loving yourself is the best skill that you can learn. When you love yourself, there's no more suffering. Most of the stuff that we do in our life is to get love from other people.  

We chase money and success and other external things to create validation. But if you love yourself, no matter what, you don't need these external things anymore and can appreciate life as it is.

Cancer can motivate you to love yourself and learn that your happiness is your responsibility and that what other people say or do can't affect your happiness. Cancer can be your best teacher in loving yourself unconditionally.

Before your cancer diagnosis, you most probably didn't love yourself and experienced a lot of suffering. You might have tried to give to other people but not received anything back.

But when you have cancer, you can finally motivate yourself to love yourself again when your body doesn't look as good as it used to do.

And because it's hard to work and get money when you have cancer, it forces you to accept yourself for who you are when you no longer can produce external things that didn't make you happy.

You can't hide your self-hate anymore with external things. Instead, you are forced to accept who you are to feel good.
Because suffering is painful, you feel more motivated to seek love from within. You have to make amends with yourself to reach this peaceful state.

And other people's abandonment requires you to seek love from within. And you become less dependent on others' love and can become stronger. Cancer forces you to love the little child that you hated your whole life and gives you the opportunity to heal emotional wounds.

Every day that you love yourself, you will feel better, and you will reach a state where you don't need to chase external things to feel good about yourself. Instead, you do things that you enjoy instead of what is expected of you. And this self-love is crucial in healing yourself and the world.

When you love yourself and become healthy from within, you become a bigger asset to the world because you can teach other people how to love themselves. So cancer can not only be a blessing to you but also the world.

One way to feel good about yourself and life is gratitude. Gratitude is a powerful emotion that will melt away any fear.
You can feel a lot better if you are grateful for what you have, and it will shift your mood and make you feel better. You will appreciate life more and become better at dealing with challenges.

So try to find three positive things every day, even if you had a terrible day. If you work hard enough, there are always ways to find something to appreciate. Write anything down, even if it's insignificant.

You can download our gratitude journal to help you write down what you're grateful for. So in this document, you can fill in the date and start writing three things you're grateful for in life and your cancer.

Thank you for listening to this episode, and I'll see you in the next one.