Cancer Language. Our Powerful Words Effect Our Healing
Recently I read an article, in regard to cancer, that said, “Use of military terminology can make people more fearful and fatalistic, say psychologists.”
I agree. As I went through cancer I made a decided choice to avoid using words like attack, fight, kill, etc., because I knew my language choices would affect my outcome for being well.
In my award winning book My Ticket to Ride: From Cancer to Flourishing and its companion workbook Heart of Courage: Solutions for Undoing What Fear Created, I wrote about how our language choices affect our well-being. In essence, the words we choose to use create our stories. Our stories create our life expectations.
After diagnosis, I asked myself, “What was the story I wanted to create?” Vibrant well-being was the answer. The first action I took was to sit with the cancer and tell it I loved it. After all, my body had created it. I never hated the cancer, feared it, or wanted to kill it. Utilizing this simple small language change kept me from buying into and being directed by the fear-based, military language prevalent today in cancer talk.
After surgery when I made the choice to have chemo, I told my body it was through love I had made that choice. Each person who joined me during a chemo session (my chemo buddy) was instructed to send love and bless everything being dripped into my body; the saline, the steroids, the chemo, etc. My body was never told the chemo was necessary to kill or fight the cancer. Cancer was not my enemy.
I’m now 5 years NED (No Evidence of Disease) from stage IIIC peritoneal/ovarian cancer. I am on no maintenance medications. My check-ups are down to once a year. I am confident in my knowing my conscious choosing of how I languaged my experience of cancer had much to do with this.
Below I’ve listed the link to the article regarding the effect the use of military language has on people with cancer. To me, this is also applicable for any disease process one is going through, not just cancer. At the end of the article are several related stories that also might be of interest to you. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/aug/10/war-cancer-metaphors-harm-research-shows
What are the stories you want to live. Do they match the stories you are living right now? If not, how can you create the desired change? Your comments are appreciated.
©2019 Cristina Whitehawk