Monday, February 20, 2012 Positive Thinking: The Story of A Guy Who Defeated 4th Stage Cancer - Two Sides of the Positive/Negative Thinking Coin

Work is going terrible? Things look bad? 

You think you have it bad now? Seriously? 

Let me tell you about my friend Paul (not his real name) and how his life and death are a good lesson for us all.


Paul was a very popular and well known guy. You might say he was famous. At least in the music business in Japan, everyone knew him. Everyone in the world who knows a very famous late 80s ~ early 90s Japanese all-girl punk band  knows his work. Paul lived a fun and full fast life; fast foods, late nights, drinking and other recreational activities. Besides that, Paul was a heavy cigarette smoker for years. 


One day, out of the blue, Paul had a sore throat. The sore throat didn't go away after a few weeks so Paul went to the doctor again. There, he was diagnosed with forth stage cancer of the throat. 


The forth stage of cancer is, as you may know, the worst and final stages of the disease. Forth stage usually means that the cancer has penetrated the lymph system of the human body. The chances of survival are less than 5%... Suddenly, with all these things going on you'd think that Paul would get very depressed.


Well, he did. Like most people, Paul got very depressed. 


Soon, his condition got worse. It got a lot worse. Of course it did. It had to with an attitude like that.


Then, one day, while he was at work, we met and had a nice long talk. This was after I helped my own daughter defeat forth stage cancer. Paul believed that I could tell him why some people defeat cancer and why some people don't. 


Paul was a difficult discussion. Paul was a like a "sponge." Unconsciously, he was sucking the life and energy out of everyone he came into contact with. I could feel it. He was in a near panic that he felt he was going to die soon. Paul was grasping, searching for me, for anyone, to tell him some sort of knowledge, some sort of epiphany, some sort of magic that would make it all go away. He wanted some sort of "key" to wisdom that would answer his questions and make him healthy again. 


I told him that the knowledge I have he already knows too. I told him that he already knew what had to be done, he just hadn't realized that it was there, right in front of him, the entire time.


Paul told me that whenever he went to the doctor's office (of course it was the doctor for cancer so all the patient's there were cancer patients) he would enter the waiting room. In the waiting room everyone would be looking down. Whenever a new patient entered the room, they look up look nervously at the faces of the other patients. Everyone, he said, would be reading each other's faces and body language to try to determine who was the next one to die and who would survive. 


They were all sponges taking the life energy out of each other. It was like death row at a prison.


I asked Paul to stop this behavior immediately. I asked him to stop being a sponge. I asked him to stop absorbing the light from other people and, instead, start projecting the light. I told him that, instead of entering the doctors waiting room, nervously, like the others, enter bringing hope for everyone else. Smile and be positive. Show the others that you (Paul) are going to be one that survives. Show them the way that they can survive and, not only survive, how to thrive. 


I hate to sound corny, but John Lennon had it right; "And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give."


I told him to stop taking energy from others and, instead, to start giving out positive energy.


Paul also told me that he knew that if he could just convince the doctors and the nurses that he was going to recover that he would recover. I told him that he was wrong. I told him that he didn't need to convince the doctors and the nurses; he only needed to convince himself. 

I believe that ancient books, like the bible, are filled with wonderful stories that are not necessary to be taken literally, but to be understood figuratively. In the bible, when Jesus walked on water, we know that it is literally impossible to walk on water. But we know that people can do the "impossible." I think Jesus walking on water means that he accomplished what people thought was impossible... Perhaps like the Wright Brothers making a flying machine. In the bible, Jesus said, "All you need to do is to have faith."


I told Paul that it wasn't necessary for the doctors and nurses and his wife and children to believe that he was going to be cured. It was only necessary that he believed that he was going to be cured.


I told him to take the 5 tips towards winning that I mentioned yesterday. I told him that he needed to do that because he needed to train his mind to be positive for the rest of his life. He promised me he would. He did. He did it religiously, he told me. I also told him that,


"When you recover, you must remember to wake up everyday and continue with these steps to prevent the cancer from returning." This is obvious as a cancer is a physiological disorder and a positive mental attitude is necessary to stop it or keep it at bay.


Paul took my advice to heart. He started becoming positive again. He started going to the doctors office and, when the door opened and he entered, he was light a bright shining star bringing happiness and positivity to the other patients. He greeted everyone with a smile. He started creating in his heart the image and the belief that he was positive and that he was a good force and that he was actually, through his positivity and his actions, healing himself and helping others to heal.


Soon, Paul's cancer shrank and fell back into remission. He was ecstatic. His doctor was extremely pleased. 
   
The next time I met him he was a changed man. I couldn't believe how much he thanked me. But he needn't thank me. I told him nothing that he didn't already know: That faith and positive thinking and beliefs can move mountains.


But, alas, this story doesn't have a happy ending. But it does have an important lesson for everyone: Several months later, upon being given a clean bill of health, and being told that the cancer was in complete remission by the doctors, Paul returned to work and his normal lifestyle, Paul began to live as he did before...  


One day, after work, when riding his motorcycle home, he was hit at an intersection by a car and the accident severely broke his hipbone in several places. Paul had to return to the hospital where he languished. He was mentally shattered by this accident. 


I believe that Paul was so disappointed by this accident and the fact that he had to return to the hospital bed for a few months that he fell into deep depression. 


I spoke to Paul again, briefly on the phone, and he was a defeated man. He was crushed to be back into the hospital. Soon after, I'm sure to nobody's surprise, the cancer returned. Paul would die from complications from the cancer and the treatment soon after.


Like I said, there seems to be an important lesson here. When Paul became positive, he healed himself. When he became depressed, he got sick. Could the quickness of this change and how the illness returned show anything but the importance of a positive mental attitude?


A positive mental attitude is not something that you can just turn on and off like a light switch. It must be grown and it must be cultivated. 


A beautiful garden of flowers and roses does not appear overnight. It takes months of doing groundwork, shoveling, spading, planting, watering and nurturing.


Are you doing enough to nurture your soul and your positive attitude? Are you doing enough so that you can become a beacon of light?

 

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