Sunday 16 October 2011

What is Cancer?

What Is Cancer ? - Philip Martin

A word can be a dangerous thing.

What  is cancer. It is whatever it means to you. To some people it is a death sentence, to some a cruel cosmic joke and to some a wake up call. It is a six letter word. But you will have your own unique meaning and understanding of what it means for you and you will base your journey on your perceptions. However, if you suspend your perceptions and start with, cancer is only a six letter word, then you will be open to other possibilities and you may wonder where those possibilities will lead you to. But such is the power of words, that the word cancer can be a code or a representation for something else. That something else is the meanings and beliefs, which you have attached to the word and where did these meanings and beliefs come from? Mostly from your's and society’'s perceptions. We see and hear of many people dying from cancer and we then fear this thing called cancer. You fear the unknown elements of it and the uncertainty of it. This fear is perpetrated in the media as it is dramatic, also this fear is a huge money spinner for the industries that feed off it. There is a constant '‘a cure is just around the corner’' and this is like the carrot and the donkey metaphor, it keeps the status quo of us kept in fear of cancer but with the promise a cure is close at hand. It also seems a mysterious disease, striking indiscriminately and there seems to be no cure. So rightly so, it scares the living daylights out of us.

The common perception of cancer is that it is a disease, something that we have caught, or we have no idea how we have come to have this thing called cancer. It is this lack of knowledge and misinformation, which adds to the fear of cancer and you may therefore try to cling to what you think you know about it, in order to make sense of the dilemma that you find yourself in. By discovering the correct information about cancer and its causes, the fear will dissipate.

Some cancers we can appreciate have a causative factor, such as the toxins in cigarettes, irritating asbestos fibres, radiation etc. But with many cancers there is little known about the cause and little known about the healing.

But these are perceptions and you will have your perception about your cancer and its cause etc and I have my perceptions. If you are interested I would ask you to suspend your perception about cancer for awhile and listen to my perception about cancer and see if it is helpful to you.

We can easily accept that a disease is a state of illness and if we find a magical ingredient to destroy the disease, then all is well. It is easy to imagine a germ/bacteria etc, invading our body and if we ingest a poison to that germ, then the germ will die. This is a simplistic approach and ignores the complexity of the human body.

Yet illness is essential for good health and for the survival of the human race. Illness is purely a result of the interactions between us and our environment. We live on this planet called earth of which we are a part of. This planet, our world, is a constantly changing and dynamic process and the result of this constant change is evolution via adaptation. All living things on the planet adapt and this causes further changes to occur and so more adaptation follows. It is a never ending cycle of refinement and adaptation. This leads to a basic principle of ‘What works stays and what doesn’t work becomes extinct’'.

As our environment changes, stress occurs and we then adapt to this stress, by refining and adjusting so that we are in harmony with our environment. By this, we evolve and guarantee our survival as a species. This adjustment to stress is sometimes uncomfortable and is like illness. In fact when we become ill, it is a result of the change in our environment. This change affects us, similar to the change of weather in the seasons. If we do not adapt we will die. So we change to meet the challenge of the change assaulting us. Sometimes the change is minimal and we are unaware of the adaptation. Sometimes the change is large and our reaction is proportionally large and we become aware that we are ill (which is suffering the effects of the reaction). When a new flu virus or bacteria is in our environment, we are threaten and challenged by this, and our bodies meet this challenge and a battle ensues. If we win the battle, we become stronger and healthier, for the bacteria is still in the environment, but our bodies have adapted to the point, where the bacteria is no longer a threat to us. Illness makes us healthier; it is simply a part of the survival and evolution process.

Take for example measles; most of us have had the illness called measles. We are invaded by the measles virus in childhood. The virus threatens our young bodies and after a period of intense interactions, we become victorious and our bodies have the information necessary to always quickly mount a counter attack. We are now immune from the illness measles. Still each year the measles virus attacks our bodies and yet we are unaware of the intruders. This is because we now have the capacity/knowledge to effectively neutralise the bacteria. It can be realised that the disease called measles is actually the healing process of the body at work. The symptoms are the reactions, which take place to overcome the irritant (the measles virus). For instance the body often produces fever to destroy viruses and bacteria as they are heat sensitive. Fever is a tool that the healing system utilises. It is a good thing and after the battle with the measles virus, we are healthier than before we had the illness. In the big picture of evolution the strong survive so that the next generation has a better chance, so even though some die from acute illness, mankind is healthier.

Now let me make a point here. I have just described the natural illness process, which is a part of the health process. More accurately I have described the acute illness process. That is, illness leads to increased health.

What about chronic illnesses and diseases such as cancer, arthritis, multiple sclerosis etc. where are the health producing benefits of these illnesses? What has gone wrong, why do these diseases lead to deterioration and death?

Discovering the answers to these questions helps remove what prevents the natural health process from occurring. Our bodies have the capability to heal from all these diseases and to heal and be healthy is a two pronged attack.

How to heal cancer.
1. Is to do health promoting actions, actions that encourage the healing process and
2.  More importantly, remove or transform the disease causing processes. As long as the disease promoting processes are in place it is unlikely the health causing processes will work effectively. It is this step, where there is a glaring lack of information.

The disease process is the one that there is little information about and yet it is vital to understand this process if one wants to heal cancer. Or another way to look at it, with regard to healing, is that the healing process starts from the disease process, not separate from it.

As can be seen from the acute disease ‘'Measles'’ the disease is the reaction and adaptation to an irritant, so the disease is actually the process of healing, that is, the healing in glorious action!. Is cancer any different -– No. All diseases are the interaction between an irritant/s (toxins, foreign fibres etc, radiation, bacteria, viruses and emotional distress) and the body. These irritants can be called stress. When the body receives stress, it will alleviate this stress in any way it can and this is called healing.

So, if you get a splinter you can see the reaction of the body to the irritating splinter, the site of the splitter will swell up, there will be pressure on the surrounding tissue, pus will form and these actions are needed to expel the splinter or dissolve it. If you remove the irritant (splinter) the healing process (responding to the irritant) stops and the cells return to normal.

Am I contending that Cancer is the body'’s response and reaction to a stress (irritant) -– Yes. The irritant is a stress and in cancer and other chronic diseases, that stress is still occurring, that is, the stress hasn'’t been resolved or nullified. We in this period of evolution live with an enormous amount of stress coming from all directions and it is this cumulative stress that is so destructive. We can have stress from work and when we relax at home that stress is gone. When we go on a holiday we can be far removed from stress and our body'’s stress level can go way down. In fact many people go into remission when they are on holiday or make a major change in their life. The cancer tends to return when they return back to their previous way of living and the stressful situations return. What would you like to take a holiday from?

By reducing stress in any area, the body has more vitality and energy and therefore is healthier. The irritant that the so called cancer is reacting to is still there but the body has less total stress. So, what will happen if the irritant at the centre of the cancer is removed? Without that irritating stress, the cancer cells will return to normal! There is no need to keep responding and reacting to that stress. Those cancer cells will stop doing what they are doing which is healing! (the damage caused by the irritant) and you will be healed.

The normal acute illness process is when an irritant (measles virus etc) irritates the body, the body reacts and adapts to the threat and the body nullifies the threat and is now in harmony with its environment and is now healthier than before the illness. The ‘chronic disease process’ is when the reaction and adaption does not succeed in removing the irritant or more generally the irritant is constantly occurring.

The irritant remains and therefore there is mal -– adaption, the body can only keep doing what it is doing, which is healing (with collateral damage) with no removal of the irritant. Think of a grain of sand entering an oyster and lodging in the soft flesh. Now, the oyster cannot remove the irritating grain of sand and so creates mucus to ease the irritation. The process continues till we have a beautiful pearl (cancer of the oyster) that will end up killing the oyster. The healing process that is saving the oyster’s life from the irritant, keeps trying in vain to minimise the irritation. Life was prolonged and cut short at the same time.

When we have a disease caused (mainly) by a physical irritant, then it is easy to see the cause, but chronic diseases usually involve physical, nutritional and emotional irritants. It is the emotional irritants that are little understood and to many cancers, the main cause and the prime factor in preventing health occurring.

Remember, disease is the result of the body attempting to heal a stress. Every cell in our body is a complete living organism and it is the amazing connectedness and collective working together that allows us to be existing in this form, as a human being. Each cell has a respiratory system, a digestive system, a reproductive system and a nervous system. Each cell has its own internal environment and it reacts and communicates with its external environment. The cell communicates by receptors on the cell wall and it has receptors for incoming and outgoing information/communication. So the cells respond to and influence the whole (which is us).

So a cell can receive a signal or stimulus from its external environment and if the signal is stressful to the cell, then that cell will send out signals communicating the stress, that will be received by other cells and this generates stress in these cells. What the outcome is, is that the body is aware of a stressful environment and the cells will have individual roles in attempting to overcome the stress.
If our internal environment (which is the external environment to the individual cells) is continually stressful then you can imagine the cells having a very hard time at surviving. If our external environment is stressful, such as polluted air then we will struggle to survive too. Stress pollutes the surrounding environment of the cell, with dangerous chemicals and toxins, disrupting the delicate alkalinity of the blood.

Any stress that we encounter will produce a stressful internal environment but our bodies are well equipped to handle and dispose of the normal day to day stresses that we experience. How much quantity of stress can we safely handle? If we imagine we have a range of 0 to 10 units and the body can deal with up to 5 units safely and that experiencing more than this leaves residual stress and also imagine that throughout evolution mankind has set the safe limit at 5 for generation after generation and this hypothetical level has proved to be the most efficient. The principle of economy of effort will see to it that we adopt the most efficient level. However in our modern world, we are continually bombarded with increasing levels of stress and over time mankind will increase the level of stress, which we can handle safely. But back to our present day, stress that originates from outside us is usually of short duration, though it can occur daily. What about emotional stress? Read more

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