One of my earliest actions was to sign up for Yoga on the advice of my sister who is a homeopath. I had to bring my mind under control. I had to establish a balance between my mind, soul and body. If you had asked me a year ago to attend a yoga session I would quickly dismiss it. But I had made a promise to myself, to my wife, to my children, parents, fiends, and coworker that I will take whatever action I can, no matter how unconventional, to fight this disease. There are many ways to meditate, for me Yoga worked best, it fit my personality right away. There are different types of Yoga, the one I choose is called Koundalini, and it requires both physical and spiritual effort. I signed up myself and my wife for Yoga and it was the greatest decision I had made, not just during my fight, but practically in my whole life. I found out my personality is in tuned with the practices of Yoga. Like a skilled set of fingers which can make the guitar strings vibrate in such beautiful sounds, yoga began to calm my mind, soul, and body. The relaxation I achieved was so prominent that I was able to stop the pills prescribed to me to counteract chemo side effects including anxiety, constipation, vicious and uncontrollable hiccups, fatigue, nausea, etc. The practice calmed my mind so much that I was able to think logically again without fear; my biggest enemy throughout this fight. Yoga allows you to learn who you are and learn to be kind to the person you discover. It allows you to cry and to accept those tears to heal you. It allows you to accept your faith, whatever it is, and become more in tuned with it. For me, it has enhanced the way I pray. It allows you to accept your situation. That is when my healing began.
Given how well I was feeling after each yoga session, I wanted to enhance the effect and make it last longer. I chose to shut off all sources of negative thoughts and inputs. I chose to completely shut myself off to news, pessimistic people, TV, and anything that could drag me down, physically and emotionally. I began by reinforcing my mind with positive inputs and happy outlook. I chose to stop paying attention to survival rate and life expectancy statistics, especially the ones that predicted life expectancy. These statistics are bunch of numbers to make it convenient for insurance companies to accept or deny people from treatment. The numbers do not tell you what the backgrounds of the people were; what emotional or physical state they were in; what steps they took to fight if any; what their state of health was when they contracted cancer, what their life style was, etc. I told myself that my case is my own; I do not know what others did or did not do. I will chart my own course. The hardest thing is to keep your mind positive. This is the key. It’s not just about putting a fake smile on your face all day long. I found several phrases that reinforced my mind with positive messages. I found some of these phrases in a book called “Power of Your Subconscious Mind” by Dr. Joseph Murphy. I wrote these down in the journal which I keep for my children and repeated the passages, and still repeat them frequently, after every prayer session and before falling asleep and during Yoga meditation. I even tried Hypnotherapy. I asked the hypnotherapist to repeat the phrases I had compiled during the sessions and reinforce my mind with those positive messages. I have summarized these phrases and will be happy to share them with anyone. In my case, their repetition, did work; I wanted them to work; at least by changing my state of mind and outlook from doom and gloom to hope and recovery during treatment. This is something one has to keep up during the fight and long after remission.