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Autumn Newsletter

PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 1:35 pm
by Lorraine1981
Dear Cansurvivors, Families and Friends,

First big personal news for us: our Communications Manager Rose had a baby boy called FINN on September 23rd, labour only took TWO HOURS! Vegan diet helping might we think??? So our love and congratulations to Rose and Damien….and to little Finn too, a warm welcome to the planet... The rest of the team will try to get on without Rose while she is involved in this wonderful new venture...
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Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny. ”
— Mahatma Gandhi

In the beginning was story. The caveman rushed back to his tribe and excitedly acted out his encounter with some Paleolithic beast (and they made the first recorded art n their wonderful cave paintings). This was his story and forever after he would be remembered by this story. Every story has a sacred dimension not because of gods but because a man or woman's sense of self and her world is created through them. These stories orient the life of a people through time, establishing the reality of their world. Thus meaning and purpose are given to people's lives. Without story, we do not exist. The Way of Story is how we discover who we are, and all of us on this site have discovered something more about ourselves through being part of this venture... creativity after diagnosis is something which unites us all...

So, was Einstein wrong?- well in some ways.... "The world is made up of stories, not atoms," as poet Muriel Rukeyser once said.


Storytelling is not only the root of film, theatre, literature, and culture, but of life experience itself. What story are you telling to yourself? Check it out...

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And ...how are you all? This is our perennial question...and now in September (25th is our actual birthday) we are still growing..here’s a message from 2014 a year after we started…

”Happy Birthday to us! On September 25th 2014 this site will be one year old, growing and thriving, with 105 members at last count, an international reach, and nearly 10K hits a month. Our 100th member won his T shirt—and it will be on its way to him soon...”BACK TO LIFE with http://www.cansurviving.com” - now we have details of vegan eateries in all the major capitals of the Western world – Paris, London, New York and Rome—plus Guatemala and Thailand and Beijing—and more in the UK—we have a vast range of posts (one of the latest from a psychoanalytic worker who went to see John of God in Brazil for healing-very moving it is too)- and it would be great to start a Book Club—all ideas for what we can do to spread this vital word are wonderful—we are all building up this huge resource and it is All About Us.."

So do what you can to help this healthy baby keep growing- our Site Founder Judith met someone in Italy who said her sister in law had healed herself after not tolerating chemo using ‘this site called cansurviving’- she was thrilled to make the link.
Thank you to us all- where will we be with this site this time next year?? Who knows but let’s keep the momentum going...well we have and it grows….we’re now a healthy four-year old, nearly on our way to school...over 600 members and still growing...


Float your little boat….
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carry on filling it up with helpful ideas, strategies and tips from those who are also travelling this road...We aim to BUILD BRIDGES AND NOT WALLS..You are unique. There is no one else like you in the entire universe. In honour of your unique self, it’s good to acknowledge and embrace the special qualities that make you the person that you are. Being part of this site and helping it grow is one of the activities that make up the whole that is you. By adding in raw, organic foods, super-herbs, clean water, etc. we will cause an undeniable shift in our metabolism and in our ability to go out in the world and make something happen. These “higher quality substances automatically transform us!” As you begin to feel the results from the simple shifts being made, you’ll be happy and compelled to share! It will spread from there. This type of personal experience is what cascades into more and more people making simple shifts and transforming from the inside out. You’ve all joined the project: help others do the same... baby steps...

• For clearing to last you need to put yourself first. You won't make a dent in reducing the stress and other stuff until you've healed the patterns that created it. If you don't feel safe, you won't let go. Clearing is an inside job that begins and ends with you.
• For clearing to last you need to change your mindset. Clearing is not something you "do" or squeeze into your life. It's a way of life - a journey - that doesn't always add up, make sense, or go in a straight line. Clearing is not about "getting rid of." It's about letting go of the things and thoughts that get in the way of realizing your true nature and best life.
• For clearing to last you need to slow down. Clearing old habits and resisting behaviors is not possible until you slow it ...way... down. In a world that is all about speed, this requires awareness. Daily doses of it. "Slow drip" efforts applied consistently over time are the real game changer here.


So what else has been happening since we last wrote to you in February 2017? We had a great response to this February newsletter from members, here’s just one comment:

“Thank you so much for including us in your newsletter. It is great to find out more about your helpers, tends to make them people we feel we can know rather than just a name.
Barbara and I admire the efforts all make to ease concerns and assist so many people get through the dreaded C. We also believe a website focussed on building personal stamina in the so many ways members suggest can assist far more than many of the product suggestions offered. We are not against any product or suggestion that can be offered to anyone, in some way they can all help somewhat we guess? It is the mind set to get through the problem that we find helps so many people with any issue they may be facing and your website could quite often be the "Key starter" for this.”


The idea of our being a ‘Key Starter’ is an excellent one- so do pass the site on to those at the start of their new life of change…And it IS the start of something new...no going back and most people really appreciate that, and enjoy new lives… ‘Commitment is staying loyal to what you set out to do, long after the mood you said it in has disappeared, There is no short cut to complete well-being it is an ongoing progress which takes a lot of determination ....Please be aware that once you become cancer free that does not mean you can return to an unhealthy lifestyle and why change something if it worked for you! We do not all have an adviser but we do have that small voice inside telling us "If we stop now we might never get back to this point ".....’We had this mail from a writer site member who had recently been diagnosed...”I wanted to thank you very very much for being so kind to me. Initial diagnosis and those damn scans were shocking...I have to admit I'm no longer in a permanent state of panic, that subsided but it's still far from ideal. Meanwhile I'm following a fairly rigid diet and having acupuncture. And have just about recovered from my shock about how revolting vegan and sugar free chocolate is!!!!” Slowly does it...

Judith the Site Founder was interviewed by the chairperson of Yes to Life for their Health Radio programme (link on the site). One of our newest members commented on the site on the same day as this interview: ‘‘Your site interests me each time I study it..there is always something significant on it. You are certainly a terrific blogger and you have the skills to make the reader go on reading” (yes we encourage ALL people who access the site to browse and come back again and again)..”Keep up the impressive word pictures! Continue moving the people!” Rose is training to become a Health Coach at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition which is the largest nutrition school in the world looking at over 100 different dietary theories and she will qualify in January 2018. IIN and its Health Coaches aim to incorporate your career, relationships and health goals in to one integrative plan to make the best food and lifestyle choices. So aren't we lucky, both Lorraine and Rose have nutrition strings to their bows….


Local initiatives have included the Site Founder joining a local networking group called KNOTS- which is part of the Next Door project where our Publicity Manager Lorraine is a leader- these are springing up in other places so you might try and find one near you and spread the cansurviving word?...From little seeds...and for the month of September our worldwide stats read like this: accessed in 48 countries by nearly 10K people a month...

Among our new members we have Dr Xandria Williams who has put put a link to our site on her own...our links grow, our connections expand—do help where you can! http://www.xandriawilliams.co.uk/links-resources/
http://www.xandriawilliams.co.uk/links-resources/. And what we suggest spreads...as this comment from someone tell s us:

Cancer Healing Testimonials: “My personal story is not only as a cancer survivor, it is as a cancer mentor, I have two cancer patients and my duty has been developing and promoting a medicine against cancer for sick people to get rid of the disease and be able to appear in a cansurviving index like you showed me, thanks!”

We helped a local journalist put together a story for the magazine CLOSER (and the stars of the story are now on the site)- when it went on line this box below was added to the link to the article (where you needed a magnifying glass to see the credit to our site-- ah well at least we were there and the journalist thanked us for our help “I would not have been able to do this without you”.) https://www.pressreader.com/uk/closer-u ... 4587367797

In April as mentioned above the Site Founder did a long interview with the Yes to Life chairperson for Health Radio. He was a wonderful interviewer and it was very enjoyable to participate..Health Radio has many thousands of listeners each week so the information about our site spread outwards… http://bit.ly/YTLShow

Then in May the Site Founder had an article published in an internet Journal Nessa Publishers. The article was called Cancer and Containment- thinking about how diagnosis produces trauma and our group site provides containment- you can read the full text here..… http://nessapublishers.com/view-article ... z4htMEzOlc There are more articles in the pipeline …

We had an update from Shirley Bianca whom we met last year at a Conference, whose Message of Hope is posted under the Creativity Forum- and she wrote this message to us:

“Judith, You Are Very Special and a True "Diamant" in the cancer community!

I read your attached paper, which I did understand so well with the memory of my feelings as I was diagnosed with bc the first time.

I´m so glad you posted the "Guide" as it begins with my personal story, which I know it encourages cancer patients.

What an experience and how much did we learn after diagnosis.
We managed to change our philosophy of life, which was "hard work", of which we are very proud.
Every patient is different and yes if we can help them to stand up again that is good for the patient and gives us satisfaction.
It is really interesting how patients cope differently with the disease.

What you do is amazing, I admire You!!!” Well thanks a lot Shirley, much appreciated, but don’t forget but we are A TEAM here...


Then a few weeks later, the Site Founder felt she should post on Facebook: ‘Just posting this as someone has alerted me to Ty Bollinger's Truth About Cancer possible/probably using words and concepts from the http://www.cansurviving.com website though he has never once acknowledged that we are in the same part of the world's forest: "Thank you for this Ty- someone alerted me to this which is EXACTLY what the cansurviving website has been talking about for a long time (and using some of the same words) and I have written and published on the web about cancer and PTSD etc from a psychoanalytic perspective. The person who alerted me to this said 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery' and we are of course glad these ideas are more widespread but it would be courteous to reply to mails and acknowledge that we have been as always on the same page, but unlike TTAC we sell nothing, ever. ...I guess this may not pass your moderators (as has happened countless times before) but it will also be published on Facebook as I am getting somewhat frustrated at having no response from you over all this time. Best wishes, Dr Judith Edwards"
Then “What is happening?” asked one of our followers and the Site Founder replied: “Not sure Domi- I just went on our site and made a comparison: what Ty Bollinger says about PTSD follows us on http://www.cansurviving.com almost word for word, and about how to slow down etc...-great to have all this out there but in academic publishing which is my own field you need to ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR SOURCES???? The web is a tricky old place it seems....’ Mmmm-no reply from Bollinger: did we expect one? And of course he is quite definitely not the only one to re-circulate ideas gleaned from elsewhere...no-one OWNS cancer after all, and we try to dissociate ourselves from the ‘I Beat Cancer’ chest-beating people .. Shame to be involved in this but I guess as I said, the Web is a tricky place... and as Tom Waits said “get behind the mule, boy, every morning and plough”
Orthodox or alternative? Which way to go?

There are no guarantees
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whichever way you choose as we say on the site- there may be as many people who die following cancer treatment as die without it (but no-one has researched this yet)
. On http://www.cansurviving.com we offer help to anyone reeling from the trauma of cancer diagnosis to explore complementary and also alternative ways of healing – only the individual can make this choice. As Closer’s GP Dr Christian Jessen says “we should never underestimate the body’s immune system”. But on this site we think of healing as being multifactorial, it’s not just about what you eat.. Be courageous in what you try, cautious in what you claim. So let’s not fight, let’s work in our several fields to help one another. My role model for starting this site as many of you know was told nearly eight years by orthodox doctors to make his will, and he is still well and thriving. There will be more research: and when does ‘mere anecdote’ turn into ‘research’? The cansurviving site is an international group built site, accessed by thousands of people each month, from one side of the world to the other. It was recommended by some USA members to a new Australian member as being ‘the best site on the web for healing cancer’. Since there are over 9m of them that’s quite an accolade. It bangs no one person’s drum, and is free to all. You choose.


What’s been on our minds (among many other things) is the issue of the site being FREE- there are so many sites out there which sell one person’s goods and could perhaps be described as making a revenue stream out of adversity- well fair enough we guess but...then one of us read about a guy who had a life coaching site: when it was free he had far FEWER clients than when he started to charge a bit, then it went up even more when he charged more...So we are not sure about this and would very much welcome your feedback. We have also been affected by some sites which do charge after you have had a first ‘sneak peek’ at what they’re offering, and people have complained about it in their comments, not being able to afford expensive treatments and expensive trips to expensive consultants. This is particularly hard for people when they are just starting out on the journey which began with their consultant's three little words ‘You have cancer’. Do have a think about this and let us know your views- of course all of you who have already signed up as members would not now be charged retrospectively, but would people value the information more if it was not free? (It has taken a lot of time for us all to build and maintain this site, and up till now we have willingly given it our time, as well as the fairly considerable fees for maintaining the site). Is it time to change this policy, or should we carry on in a money-driven world being freely available to those who are desperately seeking solutions and ongoing maintenance of their own health in the face of anxiety and dread which is whipped up by diagnosis? .

Does diagnosis 'stunt creativity' or lead towards 'evolution and growth'?

In other words, does limiting freedoms prevent creativity? Or does it force growth and expansion so you will find a way to be free, starting with inside your own mind? When making big changes in our lives, it can be easier to break it up into a few small changes to avoid overwhelm. That’s why we set up the How do I Start Forum...Who gives us energy? Who saps it? It's important to be surrounded by supportive, heart-centered people who help us feel safe and secure. It's equally important to pinpoint the emotional vampires, the nay-sayers, who, whether they intend to or not, leech our energy. The subject of cancer is bound to stir up feelings and there was an angry exchange of the YES YOU CAN/NO YOU CAN’T variety on our local Streetlife recently- the conversation was eventually taken down and it is important as the poet Philip Larkin said that ‘we should be careful of each other, we should be kind, While there is still time...’

"Look up"

This simple tip applies to pretty much everything in life, from:
• Posture- look up!
• Attitude – positive while respecting the downs when they come, as they will!..
• Perspective – wider than just YOU
• Revelation – ahah!
• Insight – as opposed to outsight...
• Mystery – some things will always remain a mystery we can’t master...
• Curiosity – keep on wondering...like children do...
• Adventure – who knows what’s round the corner?
• Determination/Perseverance – not driven but motivated...
...and the list goes on... but how often do you take 15-20 minutes and spend time looking at the sky, watching the clouds pass by, or seeing stars illuminate the night?
Perhaps the sky is worth a bit more of our attention. Perhaps, if we take a step back the sky is symbolic of a lesson: even when light disappears, it's still there depending upon where you focus. Look to the stars in the night sky, 'go' into them, and then refresh your perspective from a higher place of consciousness. What you'll feel is light, warmth, and a sense of belonging.
You can always find -- and feel -- light, focus upon it, and see things differently.

And as you watch clouds pass by during the day, you might be reminded of how quickly each moment passes, how 'now' is already over, and how it's 'now' all over again.You might consider how your emotional state is relative to this moment in time, which means how you feel right now has no impact on how you'll feel in a second or how you felt a second ago. Plus, since this is the only moment you may as well choose your highest emotions and happiest state of being. But don't worry, if you forget, you're about to get another chance, for it's now all over again :-) Although Shakespeare has Hamlet say that ‘life is but a poor player’ life is really more like an improvisation than a play where the lines are already written- we cansurvivors know we now make choices which alter our lives (and perhaps the lives of others)...
And life is more of an improvisation than it is like a play whose lines have already been written, whose end is already known. Like an improviser, we have choices
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to make and the more we embrace the illusionary quality of the performance, the lighter we can be on the planet, on others, and on ourselves. We can truly play with the shadows cast by the light of the projector, fully engaging without getting bogged down...with love as always from The Cansurviving Team