IFI News
Cancer Patients Embrace Forgiveness Therapy and Other Self-Care Strategies
Making the Mind-Body Connection: Self-Care Strategies for Cancer Patients
by Brad Krause
The importance of the mind-body connection is evident in the increasingly impactful role that mindfulness and spiritual belief play in helping cancer patients improve their quality of life. And a growing number of cancer patients are turning to alternative approaches that draw on the mind’s ability to moderate the body’s responses to illness.
There is a growing body of research, including research done by the International Forgiveness Institute, showing that mind-body approaches in oncological medicine aid the healing process; help patients with advanced cases of the disease cope with their condition and its devastating emotional effects; and help sufferers maintain a happier lifestyle and positive mindset. Self-care strategies and spiritual strength can also help alleviate depression, anxiety and fatigue, and even energize the patient.
Strategies:
Cancer patients have to cope with an overwhelming situation dominated by treatments that are often as unpleasant as the disease. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy cause nausea, weakness, hair loss and other side effects that keep the patient feeling sick. Fortunately, there are many powerfully-effective mind-body strategies that help the cancer patient maintain a healthy and efficacious self-care regimen.
Deep breathing
Breathing deeply and mindfully helps establish the mind-body connection. It’s a core component of yoga and many forms of meditation. Deep-breathing exercises relax you, lower your heart rate and blood pressure, and enable you to focus on positive thoughts. Try breathing deeply and center on how it makes you feel. If you prefer, listen to calming music during your breathing exercise. You can also combine breathing with some form of physical exercise, such as walking, biking, or yoga.
Forgiveness and self-forgiveness
According to the respected health website WebMD.com, if you can bring yourself to forgive, you are likely to enjoy lower blood pressure, a stronger immune system, and a drop in the stress hormones circulating in your blood. Back pain, stomach problems, and headaches may disappear. And you’ll reduce the anger, bitterness, resentment, depression, and other negative emotions that accompany the failure to forgive.
While refusing to forgive may not directly cause disease, according to WebMD, the negative impact of holding on to painful memories and past wounds can weaken the immune system and make you more susceptible to illness including cancer.
“It’s important to treat emotional wounds or disorders because they really can hinder someone’s reactions to the treatments — even someone’s willingness to pursue treatment,” says Dr. Steven Standiford, chief of surgery at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. “In fact, forgiveness therapy is now an integral part of treatment at Cancer Treatment Centers of America.”
Watch a short video about the amazing power forgiveness has had on one woman’s life and her battle with cancer. “If I hadn’t learned to forgive,” says Jayne Valseca, a cancer patient who was essentially given a death sentence, “I may not even be alive today.” Watch the video here.
“If I hadn’t learned to forgive, I may not even be alive today.” Jane Garcia Valseca
While not a treatment method per se, the act of forgiving yourself can free you mentally and emotionally so that you may best concentrate on healing. When you get cancer, you may blame yourself for smoking, eating the wrong foods, spending too much time in the sun…the list could go on forever. You question every decision you’ve ever made and punish yourself for the actions you did, or did not do, that might have contributed to your disease. By practicing self-forgiveness, you will gain an inner peace and the freedom to look to the future instead of the past.
Meditation
Meditation is another self-centering exercise in which quiet and inner stillness focus one’s awareness. Meditation can help cancer patients manage nausea, pain and stress, and aid the body’s ability to heal by improving sleep and mood. Mindfulness is key to self-care in cancer patients, and few things help focus one’s energy and inner resources better than meditation. There are many forms of meditation. Some people concentrate on one part of their body, while others focus on a word or phrase as they meditate. Some meditative disciplines focus on controlling pain, while others are designed to help practitioners accept and cope with the physical changes their bodies are going through.
Image projection
The mind’s ability to project images with sensory qualities is another effective means of making the mind-body connection. Mental images can affect your senses, a useful exercise for people suffering the physical discomforts of cancer. Some patients combine their spirituality with meditation by concentrating on religious images. Patients with a strong sense of spirituality often gain a strong sense of well-being, which makes it easier to cope with the disease.
It should be noted that spirituality and religion are not interchangeable terms. Some people use religion to channel and focus their spirituality, while other patients consider themselves spiritual, though not religious, at least not in the formal sense of the word. A cancer diagnosis may cause some people to become religious, or to return to a religious practice they may have previously abandoned. Research has shown that spirituality is capable of enhancing the patient’s quality of life through renewed optimism and hope for a future free of the disease.
Cancer patients sometimes experience difficulty with prescriptive medications, as these are often used as necessary pain management. Incorporating self-care practices like deep breathing and meditation can help prevent cancer patients from becoming addicted to opioids during their course of treatment. The use of alternative therapies to create the mind-body connection has been proven effective at alleviating pain without an excessive use of prescriptive methods.
Cancer ravages the body in many ways. Its effects can also oppress the mind, impeding its ability to help patients deal with the symptoms of the disease. But alternative self-care therapies and spirituality can help marshal the power of the mind to mitigate the pain and physical misery of cancer.
About Brad Krause:
After four years in the corporate world working 15-hour days, 6 days a week, Brad Krause demonstrated the ultimate act of self-care by leaving his draining, unfulfilling job behind. He now spends full-time helping others as a self-care guru, writer and life coach (SelfCare.info). He sums up his vision by saying, “We all have the potential to be the best versions of ourselves we can possibly be, but it comes down to prioritizing our own wellness through self-care. And that’s what I’m here to help people discover!”
You can contact Brad at Brad@selfcaring.info.
Forgiveness, like Dr. Enright’s Model, should be Cultivated on National and International Scales
According to an editorial in the February issue of an international humanities journal, forgiveness interventions like Dr. Robert Enright’s 20 Step Process Model, should be employed on a much broader basis and, in fact, national leaders should be assessing “when or how it might be appropriate to cultivate forgiveness on national and international scales.”
The influential American Journal of Public Health, continuously published for more than 100 years, further editorialized that:
“If forgiveness is strongly related to health, and being wronged is a common experience, and interventions. . . are available and effective, then one might make the case that forgiveness is a public health issue. . .
“Because being wronged is common, and because the effects of forgiveness on health are substantial, forgiveness should perhaps be viewed as a phenomenon that is not only of moral, theological, and relational significance, but of public health importance as well.”
“Forgiveness promotes health and wholeness; it is important to public health.” AJPH
The editorial cites Dr. Enright’s Process Model (also called his Four Phases of Forgiveness) as one of only two “prominent intervention classes” now available. “Interventions using this model have been shown to be effective with groups as diverse as adult incest survivors, parents who have adopted special needs children, and inpatients struggling with alcohol and drug addiction.
“Forgiveness is associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety, and hostility; reduced nicotine dependence and substance abuse; higher positive emotion; higher satisfaction with life; higher social support; and fewer self-reported health symptoms. The beneficial emotional regulation (results in) forgiveness being an alternative to maladaptive psychological responses like rumination and suppression.”
Read the rest of this compelling editorial: Is Forgiveness a Public Health Issue?
Learn more about Dr. Enright’s Four Phases of Forgiveness
Dr. Enright’s Forgiveness Blogs In High Demand
One of the nation’s premier blog sites, Psychology Today, says the number of people who are reading blog posts authored by Dr. Robert Enright for its online journal has reached a record peak.
Dr. Robert Enright
Here are the number of views Dr. Enright’s blogs have tallied since he joined the website’s elite writing corps:
- Last 7 Days – 5,956
- Last 30 Days – 12,638
- Last 90 Days – 31,257
- Since Dec. 1, 2016 – 115,000+
Psychology Today is a New York City-based print magazine that last year celebrated its 50th year of continuous publication. Its online journal has gathered a group of renowned psychologists (including Dr. Enright), academics, psychiatrists and writers to contribute their thoughts and ideas on what makes us tick. According to the website, “We’re a live stream of what’s happening in Psychology Today.”
The forgiveness blog section on Psychology Today’s website is called “The Forgiving Life.” Here are links to just a handful of the 38 blogs Dr. Enright has produced for the site:
Is It True That Forgiveness Is “Ridiculous”?
This provocative blog replies to the author of an Amazon.com book review who labeled Dr. Enright’s Model of Forgiveness “ridiculous.”
Why Forgiveness Is Heroic
While he clarifies that not all people necessarily practice forgiveness in a “heroic” manner, Dr. Enright says many others forgive on a high level encompassing Aristotle’s concept of heroism as “greatness of heart.
Five Reasons Why Your Romantic Relationships Do Not Last
Has this ever happened to you: A relationship starts and is filled with hope, only to end all too soon? Dr. Enright offers 5 reasons why this may happen and offers suggestions for breaking the pattern?
Anger and Cancer: Is There a Relationship?
Research indicates, according to Dr. Enright, that intense, persistent, and suppressed anger may indeed be implicated in certain cancers such as prostate, lung, and colorectal cancers.
Complete list of Psychology Today blogs written by Dr. Enright.
Click the link above to access all the blogs Dr. Enright has written for Psychology Today.
IFI Receives Prestigious 2017 All Star Award
The International Forgiveness 
Institute has received the 2017 All Star Award from Constant Contact for the creativity and effectiveness of its internet communications, particularly its email newsletters..
“We’re happy to be recognized by Constant Contact for achieving strong marketing results and for consistently developing creative ways to communicate with our various audiences,” according to Dr. Robert Enright, co-founder of the IFI. “That has helped us gain acceptance of our Forgiveness Education Curriculum Guides in more than 30 countries around the world where forgiveness education is being taught.”
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“Our emails and communication tools are made with our
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Four Eye-Opening Reasons Why You Should Watch the Rome Forgiveness Conference Videos
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Reason #1: To learn the importance of forgiveness education.
Dr. Robert Enright, IFI founder, first discusses what forgiveness education is and its importance for children and adolescents. Click here to watch Dr. Enright’s presentation on “The Science of Forgiveness.”.
Reason #2: To hear the surprising declarations made by a high-ranking Iraqi official about forgiveness in Islam.
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The Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican, Hon. Omer Ahmed Kerim Berzinji, said forgiveness plays a prominent role in his Muslim faith and that it is cited roughly 100 times in the Quran. (Click here to watch the opening part of his presentation, which includes a consecutive translation of his Arabic words. After this brief consecutive translation, the rest of the ambassador’s talk is in Arabic without the translation). The Hon. Berzinji expressed an interest in considering the implementation of forgiveness education in Iraq.
Reason #3: To hear for yourself the Orthodox Jewish speaker’s views on forgiveness.
Peta
Peta Pellach of the Elijah Interfaith Institute in Jerusalem gave an inspiring presentation of forgiveness in Judaism that is not to be missed. Click here to watch Ms. Pellach’s presentation.
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Reason #4: To hear for yourself the Christian speaker’s views on forgiveness..
Monsignor Mariano Fazio, Vicar General of Opus Dei and a long-time personal friend of Pope Francis, discusses his views on forgiveness. Click here to watch Msgr. Fazio’s presentation. Author of more than 20 books, Msgr. Fazio’s newest book is titled Pope Francis: Keys to His Thought.
We extend our thanks and appreciation to our conference partner Forgive4Peace for helping us make it possible.
