Body and Mind

It's popular belief that positive thinking is a huge factor in preventing illness and recovering from illness. Think happy, cheery thoughts, smile, invite others to share positive vibes, and actually will the sickness from your body. If you do not recover, it's probably because your thoughts just were not sunny enough. Seems like a lot of pressure to me. Plus, I kind of disagree. Though I'm not sure that positive thought is necessary in curing illness, I am however a believer in thought affecting illness.

The idea that we can decide to get better or not was impressed upon me after seeing several of my family members go through major battles with cancer. The ones that really stick out in my mind are my paternal grandfather, my maternal grandmother, and one of my cousins. Unfortunately, there has been more illness in my family than that, but those are the ones I was/am closest to.

My paternal grandfather almost fully recovered from a stroke (of which the doctors said he would never bounce back), then later beat cancer in his late 80s. He was a stubborn old guy (no disrespect here - I am really very proud of him) who did not want to die. He was 96 years old when he finally, very reluctantly, slipped away. Before that time, he was by no means a positive, sunny soul. He was a "glass half-empty" kind of person. However, he knew with all his being that he didn't want to die. I believe that determination easily added an extra 15 years onto his life.

I saw my maternal grandmother get sick and pass on in just a matter of months. She was ready to go to the next life, and she died much sooner than expected. She didn't want to be a burden. I still cry when I think of her. I wish I had more time with her. She was only 72 when she very serenely passed. She knew that she did not want to hang on - and she didn't.

Then my cousin, who is about 10 years older than me, was diagnosed and eventually recovered from an advanced form of Multiple Myeloma cancer. It was around that time I really began think about whether or not positive thinking was truly necessary in order to beat an illness.

My cousin has a very confident, energetic, assertive personality. She doesn't sit still for a second. She's always got plans and ambitions, and she most often gets what she wants. When she got sick, she was pissed off. Big time. She wasn't depressed, but she was really put out by this illness. It was slowing her down, and she was angry. I worried. She already had a very advanced, aggressive sort of cancer. How in the world is she going to recover with that frame of mind?

The wonderful news here is that she did recover. She's been in remission for years now. She has some painful and debilitating bone degeneration from the disease and the chemo, but she is still traveling and still LIVING. My cousin never for a minute expected to die from her disease. I guess if she had felt defeated, she very likely would have been defeated. Even if she didn't have positive thinking, she did have a very strong will to live.

I wondered about the positive thinking theory and how it fit (or rather, didn't fit) with my family's experiences. Were they anomalies? With any situation, there is bound to be the stray story or two that doesn't fit into the norm. Was that the case here?

Then I saw an program on TV about a study that was done on frame of mind and how it affects illness. In this study, they found that focus and determination was the key. Positive thinking is good, but being angry can be even better. People who saw their illness as an enemy and focused that energy actually recovered at a better rate than people who did not have that fire in their belly.

I think that this is important for people to know who are going through an illness. If they are told to "think positive", and fail to muster up that emotion, that person would likely believe that they were responsible for their disease and its progression - that it is their fault if they die. Isn't this a form of blaming the victim? I believe that thoughts are very powerful. It's not necessary that they be green grassy, happy thoughts. They just have to be thoughts of conviction and strength.

Anyway, this is on my mind because I have two people in my life at the moment (both very young) that are battling with cancer. They are both of the mindset that THEY BELIEVE they will beat it, and they only want to be surrounded by people who believe the same thing. This doesn't mean that they have to be cheerful all the time. They are going through some rough medical treatments, they feel awful, and they are not exactly having the time of their lives. But they are focused on the will to live.

When I was going through all those years of infertility, then the early stages of adoption, people always managed to say things that, instead of being helpful as they intended, stung a bit. I don't want to do that to those people in my life going through so much more than I ever went through. I need to think before I speak, say things that won't just serve to make myself feel better, and really support them in their struggle.