This may be controversial, but I am going to say it anyway. Fear is the underlying cause of all disease. It is the root cause of not loving ourselves, of not valuing ourselves, of feeling that we are not good enough. You see, the opposite of Love is Fear, not Hate.
Louise Hay’s book ‘You Can Heal Your Life’, published in 1984, was a revelation to me. In this she postulated various diseases have different root causes. For example, cancer has a root cause of resentment, and the location of the cancer an indication of the origin of that resentment. During my Reiki practice in Hong Kong in the 90s, I became very aware that emotions were at the root of disease. It got to the point when friends told me of some ailment or other, I found myself diagnosing the emotional root cause. It was surprisingly, and often disturbingly, accurate. Fear is the underlying root cause of all the negative emotions. Jealousy. Hate. Resentment. Anger. Anxiety. Grief. Sorrow. Obsession. And those secondary emotions cause disease.
It is my belief that there is no single therapy that will cure cancer. I believe the journey to health is a protocol of self-discovery that is essentially about valuing your life, valuing yourself, and doing everything for yourself out of love for yourself. CanSur is a journey both to the disease and a journey back from the disease.
I read somewhere that 7 systems in the body have to go wrong for CanSur to occur, so as no one single thing causes it, ergo no one single thing can heal it. For me, it was a case of finding out why CanSur occurred in my body – my emotional, physical and spiritual journey towards it - so that I could retrace my steps away from it. And I admit to have been fortunate to have the ‘space’ for this journey as this disease was caught early.
Whatever your journey to this disease, self-nourishment is the essential part of your journey back to health. Good food is part of mindful self-nourishment. Everything you put in your body must nourish you in some way, providing nutrients that support your healing journey and help remove or negate the toxic agents that have built up over the years. Mercury from amalgam fillings; pesticide, fungicide and fertilizer residues on the fruits, vegetables, grains and dairy products that we have eaten over the years; the long-term effect of toxic additives added to everything from prepared foods to the skins of lemons; our polluted water and air; the toxic effect on our bodies of Wifi and EMR; and our toxic relationship with our emotions.
These journeys to mindful self-nourishment begin with good, clean food, even down to the use of condiments, as long as they are lovingly and mindfully made with healing intent and contain untainted organic ingredients.
But self-nourishment is not only about food.
During my own healing process, I focused on all the things that I have wanted to do to nourish myself but never seemed to have the time. I now always have fresh flowers in the house because they uplift the sense of seeing, and I surround myself with beautiful scents - from diffusing therapeutic grade essential oils to using them in my moisturisers and face serums and body products such as shampoos and body washes, even cleaning products. These not only uplift the spirit – an essential aspect to healing - but diffusing therapeutic grade oils also have physiological effects too. Lavender, for example, helps increase white blood cells, an essential component of the immune system.
I also surround myself with the beautiful healing sounds of crystal bowls and gongs during my meditations, and do things that bring a sense of inner joy and serenity - a walk through a sunlit meadow, taking the time to stop and watch a sunset, stopping to smell a rose or honeysuckle, listening to the babble of a stream, the song of a blackbird, the laughter of a child, flowers in my garden, a deep hug with a loved one. It is about reclaiming your inner peace with yourself and with the earth.
W H Davies’ poem ‘Leisure’ sums up modern life and the diseases visited upon us.
“What is this life if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.”
William Henry Davies
This beautiful poem, written in 1911, is about mindful aliveness. So many of us are not mindfully alive - especially in contemporary life where we are addicted to our phones, to our social media, to our social status, to violent and mindless entertainment on film and TV and gaming, to mindless and excessive consumerism. I learnt this poem at school in the 70s and after my CanSur diagnosis, remembered it, and realised I had abandoned its message. I was no longer mindfully alive; I just existed.
I love and have always loved good food, good tastes, good scents, and beautiful things. To create a plate of nourishing food that looks beautiful, smells beautiful and tastes beautiful is a way of truly loving yourself and/or loving the person you want to help heal. Putting your healing intent into any food you prepare is a way of loving and valuing yourself.
This is why all my recipes contain 1 Cup of Healing Intent to remind you - and myself as the writer of these recipes - of the need to always be mindful of our thoughts. Whatever you give your attention to comes into being, so everything you do, every thought you have whilst preparing and cooking food must focus on optimum health. The more you practice this, the more it will become part of you, and you will realise that by being mindful of what you are putting into your body and the intent with which you do so will, over time, have the effect of healing the body and the mind. It cannot but be so, because these are the thoughts with which you are nourishing your mind on a daily basis. You will find that somehow food tastes cleaner, something even my adult children noticed. And when we return home from a break away, it is the first thing my partner mentions – that my food tastes clean.
The intent of your mind is paramount in overcoming this dis-ease of the body. We are all aware of the power of positive thinking. Sometimes, I think we forget the subtle negative effect of positive thinking because it makes us focus on what is wrong, bringing us full circle back to the dis-ease. By making your intent mindful to optimum health, this positive/negative cycle is circumnavigated. It simply is not about healing what is sick and unwell, it is about always serving the highest good of the body, mind and spirit. The more you practise this, the more you will cherish and love yourself. You will see a difference.
This is so important - treating yourself as the Beloved, realising that you are something extraordinary and magnificent and deserving of the best. Women are especially vulnerable in this. How many give themselves the dregs of the meal they have cooked for their family – the burnt potatoes, the overcooked piece of salmon, the plate that looks muddled and uncared for? How many of us have slopped food on a plate and thought ‘that’ll do – it’s only for me’? This is the energy you put into your food and into yourself every day. It is subtle, but it is the subtleties that are the most powerful. Those attitudes must stop if you are to heal yourself. You matter – to yourself, to those who love you – but you also matter in the great spiritual architecture of the Universe.
The psychological profile of people with CanSur also demonstrates they put themselves last, that they negate their own well being. It is the mother who feeds her children nourishing food but hasn’t the energy or time to do the same for herself. It is the person under so much stress that to nourish themselves is just one more thing they have to do – and a step too far. This was the place at the centre of me. I spent my energy making sure that my children and my ex-husband were nourished with food made with love. But left alone, lunches were skipped or grabbed from the fridge. Where was me in all of this? Why did I not nourish myself? Why did I not value who I was? It is a sobering question with a long history.
I am not going to bombard you with the story of my life – if you wish to read that please visit the ‘About’ page to be published later - I simply want to emphasise that nourishing yourself is saying this: I value you, I love you, and I want the best for you. This is about fear of not being worthy enough; this is the disease. There - you have it all in one word. Disease. Dis-ease. You’re not at peace with yourself in some way, and it is part of your healing journey to find that place within where you are at peace with who you are, and to understand that you are the most special person in your life, that only by loving yourself first and foremost can you then love all others and take your place in the world. You are the constant companion of your own life. There is no one else.
Self-Loving begins with cherishing yourself on the most basic level – feeding yourself with food that first does no harm. This blog catalogues that journey.
Love and blessings
Shannon Elizabeth x