by Fiona McGovern
Last week as I sat in the over-full waiting room for my oncology appointment, a woman passed me by handing out questionnaires on the chemotherapy and cancer services in our local health board area. I asked if I could have one and she apologised as she had not recognised me as a cancer patient. She explained that the number of cancer patients was predicted to rise by 9% in the next few years and the services could not cope as they are at present, so the questionnaire was to establish where their resources should be spent in order to best cope.
I pondered on how best to answer the questions. I felt supported by the present system but knew too well that some basic questions were not being asked: why do so many women have breast cancer? How are women living that creates such an illness in their bodies? How can we educate and support our young girls to be, so that breast cancer is not inevitable for them?
I looked around and observed my fellow patients: there were women of all sizes, from all backgrounds, most with children, some like me with none. There were those who dressed elegantly, some sexily, some plainly, some were chatty, others kept themselves to themselves.
What then linked us?
When I have chatted to them many have questioned why it is happening and most will then find an answer in the environmental pollution around here, the nuclear fallout from Chernobyl. None buy the genetic explanation, many have experienced bereavement or family fallouts, a few will say as women we are under too much stress to be perfect at all things…. as yet I have not met one who will take responsibility for the life and choices they have made to date, although they all nod when I say I know it was the choices I made and how I pushed myself.
I took a deeper look at the eyes of the women and I saw fear, anxiousness, a bewilderment, a shutting down, a giving up; they said “let’s just get this over with and return to how we were.”
What links us – we are all women.
But do we know what being a true woman means?
I know that before the chemotherapy and the esoteric healing I had no idea what being a woman truly meant. I looked outside for an answer on how to be a woman. With the healing I have found that me being a woman comes from inside, from reconnecting to the beauty within and rejoicing in that radiance.
How different the ward would feel if all the patients and staff knew that the healing lay in this reconnection.
So is the marriage of Western Medicine with Esoteric Medicine the way the health services can address the ever-rising numbers of women with breast cancer? I feel it is the only way.
It has empowered me to be me and that is why when you look into my eyes you see a sparkle and a playfulness, a stillness and light, a commitment to life and love, a woman who is reconnecting to being a woman, the woman she was born to be.
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
There are lots of popular theories currently bandied around as to what causes breast cancer but none of them have succeeded in stopping the rise of this condition. Could the answer lie in how a woman chooses to live based on how connected she is to her true essence? Have we really fully explored this option before we dismiss it as too simple?
“With the healing I have found that me being a woman comes from inside, from reconnecting to the beauty within and rejoicing in that radiance.”
Every woman deserves to read these words and be given the opportunity to ponder, to stop and again reconnect to their own beauty within and rejoice in their radiance.
The fact that the cancer rates were predicted to rise by 9% should make us stop right away. What’s going on in our personal world to make our bodies attack themselves this way? Could it be that this is just a symbol for the way we treat ourselves? For something serious is not working. Like a child trying to pursue an impossible dream to prove ‘they can do it’, we relentlessly push on. But there is no need and actually no-one to please.
I agree the way forward with medicine is a marriage of Western Medicine with Esoteric Medicine, they both have much to offer.
‘a woman who is reconnecting to being a woman, the woman she was born to be’ what an amazing way to live and be, and how awesome to find this and to come to the understanding that cancer can be a gift to undo those behaviours which are not true and to come back to the true woman. Fiona has blazed a trail for all of us in this and her absolute grace in how she approached and lived this is deeply inspiring. We need to look beyond the surface in what we see and understand there is something further at play here so the question for all of us is how are we living as women? And do we know what it is to be a woman? Do we understand and live in a way that knows that a woman lives from the inside out, not the outside in? And perhaps the biggest question of all, are we willing to see and accept that we are where we are due to the choices we’ve made. This is something for us all to explore and live.
The true sickness is not just cancer; it’s inhabiting bodies that we have no relationship with. It’s like driving a car with a hood over our eyes, with no idea where we’re going and the harm we’re causing to ourselves.
So many want to ‘get over ‘ their illness and return ‘to a normal life’. Yet it is this way of living that contributes to the illness in the first place. Bring on the day when we all start to take more responsibility for our ill health, rather than blaming outside influences or ‘bad luck’.
Sue I have observed the same. Illness is often seen as a weakness rather than a blessing and opportunity to look more deeply into how we are living. It usually causes a ‘stop’ in our lives, to reflect and re-connect to the wisdom of our soul and learn the lessons being presented. To rush back to work and seemingly normal life without connecting to this wisdom means we re-enter the ferris wheel of life with the same quality of energy we left it and could easily repeat the very conditions and life-styles that caused the illness in the first place.
At the other extreme is an emphasis on women who do-it-all, emulate men, are career obsessives and subject themselves to tough physical challenges. The innate essence and wisdom of being a woman trampled over in the rush for recognition. We as women need to return to simplicity, connect to our true essence and not constantly feel we have to prove ourselves. This constant drive to over achieve can cause physical imbalances that lead to illness and disease.
How interesting to read that your diagnosis has led to a true woman being reborn – that is deeply inspiring for all the other people you meet who are in similar circumstances. You certainly do not feel like a victim!
“It has empowered me to be me and that is why when you look into my eyes you see a sparkle and a playfulness, a stillness and light, a commitment to life and love, a woman who is reconnecting to being a woman, the woman she was born to be.” Now what woman in her right mind could possibly say no to this!
Yes and what a sparkle!! It is so easy to get caught up in the must dos and should dos we forget about the being. I am starting to rediscover just how sparkly my eyes can be just by slowing down, lightening the load, being in the moment, building stillness in my body, feeding myself well and having fun!
‘With the healing I have found that me being a woman comes from inside, from reconnecting to the beauty within and rejoicing in that radiance.’This is such a special feeling and one that can change our lives forever. Western Medicine is amazing but without this compliment of the Esoteric we would go back to our old ways and miss out on reconnecting to our true power and glory.
I agree there are a lot of unasked questions. It seems that we do already know the answer to these but to make changes can feel too hard. Maybe as women we can support each other more to do this. I find http://www.esotericwomenshealth.com and http://www.foundationalbreastcare.com to be excellent websites which have true wellbeing for women at heart and have supported me in so many ways to make simple loving changes in my own development back to the woman I truly am.
I so agree that “some basic questions were not being asked: why do so many women have breast cancer? How are women living that creates such an illness in their bodies? How can we educate and support our young girls to be, so that breast cancer is not inevitable for them?” Doctors do not usually ask these questions – hence the importance of Universal Medicine – which gets to the underlying cause of an illness. As we know everything is energy as shown by Einstein equation E=mc2. Thus ‘everything is because of energy’ Serge Benhayon. Collaboration between western medicine and the esoteric is a match made in heaven.
Thank you Fiona you put your finger on a hot topic – the responsibility we all have for ourselves. This is really what links us as women because most of us are living more from the outside in instead from the inside out. It is so good to spread the fact thats our choices what causes our illness instead of genes or the environment.
‘as yet I have not met one who will take responsibility for the life and choices they have made to date, although they all nod when I say I know it was the choices I made and how I pushed myself.’ This is valuable research Fiona as it shows a disconnect between the women and their relationship with themselves. You are a living testament to the value of the marriage between Esoteric Healing and Conventional Medicine. Medicine can only do so much, it is up to us to understand how our choices have contributed to our current state of being and make the needed adjustments. Esoteric Healing does this brilliantly in my experience.
“With the healing I have found that me being a woman comes from inside, from reconnecting to the beauty within and rejoicing in that radiance.
How different the ward would feel if all the patients and staff knew that the healing lay in this reconnection.” What is being offered here is a true way to be with and address our health issues whether this is breast cancer or another diagnosis. From my own experience of breast cancer I came to the same realisation that I needed to reconnect to being a woman and accept and live all the qualities of being a woman. In being willing to see this as part of the healing I have then come to feel and be aware of what supports me and my body throughout the day as a woman. I now see Illness or disease is a way or opportunity to discard all the behaviours that contribute to me being who or what I am not. In this I can expand to the grandness I am.
The truth behind why someone has cancer, an illness or disease or any other forms of stop moments can be a hard pill to swallow. But is this because as a society we have run ourselves generation after generation in a lack of responsibility and consequence for how we live? What I love about how Fiona approached her cancer treatment, is that she embraced all it was showing her and taking every bit of healing and understanding she could from all she experienced.
This blog asks so many pertinent questions about how we are as women and how we got to where we are as women, whether it be with cancer or not. What I find interesting reading this and I know and can feel this in me is how quickly our coping mechanism kicks in and how much we want to get things over with and move on, with many things in life and how in doing so we actually miss the point of what life is offering us, an opportunity to see and feel where our choices have brought us and to lovingly learn that how we can live and be as the true women we naturally are. And most of all I feel how much we avoid responsibility, that’s why we push into coping and solutions so fast, (and it’s very engrained in us all), and when we’re offered something different, as Fiona offered here, another path, what do we choose? Are we willing to see our choices and to see the responsibility we carry? And are we willing to understand that we are offered always a choice to choose love, and that true freedom comes with taking that responsibility.
It’s so inspiring to read that Fiona knew the only way to support her body with a true healing was to reconnect to herself, as a woman. It’s a blessing to be able to read her journey as what shines through for me is that these blogs are the writings of an amazing, claimed woman, not a cancer sufferer. To wholeheartedly embrace cancer as a healing, and to fully take responsibility for the body having to resort to this level of illness and disease to heal the dis-ease that has been dumped in it is an absolute inspiration. I feel humbled and honoured to be able to learn from Fiona’s experience.
In all the various different initiatives about cancer and breast cancer, as Fiona notes here we have not been asking the real questions; we’ve been looking for a culprit, be it environment or something else, something which we can then fix, but we’ve not been willing to ask the deeper questions about how we are in ourselves as women and how we live, we’ve not been willing to see our own part in it. And the truth is until we do, no cures no matter how amazing will truly work – modern medicine is amazing and has much to offer us, but until we reconnect back to the true women we are and allow ourselves to be and feel that, we will miss a key piece of the puzzle. And that piece is there ready and waiting inside us all.
It seems to be a common pattern for many of us that we avoid the responsibility of looking at our own choices and its subsequent outcome, but rather try and avoid this by blaming or attributing this to something outside of ourselves. We have the opportunity to experience true healing in the former (regardless of whether or not the body itself becomes free of the actual disease), however although we may experience temporary relief with the latter, it will never result in true healing.
“Let us just get this over with and return to how we were” – but “how we were” led to us having cancer. Why go back there? For more cancer?
“It has empowered me to be me and that is why when you look into my eyes you see a sparkle and a playfulness, a stillness and light, a commitment to life and love, a woman who is reconnecting to being a woman, the woman she was born to be”. Yes this is gorgeous to read and the sparkle in my eyes is returning too. I feel it has a lot to do with honouring what I am feeling in full, as that is what makes life so joyful, to be deeply loving with yourself.
How wonderful Fiona that you are connecting to your feminine inner beauty and expressing it to everyone in the waiting room. We have epidemic problems when humanity doesn’t want to be responsible for their choices. Everyone pays the price, we don’t get off scott free.
Fiona I love the questions you pose, they encourage us to consider deeper our equal role in creating the ill health we experience. What binds us is our choices to move away from our true self, this is where we allow all those things outside of us to define who and what we are. The moment we stop and truly consider how it is our choices, our way of living that creates this, only then can we begin to come back to our self. You are indeed a shining example of what is possible when we begin to look at our whole self, and seek support that marries esoteric and conventional medicines. As you share “is the marriage of Western Medicine with Esoteric Medicine the way the health services can address the ever-rising numbers of women with breast cancer? I feel it is the only way.” absolutely!
Your sharings Fiona are pure gold – so much wisdom and love and I love your last sentence “When you look into my eyes you see a sparkle and a playfulness, a stillness and light, a commitment to life and love,” very inspiring and very empowering. Thank you.
What you share with us Fiona is truly beautiful and so inspiring. This sharing alone would help in raising awareness to those woman who have lost that inner connection within themselves as the beautiful, gorgeous, precious women that they are. A copy of this blog would perhaps initiate a spark of inspiration that there is a different way of thinking/feeling and connecting to themselves.
Beautiful Fiona, do we know how to be true women, a great question. And for most of us we don’t, and there’s a dearth of role models out there who do. Your article is gorgeous as it shows that no matter what the circumstance we can connect to that innate true woman in us all. And every woman (including me) was deeply touched and graced by that spark in your eye I saw. You deeply moved me and showed me that life always offers us exactly what we need to heal and we can go with it or not – you went with it and in doing so inspired us all.
“What links us – we are all women” … A very touching statement that says a lot Fiona, thank you.
Fiona,
The beauty that you lived while going through your treatment offered to each of the women you met, be they fellow patients or medical staff, the simplicity and absolute divine beauty of a woman connected to her essence. Presenting to each person that there is another way to be with ourselves. So beautiful.
‘a woman … reconnecting to who she was born to be.’ What an awesome line. And one which most women do not truly understand yet alone truly live. I love this blog for its simple claiming that a combination of conventional medicine and esoteric medicine is a way forward to healing illness and disease and in particular with breast cancer, a reconnection to understanding what it is to be a woman is a way forward to support healing breast cancer.
I loved reading your blog Fiona – what an inspiration you are to others. Your self-love and responsibility led you to a deeply nurturing space within yourself. Your commitment to life and love is palpable.
The clue lay in the fact that you didn’t get handed a questionnaire because you don’t look like a cancer patient. The fact also lays in the responsibility of the connection with yourself as a woman and the choices you have made is the result in you with cancer. Beautiful sharing Fiona and thank you.
Absolutely true Concetta. That fact that Fiona wasn’t handed a questionnaire is true confirmation that her connection to her inner beauty was more powerful and radiant that the energy of the other patients.
It is truly remarkable to read that you not only feel empowered by knowing the part you played in your illness but in connection to your beauty and radiance, you are totally committed to your life and living the woman you were born to be – you are a deeply inspiring reflection to all women, with or without breast cancer.
Wow Fiona – I can really feel your love of humanity here and know that it stems from your deep love of yourself. Things are dire in the medical world: our hospital systems are overwhelmed, our GP’s over worked and the expense of health care on our governments is all increasing – but self love and responsibility can start to turn that around – thank you for shining light on a possible new path where conventional and truly complementary medicine can support people simultaneously.
Your observations of others is beautiful to behold Fiona…we all see and feel this but rarely is it acknowledged let alone expressed. This is all about taking responsibility for ourselves, for our life choices and our healing, and for being the true woman we were “born to be.”
From the way this is written Fiona, I can see the sparkle in your eye and I can feel that you have re-discovered your playful nature and the beautiful woman inside and all this despite of breast cancer, in fact you are thanking your illness for the lessons learned. This is truly inspirational and it is the approach we so need in the health system – it makes all the difference.
It is unheard of to thank your illness for the lessons learned Judith, but I agree this is what Fiona conveys in her sharing, and it is truly inspirational, an approach if we all adopted would make a huge difference in how we recover, heal and learn from what the illness or disease presented to us.
A valuable mapping out of the various reactions and responses, perceived causes and attitudes to ‘getting better’ in your waiting room of women with breast cancer – a great representative microcosm of the whole. I agree, conventional medicine to treat the problem works best when at the same time, we begin to unravel the way we have been living and take responsibility for the choices that got us to that point. Then we can, if we choose to, heal the underlying emotional causes and move on, not back to how we were.
So beautiful and simple. Connect with yourself as a woman. I can’t remember any discussion or class at school where we were encouraged to appreciate ourselves as women. I can’t remember any conversation I had with anyone where an appreciation of being a woman was enjoyed, until I went to a Universal Medicine event. I was 44 when I went to my first healing session. That’s quite a while to live without an appreciation of my own gorgeous situation of living within a woman’s body. I am wholly appreciative of the gift that Universal Medicine practitioners have brought to me. The appreciation of myself as a woman.
Amanda, it’s the very thing we’re not encouraged to do, or only to consider (being a woman), once that thing you need to do is done. I know I like you had no idea of how to appreciate me as a woman, or even connect to it and live it until I came to Universal Medicine and learned to look at life from the inside out rather than the outside in, and over time I’ve been learning more and more how to be that in the world. What struck me reading this piece today, was even in the face of illness we still want to surmount it so we can get back to life as it was – it’s not common what Fiona has done, use her illness as a reflection to connect back to herself as a woman. And this applies in many areas, as women we all have this tendency to leave ourselves when the demands of the world encroach, rather than stay connecting and consider how to be the woman in the world in that moment. Lots of learning or more aptly unlearning to be done, as the truth is we knew this as children, and now as adults we can connect back again.
I love how you say here “That’s quite a while to live without an appreciation of my own gorgeous situation of living within a woman’s body” and agree, though sadly some women can go through their whole life with no appreciation of themselves so thank goodness for all that Universal Medicine presents and the opportunity to feel and accept ourselves as amazing women :).
When truly felt Amanda, the gifts Universal Medicine are bringing to us, to humanity, are enormous. We are blessed being part of the Student body, being a student of our own ‘Way of the Livingness’ as originally inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. I am appreciating myself and my fellow students more and more for the fact that we have chosen to make our lives about Universal Medicine, to become Universal Medicine. By doing so we are able to bring Universal Medicine to the world as we are all connected to the one and the same ‘Ancient Wisdom’ with the only difference that each of us individually has his own and unique expression in this which to me is design from heaven.
That is such beautiful sharing Nico.
Gorgeous expression Nico, yes we are all designs from heaven!
Fiona I just love how you have raised our awareness that as a society we need to start asking the questions why disease and illness is escalating in a time when our medical system is more technologically advanced than ever before but at the same time getting more and more overwhelmed with the burden of these projected health statistics. Each of us needs to honestly and maybe even painfully question if it is indeed how we are living that is feeding and creating these stats, while we simultaneously ask whether or not it is the health care system’s responsibility to heal us and arrest these statistics or in fact our own. I totally agree with you, the marriage of Western Medicine with Esoteric Medicine is the only way this can happen, and means we all need to take responsibility for our own lives and live in a way that cares for and supports ourselves.
It is interesting how we can approach lifes challenges whether that be illness and disease or other challenges. We can be on the receiving end of this or there is the choice like you have made to embrace yourself in this and claim your way forward.
Thanks Fiona for further reminding us that everything is a result of our choices. Nothing happens for no reason. Accepting responsibility of our choices is the only way true healing can begin. We all have something to learn from your experience and the choices you make today. Thank you!
“let’s just get this over with and return to how we were.”… this seem to be the catch cry for any ill health condition…
There’s a true power in being able to take self-responsibility and look at our own choices from a place of self-love, and not of self-loathing or critique. It is inspiring to read how your reconnecting to yourself as a woman has supported you to do just that, and kept sparkles in your eyes.
Fiona I wonder how the Esoteric Medicine, its philosophy and wisdom could be brought to the hospital wards. Your sharing with the women in the ward is surely a way to introduce a reflective way of thinking about their health and responsibility in the matter as when you say “although they all nod when I say I know it was the choices I made and how I pushed myself.” You are the reflection for them of a different way of being in spite of sharing the same disease.
Thanks Fiona, It is amazing to see all the women who are choosing to connect with the deeper inner aspect of themselves. There is definitely an openness and tenderness in the eyes as well as a beautiful vulnerability and innocence .
I agree, it is in this reconnection to the beauty, power and tenderness within that provides true healing along side the miracles of conventional medicine. I too had really no real idea of what it meant to be a woman and the feeling that I was very far away from whatever that may be. Universal Medicine and particularly, Natalie Benhayon has shown me through inspiration that I am that, and that what I have been searching for is within and yes, this is for all women to discover in themselves as well.
“It has empowered me to be me and that is why when you look into my eyes you see a sparkle and a playfulness, a stillness and light, a commitment to life and love, a woman who is reconnecting to being a woman, the woman she was born to be.” How a beautiful reflection to be offered. Perhaps, and probably, the greatest in their lives. What a blessing for the other women!
Thank you Fiona, to look into your eyes or the eyes of student the Livingness is a true inspiration.
“Let’s just get this over with and return to how we were.” This is the catch cry of many people when illness strikes. It reminds me of the old Protestant work ethic which was about religiously working hard – work (doing) was everything and the body was to be ignored. This applies to men and woman and for women it doesn’t matter if you have chosen to be a career woman, a family woman or both, a student … Whatever the choice, it is still a choice to do… It really is like a religion that we still carry with us even if we don’t go to church anymore we still seem to be stuck with this way of living and we keep adding more things to do on top of it, Championing ourselves for multi-tasking and being able to be independent – who needs a man, we can do it all!
Breast Cancer feels like a blessing, a forced stop, but it is most certainly not about returning to how we have been living. How we were living before this disease took shape was not working. As Fiona shares, for her the cancer was a call to come back to the woman she is, in full, so much so she didn’t even look like a cancer patient in the oncology unit … That says a lot .. And we can do ourselves a favour by listening to her wisdom.