EnlightenInk Blog

In my first newsletter I asked the question, “What wants to be born into my life?” Now, two-and-a-half years later I have my answer – I have been reborn into a new life, a new way of being, a higher version of myself. I can see now that I had so many fears jamming me up, creating a stagnation that kept me from fully stretching into this life. Cancer was the chaos that stirred my stagnation into the birth of a more vibrant aliveness. As Bob Dylan sang, “He not busy being born, is busy dying.” I’m now busy being born!

For me, cancer instigated a total cleanse of my body, emotions, and spirit, removing toxins, blocks, and beliefs, allowing life to flow through me more fully. I have come more into harmony with myself and now appreciate every part of my body…and I mean EVERY part. I never thought I’d be applauding voluminous bowel movements, but I am! They are so beautiful to me! They let me know that the obstruction that was there before hasn’t grown back! All systems are clear and flowing!

I’m seeing that illness can be a rousing call to wholeness and more vibrancy. What seems like chaos and disaster is actually all part of a innate intelligence and drive towards greater creativity and a higher order of being. This is beautifully illustrated in Cymatics, the study of sound and vibration in which the surface of a plate is vibrated and a thin layer of particles on the plate resonate with the vibration, eventually forming a cohesive pattern. As the frequency rises, chaos ensues — the particles go haywire, into total disarray! Then, at a certain point the particles spontaneously reorganize once again, forming an even more intricate, symmetrical, interconnected, mandala-like pattern. This process repeats itself each time the frequency increases — disintegration is followed by re-integration and a higher order of harmony and coherence.

I believe this same process happens in illness and other life challenges — chaos is a purposeful response to stagnation and a prelude to a higher state of being. However, the success of this transition depends on how we perceive these challenges; when upheavals happen it can either seem like the death of us, or an opportunity to grow and raise our game to a higher level. Once I see that chaos is just an ‘obstacle illusion’, I stop kicking and screaming and resisting, and I come into harmony with this process of rebirth. I can then ride the spiral of my personal growth upwards saying, “Oh boy, another growth opportunity!”

To determine our physical health, a doctor checks our vital signs. What I’ve learned is to determine my emotional and spiritual health by checking my vitality signs: am I fully engaged and living a creative life, facing and integrating shadows, fulfilling my life purpose? If so, I don’t need to create chaos. But if chaos comes again, I will stay with it, learn from it, and ride it out, knowing that it is all part of elevating my life to a higher level of being. Nietzsche said, “You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” When stuck in stagnation we are stirred and steared onward and upward to become the stars that we truly are!

Is your life in chaos right now? Congratulations! Something magnificent is about to be born into form!

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: cancer, chaos, cymatics, disintegration reintegration, rebirth, stagnation

When I was in my early twenties, I read an article in Parade Magazine about Liza Minnelli, who had just emerged from rehab. Something she said in that article has stayed with me all these years. It was very simple, yet so vastly profound that it helped change my life forever. She said that she was developing a new relationship with herself and throughout the day would check in, asking, “How are you doing honey?”

That blew my mind! The thought that I could talk to myself that way opened up a whole new way of being with myself. I started checking in with myself and calling myself “honey’ and ‘sweetheart’.  Gradually, over time, the critical voice that was always beating me up became a loving voice. My chronic, internal judge was being replaced by my Compassionate Witness. This is an on-going process that continues to this day.

In my forties I fortified the voice of my Compassionate Witness by doing a two-year training in Hakomi, a healing, therapeutic approach that brings mindfulness, curiosity, and loving presence to whatever is present. Strengthening the energy of presence was building a mighty muscle that would carry me through tough times.

I flex that muscle now whenever I’m haunted by horror thoughts of possible cancer carnage…I take deep breaths and become very present. This invites in my Compassionate Witness, who says, “I know that you feel scared right now honey. Let yourself feel it.” I reassure myself that when and if that time comes, I will be present with what’s present, breathing into it, fully feeling and facing it, putting on my Big Soul panties and dealing with it. (And…if it gets too bad, LOTS of powerful, kick-ass painkillers…because saint I ain’t!)

I know that healing happens in the light of awareness. The glue that binds our painful patterns together is soluble in awareness, which is much like water: “Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water; yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it.”(Lao Tzu)  Awareness is very potent stuff!

When I bring my Compassionate Witness to everything I think, do and feel, something astonishing happens…I gradually BECOME more the witness than the thing that I’m witnessing! Bringing all my shadows into the light, I become whole – welcoming every part of me to the party. My Compassionate Witness throws a great party! Every shadow, every guest who shows up (and they are quite a motley cast of characters!) is welcomed with open arms. Even the biggest shadow of them all…death.

Facing our death is something we’re all going to have to do eventually – it is the big fat elephant in the room. Buddha said, “Just as the elephant’s footprint is the biggest footprint on the jungle floor, death is the biggest teacher. Death or Yama Raja, death personified, drove me to the peace beyond birth and death.”

I want to be in that peace beyond birth and death; therefore, I’m intent on facing my fear of death, and death itself, and making friends with it. That way I am embracing it, rather than bracing against it. Leonard Cohen wrote, “If you don’t embrace the ocean you’ll be seasick every day.” When I come into harmony with all that floats and flounders about in my ocean, I am at peace.

What I resist persists; in that case, I’m hoping that now that I’m no longer resisting, maybe death won’t be persisting! Not any time soon anyway. Hopefully, I’ll have many more years to practice being fully present with my fears about the big “C” and the big “D” — bringing me more into union with the big ME, my true oceanic self!

Byron Katie said: “Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it…it’s just easier if you do.” With the loving support of my Compassionate Witness, my greatest intention is to face whatever happens, and all my feelings about what happens, with an open mind, an open heart, and open arms.

Do you have a Compassionate Witness? There is no better traveling companion on life’s journey…it will help you get through ANYTHING!

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: awareness, Buddha, Byron Katie, compassionate witness, embrace the ocean, facing death, Hakomi, Leonard Cohen, Liza Minnelli, loving presence, mindfulness and death

“You are the boss of your own reality.” Those are the words in a handwritten letter sent to me years ago by Jane Roberts, who channeled the Seth books. I treasure that letter; but even more, I treasure that message. I am the boss of my own reality. I am creating and shaping the colorful play doh of my life with my feelings, beliefs, desires, expectations and actions. Some people call this “The Secret”…I call it “The Magic”. It is the great love of my life that has thrilled, excited and motivated me for many years. It is the life-changing paradigm shift from feeling like a hapless victim of circumstances to being an empowered creator of my life.

I was first introduced to this great love early in my life when I read, Your Thoughts Can Change Your Life by Donald Curtis. At that time I was a depressed teen who felt unlovable and feared I’d always be alone. But that book set off fireworks in me! I was thrilled to know that if I changed my beliefs, I could change my reality. That began a long journey that took me clear across the country and across time where I eventually married the man of my dreams in the very church where Donald Curtis had been the minister!

The power of belief is not a new concept – Jesus talked about it more than 2000 years ago, saying: “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” And, “I say to you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

When I first met Tom, he lived in Minnesota and I lived in California. If the power of belief could move a mountain from here to there, surely it could move him from there to here! I got out my well-worn favorite Seth book, The Nature of Personal Reality, to help refresh and prime my manifesting skills…and, through passionate and dedicated application, I managed to MANifest this amazing man into my life! But I found that first, in order for that to happen I needed to ferret out the beliefs that were unconsciously manifesting my being alone.

Once I faced those beliefs it was time to replace them. Here is Seth’s magic formula that I faithfully followed: “For five minutes only, direct all of your attention toward what you want. Use visualization or verbal thought – whatever comes most naturally to you; but for that period do not concentrate upon any lacks, just upon your desire. In one way or another make one physical gesture or act that is in line with your belief or desire. Then forget about it.” Doing this every day builds the vibrational energy of what you’re wanting and magnetizes it to you.

My new relationship with Tom stirred up my pre-programmed emotional pain and defenses; but reading Seth’s book kept reminding me that my beliefs and programming were the source of my pain, not Tom. I would ride out the emotional storms, and always come home to owning it as mine. Seth wrote: “Any feeling fully felt and experienced will always bring you back to love.” It always did…the thunder was always followed by enlightening. As a result of my fierce tenacity to own that “I create my reality”, I was rewarded with great love and respect from Tom AND more importantly, from myself. I tell myself, “That’s why God is paying me the big buck (that would be Tom, my big buck)!”

Through the power of belief, imagination and strong desire, anything is possible, anything can be changed and healed…even cancer. There are many stories of people using the power of visualization to heal themselves of cancer. My friend, nutritionist Dale Figtree, described to me a compelling account of how she healed a tumor overnight: “I did a visualization of the cancer cells like black clumps of spiders on top of each other, inside a big volcano (so that they were contained.)  Then at the top of the volcano, surrounding, were hundreds of thousands of white blood cells as Knights in armor on white horses, carrying big lances.  With a clash of symbols, they rode down into the volcano and slashed and punctured every single cancer cell, which in turn evaporated until there was nothing but pink healthy cells and a clear blue sky above. I really got deeply into it. Afterwards, I felt a serenity, and my fear was gone.  I thought that was the gifting — until the next day when I went to be re-x-rayed — I was shocked to hear the tumor was gone!” (Dale writes more about how she cured herself of cancer in her book, Beyond Cancer Treatment.)

Now, once again I’m reading my Seth book to remind me that through the power of belief anything is possible. Every day for five minutes I visualize and feel my body filled with shimmering, healing light. I imagine myself full of vitality and energy. I picture myself in the future, healthy and vibrantly alive. I take action steps toward that end, which include eating healthy foods, taking herbs and supplements, exercising, and listening to meditation tapes that raise my vibration. Another action step I’m taking toward believing I’m healed and have a future ahead of me…I’m buying new clothes! This is the reality I’m choosing to focus on and manifest.

I can’t help but wonder sometimes if my fear of cancer was a focus that created it in me. That’s what the law of attraction would say. But if so, I reassure myself that I’m in good company. Many people on a spiritual path like I am, people who were living a health and spirit-oriented life, nonetheless got cancer. Including Wayne Dyer, who once wrote, “What you really, really want, you’ll get. And what you really, really don’t want, you’ll also get. What you are focused on in your mind is what you attract.” Larry Dossey, in his book Healing Words, presents a long list of saints who died of cancer, Krishnamurti among them. Even Jane Roberts, despite healing advice from Seth, died at the age of 55 from a crippling autoimmune disease.

On the ego level, this could seem like a failure. Yet, who knows what our souls are up to. I’m deeply aware of my souls passionate agenda to learn and grow and evolve my consciousness. My ego’s agenda is to have fun and avoid suffering. I believe that ultimately soul’s agenda trumps ego’s agenda. In my case, that’s the result anyway; and in accordance with the law of attraction, the result will ALWAYS show you your strongest intention. My soul wants to wake up as much as possible in this lifetime, and I am now awake much of the time. Therefore, cancer has been a means to that end, (instead of a mean end.)

Jane Roberts also wrote in her letter to me, “Love the dusk and the dawn. Be thankful for this life.” I am thankful for this life, and thankful for this wake-up call that has made my life richer and more vivid. I like the reality that I’ve created. (At least my SOUL does – my ego is sometimes not too crazy about it!)

How about you? Do you like the reality you’ve created? If not, you can change it. You are the boss of your own reality!

“You are given the gift of the gods; you create your reality according to your beliefs; yours is the creative energy that makes your world; there are no limitations to the self except those you believe in.” –Seth

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: Donald Curtis, Jane Roberts, Larry Dossey, Nature of Personal Reality, Seth, The Secret, Thoughts Can Change Your Life, visualization, Wayne Dyer

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”-(Unknown)

Last week Tom and I went to the Summer Concert in the Park on the Santa Barbara waterfront and danced to the music of a Beatles tribute band. We moved our bodies in happy abandon in a sweet and sweaty crush of baby boomers and people of all ages. I was high on nostalgia, and at the same time, high on the present moment.

I felt that old thrill of excitement that was ignited all those years ago in the teenage me listening to my first Beatles songs, a thrill that shot through me like electricity, like a defibrillator jumpstarting my heart and my life. “Shake it up baby now, twist and shout!” It all came back. I loved the Beatles and that exciting time in my life, a time of rebirth into a new version of myself, a vibrant new burst of aliveness. I’m feeling that same bright-eyed aliveness now…a gift from cancer.

As I boogied to the Beatles music, my past and present weaved together. Back then it was the 60’s…and now I’m IN my 60’s! I flashed back in time…remembering The Travelons, the Beatles tribute band that was famous in the 1960’s on the east coast, who I loved to dance to and was a bit of a groupie. I dated the drummer a few times, but was so shy I barely spoke – I needed to drink a beer or two to help me loosen up. “It’s a good thing I’m pretty,” I thought back then. On the ride to the Concert in the Park with Tom I caught a glimpse of myself in the car mirror, seeing the fine (and not so fine) lines sprinkled on my face, and thought, “It’s a good thing Tom loves me for who I am, not how I look!” It’s an even better thing that I finally feel beautiful INSIDE. That is a monumental life accomplishment for me! And I no longer need to drink a beer in order to feel uninhibited — I feel so much more comfortable in my skin now…wrinkled though it is.

Dancing to the beat of the Beatles songs, I felt like the teenage me of yesteryear. Yet in present time, there was Tom, holding me close, looking at me with happy, loving eyes, and I felt treasured…something the teenage me never felt. I did a mind-meld through time with my teenage self and told her, “Look who we end up with, this wonderful man! Look at where we live, this beautiful paradise on earth! Look at the wonderful friends we have, dancing with us!” Thinking about the whole of my life, I tell her, “What a journey you have ahead of you!”

I kept looking at Tom, his beautiful blue eyes, his luminous smile, his sweet soul, and I felt blown away that I ended up with such a fabulous man. My history with cancer adds poignancy to my happy moments with him. The uncertainty of it is always in the back of our minds. As we dance to a slow Beatles song, he presses his forehead against mine, looks into my eyes and says sweetly, “Don’t go.” “Okay, I’ll stay” I say, smiling. But I can’t help wondering if I’ll be around for next summer’s concerts in the park. I think about Beatles John and George, gone now. We just don’t know what the future will bring. As John Lennon said, “We are all living on borrowed time.”

Though I don’t know what the future holds, I can allow myself to be fully held in this moment, in Tom’s arms, in a feeling of celebration, savoring it all. Celebrating how far I’ve come and how much I’ve learned in this life. Celebrating the present moment…that I have arrived here at last! It has been a long journey to the Now, but I am Here Now a lot of the time…another gift of cancer.

At the dance, we talk to a friend who has a bum shoulder and other health issues requiring medical assistance. It is testing his fear of aging. But he tells us that he’s decided to have fun with it. When he goes to the doctor, he messes with them, playfully asking for “More needles please!” Instead of dreading it, he’s celebrating and playing with it all. Ill health can make us feel like a failure; yet, to feel joy in the midst of our challenges is a great success. As Emerson said, “To have played and laughed with enthusiasm, and sung with exultation — this is to have succeeded.”

I’m here, facing my worst fears, feeling my feelings fully, AND playing and laughing with enthusiasm, singing along to old Beatle tunes with exultation! I may be here for many more years to come. Or not. I know that there’s much I want to see and do — I have fully arrived at this earth party and I want to laugh and learn and play more! I’m reassured by Richard Bach’s quote: “Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.” I’m alive, so it isn’t!

In the Ram Dass book, STILL HERE – Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying, despite a stroke that has incapacitated him in many ways, he sees how perfect it all is. It has helped him to even more fully BE HERE NOW, valuing this life, and knowing more deeply that he is not just a body, he is an eternal soul. That awareness helps make these earthly woes not so devastating. And, knowing that we will die makes life more precious. Because of that, I am not only still here, I am more HERE than I have ever been before! The 1960’s were great, but I can honestly say that this life just keeps getting better and better!

I’ll leave you with this celebratory song I wrote with Nicola Gordon (sung to the tune, The Ants Going Marching One by One):

There’s nothing I have to do today – Hurrah, Hurrah!

There’s nothing I have to do or say – Hurrah, Hurrah!

Just be in the NOW all the way

That’s all I have to do today.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Sing and dance and play!

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: Be Here Now, dancing in the rain, facing my worst fears, living on borrowed time, Ram Dass, Still Here, The Beatles

Years ago I saw a movie in which a busy, stressed-out woman was diagnosed with terminal cancer and, understandably, she was terrified.  She started working with a Chinese doctor who taught her the healing power of relaxation and told her to repeat the mantra, “No hurry, no worry.” She said those words often and followed his healing regimen and was eventually cured! Those words have stayed with me over the years and I often say them to myself whenever I feel stressed. “No hurry, no worry.” Or, as my teenage niece says, ”Chillax!”

There’s a direct correlation between stress and illness, especially cancer. We all have cancer cells in our bodies and a strong immune system is what keeps them from multiplying. However, STRESS SUPPRESSES THE IMMUNE SYSTEM, and in some people this allows cancer to grow out of control. Stress also creates an acidic condition in the body, which cancer thrives on. In addition, stress creates inflammation, another dangerous breeding ground for cancer and other illnesses.

When I think about what probably most contributed to my having cancer, the answer is stress. Many years ago I was aware of how much tension I had in my body – I noticed a habitual clenching, particularly in my stomach and pelvic area. I had the thought, “If I ever have health problems, this is where it will be.” Sure enough, three years ago all hell broke loose down there, starting with a ruptured, necrotic, gangrenous appendix, the worst my doctor had ever seen, followed by the discovery of uterine cancer, and finally recurring uterine cancer.

Since stress turns off my immune system, in order to heal I know I need to relax. I can hear a frantic part of me imploring, “RELAX OR DIE!” But it’s hard to relax with a cancer diagnosis – while tension is a precursor of cancer, it is also a natural reaction to it once you have it. Therefore, I am diligently committed to cultivating a relaxing path of “No hurry, no worry”, which includes meditation, exercise, visualization, and trusting that I am loved and guided and right where I’m supposed to be.

Lately, I’ve added a new refrain, “Viva La Vagus!,” in celebration of the amazing vagus nerve. (I’ve been singing the Elvis song, Viva Las Vegas, in my head all day!) I’ve recently learned that the vagus nerve activates the immune system, and deep, slow, abdominal breaths activate the vagus nerve. I was alerted to this when my brilliant scientist friend, Peggy LaCerra, wrote on Facebook, “When people are panicked because of an illness, I tell them to simply take 10 VERY DEEP breaths repeatedly throughout the day because, when we breath deeply, the diaphragm drops to the bottom of the thoracic cavity. The vagus nerve – the main ‘neural cable’ of the parasympathetic system runs through the diaphragm muscle. When the diaphragm drops down and then rises and drops down and rises repeatedly, it stimulates the vagus nerve and initiates a shift back to a parasympathetic state.” The parasympathetic state triggers a relaxation response and activates the immune system, helping our bodies heal, repair, and renew.

I’ve since been researching the vagus nerve and found that taking the deep, slow, abdominal breaths that trigger it promotes healing in numerous ways: it oxygenates the body (cancer hates oxygen), creates alkalinity in the body (cancer is said to flourish in acidity and wither in alkalinity), helps control obesity (which is another risk factor for cancer and other illnesses), reduces inflammation, makes our lymphatic system work better, improves memory, fights depression, lowers blood pressure, enhances brain and heart activity, purifies our blood, aids digestion, rejuvenates our skin, and reduces pain. Deep breathing delivers a wealth of health benefits! And it’s completely FREE! I just need to remember to do it!

The healing power of breath is not news to me. After all, my e-mail address of the last ten years has been JanBreathe, because I wanted to remind myself to breathe. I’ve also studied breath work with breath master Gay Hendricks, and learned well the importance of conscious breathing. Yet…I forget, I go unconscious and revert back to my old habitual shallow breath.

But now, knowing that the best chance I have of completely healing from this life-threatening illness is having a strong immune system, and knowing that deep breath triggers the vagus nerve which in turn triggers the immune system, I’m all about breathing deep, slow breaths all day, every day! I want to live, and, also, it just plain feels good! What I’m finding as I’ve been focusing on deep breathing is that it energizes and enlivens me. When I’m fully breathing, I’m fully alive. When I’m shallow breathing, I’m shallowly alive. “He lives most life whoever breathes most air.”-Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

I can see where early in life I unconsciously adopted a life strategy to breathe shallowly as a way to blunt my feelings. The flaw in that strategy is that shallow breathing contributes to stress, tension, illness, anxiety, depression and more things to feel fear about. Fully breathing is committing to being in my body and feeling my full aliveness, including being willing to feel all my feelings.

One of my favorite cartoons shows in the first frame a man sitting at a desk with a blank look on his face. In the second frame his eyes are wide open and he looks vitalized and excited. In the third and final frame he once again has a blank expression. The caption reads, “Herb has a brief but intense near-life experience.” As I breathe deep, slow breaths throughout the day, I’m having a prolonged and intense near-life experience! I’m feeling invigorated and calm at the same time.

Being a multi-tasker, when I can remember, I add a smile to my breathing, (stimulating healing endorphins), and say the words “I love you” (activating healing oxytocin). As an added bonus to all the health benefits, I’m finding that focusing on deep breathing is an instant portal to the present moment. That’s the place I want to be.

“Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

I say a big YES to fully breathing and being fully alive, fully in my body, AND fully healed! I’ll breathe to that!

How about you? Are you committed to fully breathing and being fully alive? No hurry, no worry – just take some deep, slow breaths and join me in a spirited chorus of “Viva La Vagus!” Here’s to a stimulated immune system and a stimulating life!

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: cancer stress suppresses immune system, fully alive, healing power of breath, no hurry no worry, stress and illness, Thich Nhat Hanh, uterine cancer, vagus nerve, Viva La Vagus

I sometimes call my new kitten Buddha-Pest because at times he has the serenity of a Buddha, but at other times he is a pest — nipping, biting, and digging his claws into anything that moves! This is much like my mind, which at times rests in a sublime state of peace and acceptance, and at other times pesters me with gnawing, clawing fear thoughts, like, “What’s that ache? What’s that twinge? Why am I so tired? Could it be the cancer is back!?”

I wish I could rest in a Buddha-full state of serenity all the time, but my mind is ever alert for danger. That’s what the lower reptilian brain does — its prime directive is survival and avoiding harm. For that reason, according to Rick Hanson, author of the book Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, painful experiences are much more easily and deeply imprinted in our brains than pleasurable ones. He explains that there is “an innate negativity bias of the brain, whose unfortunate default setting is to be Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.”

Here’s an example: A few weeks ago I saw a three-foot snake on the nature path behind my house. It was patiently poised beside a gopher hole, so I’m assuming it was a gopher snake. Nevertheless, it was a SNAKE! And it was BIG! I haven’t been back there since…until today. I walked along the path, vigilantly scanning for snakes, seeing twigs, and even shadows of branches, as snakes. Even though I was surrounded by beautiful nature, all I could envision was snakes! I sadly realized, “Every time I walk here now I will be looking for snakes.” The same is true with cancer — with each minor ache and pain and fatigue…my mind leaps to cancer.

Buddhists call this “the pain of pain” — the initial pain is unavoidable, but the reaction to that pain, the fear and resistance to it, is self-inflicted. The challenge is to get free of the pain of pain, to let go of negative reactions to ‘what is’, because those reactions and perceptions are what cause the greatest suffering.

I want to walk along life’s path and see the beautiful flowers, the blue sky, the mountains, instead of imagining twigs as snakes and twinges as cancer. I want to be higher-vigilant instead of hyper-vigilant — to see life from the higher perspective of my soul, where I remember that I am an eternal being, where I know that cancer is my great teacher, life enhancer, and burr under my saddle that woke me up and keeps me awake!

Fortunately, the higher brain has neuroplasticity, which is the ability to learn from experience and imprint the positive new learning. But in order for this to happen, research shows that the new belief and feeling needs to be repeated many, many times. Fear is an easy neural pathway to go down. Faith needs to be repeated over and over again. Therefore, whenever fear appears, I higher-vigilantly remind myself, “What’s the truth? The truth is that right now I am safe. Right now all is well. Right now is all there is.” I breathe a big, deep breath, really feeling and letting in this belief.

Rick Hansen says we need to hold the desired thought and feeling for about 30 seconds so that it can imprint in our memory. We need to bathe in it for a bit and feel it fully. He says, “The longer that something is held in awareness and the more emotionally stimulating it is, the more neurons that fire and thus wire together. The more you get your neurons firing about positive facts, the more they’ll be wiring up positive neural structures.”

I am passionately intent on firing and wiring beautiful, Buddha-full neural pathways in my brain — pathways where a snake is just a snake, simply another of God’s creatures, and a twinge is just twinge, reminding me to breathe and turn from hyper-vigilance to higher-vigilance, and cancer is just a kick in the can, waking me up to my true self, my Big Ass Soul Self.

Being in a state of higher vigilance helps me put the ‘can’ in cancer, as in I can do this, I can learn and grow from this, I can remember that I am watched over, loved and guided, I can be present with whatever happens, fully, deeply present. I’m feeling all fired up now! I’m going to go dance a rousing rendition of the cancan to help fire and wire this feeling!

Is your mind a Buddha-pest, serene at times but pestering you with habitual, hyper-vigilant worry thoughts? I invite you to shift into higher-vigilance and fire and wire up some new, positive, life-enhancing neural pathways! Yes you can can!

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: Buddha's Brain, higher brain, higher vigilance, neural pathways, neuroplasticity, positive neural structures hypervigilance, reptilian brain, Rick Hansen

Worry thoughts about the state of my health have been nipping at my heels of late — much like my new kitten that I rescued, who is literally nipping at my heels, determinedly insisting on sinking her teeth and claws into life and into me! She is a persistent little whirling cactus! Her new big bro Bo (our other cat) is ten times her size and could eat her for breakfast, but to her he is a pony to mount and ride and roll around on and play with. He swats her away and she relentlessly bounds back. She is fearless! And fierce! And she wants to PLAY!

She is my current model for determination and unabashed living! That’s the spirit that helped this little one-pounder survive in the wilds all by herself for days, until a blonde giant (moi) strolled by and she cried out to me with a loud, bellowing meow. With that volume of voice I expected a huge cat, but instead a tiny ball of fur appeared from under the bushes, with an urgent, demanding, attention-commanding MEOW!!!

I need that kind of fierceness now. The universe is demanding of me, “Be HERE now”, NOT in the feared, imagined future. Trying to bring myself back to the present moment once fear thoughts have taken over, can feel as if I’m herding cats. My fears are like feral cats who see danger everywhere, even though love and aid is being offered. When my new kitten chose to trust the love that was offered, she hit the lotto and now is nestled in the lap of luxury. She is reminding me to be brave and trust like she did.

To help me come back to trust, I’ve been reciting in my mind the line from the poem Desiderata, that says, “Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” I take a deep breath of relief with that. As someone who has come to the planet to learn and grow and evolve my consciousness, I can see how my soul might have chosen cancer in order to galvanize me to get on with that work. I distinctly remember a time just before my initial diagnosis when I was lying on the couch watching television, feeling lazy and bored, and I had the thought, “What am I doing here? I’m frittering away my time.”

I’m not frittering my time away anymore! With fierce determination, ever since being diagnosed with cancer, I’ve been focused on transforming my hell-raising fears into heaven-raising faith. When I get off track, like I occasionally do, I always come back to my life-affirming practices of focusing on my heart, meditating, gratitude, trust, acceptance, deep breathing, walking in nature, and dancing. “I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile, I keep dancing.”(Rabbi Hillel) That brings me back to an expansive place where I feel like a child at play with colored balls, or, better yet, a kitten at play with EVERYTHING!

We are all gods with amnesia, waking up to who we truly are. Sometimes the universe sends us things to help remind us…like cancer and kittens.  When I think about the challenges we souls take on here on planet earth, I am in awe of our courage and spirit. I agree with Rumi who said, “When you see your beauty, you will become your own idol.”

How about you? Has life been calling on your fierce persistence and determination to return to the present moment and remember your powerful divine magnificence?

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: at play with colored balls, cancer, Desiderata, fierce determination, gods with amnesia, meanwhile I keep dancing, persistence, Rabbi Hillel, Rumi, worry

I’ve been getting high on the hug drug, the cuddle cure, the happy hormone called Oxytocin. This week I’ve had an upsurge of this potent love potion since I found a crying, starving, trembling, abandoned feral kitten about 6 weeks old living under the bushes near my house. Seeing her so tiny and helpless and all alone in the world made my heart melt and I was aflood with oxytocin. She wouldn’t let me near her, but fueled by this powerful ‘tend and befriend’ hormone, I was determined to help her.

Off and on over the course of three days I sat with her, absorbed in a meditative stillness, talking to her sweetly, patiently luring her nearer to me by moving the food I brought for her closer and closer. Eventually, she came up to me, brushed her head against my hand and started purring! I was beside myself with oxytocin momma love!

I took her home with me and we have been passionately engaged in cuddle storms of mutual love! What a feeling! It’s no wonder they call it the happy hormone. I feel this same feeling for my other cats as well – I am awash in warm fuzzy feelings for my warm fuzzy felines! That includes my Tom cat, my husband Tom, the warm fuzzy fella I cuddle with every day.

I love oxytocin! It is a natural high that creates feelings of peace, calm, wellbeing, compassion, trust, and altruism. Starting from infancy with the mother-child  connection, it is the glue that bonds us to loved ones and makes them appear more appealing to us. Just thinking about people we love evokes this love hormone (which is produced in our brain AND our hearts).

Studies have found that when we have increased levels of oxytocin in our system, we are like a tuning fork for those around us, and they start resonating with our peaceful vibe and their oxytocin levels increase as well. That’s why we like to be around loving people, because we feel more loving in their presence. Oxytocin is contagious!

It is often called the ‘cuddle cure’ because it has tremendous health benefits, which include lowering our blood pressure, raising our pain threshold, boosting our immune system and reducing stress (the precursor and aggravator of most illnesses).  Due to Oxytocin, people with pets often heal from illness more quickly, and people in cancer support groups have a tendency to live longer — tend and befriend equals mend.

For that reason, the cuddle cure is a big part of my healing regimen. Stress exacerbates cancer by turning off healing genes, while love and serenity turn on healing genes. Therefore, I’m motivated to steep myself like a tea bag in the healing elixir of oxytocin as often as I can!

There are many ways to stimulate oxytocin production. It is activated in response to touch, massage, sex, kisses, appreciation, gratitude, loving relationships, compassion and caring for others. Hugging for at least 20 seconds increases oxytocin. Even just visualizing hugging others activates it. You can give imaginary hugs to people all day, people you don’t even know, and you will reap the benefits. I’ve been practicing sending love from my heart to the heart of others, and I am flooded with the warm, peaceful love energy that I’m sending.

Self-compassion is another way to generate oxytocin. Lady Gaga, a champion of self-love, practices self-compassion 5 minutes each morning. Imagine the feel-good fun of having a verbal cuddle fest with yourself every day!

Meditation is a powerful stimulator of this healing hormone. Years ago, when I lived alone, I meditated each morning and was blissfully bathed in oxytocin. I got high on the feeling of being deeply connected and loved by the higher energy that held me in a warm spiritual hug. When I began living with Tom I didn’t meditate as much, but now, ever since my cancer diagnosis, I am back to deeply connecting and cuddling with spirit on a regular basis.

When I hold my new little bitty kitty and reassure her that she is loved and cared for and her hard-knock life is a thing of the past, I imagine that my higher power is reassuring me in the same way. I am comforted in the faith that my higher self is watching over me, flooding me with love, telling me, “You are safe, you are loved, all is well, you have found your way to a friendly place.” My higher self and I luxuriate in rapturous oxytocin love fests! What a feeling! Can you hear me purring?

Have you been getting high on the love drug, oxytocin? Are there ways that you can increase this powerful love potion in your life even more? I’m sending you a cyber hug and sharing some of my ‘stash’ with you!

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: happy hormone, healing hormone, health benefits of oxytocin, hug drug, hugging for 20 seconds, Lady Gaga, love drug, love hormone, love potion oxytocincuddle cure, meditation and oxytocin, oxytocin, peaceful vibe, reduce stress with oxytocin, self-compassion, tend and befriend, warm fuzzy feelings

Wabi Sabi (wah-bee sah-bee) is a Japanese concept of life and art in which beauty is found in things that are weathered, asymmetrical, incomplete, imperfect and impermanent. As I age, my body is becoming all of the above and, therefore, Wabi Sabi has become my new kemo sahbee (faithful friend). I’m learning to see myself as a work of art, not in spite of my flaws, but BECAUSE of them. What a concept!

I’ve had a head start with this Wabi Sabi way of seeing myself — over the years I’ve been learning to face my emotional imperfections and accept myself as perfectly imperfect. I was motivated to do this by a painful sense of shame and a belief that I was fundamentally flawed and needed to be perfect in order to be loved. The quest for perfection put a cork in my aliveness that eventually caused me to crack under the pressure. I went to bed one night asking the higher powers that be, “What am I here to do in this life?” I awoke with these words resounding in my mind, “All you have to do is love yourself.” This set me on a new quest to learn to love myself AS IS, warts and all. I am still on that journey. I am learning to love my imperfect self.

One of my favorite quotes that has helped me in reframing my flawed self is Ashleigh Brilliant’s epigram, “I may not be perfect, but parts of me are excellent!” I’ve said this to myself many times throughout the years and it’s always made me feel better about myself. Now, in the spirit of Wabi Sabi, I tell myself, “I may not be perfect, but my imperfections make me unique and beautiful!” Krishnamurti has said that our souls are from the same paper but what makes us unique is the creases formed in the paper from all the folding and unfolding of our life experience.

This Wabi Sabi perspective is helping me face and embrace my body upheavals of the last several years. Despite my careful attempts to remain perfectly in tact, Bell’s palsy set my face permanently askew, gum disease ate away at my jawbone, cataracts clouded my eyes, an appendectomy removed my ruptured appendix, and cancer devoured my uterus, (not to mention the addition of wrinkles and gray hair, oy!). I have had to let go of my attachment to things being perfect. I’ve chosen instead to see and accept the beauty of this cracked, weathered vessel that I’ve become.  A little boy said to his grandmother, “Oh Gramma, you have such beautiful designs on your face.” I’m learning to see myself the way that little boy sees his grandmother.

There is great liberation in perceiving ourselves as beautiful, not in spite of our flaws, but because of them. It is heartening to see ourselves as not broken, but instead broken open — all the better to receive the abundant light and love that surrounds us. Leonard Cohen echoes this sentiment in his song, Anthem:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

Finally I’d like to leave you with the quintessential Wabi Sabi story of the Cracked Pot:

Everyday a water-bearer carried two pots balanced on a yoke across his shoulders to his master’s house. One of the pots was cracked and leaked water all the way there. This made the pot very sad. “I’m so imperfect. Why do you keep me?” The water-bearer answered, “I planted flowers along your side of the path and the water you spill nourishes those flowers. Because of you, the beautiful flowers that grow there have brought great joy to my master. Your flaws bring joy and beauty.”

The story we tell ourselves about our lives is always our choice. It can be a sob story, or a Wabi Sabi story. We can choose to see ourselves as a crackpot or as a cracked pot watering flowers in our lives. I am choosing to see my life as a perfect work of art, cracks and all!

What’s your Wabi Sabi story? Can you see how your flaws, imperfections, and challenges have made your life a beautiful work of art?

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Copyright 2011 Janet Jacobsen

Tags: fundamentally flawed, Leonard Cohen, perfectly imperfect, reframing, self-love, The Cracked Pot, wabi sabi

Psss-s-s-s-t-t, S-h-h-h-h-h-h!

Around the bend, in the unseen, arising from the very uncertainties that may now seem to taunt you, there are some amazing surprises, awesome twists, and spellbinding coincidences about to emerge that you can’t even now imagine.

Mooo-hoo-ha-ha-ha-haaaa,

The Universe

This was the perfect Note from the Universe (from Mike Dooley at Tut.com) that I received last week. One year ago this month I had begun my 6-week radiation and chemo treatment for recurrent uterine cancer and was deeply immersed in the misery of nausea, weakness, and the dismal awareness that the chances of the grueling treatment working were slim. It was difficult to imagine back then that a year later I’d still be here…thriving!

With time possibly limited, I was motivated this year to immerse myself in the present moment, savoring it like delicious candy, and to my great delight, time has stretched like taffy into a sweet eternal Nooooow! The quality of time has literally changed for me. I don’t just know, I feel that right now is all there is. Whenever my mind races into a feared future, I say “Whoa Nelly!”, and take deep slow breaths, bringing my mind back to the bounty of this nourishing present moment. This is a great treasure I have found!

Another great treasure that this year has brought me is the priority of focusing on the healing, wholing, holy energy of love. For the rest of my life, love is what I want to create and where I want to dwell. How much I have loved in this life is something I believe I take with me when I go.

I have also lasered into living my life on purpose, getting on with what I came here to do — writing from my heart and soul and sharing it with others. It is a treasure beyond measure to think that I can be of help in this way.

This year I have learned to not sweat the small stuff, but instead to celebrate the big stuff, like the present moment, love, and living a purposeful life. What a bountiful banquet I have found myself at! I couldn’t have known a year ago when things seemed so dire, that a more vibrant, meaningful, luscious life was about to unfold.

“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”

Last week I saw the documentary, I Am, created by Tom Shadyac, a highly successful director of comedy hits like Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar, and The Nutty Professor. In 2007 he was in a bike accident, which damaged his arm and his head, leaving him with Post Concussion Syndrome. He suffered intense pain, mood swings, and ringing in his head for many months. He didn’t think he was going to make it, and he began to welcome death.

Faced with death, he asked himself, “If this is it for me – if I really am going to die – what do I want to say before I go? What will be my last testament?” Miraculously, with this new sense of purpose, his symptoms began to subside, allowing him to focus on and create the heart-opening, soul-stirring, mind-expanding film, I Am. In it he explores what’s wrong with the world and how we can help make it right. What he ultimately discovered is that there is more right about the world than wrong.

Can you remember times when things looked bleak, but turned out even better than you could imagine? When we hang in there, twists and turns and coincidences present themselves, and our life miraculously goes from sucky to succulent, from yucky to YUM!  No matter how things may seem, be open for surprises and miracles!

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: be open for surprises, bountiful banquet, cancer, faced with death, hang in there, Mike Dooley, Movie I Am, Notes from the Universe, Now, present moment, purposeful life, time stretches, Tom Shadyac