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Dialoguing With Your Cancer

By Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT

Please Note: While this piece doesn't resonate with everyone who's read it, many people have found this extremely helpful in understanding something about their bodies and what they might do to help rid themselves of this disease. However, I want to stress that just because this piece discusses the possibility of learning something about how or why your cancer arose, I do not believe that you "caused" your cancer just so that you could learn from the experience! In reading this piece, accept whatever conclusions you may come to that are helpful and that allow you to move toward healing—ignore the rest.

Incidentally, eventually this will become an article, but it is now in the form of an imagery script or exercise. And as with all the imagery scripts on this website, you can use this in several different ways. First, simply read it as you would read any article, with the purpose of learning something and exploring how that might apply to you. On the other hand, you may want to get into the piece more deeply by reading it several times to yourself, pausing when you come to breaks identified by three periods (. . .) in order to have time to experience that section in whatever way feels comfortable to you.

Or, you can try to experience it as a regular imagery exercise is usually done, that is, first read it into a tape player (or have a friend or family member read it for you) and then, as you listen to it, close your eyes and follow along in whatever way feels right to you. To learn more about the technique of imagery, I suggest you first read Using Imagery Scripts. You might even want to take our Imagery Classes, which are easy to do at your own pace and can teach you about this effective technique for gaining insight into various aspects of your body and your life.

Begin this dialogue with your cancer by taking a comfortable position, gently closing your eyes and bringing your attention to your breath. . . . . Notice the air entering and leaving your body . . . coming in . . . going out . . . With each breath allow yourself to become more and more relaxed, more and more comfortable, . . . feeling all your tension and discomfort flowing down your body and into the ground, . . . and allowing your mind to be quiet and calm, yet also clear and alert. . . .

And now, if you will, bring the focus of your mind into a special place within where your thoughts and emotions connect with your body's wisdom. Imagining this place may at first seem strange and yet within everyone there is a state of mind where you can become aware of the way in which your emotions affect your body, a place where your body affects your mind, and where your mind can influence emotions - a place where all of these processes take place twenty-four hours a day. Here is the source for the tightening in your stomach when you are anxious, here is where you begin to feel sleepy just because your mind is bored, here is where your mind is able to suddenly come up with a solution to a problem right after you've been exercising because you've given it more oxygen.

Yes, here is where the body and mind communicate, and because they do so in a language not of words but of images, you can learn to listen to this inner dialogue by relaxing and by allowing your imagination to be receptive to the images that arise when you listen to this exercise. You can learn a great deal about the interplay between your emotions, mind and body by taping into the body's wisdom. You can even open a dialogue with your cancer. And by dialoguing with the cancer, you may possibly uncover what there may be in your life that you need to change in order for you to enhance your immune system and more effectively support your treatment for cancer.

Now, as you take this adventure into the mind/body connection, you may need to remind yourself that there may be several trips you can make to this place before you get all the answers you would like to have. Nevertheless, as you do this exercise today, I invite you to accept any images or thoughts that come to you as the ones you need to have at this time, the ones that may set the stage for other understanding at a later time.

And with that in mind, as you continue to feel relaxed and alert, now let yourself flow easily into that place that is without form, but which has the potential of providing you with messages and information about your cancer that may be helpful for you to know.

And from within this mind-body connection, allow an image to form of your cancer, observing whatever details you can about the cancer's size, shape, color and texture. If you have a cancer which may be in more than one place in your body, focus on a single cancer cell or group of cancer cells. If you have several tumors, look at the largest one of them. And if your imagination needs some help, you might want take a special magical flashlight that can shine anywhere inside your body so you can look very carefully at what these cells look like. And if you don't see any cancer in your mind's eye, if there is no particular color or form to the cancer, just be aware of whatever sense you have of it and experience your cancer as clearly as possible in any way that allows you to know what it is like. . . .

And now, if you will, allow your imagination to expand even further, imagining you can become, for a short time, the cancer itself, imagining that you are the same size, the same shape, the same color and the same texture of the cancer you have been observing. . . . If for some reason you feel you can't or don't want to do this, you still might imagine what it would be like to be a cancer and what you could learn if you could probe the thoughts of cells that have decided not to obey the rules that normal cells must follow.

If you can become the cancer, just for now, you know what it's like to be growing where you don't belong and what it feels like to do what you shouldn't do. . . . And now imagine what it would feel like if you were to stop growing and invading healthy tissue. . . . And now let your host, that is, the person in whom you live, know how it will feel when you begin to shrink and disappear, just as your host wants you to do. . . .

And now, continuing to be the cancer and having a sense of what that is like, imagine that you can communicate with your host and can explain some issues that would be helpful to the person in whose body you have been growing too rapidly. Begin by telling this person why you believe you started growing in the first place. It is possible, of course, that you don't know why you started growing. And that is okay. But if you do know—and if it would be helpful for this person to have that information—tell what contributed to your growth in a way that the person can understand. . . .

And now turn to an important question: Is there a change this person needs to make either physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, or spiritually that will help speed the time when you will leave this host's body in which you reside? Give that answer now in a way the person can understand. . . .

And now, answer one more question, which is, does your presence in this person's body change the purpose of that life? If it does, what is the purpose of this person now? . . .

Spend a moment more as the cancer and consider anything else you might be able to tell this person that would be good for the person to know. . . . .

And now that you have finished providing whatever information you can by pretending to be the cancer, you need to become wholly yourself once more. So let the image of the cancer fade and bring your attention back to the center of your mind/body connection, where your mind can reflect on what messages your body's wisdom communicated. Of course, that it may take a long time to carefully think about whether or not those messages were accurate. For right now, though, take a few moments and consider the thoughts and images you experienced when the cancer was talking with you. . . .

Notice now if there is something you want to do as a result of what you have experienced in this exercise, or if you are satisfied that you are already doing all you can and only need to continue doing whatever that is. . . .

If there is a direction in which you feel you need to move in your life so that you can become whole and healthy as possible, notice what is the very next step that you can take in order to move toward that direction. . . . And if you experience some resistance in moving in that direction, notice what stands in your way and how might you get past that barrier. . . .

And now, as you prepare to end this exercise on a dialogue with cancer, become aware of the room you are in . . . noticing the sensation of your body sitting or lying down . . . taking an energizing breath . . . gently opening your eyes and letting yourself become fully awake and conscious, bringing back with you anything helpful for you to know.

© Copyright 1997, Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT