EnlightenInk Blog

Last Wednesday I was interviewed about my cancer journey on Pamala Oslie’s weekly radio show. Pamala is a high caliber psychic and author in Santa Barbara who receives my newsletters, felt inspired by them, and wanted me to share some of my learning with her listeners. I was nervous but also thrilled to think that sharing my experience and tools might help people. Being of service helps this whole thing make sense to me, it makes it all worth it. Tom was there at the interview as well and got to share some of his learning and experience living with a loved one with cancer.

Prior to the show Pam asked me to make a list of some of the things I’d be most excited talking about. I reread all my newsletters and culled from them the juiciest bits. Here are some of those juicy bits. (Most of them were covered in the interview. Below is a link to the archived tape of the interview if you’d like to listen to it).

WAKE UP – YOUR DREAM IS WAITING TO BE BORN!

I first found out I had uterine cancer just before my 60^th birthday. Having something growing in my uterus at the time of such an important birthday made me wonder, “What wants to be born into my life?” I realized that I had been stagnating — I’d done the same work for 27 years and was no longer inspired by it. I’ve always wanted to do inspirational writing. That was my dream. I would tell myself, “Someday I will write.” Cancer kicked my ‘someday’ into ‘WRITE NOW!’ It shook me awake and compelled me to take a risk and live my dream. That’s when the newsletter was born. Have you given birth to your dream?

“GROWTH” OPPORTUNITY

As someone on a spiritual path, I believe that life is all about soul growth and all about love. I see this cancer growth as a growth opportunity and I want to get the most growth I can from it! I’ve asked myself, “What can I learn from this cancer? What wants to be loved here?” I see the tumor as an energy blockage. How am I blocking my energy?  I realize that the belly and pelvic area of my body have sometimes been unloved parts of me. I haven’t brought a lot of breath and awareness to the area. I’ve felt shame about some of the bodily functions there. I’ve also blocked chi energy there by clenching in fear. I am now breathing fully into this area, ventilating it with healing energy. It has got my full loving attention. Is there a part of your body and emotions that you haven’t loved?

TWO ARROWS

The Buddha talks about the two arrows of suffering. The first arrow is called primary suffering — it’s when we have a physical pain or an emotional pain, such as the loss of a loved one. The second arrow is called secondary suffering and it is self-inflicted when we react to the primary pain with resentment, resistance, distraction, or wallowing in victim energy. Those reactions lock the pain in. This has been a challenge of mine, to not get sucked into contractive victim energy. Finding ways to free myself of secondary suffering and move into expansive energy has been my life work. Are you trapped in secondary suffering? The following are valuable tools I’m using that might be helpful for you as well.

A ‘GOOD’ CRY VS. A ‘BAD’ CRY

Since I found out last week that the chemo and radiation treatment didn’t eliminate the cancer, I’ve felt scared and sad and have been having many a “good” cry. A good cry is when I feel the energy fully and allow it to pass through, without putting spin or story on it. This allows it to move through quickly, like a rain shower, and I feel clear and cleansed afterward. A “bad” cry is when I’m circling the drain in a sad story, in a tailspin, like a dog chasing it’s tail of woe, round and round I go, and ‘poor me’ down the drain. A bad cry is very draining!

BEFRIENDING THE FEELING

Sometimes I am gripped by fear. When that happens I move toward the fear by bringing my awareness to my body. I notice where I’m feeling the fear, such as shallow breath and a tight stomach. Then I name the feeling, saying, “I feel scared.” No spin, no story, simply, “I feel scared.” I begin to breath more easily. (This works with anger and sadness as well).

Next I bring loving kindness to the fear, my compassionate witness talks to the fear, saying, “I know that you’re scared. It’s okay to feel scared. This is scary. I’m here with you. I love you. I’ll take good care of you.” More breath and more expansion happen. I’m now ready to TAG myself, affirming Trust, Acceptance, and Gratitude and I expand even more.

IT IS WHAT IT IS

One of my greatest learning in all this is to accept that this is what’s happening. Accepting isn’t giving up, it’s coming into harmony with what is. It’s letting go of the contractive energy of regret and resistance (secondary suffering), and coming into the expansive energy of surrender. That expansive energy leads to a state of grace where guidance and solutions appear. It’s a state of flow where everything I need comes to me. It’s a state of wholeness and oneness with all that is. It’s a state of being where healing can happen. The words healing, health, holy and wholeness all have the same root.

THE HEALING POWER OF PLAY

Singing, dancing, laughing and smiling creates endorphins, enhances the immune system and puts us in an expansive state. Reverend Michael Beckwith says that praying and playing are the same energetic. Chinese healer Chunyi Lin advocates that smiling generates healing love energy. He has a great acronym for SMILE:  Starting My Internal Love Engine.

Play is also a powerful shift tool when we’re stuck in negative patterns. When I notice my cynical attitude is taking over, I play with it! I give it a name, Cynny, and I exaggerate her grousing, I let her rip! This brings her out of the shadows, into the light, into wholeness, and I expand into the playful, prayful state of grace. Plus, it’s just plain fun!

THIS ETERNAL NOW MOMENT

Knowing that my time here may be limited has galvanized me into the present moment. I want to be fully alive while I am alive, fully here and now. I’m seeing the world through present-moment baby eyes, brand new, drinking it all in. Tom and I look into each other’s eyes, really seeing each other, feeling the eternity of the present moment. When I find myself thinking about the future and worrying, I affirm, “Present moment, only moment.” When I’m fully in the present, time actually expands and it’s beautiful. In truth, right now is all there is. I am here now.

It is such an honor and so gratifying to me that you are reading these newsletters and that they may be of help to you in some way. It was a thrill to be on the radio, for the same reason. I truly feel that I am right where I’m supposed to be. I am doing my soul’s work. This moment is perfect just as it is.

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

P.S.

Here is the link to the radio interview http://www.netbriefings.com/event/auracolors/Archives/radioshow/index.html

You can also access it by going to Pamala’s website, Auracolors.com, click on Radio Show, then Archives, then Podcast.

There is a wealth of other wonderful archived interviews with fascinating people such as Kenny Loggins, Gay and Katie Hendricks, Dr. Bruce Lipton, Swami Beyondananda, Mike Dooley, Dan Millman, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Terry Cole-Whitaker, Ceasar Millan and many more. I listened to several yesterday as I was getting a blood transfusion (for severe anemia) and it put me in an expanded state. Pamala is very personable and an excellent interviewer who brings out the best and the depth in people.

Tags: accepting what is, befriending emotions, befriending fear, eternal moment, eternal now moment, healing power of play, Pamala Oslie, present moment, uterine cancer

On Thursday I consulted with alternative Dr. Issel in Santa Barbara about my recurring uterine cancer. I told him that 3 months ago my gynecologist didn’t feel any mass inside me, and now I have a tumor bigger than a golf ball. He was alarmed that it had grown so large in such a short time and said I needed to do something immediately. Even though he favors an alternative approach, he said this is like a train and it needs to be stopped. He suggested that chemo and radiation might stop the train, at least temporarily. And then do the alternative. PANIC!

I’d been straddling the fence between alternative and conventional, but this pushed me over. Toxic poisoning be damned, I’ve got a train roaring up my butt! Tom got me an appointment the next day to get a PET CT scan (he found a relatively low-priced one in Ventura). That is the first step that needs to happen before we can proceed.

This week I also saw Pam Oslie, a trusted Santa Barbara psychic, and she told me she saw the little girl in me who was scared and unhappy with life and didn’t want to be here and wanted to go Home. I’m well aware of her, I have always had one foot out the door. As a child the world seemed an unfriendly place with a cold, critical mother and a distant father. Even though I am so happy now in my life with Tom, and despite all the work I’ve done on this, that part of me still exists.

Pam said I needed to convince little Janny that life is good now and we want to be here…or else little Janny is going to go Home and take me with her. She’s a powerful little thing! On my wall I put a picture of myself when I was two years old with my round baby face and wispy blonde hair. Next to it I put a picture of Tom when he was two. Little Tommy is looking over at little Janny with a twinkle in his eyes and a sweet smile on his face. Janny looks like she’s been crying, she looks mad, sad, and scared. I look at her and say, “Look who’s next to you. He’s really nice and fun. He really loves you a lot. He’s taking good care of you. He wants you to stay and be with him.”

Yesterday while driving with Tom to get the PET CT scan, Janny was nervous, terrified of clinics and hospitals, she would rather die than go to those scary, pain inflicting places. My big soul self takes little Janny by the hand — we are going through this together. In the waiting room I held her in my lap and kept talking to her. “I’m here with you, I’m taking good care of you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. You can trust me. It’s okay to let yourself feel scared, or mad, or sad. I’m not afraid of your feelings. You can feel anything you want.”

The nurse who was performing the scan was nice, her name was Janet like mine, and her middle name was Lee also like mine. (Turns out that our fathers had a thing for actress Janet Leigh). As she was about to inject the material into a vein in my hand, Janny clenched in fear. I talked to her, “This is a nice lady, she’s here to help us.” Feeling a slight prick, “There, that wasn’t too bad, was it? We can do this.”

I imagine that the solution that is coursing through my body is friendly, is here to help me. I know that how I think and feel about something affects me more than the thing itself. If I imagine it as toxic and fear it, then that thought will make it more toxic. If I imagine it as healing and helpful, it will be received by my body in that way.

I was then led into a warm, small, dimly lit room and laid down on a comfortable cushy chair and told to relax for 45 minutes not moving as the potion moved through my body. I held little Janny in my lap, imagining that healing light was filling us and surrounding us. “This is nice, isn’t it? Peaceful.” This was a time to really talk to her. Thinking of sweet Tom in the waiting room I said, “Look who we’re with, a wonderful man. And we’re having so much fun with him and he loves us just the way we are. We’re learning so much together. We have fabulous friends, and live in a beautiful place. Life is really good now. We’ve found our way to a safe and happy place.”

As I’m lying there a fart escapes me, and little Janny clenches in a fear and shame reflex. What if the nurse comes in and smells it!? Hearing my mother say “Ish.” I learned to feel embarrassed and ashamed about this part of my body and have always been downtight (maybe the lack of chi and life force in that area has contributed to the problems I am now having). I say to Janny, “That was so good that you let that out! Good girl.” I smiled, imagining angels applauding. Little Janny started to relax on my lap, breathing softly, then farted again. The angels cheered and applauded wildly.

Janet Lee comes in and leads me to the CT scan where I lay down and with arms over my head I surrender and am slowly rolled into this box. I close my eyes, afraid of tight spaces, I’m in a bit of panic. I open my eyes and see the top is just inches away. It feels like a coffin. (Note to self: Cremation). Breathing slowly, I become my big soul self, holding this scared child, loving her, talking to her gently and sprinkling us with healing, shimmering white light. We actually relax and almost nod off in this enveloping box.

After a half hour, Janet Lee rolls me out and sends me on my way, telling me, “Don’t go near little children for the rest of the day, since you’re radioactive.” I smile to myself, walking out hand in hand with my little girl, glowing as I reconnect with my beloved Tom in the waiting room. This was a healing experience for me.

I meet with my oncologist on Wednesday and he will tell me the results of the scan. Has this spread to other parts of my body? I am scared. I don’t know if I’m going to do chemo or radiation or alternative treatment. I do know that I will be immersed in my big soul self, embracing and loving little Janny, loving my fear, loving this life, and letting in all the love that is coming my way. Thank you all for your love and support.

Is there a part of you that could use a hug right now? Breathe into your big soul self and embrace all your wounded little ones, as we love, hug, and heal ourselves into wholeness.

In Love,
Jan Jacobsen

Tags: adventures in cancer, alternative treatment, cancer, chemo, Dr. Issel, Pam Oslie, PET CT scan experience, radiation, uterine cancer

Last night I had a dream that I was at my grandmother Signe’s house with my husband Tom. She wasn’t home. Tom and I were in her bedroom, laying on her bed, talking. I was feeling scared that my grandmother would come home and find us on her bed; I was afraid she might think we had been “doing it”.

Suddenly, I heard her enter the house, walking quickly down the hall towards us. Startled, we guiltily jumped out of bed. I tried to smooth the covers but they got caught on me and instead I pulled them off. Busted! She stood at the doorway looking at us. She was not smiling. I told her, “We weren’t doing anything.” I knew she wouldn’t believe me. I felt a sense of shame, like I was bad and had done something wrong.

My grandmother Signe (long deceased) has been in my consciousness lately; I’ve been writing a story about her and her mother, my great-grandmother, Johanna. The story is focused mainly on Johanna. There is an intriguing family mystery involving her. She came to the United States in 1881 from Sweden, a pretty young girl in her mid twenties, and worked as head laundress at the Vanderbilt mansion in New York. She became pregnant out of wedlock and family rumor has it that the father was possibly one of the Vanderbilt sons. (This has never been confirmed.)

Johanna moved away and gave birth to the baby, my grandmother Signe. She lived in secrecy about who the father was. In those days there was a great stigma about having a child out of wedlock. I’ve been wondering lately, is there a legacy of shame in my family that got passed down either genetically or behaviorally or both? I know that my mother had a shame-based attitude. I have also felt the terrible weight of shame in my life; as a teenager I became deeply depressed and suicidal, feeling that I was bad, and that I would never be loved. Shame is more than the feeling that we’ve done something wrong; it is the feeling that we are something wrong.

As I’m exploring this, I’m wondering if an inherent imprint of shame around sexuality could have been one of the factors in my having uterine cancer? My mother also had uterine cancer. It is not unreasonable to think that blocked energy in a part of our body makes that part susceptible to disease.

Sometimes I imagine that I am helping to heal this ancestral legacy of shame. Maybe the work that my ancestors didn’t finish, I can help finish; as if I am in a relay race, carrying the baton forward. Carl Jung has written about this:  “I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished.”

I awoke from a dream 20 years ago with these words resounding in my mind, “All you have to do in your whole life is to love yourself. That is all you have to do.” The shame and deep depression that I’ve felt in my life have galvanized me over the years to focus on learning to love myself, every square inch of me, the inside and the outside, the upside and the downside. I feel like I have made great strides in that direction. In the past I often felt the impulse to hide myself, as if to conceal my imagined ugliness.  I now feel compelled to reveal myself, to be completely open, honest, transparent, and self-accepting.

My great-grandmother Johanna had tremendous strength and courage to sail to a foreign land, to have a child out of wedlock, and to keep and raise that child. I like to think that strength and courage are also part of our family heritage. Two psychics have told me that my grandfather Charles (Signe’s husband) is nearby and is sending me love.  It is comforting to think that I am being watched over. As I carry the baton forward, facing, revealing, and loving all of who I am, I imagine my ancestors cheering me on from the sidelines.

Do you have a family legacy?  How is your amazing relay race going?

 In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: Carl Jung, courage, family heritage, family legacy, shame, uterine cancer