Many of Turner’s survivors as well as alternative healers believe that illness is a blockage on either the physical, emotional, or spiritual level of our beings. This varies from one individual to the next but the goal is the same: identify the blockage, figure out where it came from, and release it fully. One survivor stated that “wherever the cancer is, it represents a kind of resentment you’re holding….So, I did what I call “release work.””

Releasing fear was by far the most common emotion that survivors felt needed release. One survivor tells other cancer patients to surrender, “to be at peace with dying and be at peace with living. And the more that you can bring the body into neutrality, the greater chance you’ll have of healing.” A well-known alternative practitioner said “uncertainty seems to be a very key aspect—people who can stay in the present and not project fear into the future [do better]. So, if you can deal with uncertainty about the cancer by staying in the present, then that seems to be the ticket. From a remission standpoint, it seems to then cause the body to relax. The body relaxes, gets more oxygen, more oxygen means the cell has a better chance, and then you’ll fall in line.”

I am aware that I carry stress in ways that are second nature for me. Resentments from the past, frustrations when I don’t get my way, and the need to be right contribute to a tensing, self-protective defensiveness that clearly needs releasing. To the degree that I am not in the fight or flight stress response I am more open to healing. To this end I commit to consciously practice forgiveness (of self and others) and make use of tools from my meditation training to release those blockages that may have contributed to my current health crisis.