Archive for the 'Health and Wellness' Category

Writing Is Cheaper Than Therapy

Published on March 26, 2012 in 1960s, Anais Nin, Author Blog, cathartic writing, Creativity, Depression, Health and Wellness, New York Times, writer blog, writing and Writing for healing.

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My colleagues and I would not be the first writers who write to dissipate pain. For example, D.H. Lawrence sat at his mother’s bedside and while she was dying, he wrote poems about her, and an early draft of Sons and Lovers, his novel which explored their complicated, loving, painful and close relationship. Marcel Proust wrote Remembrance of Things Past while sick in bed with asthma. Flannery O’Connor wrote some of her best stories while dying from lupus.

May Sarton and Anaïs Nin wrote in their diaries to pull them through difficult times. In her book, Recovering, May Sarton chronicles her battles with depression and cancer. Anaïs Nin used her journals to address her deranged father who left the family when she was young. Nin’s journal entries became a four-volume collection of published books.

James Pennebaker, the author of Writing to Heal says “Writing dissolves some of the barriers between you and others. If you write, it’s easier to communicate with others.” Pennebaker believes that there’s a certain type of writing which erupts when we’re faced with loss, death, abuse, depression and trauma. He does have one rule that he calls, “the flip out rule,” which proclaims that if you get too upset when writing, then it’s probably best to stop.
Whether affected by change, loss or pain, finding the time and courage to write can support the healing process. Some people prefer to write nonfiction, while others may choose fiction or poetic modalities to help them express their thoughts and feelings. Each writer must choose the genre most compatible with their stories, sensibilities and personalities, choosing what liberates and empowers them. In the end, this is what healing is all about.

A writer friend (thanks KB!) who is an avid reader of this blog, just forwarded me an article from the magazine section of the New York Times (March 23, 2012), called, “Why Talk Therapy is on the Wane and Writing Workshops Are on the Rise,” by Steve Almond. Coincidentally, I met Steve at AWP a number of years ago, where he was on a panel and I remember him not only because his talk was compelling, but because he stood at the side of the podium giving away copies of his newly-release book, an unusual gesture for writers. As the son of two therapists, he truly knows what he is talking about. In this article, he defends writing as a cure, particularly in this boom of memoir and biography and the idea, as he states, that “artists should be forged by the fires of ‘real life.’” Almond is teaching a workshop for those in their 50s and 60s (yes, my age group) and admits that it does not really matter whether they become published writers or not. The important thing is that the students “have found a way to face the toughest truths within themselves, to begin to make sense of them, and maybe even beauty. In a world that feels increasingly impersonal and atomized, I can’t think of a more thrilling mission,” he concludes.

The Spiritual Experience of Eating

Published on January 16, 2012 in Author Blog, Baby Boomers, cathartic writing, Health, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Journals and Writing, journaling.

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After the holidays many of us are complaining that we ate too much and not only did we eat too much, but too much of the wrong things.

I often suggest food journaling to ascertain the circumstances under which we eat. It has worked for me before and it can be very revealing. Sometimes we eat unconsciously and do not even know we are doing it!

If you decide to food journal and notice that you are eating too much and/or too often there is something else you can try. In the recent issue of The Soul/Body Connection, there was a great article, “How to Make Every Bite a Spiritual Experience” by Jean L. Kristeller, PhD. The exercises in the article were once shared with me at a seminar discussing the healing power of writing.

The idea is that journaling in combination with mindfulness while eating can make for a delicious experience. The article discusses how we can bring joy and balance back into our relationship with food. It is mostly about slowing down and savoring each bite. If you take time to watch slim individuals in restaurants eat, you will note, in general, how slow they eat and how many times they chew each piece of food. Another thing they do is that they often leave something on the plate and do not finish everything.

The author calls her approach the Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training and she says that it does cut down on binging. She discusses a few meditations around eating, but the first one is called, “The Experience of Hunger.” In this meditation, she suggests shortly before a meal and for one minute, to stop and focus your attention on your breath, in the same way you might in a normal meditation practice. She then suggests you rate your hunger on a scale of 1 to 7 (7 the hungriest). The idea is to identify if you really need to eat or is it emotional or impulsive eating which is driving you to the food. Then you should think about how you will handle the foods and while eating, stop every few minutes to reassess your hunger and see if it is increasing or decreasing.

Food addiction is an increasing problem in the United States. In my forthcoming collection, Writers on the Edge: 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependency, Margaret Bullitt-Jonas does a fine job sharing her own journey in her essay, “Putting Down the Duck,” which is an excerpt of her memoir, Holy Hunger: A Memoir of Desire.

Transpersonal Psychology with Stanislav Grof

Published on September 5, 2011 in 1960s, Author Blog, Healing With Words, Health, Health and Wellness, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Musings and writer blog.

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This past week I attended my first seminar for my PhD in Transpersonal Psychology at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, CA. The keynote speaker was Stanislav Grof, author of Psychology of the Future (SUNY Press, 2000). His book and discussion were illuminating. Dr. Grof is a psychiatrist with more than sixty years of experience in the field of non-ordinary states of consciousness, who conducted a great deal of research with hallucinogenics in the 1960s. I immediately connected with him; after all, I am a baby boomer who grew up in New York in the 1960s. You bet I did my own experimentation to bring me to altered states of consciousness, although it was never called that. It was simply referred to as “getting high.”

Grof’s premise involves the idea that hallucinogenics have the ability to help us transcend to places which assist us in understanding who we are and what we are here for. So much of what he said resonated with me and it was nice to hear how eloquently he articulates his ideas. His discussion reminded me of an incident in my own adolescence. When my beloved grandfather who lived with us suddenly collapsed from a heart attack I remember feeling deep sadness and being offered LSD by some friends. They said the drug would not necessarily remove my grief nor help me escape it, but rather, it would help me reconnect with my grandfather at a more profound level.

As an open-minded teenager, I accepted their offering and since that day forward have believed in the power of hallucinogens.
Back in the 1960s the discipline of transpersonal psychology was not yet formulated. So I sort of consider myself an early practitioner, with my experimentation with LSD and practice of transcendental meditation. In some ways, I feel like a pioneer amongst my peers! In view of this, one of the most interesting ideas that I came away with from Grof’s talk was the idea that the deepest force or motive behind alcoholism and other forms of addiction is the misguided craving for some sort of transcendence. I had not heard this theory before and not only does it make absolute sense, but it also gives credence to my own experimentation with hallucinogenics. It is a fascinating idea that those with a tendency toward various addictions are searching for transcendence or a way to bring their lives to another level, whether they choose to use illicit drugs, alcohol, sex, food, or gambling.

The seminar also reminded me that the world is one big family, and that no matter where we live, who we are or what are our spiritual or cultural orientations, there is a common thread running through our lives. This is the ultimate quest for happiness. Everything we do and say is motivated by this common quest. On that note, I would like to feel a smile from all my readers!

The Magic of Number Ten

Published on August 22, 2011 in Author Blog, Creative Nonfiction, Creativity, General Information, Healing With Words, Health, Health and Wellness, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

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I believe in and have a high regard for the number ten. In many ways, it’s regarded as the perfect number. Today, I have even more reason to believe in this number as I celebrate the 10th anniversary of my breast cancer survival. In my self-help memoir, Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey, you can read about my journey. Also, at the end of each chapter there are writing prompts for you to do your own writing, whether about cancer or other life-changing events.

While we are on the ten-year-thing, here are some other reasons why I believe 10 is an important number:

• The number 10 implies a sense of completeness and full cycle
• A scale of 1 to 10 is used for ranking things
• There are 10 pins in a bowling lane
• There are 10 official inkblots in the Rorschach inkblot test
• The Snellen chart uses 10 different letters
• We have 10 digits on both our hands and feet
• Ten plagues were inflicted on Egypt in Exodus
• There are 10 Commandments – the cornerstone of Christianity and Judaism
• Jews observe 10 days of Repentance from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur
• There are 10 provinces in Canada
• In the Torah, Jews give 1/10 the of their produce to the poor
• The number 10 is the base of our number system
• In numerology the number 10 brings all sorts of new changes in your life

And finally Verse 10 in Jack Kerouac’s Sutra (Scripture of the Golden Eternity, 1960) says this:

“Kindness and sympathy, understanding and encouragement, these give; they are better than just presents and gifts: no reason in the world why not.”
~ Jack Kerouac

Wake Up Calls

Published on July 25, 2011 in Author Blog, Creativity, Healing With Words, Health and Wellness, Journals, July, Musings, Spirituality, writer blog, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

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At one point in your life, you will have what is commonly known as a “wake up call,” or an “ah-ha moment” chances are you will be happier when a health problem causes you to wake up and pay attention to yourself and your body. A wake-up call is a cause for action. In fact, having a wake-up call can save your life. You never know when this might happen or how many wake up calls you might encounter in your lifetime, but in addition to taxes and death, these events are sure to arrive.

I have been blessed with numerous wake-up calls. I say blessed because they have all served me as inspiration and material for my life as a writer. As a result, my philosophy has been to embrace any difficulties or tumultuous times by trying to turn a negative experience into a positive one. In essence, it’s easier to understand and appreciate the light after we have experienced the dark.

Much of the key to happiness is making the most of a wake-up call. Recently, I picked up a book called, The Way of The Happy Woman by Sara Avant Stover which reminded me of the importance of tapping into these moments. The author suggests illuminating our compassion, beauty, sensuality, nurturing, creativity and receptivity – all attributes which remind us of who we are.

Although the book is written for women—the principles really apply to both sexes. It reminds us to embrace who we are and to honor self-love as a key to happiness and continued good health.

According to Stover, “Love is the essence of who we are. She says, and I agree, that at the end of our lives what really matters is “How well we loved.”

The basic tenet of the book is to simply slow down. As the Buddhists advocate—live in the moment. Stover says that the Chinese character for busyness translates as ‘heart killing.’

Summer is a fabulous time to slow down, watch the flowers grow and children play. Summer is also a good time to crack open a new journal. I was delighted that in the book’s first chapter, Stover had an extensive section on how to do this. She discussed the power of journaling and how over the course of her lifetime, journals have been her best friend and were there for her as she chronicled various milestones. She provides many similar journaling tips as I do in my own classes. For example:

• visit your favorite book or stationary store and choose a journal which resonates with you
• write your name and the date on the top of the page
• make a list of what’s on your mind at this moment and/or something you have not been able to talk to anyone about
• from your list choose the one you most want to explore in your journal
• list three of your strongest emotions about the situation and where you feel them in your body
• write three ways you can support yourself during difficult times (i.e. deep breathing, walking, exercising, meditating, gratitude journaling)

This book offers many tips, but I think the most pertinent one is that journaling will help you with self-expression which is also important when it comes to your connection with others, and saying what is on your mind, and helping your figure out what brings you pleasure.

So whether you have had a recent wake-up call or not, try this: Tomorrow morning, wake up and say, “Today I choose happiness.”

Keeping Time : 150 Years of Journaling

Published on February 28, 2011 in Author Blog, autobiographies, breast cancer, Depression, Healing With Words, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Journals, writer blog, writing, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

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A few years back I submitted some very personal journal entries to a proposed anthology. I was delighted to hear that Keeping Time: 150 years of Journal Writing edited by Mary Azrael and Kendra Kopelke was recently published. This is a rare collection of journal entries all under one cover. As the editors state in their poignant introduction, “For many people, journal writing is a private activity, spontaneous and revealing, not intended for an audience of strangers.” But these editors did a stellar job of putting together 37 wonderful pieces with subjects ranging from everyday life parental issues, raising children, nature, travel, health and historical events. “Keeping Time,” they go on to say, “stands as witness to the times spanning from our great grandparents to today. It opens a way into our history at its most intimately and sincerely felt, and expands our sense of what a notebook can do to connect us more fully to our lives.”

My submission represented the year 2001, and I have posted it below:

I have been keeping a journal since the age of ten. Over the years, my journal has been my friend and confidant to help me through difficult times. I strongly believe in the powerful healing qualities of the written word.
Today, I teach journaling to breast cancer survivors and high-risk teens. During my breast cancer journey, writing became my lifeline and a way to give voice to my deepest feelings.

The following is an excerpt from my memoir/self-help book, HEALING WITH WORDS: A WRITER’S CANCER JOURNEY.

August 22 (one-day post-op)
I wake up in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) today and Simon sits beside me holding my hand. One part of me wants to look down at the hospital gown covering this corset-like gauze bandage around my chest. Yet another part of me is scared out of my mind. The nurse helps me to the bathroom and I avoid the mirror as if it holds the most dreaded secret. I want to rip it off the bathroom wall. I never want to see myself naked. While walking back to bed, I look over at Simon and begin sobbing with no respite. I know in my heart that one day soon I will have to look at my chest. My hope is that my plastic surgeon will make all the necessary explanations. I am happy that the surgery is behind me, but now I must begin preparing to walk down an even more arduous road. I must get used to the new me.

August 23
Today my mood oscillates back and forth. One moment I want to touch my newly-created breast and the next minute I never want to see it. I am pleased that the reconstruction was done immediately following the mastectomy. After breakfast, I pulled the nurse’s cord to help me sit up. I am terribly sore from being in one position. By the time she arrives moments later, I have already changed my mind. I put my hand over my right breast and feel nothing. I do the same on the left. I can only feel the slight pressure of my hand. How will I ever get used to having no sensations. My right nipple had always been more sensitive than and easily stimulated than my left, but now there is a sense of nothingness, numbness, a void.

Today the nurse removed the bandage around my chest. I looked the other way while crying into my pillow. I felt nothing. My plastic surgeon said some sensations might eventually return, but never again could I become sexually aroused on my right side. So, I have two breasts, but really only one. My sensations have been severed forever. Never again would I experience that sublime tingling when Simon runs his fingers over my rather large nipple—never again on that side. Never could I experience the joy and tingles from let-down reflex when my babies sucked for the first time. I loved that sensation which permeated my soul and brought me such joy.

August 27
The books I have read, and my nursing experience warned me that depression is common following many surgeries, particularly breast surgery, because of the huge psychological component of losing a breast. I should be optimistic because my breast surgeon says that the cancer has been removed. He says I am lucky that it did not spread into my lymph nodes. Yes, this is a true blessing, but there are moments when this is not enough to console me. My father taught me to look at the glass half full and not half empty. I’m trying. Really trying. But, this entire event has been surreal. My defenses are stripped. I have no strength left in my body except for the weeping. Tears flow like an endless river. They pour out without warning and dry up without notice.

August 28
I look around me and see all the technology. I think of my husband, an engineer, and how people like himself have made mine and so many others’ survival possible. He is a fixer. On so many other occasions he wants to quickly make everything better for me. His smile and touch are so healing. He has so much power, but he cannot bring my breast back to me. He says he wishes he had a magical wand to make me feel better. I tell him that the wand was discarded the day it brought him into my life. One person cannot be bestowed with any more luck than me. He implores me to think positively.

Sometimes life is not so simple. I don’t want to say this to him because he tries so hard to soothe me. It’s still early in my post-operative period, but I already feel physically and emotionally changed and drained. In some ways it is easier being far from home. My predicament somehow seems clearer and my mind less distracted by familiar surroundings.

September 3
Today I am nearly two weeks post-op. I do not feel any better emotionally than the day they rolled me out of the cold and sterile operating room. My emotional strength is barely returning. I still get teary-eyed for no obvious reason. This morning, the nurses bathed me. They helped me to the chair where I tried reading a magazine, but my mind wandered. Everything makes me cry, even glancing at the latest hairstyles in the magazine. I feel trapped inside this body that I don’t know anymore.

Here’s what I look like. On my right side is a drainage tube tucked into a hole beneath my mastectomy site. On the same side, another tube leads to the incision in my back where they have removed the muscle and tissue to cup my saline implants. The tube leads to this thing that looks like a hand grenade which dangles from my side. This grenade drains the blood from my wounds, but I think it does the same from my heart. It needs to be emptied three times each day. It’s gross and yet another reminder of my missing breast. When we go to dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, the only thing I can wear are baggy men’s shirts to hide my tube and stupid grenade.

Getting up and going to the bathroom is such an ordeal. I need at least ten minutes to prepare for the departure from my bed. Getting all the wires organized is truly a monumental task. I cannot lean on my back; the drainage tube sticks straight out. I cannot lean on my right side—another tube. They hurt like hell. There are no more comfortable positions left for me. Jeannine [mother-in-law] asked if I have been writing. She must be kidding! I have so much to write about, but I cannot focus. My mind wanders beyond belief. Life is fuzzy and not even eyeglasses can help. I am just plain frustrated. I can only muster these few words and even these exhaust all of my energy.

September 4
Today I will go visit my plastic surgeon. It seems as if the past couple of weeks have been surreal. A thick cloud suspends over me. How did I get here? I was diligent about my annual mammograms and check-ups. On the first day of my menstrual cycle I diligently did self-breast exams in the shower. There is no cancer in my family. Why am I lying here all mutilated?

I have never thought much about cancer, but one thing I know is that if cancer is in your body, you better get it out quickly. Having had reconstructive surgery at the same time as my mastectomy has put my mind at ease. Even though I have refrained from looking at myself naked in the mirror, there was a sense of relief to waking up with a mound on my right side, even if it was not my own breast, but just a sack of saline water.

September 6
I’m trying to take the position that cancer is no longer lurking inside of me. I did have cancer, but it is now all gone. All of it. I don’t like the sound of the term ‘breast cancer.’ People equate cancer with death. I refuse to die.
When I first learned about my breast cancer, I wanted to hear everybody else’s escapades and everyone’s medical sagas. It seems that everyone knows someone who has had breast cancer. This is not surprising since the statistics have now risen to one in eight women. Listening to other people’s stories is boring at times, and at other times scary. Sometimes it’s inspiring to learn that others are less fortunate than me. The woman in the corridor told me about her stage III cancer. Okay, she made me feel lucky, but I just don’t want to be surrounded by negative energy.

I am so afraid that the cancer will come back. I cry about losing the breast and also about having to lose my other one. Crying comes so easily. Sometimes the tears last a few minutes, other times an hour. It all depends.

Keeping Time is available from Amazon at the link below, and it is a wonderful read. I surely hope you take the time to order and read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Time-Years-Journal-Writing/dp/0963138545/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297999546&sr=8-1

New Year Musings

Published on January 3, 2011 in Author Blog, autobiographies, General Information, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Journals, Musings, New Year, Passions, writer blog and Writing, journaling.

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Typically, this is the time of the year when many of us make promises to ourselves that we are unable to keep. Recent studies have shown that only about twelve percent of those who make New Year’s resolutions actually achieve their goals. Some believe that if you share the content of your resolution with someone else, then your chances of success are increased, but there is no guarantee.

Making a New Year’s resolution involves committing oneself to a new habit, breaking an old one or making a personal lifestyle change. Anyway, what can be so wrong with improving ourselves? I have always been curious about the spectrum of New Years’ Resolutions. Recently I researched to see what were the most popular, here are the ten most common from year to year:

1. Spend more time with family and friends
2. Get fit
3. Get slim
4. Quit smoking
5. Quit drinking
6. Enjoy life more
7. Decrease debt
8. Help others
9. Get organized

This year, rather than making a New Year’s Resolution, I have decided to use these and use the suggestions of writer Carolyn Graham who offers the following advice for those she calls, “wicked”:

(http://debramoffitt.wordpress.com/?p=236&preview=true)

1. Create harmless mischief whenever possible. Find a friend who likes to incite you and will share in some mischievous hilarity. If there are no friends available, use your best thinking and mentally engineer an event designed precisely to meet your needs.
2. If someone tells you your bread’s not baked, or you have a loose screw, or your elevator doesn’t go to the top, consider yourself highly complimented and extraordinarily gifted. You have probably shed some of the constricting and restricting bounds of convention.
3. Look in the mirror: acknowledge and celebrate yourself as a masterpiece in progress. All of us are superb examples of a true work of art, an ever developing piece, even if some of the places have shadows.
4, Walk into each day as if you owned the world. Put your head up, your shoulders back, and swagger a bit. Remember, with choices about how you think, you do own your own space…your world.
5. If you can’t believe you’re great, then act like you are! Being great means reaching for a hand when you need one and offering one to others who could use some kindness.
6. Buy a new technical gadget you have been wanting. Explain the purchase by declaring that the intellectually stimulating affects of learning to operate the device enhance the performance of your immune system.
7. If you like dark chocolate, keep some readily available and slowly savor a tiny bit on a regular basis. The given pleasure will probably off set any potentially harmful affects. That’s a risk worth taking!
8. Absolutely DO NOT act your age. Retaining childlike behaviors probably goes a long way toward staying vital, alert, and healthy. If you have supposed that to be true, applaud yourself, dance a bit, and invite a friend for a play date.

Happy New Year to one and all!

Namaste,
Diana

Poetry as Medicine

Published on December 13, 2010 in Author Blog, Billy Collins, General Information, Health, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Poetry, Spalding University, writer blog, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

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“Poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost…as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” ~ Mary Oliver

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the healing power of writing and reading poetry. Once again, I was reminded of this in a newly-released book called, Saved By A Poem: The Transformative Power of Words, by Kim Rosen. In her books, Rosen claims that a poem can be powerful medicine not only for the mind but for the body and soul as well. She has learned by heart more than a hundred poems, which she carries inside of her as teachers, healers and guides.

Rosen was recently interviewed by Alison Luterman in the Sun Magazine (December 2010) and I found it fascinating. She discussed the public’s sensibility about poetry and many of her ideas resonated with me in the sense that many are threatened or afraid of poetry. Part of her motivation for compiling her recent collection was to wake Americans up to the power of poetry as a way to enrich our lives. She talks about poetry as a lantern that shines in dark places within us and refers to poems as powerful medicine for personal transformation.

“To me a good poem is like a sacred mind-altering substance: you take it into your system, and it carries you beyond your ordinary ways of understanding,” she says. “Like a shaman’s drum, the best of a poem can literally entrain the rhythms of your body: your heartbeat, your breath, even your brain waves, altering consciousness.”

Perie Longo, PhD, MFT, Santa Barbara’s former Poet Laureate, who held several board positions for the National Association for Poetry Therapy also wrote a wonderful article on the subject called, “Healing Effects of Poetry.” Longo says that “the focus of poetry for healing is connection to the individual for self-expression and growth, whereas the focus of poetry as art is the poem itself. But both use the same tools and techniques; the end product is often the same.” Longo teaches poetry for healing and in her classes has many tips to help spark the writing process. She suggests to her class to begin with the phrase, “I have the right…”The article is filled with lots of useful information.

http://www.allthingshealing.com/Psychotherapy/Healing-Effects-of-Poetry/6350

As a teen, I wrote poetry inspired by reading the works of Rod McKuen, but really did not return to the genre until my 40s while raising children and feeling some strong emotions pertaining to child-rearing and life in general. What really inspired me to begin again was attending a reading by Billy Collins in 2002 during my MFA in Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. I realized how accessible and funny narrative poetry could be. I laughed and cried listening to Billy read. I went home that night and wrote my first poem about how men love watching women park because they think we don’t know how to drive.

Since then I have incorporated writing poetry into my journaling classes. The holiday season is a wonderful time to bring poetry into your life to help cope with the stresses that accompany it. Try it and I bet you will like itTry it you will like it!

Wellness and Writing

Published on October 24, 2010 in Author Blog, breast cancer, Creativity, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Journals, writing, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

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This past weekend, and for the third year in a row, I attended the Wellness and Writing Connections Conference in Atlanta. http://www.wellnessandwritingconnections.com/. I also facilitated a workshop called, “From Journal to Memoir.” The Director of the Conference, John Evans, Ph.D. is an amazing person with vision and a huge heart, who is unfortunately fighting with the demon of cancer.

The conference was packed with many compelling workshops and speakers, but for me the highlight was speaking with Brenda Stockdale, the author of You Can Beat the Odds: Surprising Factors Behind Chronic Illness and Cancer.

For more than thirteen years, Stockdale has been the director of mind/body medicine for Georgia Cancer Treatment Center. She was the national program director for the cancer support organization founded by best-selling author and surgeon, Bernie Siegel, MD.

Stockdale unequivocally believes, and research strongly supports, the connection between low stress levels and a decrease in the incidence of cancer. The mechanisms are obvious—stress can control how the immune system works and increase a person’s vulnerability for cancer.

More often than we would like to admit, each of us have heard of a physician who has given a cancer patient six months to live. How does it happen that the person outlives all predictions? According to Stockdale, it’s simple. “The effect begins in a tiny part of the brain called the limbic system. This is where your experience is translated into a physical reality—like when your heart races because you are scared or excited. In this magical area of the brain, sights, sounds, thoughts and feelings are translated into biological events at lightening speed.” Thus we can have some control as to what happens in our bodies.

When Stockdale discusses the mind/body connection, she refers to applied psychoneuroimmunology, psychopharmacology, applied psychophysiology and informed recent findings in epigenetics. Her belief and more recent research have proven that the seemingly soft interventions such as writing can affect the sensitive world of the cell to facilitate rejuvenation. By regular expressive writing or journaling you can help to identify the psychological events, stresses and situations in your life, which influence your mood and your body. Writing down both your symptoms and feelings helps you to connect the dots. Sometimes sitting on smoldering negative emotions can unnecessarily use up precious positive energy.

When trying to conquer a disease, it is really not mind over matter or body, but the idea is that mind and matter affect one another. Essentially, our beliefs and belief systems become our biology. Studies have shown that those who have not gotten sick or were able to conquer their illness had the 3 C’s:

  1. control (sense of self-mastery)
  2. commitment (to themselves)
  3. challenge (the ability to see their current situation as a turning point rather than an end point)

The conference will be on hiatus for 2011, but will be strong and vibrant in March 2012.

Here’s to your health and all good things!

Diana

Balancing Optimism and Pessimism

Published on October 17, 2010 in Alternative Medicine, Author Blog, Depression, General Information, Health and Health and Wellness. Tags: , , .

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I have always thought or believed that it is healthier to be an optimist than it is to be a pessimist. An article in the September 2010 issue (http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/of)  of “Ode: For Intelligent Optimists,” called, “No Silver Linings, Please,” says that recently a handful of psychologists think differently about optimism and pessimism. They are saying that, in fact, healthy doses of pessimism may be an important ingredient to overcome  psychological obstacles and the achievement of personal goals.

“Defensive pessimism,” can be employed when you get a book proposal rejected or when you get a cancer diagnosis twice in five years as I did—is a psychological stance that involves accepting the fact that things can go drastically wrong and being able to defensively prepare oneself for any eventuality. In other words this is an offense to achieve a positive outcome.

Thus it is suggested that we not get too elated or joyous when receiving good news. In this way there is less of a chance to be disappointed. In other words, a tinge of pessimism can be the most optimistic thing you can do.

Those living with cancer can react in two ways when given the bad news—they can treat the diagnosis with anger and resentment or turn a negative into a positive. This can be done by framing the disease as a gift to write and share stories to help and inform others in similar situations.

Creative individuals, particularly writers, are typically very hard on themselves and their creative process. They often air on the side of pessimism thinking that their work is not good enough and will be rejected by agents, editors and publishers. The positive side of this is that those who are in a negative frame of mind tend to be more alert to their surroundings compared to those who are in positive states of mind. Being alert to one’s surroundings is a vital characteristic for the writer. Perhaps in certain situations, a healthy dose of pessimism can be advantageous. In other words, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst!