How much control do we really have in life? In this post, I consider this question in reference to an affirmation I used during my cancer treatments. Did saying it really help me find my enthusiasm again?
To feel more control as I went through my cancer treatments, I worked with an affirmation. Honestly, I wasn’t totally convinced it would work, but I needed all the help I could get, so I said my affirmation diligently.
Then one day, several months after my treatments were over – after I had forgotten all about my affirmation in fact – I found it again while sorting through some stuff on my desk. Frankly, I was shocked. It described everything that was happening in my life with uncanny precision.
This was the affirmation:
Divine love heals and restores me.
I am alive, alert and enthusiastic about life.
Prior to my diagnosis, I had just been going through the motions—not particularly unhappy, but not very enthusiastic about life either. I had a routine that was safe and comfortable and perhaps a bit dull as a result.
Then I got the phone call. The voice on the other end of the line uttered these four words, “We found cancer cells.”
I was immediately propelled into a long and arduous treatment process that was anything but dull. A year and half later, as that process finally came to an end, I went through counseling to help me cope with the psychological impact of it all.
That’s when something miraculous occurred. My heart broke open as a river of love poured in and through me. It healed and restored me and shifted my relationship with the world and others. For the first time in years, I felt truly alive, alert and enthusiastic about life.
Finally, I could be vulnerable; I could dance with uncertainty; I could linger with the mystery, and not try to change anything.
To me, it’s rather astounding that my affirmation came to pass so precisely. I’m forever curious why. I mean, do our thoughts really direct the course of events? Is there power in our beliefs? Did I manage to call upon a higher source of healing in myself? In the universe? Or was it all just an odd coincidence?
I’m not trying to answer these questions really. Answers are often limiting. It is the questions that fill me with vitality, the unknown that excites me now. Maybe that’s why I found my enthusiasm again. Somewhere along the way, I let go of the need to know and just let myself bask in the love. In the process, something vital was restored to me. That something was me.