Those of you who have been regular readers of Living Intentionally have probably noticed how quiet I’ve been. It’s been a full year since I’ve posted with any consistency. I’ve been dealing with a lot of things. In doing so, I withdrew to ensure I had the energy to prevail. And now I am ready to share with you what has been happening.

For those who want to get to the crux of the matter before I blather on in glorious detail, I’ve been dealing with cancer. Yes, surprise-surprise, Mr. Health Consciousness and Ultimate Lifestyle got himself into the same scenario that many of you and your loved ones have faced. How that came to be is enlightening. As is how I’ve dealt with it.

Some Background

I’ve worked in energy healing for a lot of years. My first forays into the world of intention and healing were about 30 years ago. It was just a hobby and became somewhat of a “party trick”. It was fun, but soon became more of a spiritual pursuit than a pure hobby. While I wasn’t taking payment, the sessions became more and more meaningful.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, my mom became rather ill, eventually being diagnosed with Wegener’s Granulomatosis. WG is a brutal illness and conventional treatment is a complicated business replete with serious side effects. Her journey with WG lasted some 6 years before another complication came to light: lung cancer.

The WG and cancer triggered in me a desire to move beyond hobby and study energy healing in earnest. By early 2006 I was studying not only QiGong, but also Quantum-Touch. By 2007, I was a licensed practitioner and instructor, having taken an array of basic and advanced courses. I began teaching workshops and travelling between Japan (where I live) and the US for training.

During a visit to see my mom in spring 2006, I had done a number of healing sessions with her that could only be described as amazing. Unfortunately, mom wasn’t ready for a shift away from the allopathic paradigm. The progress she made during our sessions over a few days unnerved her and she decided that she was not going to mix allopathy with alternative healing methods. She asked me to not do any healing sessions with her anymore. She went solely with chemotherapy and radiation.

During the following months, mom’s condition deteriorated. By September 2006, doctors determined that the lung cancer had metastasized, spreading to her liver and brain. I called her and she was afraid, not wanting to die. She asked me to resume remote healing sessions with her. Just as I honoured her initial request to not have sessions, I honoured her request to resume.

The sessions themselves were fine, but her condition was serious. The cancer had spread far and wide. Combined with the WG, her strength began failing quickly. By the third week of October, she was gone.

The Beginning of a Trend

Over the years that followed, I dealt with many clients who were also dealing with cancer. In fact, it seemed that client after client came to me. All terrified and most with beliefs and habits that confounded their recovery. Very few of the clients I worked with over the years survived. A few did, but most did not.

Eventually, I began to dread taking sessions. It literally began to affect me to the point that I literally took my ‘store’ offline. No more PayPal links meant no obvious way of sending me money to work with the clients. I was no longer able to separate myself from my clients’ issues. As such, I could not in good conscience take payment for work that I didn’t feel I was able to do. A key element of successful energy healing is that the practitioner must remain detached from the outcome while holding a positive expectation. I was honestly unable to do that. I was too emotionally hooked in the shenpa of their journey.

One of my clients had a relapse and eventually succumbed during that period when I had taken myself offline. The loss resulted in a heavy burden of guilt in my inability to step up to the plate. As much as I wanted to be forgiving of myself, the guilt ate at me. My stress mounted and I began making poor dietary and lifestyle choices.

Shenpa hooked me deeply. I was caught in a revolving door of guilt from withdrawing and anger at my inability to fix my own issues that caused me to withdraw. I suffered mightily through the winter of 2015 and in early spring of 2016, I tried to find my way out of the gloom. One of the ways I did that was to start getting some sunshine again, to build up my Vitamin D stores. When my father died of lung cancer in April 2016, it set me back hard. I crashed.

I was emotionally fragile and in poor physical condition. By late April I was deeply alarmed to see a march of moles growing at ridiculous  speed across my abdomen and arms. Deeply concerned, I checked every source regarding the shape, colour and proliferation of the growths. Skin cancer. Melanoma.

So Much Fear

As you can well imagine, my newfound discovery had me locked in fear. For the first week or two, I vacillated between paralysis and numbness. Sincerely, I had lost my way and felt unable to cope. My energy levels crashed along with the spread of the growths on my skin. I was constantly exhausted and literally never felt well rested. A “good day” meant merely feeling lousy.

After the initial shock wore off, I realized that I’d been living in fear of cancer for a decade. It began with the fear of losing a parent and the feeling of inadequacy of being able to save that parent. It progressed through the same fear and dread of facing death with client after client, culminating with the passing of my father. Despite knowing deep down the sense of connection that exists, ego’s fear kept me firmly rooted in dread.

Now, having seen parents and so many clients suffer tremendously at the receiving end of chemo and radiation, I decided to pass on all allopathic strategies. I would take this on as a vehicle of growth. An opportunity to practice what I have preached for so many years. I would finally cultivate enough prajna to have clarity. I would heal myself.

All Healing Is Self-Healing

To make this rather long story a bit shorter, I’ve spent the better part of the last year learning how to not be afraid. I’ve tried hard to not be results-oriented, but that remains a trapping that affects my life in many ways. When I catch myself being too fixated on results, I am now quick to smile and cajole myself to focusing on the journey. It is in making good decisions and not fretting about our bad ones that makes our journey so valuable.

I won’t lie to you and say that I’m fully healed, but I can smile and honestly state that I’ve made really strong progress through nothing more than a regimen of exercise, meditation and constant attention to how I’m framing my thoughts. I’ve had swings back and forth as I’ve dealt with various stresses, but the overall trend has been from sickness towards health. My skin continues to look better month by month and my outlook is now firmly positive.

I no longer fear cancer. I have the occasional rough stretch through my poor management of external stressors, but I’m confident that cancer shall not be my undoing. When I notice I’m struggling, I focus on the breath, on being present. I’m meditating more and making sure that I’m active. I confess that I still feel as though I’m somewhat of an imposter, but I know that’s just ego’s judgment and that I’m merely a being on a journey of growth and enlightenment.

And now I’m ready to get back to helping others on their journey. If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my journey over the last year, it’s that we need to deal with our fear first. Fear is our biggest impediment to living large, becoming something greater and being healthy in all ways.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact me.

Namaste and much love,

trane