Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Wholly holistic wellness (Batman!)
While celebrating my twentieth year of good health with HIV, I found out I had cancer--stage four non-Hodgkins lymphoma--and went through a year of both Western and alternative treatments, thanks to which I am now cancer-free. When I began, body misshapen and in constant pain, I figured that if I weren't going to self actualize, finally, that I might as well use the banana peel at hand to slip on out. Something in me was stronger, though, than whatever was dragging me down, so instead of seeking solace in death, I embraced the process of self transformation, employing all the techniques I had gleaned from my many years of searching for healing to guide me.
As the tumors and grueling chemotherapeutic side effects slowly melted away during the spring and summer of 2005, I had a breakthrough on many different levels. On the physical plane, I felt better than I had in years--my oncologist had estimated that I had probably been growing tumors for close to three years before I was diagnosed (in a state nearer death than living) in the summer of 2004.
And then something happened that still astonishes me: Through an extremely efficient course of psychotherapy, as well as the effects of bouncing back so successfully from the brink, I was finally able to both completely dissolve my festering resentment towards my parents and heal my ego. It may have taken almost forty years of extreme effort, but in the final days of these twin processes, my machinations felt as pragmatic and mechanical as unclogging a plugged pipe. Away went my fear, anger and pain down the drain, and in their place now flourish a great compassion for the people my parents are and an ego that is a functioning partner in my survival and success rather than a petty terrorist.
These two basic but resounding changes have been reverberating with positive energy throughout the several intertwined layers of my being: not only physical, but also emotional, intellectual, environmental, social and spiritual. I have not made it anywhere, nor is there anywhere specific to get to on this cyclical journey we're all taking, but I have made a major shift that I had been pushing for ever since I learned to walk, and because of it I am now changing--yes, and healing--at a faster pace than before. I feel that this is happening on personal, cultural and more etheric levels all over the planet--we are slowly (because it always happens slowly when time is of the essence), slowly evolving to solve inner and outer conflicts by widening our perspectives and courting synergistic, rather than antagonistic, relationships between our many selves and with others.
So...
THE NAKED ANIMAL is an ongoing analysis of my own journey toward multidimensional health and wellness, and an idiosyncratic documentation of humanity's analogous process.
The Naked Animal is concerned with continued human evolution, dedicated to creative exploration for the truth behind longstanding psychic and cultural conflicts, and intent on fusing the schisms they have created.
The Naked Animal courts ever greater universal synergy, makes connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena whenever possible, and never loses sight of the fact that cause and effect work in one great web that spans all dimensions.
The Naked Animal bares himself and the world to total, honest scrutiny because nasty old wounds need lots of fresh air to heal.
The Naked Animal encourages copious comments from all and sundry.
The Naked Animal is a laboratory, information hub and energy source for the many new paradigms that are springing up on the fertile, bowing backs of the dying old ones.
The Naked Animal is stripped down and geared for transformation, hungry and always hunting for further clarification.
The Naked Animal is always what it seems and often what it dreams.
Categories: healing, cancer, HIV-AIDS, psychotherapy, evolution
As the tumors and grueling chemotherapeutic side effects slowly melted away during the spring and summer of 2005, I had a breakthrough on many different levels. On the physical plane, I felt better than I had in years--my oncologist had estimated that I had probably been growing tumors for close to three years before I was diagnosed (in a state nearer death than living) in the summer of 2004.
And then something happened that still astonishes me: Through an extremely efficient course of psychotherapy, as well as the effects of bouncing back so successfully from the brink, I was finally able to both completely dissolve my festering resentment towards my parents and heal my ego. It may have taken almost forty years of extreme effort, but in the final days of these twin processes, my machinations felt as pragmatic and mechanical as unclogging a plugged pipe. Away went my fear, anger and pain down the drain, and in their place now flourish a great compassion for the people my parents are and an ego that is a functioning partner in my survival and success rather than a petty terrorist.
These two basic but resounding changes have been reverberating with positive energy throughout the several intertwined layers of my being: not only physical, but also emotional, intellectual, environmental, social and spiritual. I have not made it anywhere, nor is there anywhere specific to get to on this cyclical journey we're all taking, but I have made a major shift that I had been pushing for ever since I learned to walk, and because of it I am now changing--yes, and healing--at a faster pace than before. I feel that this is happening on personal, cultural and more etheric levels all over the planet--we are slowly (because it always happens slowly when time is of the essence), slowly evolving to solve inner and outer conflicts by widening our perspectives and courting synergistic, rather than antagonistic, relationships between our many selves and with others.
So...
THE NAKED ANIMAL is an ongoing analysis of my own journey toward multidimensional health and wellness, and an idiosyncratic documentation of humanity's analogous process.
The Naked Animal is concerned with continued human evolution, dedicated to creative exploration for the truth behind longstanding psychic and cultural conflicts, and intent on fusing the schisms they have created.
The Naked Animal courts ever greater universal synergy, makes connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena whenever possible, and never loses sight of the fact that cause and effect work in one great web that spans all dimensions.
The Naked Animal bares himself and the world to total, honest scrutiny because nasty old wounds need lots of fresh air to heal.
The Naked Animal encourages copious comments from all and sundry.
The Naked Animal is a laboratory, information hub and energy source for the many new paradigms that are springing up on the fertile, bowing backs of the dying old ones.
The Naked Animal is stripped down and geared for transformation, hungry and always hunting for further clarification.
The Naked Animal is always what it seems and often what it dreams.
Categories: healing, cancer, HIV-AIDS, psychotherapy, evolution
