Sadness and its connection to cancer

Every morning I lie on my bed and meditate into my body. It’s a very simple exercise; I just close my eyes and take a few long, slow breaths and watch the air flow in and out through my body. When I become completely relaxed, I ask my body to re-energize, heal and rebalance itself. I observe the shifting patterns from my minds eye. I then guide my body to expand and lighten and imagine all my cells unclumping and floating feely and joyfully into an infinite space. In a very short time, I feel vibrant aliveness throughout my system.

Sometimes I notice a lack of energy in a part of my body. Often, I will put my hand on the area and imagine light radiating from my hand into the blocked area. I continue to do this until I feel the energy release and flow. This also works for the brain, if I am worried about things or if I need to call upon a heightened mental alertness.

Last week, I became aware that my solar plexus felt dense and compressed. The more I focused on it, the more uncomfortable it became. I felt slightly nauseated and saw dark energy patterns rising out of me. I have experienced similar to this before but never to this degree. I asked the questions, “What is this? What am I feeling here? What do I need to know about this?” I then cleared my mind and waited for an answer. The word Sadness rose from my body and hung like aeroplane writing in the sky. As soon as I acknowledged the message I noticed grey energy bellowing out of me like smoke. My solar plexus felt nervous - like stage fright. I reminded myself to be calm and breath and as soon as I said it, I felt a sense of detached observation. The grey smoke image changed and a new symbology appeared; thin transparent pictures of my body peeled away. I understood this to mean layers and layers of sadness were being released and absorbed into the air. It took about fifteen minutes before I felt beautifully free and refreshed and that feeling has stayed with me ever since.

This meditation brought my attention back to an incidence that happened a few weeks ago. I remembered using the word sadness and thinking at the time that it was a word I rarely related to myself. A friend and I had had a misunderstanding and I was totally unaware that I had said something that had wounded him. I didn’t see or hear from him for months and when I did speak with him he seemed distant. Even though I had mentioned I had been diagnosed with cancer he still stayed away and I felt that he had blown me off. I was offended and angry at what I perceived as his indifference.

When he did apologize I was impressed with the fact that he didn’t even mention what I had said, nor did he try to explain or defend his behaviour. He took full responsibility for his behaviour and his apology was entirely about his not being there for me and how much he valued our friendship. I have never felt so deeply touched, as I later realized that he had good reason to be hurt by my comments and most people would have maintained a stance of self-righteousness. His apology was expressed with deep insight and heartfelt sincerity, but not one word of blame or justification. It was only after I asked him what had happened that I learned that he had been hurt and how we had both misunderstood what had been said at the time.

When he left, I sat and thought about our conversation and I noticed something had shifted; I was breathing. It was only then that I understood that I had been feeling sad – because it was gone. I felt that his apology had put me back together again even though I had not noticed how fragmented I had become. My breath moved effortlessly though me and my body became lighter and freer. I had intellectualised my sadness and I had thrown up dummy emotions. I had been carrying the weight of sadness for months, but told myself stories about his betrayal, his coldness and his indifference. I was injured by his disrespect and I had found a warped sense of comfort in my self pity. Sadness is subtle, and sadness feels vulnerable, so I had disguised it with the justification of anger. But, in reality, sadness had turned down the lights inside me. That apology put me back together again by turning my light back on and healing me at a very deep level.

Sadness seems to be a shameful emotion and one that we try to camouflage or bury. I have thought a lot lately about sadness and how it appears to be an energy that lodges somewhere in the body. Happiness and all of the feel-good emotions seem to come and go, but the painful emotions seem to penetrate and simmer. Sadness seems to close the flow within the body; perhaps it gives off a toxic gas or some kind or a numbing agent. Does it spontaneously dissipate over time or does it keep adding layers?

I can think of so many sad experiences that could very well be strangling my body, and dare I suggest, creating or maintaining disease. Of course, we can find organic causes and influences and naturally we tend to address these issues up front. Much has been suggested, pondered and researched about emotional influences in relation to disease and illness, so I am not going anywhere new here with this observation, but are we exploring deeply enough or really releasing it if we do? Let’s just isolate Sadness for a moment and view it as a carcinogen. Does cancer need to be chemical, environmental, genetic or viral or even a disease for that matter? What if cancer is an energetic pattern? (Well, it’s not too hard to imagine if we agree that the body itself is an energetic mass.) Maybe it is and maybe it’s not, but maybe it’s worth looking at more closely. If Sadness is an energy pattern, capable of causing cancer, then surely it follows that releasing sadness could well be a cancer cure!

I have referred to my situation with my friend because in this case my sadness was released by his apology. If he had not done this, then I imagine that I would have carried that sadness indefinitely. Another layer on so many layers; which all add up and profoundly change us, by closing us down by yet another degree. I can’t think of a better solution than to have the person who caused it to come and acknowledge it, take responsibility for it and ask you to release yourself from it. “I am sorry, it was not my intention, I care about you, let me heal you.” Isn’t that what we all want, wouldn’t it be wonderful if every emotional wound was addressed this way. But rarely is that the way it goes.

First of all, most of us hide our hurt to begin with, we pretend we don’t care. Often we counter attack to mask it. Usually, we just swallow it and do not defend ourselves or question our actions. Mostly, we are just not in a position to process it at all and that’s how it gets embedded into our bodies. A huge amount of our pain stems from childhood; we didn’t have the power, authority, understanding or maturity to define it or question it. Sometimes people do deliberately hurt us and they really do not care at all. An awful lot of stuff is just our there and we become too involved in it without any discernment.

We could explore personalized pain and that would be an exhaustive study in itself. We could go into years of professional analysis and hardly touch the surface. The fact is that we are living in a sea of sadness on a daily level. War and famine and greed make us sad. Movies and music and stories make us sad. Lost opportunities and separation make us sad.

Sadness is a genuine emotion and is a part of the human condition; it teaches us empathy and sensitivity and can even be inspirational. Sadness can be a bonding experience and it can motivate us and teach us many worthwhile things about ourselves and our lives and the people around us.

Being human and being fully alive requires a full spectrum of emotion. If only good and happy things happened to us we would be hollow, superficial, annoying little creatures. A great painting needs shades of light and shadows to give it depth – to give realism – to bring it to life.

Sadness needs to come up, express itself and dissipate; we need to move it through. Trapped sadness or unresolved sadness needs to be released. Sadness is a thought – a perception or judgement, it’s an energetic frequency really, and when viewed this way, it can be guided to pass through rather then embed itself. Being diagnosed with a life threatening disease, or for that matter just dealing with a prolonged illness, brings up many feelings of sadness on its own accord. It seems obvious to me that healing must involve a strong desire to live. It seems even more obvious that subliminal sadness might be a whisper to give up and let go.

Although I have referred to sadness throughout this article I could also have addressed such things as grief, guilt, regret, shame or any number of life defeating emotions. Emotions may or may not be the complete cause or cure but certainly they must be considered to be the greater part of the fight.

Copyright Sonya Grren
http://www.reinventingmyself.com/