Spiritual help
Spiritual help is needed by those facing a life-threatening illness as, almost immediately, the really big questions of the meaning of life and death are raised. The role of spiritual advisors as part of the support network is written about towards the end of this chapter. Another type of spiritual help is spiritual healing, included in Chapters 7 and 8. The broader aspects of the role of our spiritual health in long-term recovery are discussed in Chapter 9. Spiritual help is available from:
• spiritual advisors or religious guides, who help you to examine your beliefs and give spiritual support
• spiritual healers, who can help to provide energy support, spiritual uplift, relief of pain and symptoms and, sometimes, physical healing of disease
• transpersonal counsellors, psychosynthesis counsellors and Health Creation Mentors who can all help you to focus on creating spiritual health and fulfilment.
6. Self-help approaches
Self-help approaches, described in Chapters 7 and 8, can help you achieve the best outcomes from treatment and symptom control. They can also contribute to long-term health creation, as discussed in Chapter 9.
Self-help techniques to prepare for treatment and reduce symptoms include:
• relaxation, visualization, breathing techniques, affirmations and self-hypnosis.
Self-help techniques for long-term health creation include:
• healthy eating
• regular exercise, including aerobic exercise such as swimming, walking, running, a gym workout, dancing or tennis, as well as the more holistic types of exercise such as yoga, tai chi or chi gong
• spiritual practices such as meditation.
7. Healthy lifestyle reorientation
Healthy lifestyle reorientation, covered in Chapter 9, includes the key areas for creating long-term sustainable health, such as:
• stress reduction – both external stress and self-stressing tendencies
• establishing the correct work/play balance
• establishing healthy, loving relationships
• experiencing a sense of belonging
• becoming fulfilled and able to express oneself creatively
• feeling well nourished at all levels of the body, mind and spirit
• ensuring that your environment is healthy and free from negative influences.
Timing Is All: The Four Phases of Recovery
The healing journey from here, diagnosis, to there, recovery and a healthy, fresh new lifestyle, is, in the words of Penny Brohn, co-founder of the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, ‘a process and not an event!’
How dearly we all wish that there were a quick way to get rid of the uncomfortable feelings and symptoms of illness, get through our treatments, and back into a secure ‘normal’ life. But, unfortunately, the treatment and healing process does take time, and there are challenges associated with each step of the treatment and healing process. It is therefore important that you get the big picture, understand what you will have to go through, pace yourself appropriately and map out which aspects of the integrated approach will be right for which stage of the healing journey.
The main tendency is for everyone affected by cancer to get into a terrible panicky rush. The medical profession often sets the hurried pace, making it appear imperative that you receive treatment within hours or days of diagnosis. This is very unhelpful as it leaves you with no time to recover from the initial shock, to prepare for treatment and, most important of all, to take the necessary time to consider the treatment options on offer (while getting your head around the short-and possible long-term side-effects).
As for integrated approaches, people with cancer often confuse the more short-term use of supportive complementary help and symptom control with the longer-term health creation measures necessary for a sustainable improvement in health and, hopefully, prognosis. The worst pitfall would be to rush into making major life changes while in the middle of treatment!
Sometimes, having got the message that illness can follow long periods of stress or unhappiness, people become very motivated to change, but run into problems when they try to make big changes when they are weak and vulnerable. If illness has made you realize that you need to change your job, confront difficulties in your relationships or move house, do wait until you are well and physically strong enough, through your treatment and convalescence, before making such big life changes.
To help you identify the process of recovery, it is wise to see it in four distinct phases:
Phase 1 Getting through diagnosis and treatment positively
Phase 2 Dealing creatively with the problems of illness
Phase 3 Health revival: the state shift to get the body and mind strong again
Phase 4 Life revival: getting into a healthy, happy and fulfilling lifestyle.
Phase 1 Getting through diagnosis and treatment positively
• Take the time to go through your reactions to the diagnosis
• Set up your support network
• Make appropriate adjustments to your working and social commitments
• Obtain full and clear information on all of your treatment options
• Make a truly informed decision regarding treatment
• Prepare well for treatment psychologically, physically and practically
• Convalesce properly from treatment.
Phase 2 Dealing creatively with the problems of illness
It may be that the cancer itself, or the treatments you receive for it, creates some residual health problems or troublesome symptoms. Often, creative solutions are available for these problems from complementary and mind – body medicine. There are also specialized support organizations that can provide individually tailored help for specific cancers and the problems or disabilities associated with such cancers or their treatment so, in this phase, attention is given to:
• symptom control with natural medicines
• the mind – body approach to symptom relief
• complementary therapies for symptom relief
• complementary therapies for the side-effects of treatment
• help with specific cancers
• help with specific disabilities
• help with specific cancer-related issues.