Which are the three most feared words in the English language? For most of us, it is likely to be these:
“You have cancer.”
Few things challenge us as much to take a full breath and reach deeply inside as a diagnosis of cancer.
At best, it means months of struggle going through arduous treatments, which at times may leave us weak and debilitated. At worst, it is the beginning of the long journey that will eventually lead to the slow ebbing of our life force and the last, soft beat of our heart.
And we never know, which it will be.
Yet, for many people, a diagnosis of cancer can also turn into an unexpected blessing.
“Getting diagnosed with cancer . . . makes you grow up pretty fast,” says Lauren Truelock, who got diagnosed with cancer in her 20s. “It forces you to face life in a new way, and as I sit here now, I am who I am because of what I learned during that time.”
“Cancer taught me that life is not a given. Every single bad day is so much better than no day at all.”
In this free download, Dr. Baxter Bell talks about how we can learn to deal with the challenge of cancer from a yogic perspective.
Cancer will touch all of us at one point in our lives, notes Baxter. We may be lucky enough to not be among the two in five people who gets a cancer diagnosis. However, we will inevitably have friends and relatives who at one point will struggle with cancer.
Yoga can make a huge difference, both in our ability to help others and if relevant, in our own healing process, notes Baxter.
Yoga can help us reframe our relationship to our diagnosis and address the anxiety that comes from life with cancer.
And it can help us up the chances for a positive outcome by helping improve the factors that affect the healing process: Our mood, our stress levels, our ability to get a sound, peaceful night of sleep.
“Yoga is going to support and improve your sense of overall well-being,” notes Baxter. It can help us better address persistent stress that shows up as anxiety, worry, fear, and uncertainty in the body.”
And importantly, yoga can help us get a deeper perspective and reset how we look at life and the events unfolding around us.
Yoga can help us tune in to the deeper, more spiritual undercurrent that weaves through our lives, which often gets lost in the hustle and bustle of our “normal” busy lives.
You may also be interested in Baxter Bell’s course: Yoga for Cancer: Exploring Self-Care Tools and Healing Pathways
