[Mtngrl]

Great discussion. My thanks to everyone.

I do think there's a mind/body connection, but I don't think we either give ourselves cancer or cure ourselves solely with prayer/meditation/positive thinking or the like. However, I do think it's quite possible to kill myself with negative thinking, with giving up, with saying "what's the use?" And it certainly can't hurt to harness the power of the mind in service of a physical outcome that we prefer.

Except for one thing. I would hate for anyone who "fails" at that to think she did something wrong or she just didn't want it enough. On top of all the miseries of cancer diagnosis and treatment, cancer patients are supposed to be cheerful and positive. I think the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) pressure to do that comes from society's uneasiness about death and dying. It's almost like I have to pretend I don't have an incurable illness so other people can go on pretending they aren't going to die. I have decided I can do them (and myself) more good by learning how to live as fully as possible.

For me the best balance is to live in the Now as much as possible (thank you, Eckhart Tolle and Jon Kabat-Zinn) and to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, wonder and joy. I realize the latter is helped a great deal by the fact that I don't feel sick. I may have stage 4 cancer but it hasn't affected my body much. The days I do get gloomy or grumpy are usually correlated with some physical complaint. I realize I've been lucky so far in that regard.

For me it's a matter of submitting to and accepting my own mortality and being happy, grateful, joyful and fully human not just in spite of that fact but because of it. It is my creatureliness that makes me who I am. It is this body, this mind, this spirit, this history, this unique expression of creation that is me, myself. Inevitably, mortality is part of it.

Nobody ever gets "done." My "do" list, my "bucket list," my hopes for the future, will be interrupted at some point, even though I will always want more. But I realize I can't let my wanting more blind me to the life I have now. I used to be very driven and goal-oriented. Then I noticed that every time I hit a goal I felt let down. That's because I kept thinking that realizing the goal would make me happy, and it never did. Then I figured out that happiness is not getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got. Happiness is what happens. I know a lot of people who don't have any obvious problems but who are miserable. And I have known people with incredibly bad luck and heartbreaking physical ailments and deformities who simply radiate love and joy. "I would be happy if _____ [fill in the blank]" is simply never true.

The Psalms often talk about the "sacrifice of thanksgiving." For me, the key to happiness and wholeness is to Be Here Now and be thankful--to radically accept my situation and quit wishing it weren't so or imagining that if I were in charge of my fate I'd design a better one. My ultimate destiny was set the day I took my first breath. It is certain that someday I'll take my last breath. OK, so now what?

I listen to guided imagery for healing. (As I said, if figure it couldn't hurt.) When I first heard one of the affirmations, when I was newly diagnosed and still freaked out, it was quite off-putting. But now I love it. It says something like, "More and more, I know that I can heal myself and live or I can heal myself and die. My wholeness is not determined by my physical condition."

I am whole, healed, accepted, loved and perfect in my imperfection, in my finitude, in my fragility, in my humanity. There's really nothing to be afraid of, and there's everything to gain from seizing the moment and loving it as completely as I can. The present moment isn't much, it's just all we have. It's all anyone has.