740 thoughts on “Cancer – is it bad luck or a blessing in disguise?”

1. Anne it is interesting what you said about walking the old way, I noticed something the other day when walking, I could feel I was walking but leaning back, so I changed my upper body to be in line with my hips and legs and suddenly everything changed I was walking forward with a freedom I have never experienced before – there was such a flow it was incredible. So I wonder if we have been configured to move in a certain way which keeps us locked into making those ‘old choices’ which are so disrespectful to our bodies. That there is as you say a true way of walking free of ideals and beliefs we have unwittingly bought into.

2. Let’s be honest and say we tend not to listen to our bodies until we get the big message and then sometimes we still don’t listen. I have had many experiences when I thought I could get away with something that I know deep down was going against what my body knows to be true. I can definitely feel a stubbornness and arrogance when I over ride these feelings.

3. Anne you’re sharing has given a whole new perspective on this condition and could we apply this to all other diseases or conditions, the simplicity of a clearing, our bodies need to go through? Most people will not view it as a blessing, but when we look at people who have gone through any accidents, incidents, illnesses, most will admit their lives have never been the same, they have turned it around. So in some respect, it is a blessing. It made them stop and review their life and it is from there they make the choice of either living differently, or revert back to their old ways.

   Every illness, call it what you want is an opportunity to look at your life through a magnifying glass – are you prepared to do this, is the question?

4. Attributing “luck” or “random” to anything is a sure way of limiting our ability to observe and learn from the lessons life offers us.

   1. I agree, when we use “luck” we deny the responsibility we have played in bringing on the illness or condition. We then make it someone else’s problem and expect to be fixed. When we see the “blessing”, we take responsibility of our part and what it has to offer.

      1. I have the understanding from the many patients I have met there is little sense of responsibility. Generally speaking the person is ill, they want to be made better or cured ASAP so that they can go home and carry on as normal. They just want to be fixed, they hate being in hospital and confined to bed or the chair next to the bed. And to be honest the way the health industry is set up there is seemingly very few asking patients to be responsible. The nursing staff are amazing and do a terrific job in getting the patients up on their feet again so they can go home. It’s a conveyor belt system, people come in they are given the utmost care until they are well enough to go home or into residential care. We do not question anyone’s life style or how they having been living up to that point. There is such a lack of responsibility is it any wonder that the health organizations around the world are struggling to keep up with the demands placed on them.

5. Letting things in the ‘luck hands’ keeps us in the surface of what every situation brings into our life.

   1. Absolutely. When we live from this place we are in a deep denial of how we are feeling and keep things very one dimensional. However at some point those feelings have to rise to the surface and they have to be dealt with, but often at this point they are very much magnified and can come as a shock. If we deal with things as they happen and as we feel them then they don’t compound on each other and nothing is a surprise.

6. “Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things? ” Such a pertinent question Anne. Interesting to see how we want to evade responsibility for the ‘bad’ things that happen to us, but are more than happy to accept the ‘good’ things are down to us!

7. “The diagnosis of cancer, or any other serious illness, could become an opportunity to look deeply at ourselves, at our lives, and to live in a way that was truly loving, caring and supporting of ourselves.” – I 100% agree. What an amazing opportunity of healing we are being offered.

8. “It was a call to make the changes that deep down, I knew I had to make.” When our body has an illness or disease it is a call to reflect on the way we have been living and treating ourselves. If we drive our car recklessly we are liable to have a crash and damage the car, the same with our precious body.

   1. Any illness is an opportunity to grow and learn from – even a devastating diagnosis such as cancer. Yet I witness so many (who are over their illness) who want to return to their old ‘normal’ way of life, when it is that that often triggered the disease in the first place.

9. If we gauge our life by “luck” then we are essentially placing ourselves the same as a buoy in the sea, however if we look at life as every choice counts towards something then we place ourselves at the helm of the ship and hence can steer our ship as easily out of stormy water as we entered it in the first place.

   1. Meg, I steered my ship into stormy waters recently and it felt horrible in my body, I traced the foul feeling back to a conversation I had had earlier that morning, I let an energy in that then played out badly a few hours later. This was actually a great lesson to always be aware of the energy that surrounds us rather than getting caught up in wanting to be ‘nice’. Playing ‘nice’ or being ‘good’ are both learnt conditions from childhood that after all these years can still play out if I drop my awareness of what is actually taking place in life. I am discovering that there is much more going on in life than what we can see and feel on the surface.

10. It’s great to bring in the blessing part of illness because once we realise the responsibility we have for the health of our bodies we could easily be hard on ourselves for having an illness. Realising there’s a grace at hand, that a greater healing is on offer by returning to a more loving and caring way of life we can instead choose to surrender, accept, and move with the healing.

11. “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?” Great questions Anne and something we all need to consider not only in relation to cancer but for any illness we may have.

12. This exposes the fact that we do know that what happens is not because of luck as we know we have worked hard for that new expensive car, it doesn’t just come, but don’t want to take this further to when we are experiencing an illness or disease. Anyway, our way of thinking as a society is not in the understanding that we create our own illness and disease by how we are living but this would explain why there is such a rise in illness and disease with all the great medicine that is around already. We might be looking in the wrong direction and have to make a shift in how we look at illness and disease and take more responsibility for how we are living.

13. “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there?” If the world were to understand this fully and embrace it, what a difference our approach would be towards anyone who developed cancer and their consequent care.

14. “how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?” Great question Anne, and one I feel will wake a lot of us up to what we are actually responsible for. There is no way we can pick and choose what we want to be responsible for, for we are responsible for the consequences of every choice we make, even the really awful stuff. But even the awful stuff comes with a valuable message, it’s simply up to us to stop and take note. But what we do next is once again our choice and that consequence of that choice our responsibility and so on.

15. So true – the word ‘luck’ diminished the responsibility factor of the choices we make. I guess those many who had cancer and say it was a blessing are still here alive to say that precisely because of the fact that they were able to see it as such, an opportunity to heal and let go what doesn’t belong.

16. When we realise and accept the fact that our quality of life is a direct result of the responsibility we choose to live with, we then will realise and accept the truth that there can be no luck involved, as all is a precise reflection of the quality of energy we have chosen to align to, be it love or all that is not of love, in which our choices are an indication of our alignment. We do have an incredible opportunity every day, through our connection to our body, to feel the degree of love we are choosing to live with, and make the necessary adjustment to honor more of the love that we are here to live.

    1. Carola the words you used struck a note with me
       ‘…to honour more of the love that we are here to live’
       where in life are we taught to honour our bodies? If we look at how we are all living the complete opposite to honouring is taking place. We live in a way that is very disrespectful towards ourselves so is it any wonder that our bodies have to pull us up so that we have an opportunity to possibly take notice of how we have been living that brought us to that stop moment. I’m discovering that actually our bodies are very intelligent much more intelligent than our minds.

17. This is very interesting to read, because I like the way that you describe the body as having an intelligence that knows what is harmonious and what is not, and how appreciated it can be when one is given the opportunity to actually stop and listen and heed what is being felt all of the time.

18. Great reminder Anne that we are responsible for our choices and the consequences of those choices, and in truth there is no good or bad luck.

    1. It sure is Sally. It is actually very empowering to be open to the honesty and responsibility of where our choices come from and how they affect us, as we realise that we are the only one that is in command of the quality of life and love we live and share in the world.

19. “Yet, when something ‘bad’ happens, like a diagnosis of cancer, we are not so quick to take the credit for it! We are very willing to call it ‘bad luck’.” True and as you say we take credit for the good things that happen in our lives. Time for us to step up to take responsibility for all that happens to us – somewhere we chose it – cos of the earlier choices we made – a bitter pill to swallow sometimes.

20. Our bodies are so intricate and work really hard to keep our body in balance but sometimes they need the clearing that cancer can offer.

21. Nothing in life is random and especially not cancer so it behoves us to explore the excuses we make for not taking responsibility for our own lives.

22. ‘What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? Anne the awareness you came to around cancer is huge, some would agree with this truth but many prefer to see themselves as victims and put it down to ‘bad luck’, as always it’s how responsible are we willing to be and listen to what our body is trying to communicate to us.

23. “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?” A big question to ask, but a very important one. Any illness offers us an opportunity to reflect, so rather than focussing on just ‘getting better’ and wanting to get ‘back to life as it was’ what a great opportunity is being offered here for us to consider that perhaps ‘life as it was’ was in fact a major contributor to why we got sick in the first place.

24. Thank you Anne for your sensitive sharing. I know of at least 3 people who have a diagnosis of cancer just recently and all have very different ways of handling this. Plus different ways of treatment naturally so. We can all be offered an opportunity to grow through whatever illness and disease we may have. It is a great reminder for us to truly listen to what our bodies need and why we ignored these warning signs in the first place.

25. “Is it luck, or is it not? Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?” Ha ha. It’s amazing how our yardstick is so slanted and malleable depending on our convenience and what we are measuring.

26. Everything in life provides us with an opportunity to learn and evolve and cancer is right up there in that regard.

27. Anne I loved the point you make here ‘Yet, when something ‘bad’ happens, like a diagnosis of cancer, we are not so quick to take the credit for it! We are very willing to call it ‘bad luck’.’ Whenever we have any firm of illness or disease, we have to stop and look at our choices and how we may have contributed to our own illness.

    1. Yes and also to know that it does not always mean we have done something “wrong” and it is not a punishment. The reading and understanding is different and personal for everyone. I had a friend who was doing amazingly well on every level who got cancer at the end of her life as a huge healing and clearing for her next life – even in death there was not one ounce of “bad” but absolute joy. I have also had friends who got cancer as a loving message that something needed to change in the way they were living – this is the more common occurrence.

28. If we did take credit for the ‘bad luck’ situations, in other words, take responsibility and accept our steps that led to or assisted the situation to arise. The healing of the condition or situation would go much deeper. Because when we don’t take our responsibility then the situation can repeat itself.

29. And the same would go for any illness. Having recently been diagnosed with an illness, it’s become very apparent how stuck in a belief we can be that illness is a bad thing. This is a great blog for shifting such a belief, and start to see the healing that’s on offer to deepen our love and care for ourselves.

30. I wonder what life would look like if we took the stance that there was no such thing as “bad luck”, and that we were the initiators and the creators of everything that happened in our lives, whether that be an illness, or loosing a job, or a marriage breakdown, and whatever happened it was our movements and choices that led us there.

31. All the blogs on this site consistently refer to cancer in such a light way it is refreshing to read. It need not be scary or something to fight or reject it’s existence when responsibility is taken. This could be said for any condition really.

32. If we all stopped seeing our life events and illnesses and diseases as mere chance or bad luck, we could then open ourselves up to the fact that there is more to life than meets the eye.

33. Taking responsibility for our life experience is very different to blaming ourselves for our it, and this distinction is a very important if one is to lovingly forge a new path forward.

34. I love that your questions call us to consider the possibility that there is more to a disease than chance and that in that there is not only a responsibility to be taken but an opportunity to embrace… to look more deeply at ourselves and our lives and move in a way that is more loving, caring and supportive. A stop moment that is a blessing, to reevaluate and address, not just bad luck and therefore an excuse to remain disregarding in our choices.

35. What I feel you are saying in this blog Anne and what I am gathering from your other blog about when you had cancer, is very powerful indeed. In fact, this message is very consistent through out this entire website, it is communicating responsibility, without judgement or blame, it is asking the reader to consider that we are not victims of circumstance and it is also encouraging the public to always seek Western Medical advice. Wether that is going to the Hospital, GP, Nurse or the Dentist, they are all an act of self care and love. It is reminding us that when we take these visits and check ups that we cannot dump the issue onto the person in the white coat, that healing is not about a cure but about an awareness that either harms or heals, it’s about the way that you move and how and what that then communicates to others. Each choice in life is a movement, it has a momentum, most people that have cancer end up changing this movement or momentum, it’s no wonder cancer is prevalent, the body has yet again found a movement that steers us back to our soul.

36. “Many people who have had cancer say that it was a blessing; that it was the best thing that could have happened to them. It gave them cause to stop, to re-evaluate their lives and the way they had been living, and to make changes that they knew, deep down, needed to be made; and that their lives after cancer were much more full, rich and joyful.” Absolutely – if we call illnesses like cancer “bad luck” we miss out on the golden opportunity that has presented to us to clear our old ways that don’t serve us anymore and to start afresh and choose the life we truly want to lead.

37. ‘…how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?’ Your logic is irrefutable here Anne. We can’t, of course, abrogate responsibility for either. Everything we do, every situation we find ourselves in, is the sum of our choices; of each and every move we make in life. It’s not random, it can’t be written off as purely genetic, and the gods aren’t angry or happy with us.

38. It is amazing how the body can twinge on an old injury when we drift away from our loving ways, and communicates clearly with us. I have a right inner ear which tells me very loudly when I am not listening to what I have already clocked to be true.

39. What is great is that if we take the time to feel into why we had the particular kind of cancer we ended up with we can see how, in particular, certain behaviours have been harming us even though we thought , or chose to think, they were ok. In truth, it is why we resorted to those behaviours in the first place that holds the key to understanding and then putting in place ways of caring and loving ourselves more deeply ensures that we awaken to more of the truth from within ourselves and with a true intention to heal we are supported back on our journey to a more soul full way of being.

40. I am not sure I could bring myself to call cancer a blessing, but I get what you are saying. Personally, I would prefer to call it a correction, in an attempt to rebalance that which was so imbalanced. From that point of view it is a blessing, in that it may stop or offer a correction to one’s ill momentums. But even the fact that such a thing was required to happen – that such a “blessing” was called for in order to assist one to come back to themselves – is in many ways a tragedy.

41. Responsibility is not a switch that we can turn off when we do not want to accept the reality that our choices have lead us to the point we are at. If we are willing to look at it and go a little deeper we will see, as you have brilliantly shared Anne, that illness and dis-ease are a blessing, an opportunity for us to adjust the way we are living, arrest the ill momentums we are in, reflect on the quality of energy we are aligning to and allow corrections in our bodies to make way of a deeper connection to who we truly, the vibration of love, our being-ness, in order for us to then magnify this quality through our bodies. This is what true healing for our body and being is, and when embraced we realise how empowering embracing responsibility is.

42. A beautiful expose Anne, showing that when we look at illness in a truthful light we see all the healing that’s on offers.

43. Luck – good or bad – has nothing to do with the state of our health – or anything for that matter. We create every situation that arises for ourselves: every moment, movement to movement.

44. When we look honestly at issues that we have with our physical body we can understand that there is an underlying cause and effect. We are offered the opportunity to make changes to the way we are living and appreciate the effect in how we feel.

45. My medical past does not show any cancer but I have had some medical challenges in diseases and illnesses. And all of them brought me richdom in my heart. Becoming aware of so many behaviors which made my body ill. And how empowering it is to see how we can make a difference by the way we choose our next step.

46. If we start seeing illness as a way the body has to get rid of things that do not belong in there, we would start appreciating both it and the body of ours. This is part of the 24/7 working for us of our body.

47. Anne you pose some great questions here, for myself I felt my cancer was a great wake up call to how I had been living, I had taken sports and my body to the extreme, and there came a point where my body was no longer able to cope with the choices that I had previously made. I am now more aware of how my choices affect not only my life but my body too, and I am grateful for the stop and the wake up call my body gave me.

48. Changing one’s attitude to sickness from one of ‘something is wrong’ to one of recognising that it is a consequence of one’s choices leads to an empowered way of being as one becomes no longer a pawn in the game of life but a co-creator with God.

49. From my experience with breast cancer, most certainly not bad luck, but a blessing with invaluable lessons to be learnt. Thank you Anne for an insightful blog and a beautiful reminder of my experience with cancer.

50. “It gave them cause to stop, to re-evaluate their lives and the way they had been living, and to make changes that they knew, deep down, needed to be made; and that their lives after cancer were much more full, rich and joyful.” I know this feeling even though I did not have cancer or any other big disease. Being ill gives a moment to stop and evaluate how we have been living, for me it often feels like a ‘I knew something was not right in the way I was living’. Seeing illness and disease in this way is a blessing indeed, a little nudge of our bodies that the way we are using our body might need to change, and a little suggestion as well to follow these feelings of ‘this way of living is not quite right’.

    1. You are right Doug, although in a way the illness and disease is still a blessing in the way it is seen that the way we are living as a society is not truly working. If we would take away medicine it would even be more extreme! Yet the point is almost no one sees illness as a message from their body that something needs changing and that’s why illness and disease keep rising and rising.

51. Thank you Anne for this great blog. Once we begin to realise that there is no such thing as random because ‘everything is energy and therefore everything is because of energy’ we know that there is no such thing as ‘bad luck.’ The concept of luck has to be one of the most fraudulent ideas launched upon humanity. It creates sympathy (in one direction) as well as envy (in the other direction)! Every move we make and thought we think will contribute to ease and harmony in the body or not. We are responsible for the ‘kinks’ in our body as I can so clearly feel now.

52. This is something I also experienced, albeit in a watered down version- “Many people who have had cancer say that it was a blessing; that it was the best thing that could have happened to them.” I had the threat of cancer looming and when I found that out, it made me evaluate my choices in life very quickly and propelled me into taking serious and drastic actions as to situations and decisions in my life, with the result being that cancer in the end did not manifest and my life took a totally different turn I could never have expected. Yes, it was a blessing indeed …

53. The moment we consider it as luck, we remove ourselves from the equation because we don;t want to consider the responsibility we have in every single moment. And responsibility has nothing to do with blame – far from it. Illness is a communication from the body – we lace it with the negativity and dread because of our attachments and beliefs that ultimately stem from not wanting to take the responsibility we are being called to take.

54. “So, is it luck, or is it not? Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?”

    This line was a stand out for me and it got me thinking about how much we do this. We like the the good things and not so much the bad things. But what it feels like you are offering us here, is to take the good and bad out of it, and just look at what is happening and what could be learnt from it.

    1. So true Sarah – That line stood out for me too and it puts it very clearly in a nutshell as we can apply this to all areas of life. Stopping the judgment and looking at what is, deeply and honestly, will go a long way in supporting us to heal.

55. So many people who have cancer talk about the fact that it has changed their lives for the better. It literally forces people to make lifestyle changes to ones that fully support them, and in this they get to feel how amazing they can feel with a whole lot of extra care. The choice is then theirs to continue this or not.

56. It is so easy to go into blame – our genes, our family history etc, when we receive a diagnosis of cancer, anything rather than take responsibility for our part in its manifestation. However when we do claim that responsibility we can feel empowered and find ways to support our own healing, rather than becoming a victim to the system. Making different lifestyle choices is key, for if we return to the same old ways after surgery etc it is possible that secondaries (metastases) can then occur.

57. ‘What if cancer were not a curse but the body’s way of getting rid of something that doesn’t belong to it, that shouldn’t be there.’ Great point Anne. Our bodies are amazing and give us illness and diseases when we haven’t listened to their more subtle messages – and ignored their earlier signs to encourage us to make different lifestyle choices. Who ever smoked their first cigarette without coughing? Or first tasted alcohol (not sugar-laden alcopops) without making a face? Ignoring such messages at our peril, it can then bring cancer as a wake-up call to greater responsibility. But even after such a huge wake-up call it is all too easy to go into denial and return to old ways of comfort. Time for us all to step up. Your blog needs to be widely read and acted upon Anne.

58. When we see things as luck it is as though we are removing our responsibility. It can seem easier to take responsibility for the good in our lives but when it’s not so good, luck can be quick to get the blame. Luckily (pun intended) we can’t remove our responsibility.

59. Sharing how your body speaks loudly now if you return to walking in an old way of being are words of wisdom that can offer many the key to halting disease in our bodies, before we get to the point of a cancer diagnosis. Many will want to fight such an offering and continue to make cancer and other illnesses about environmental causes or the inadequacy of our medical systems. But is the only real fight the one to not take responsibility for our behaviors?

    1. Great question Leigh – “But is the only real fight the one to not take responsibility for our behaviors?” – It sure is, as if we did then we would have to make changes and step out of our perceived comfort…which often in the end was not comfort at all but a ‘checking out’ from the choices we make in our lives only to be brought back to what is truly happening within with a big bang…

60. I have only read to the following “Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?”
    This gives me a moment to stop and consider just how little responsibility I used to take for the ‘bad’ things in life, and how inadequate and not good enough I felt that such things would happen to me. Like they were proof I was a bad person. Yet the moment I began to take responsibility for my life, I felt empowered, as I realised that if I am responsible for where I find myself in life, that I can change what doesn’t work any more. It is very steadying and brings a feeling of solidness when we accept our choices, and ponder on making different ones, as one begins to live life, with full responsibility for our choices being our guide.

61. Thank you Anne for these graceful considerations. It is a common misconception amongst us to view cancer as ‘bad luck’ as if it were a random disease that just happens to one person over another with nothing prior in place to have seeded it forth. Such a view speaks of the ignorance that we have set in place to not take responsibility for the choices we have made in life and in so doing we completely miss the blessing on offer that such a condition can present to us if we are truly willing to heal the ill momentums that have seeded such a disease in our body.

    In order to truly arrest these, we need to understand that a simple gesture such as putting the needs of others ahead of tending to ourselves over time and repeated often, can become the genesis of the cancer which then forms. This is why cancer seems to happen to ‘good people’, as the saying goes. This is not to promote a selfish way to be, nor suggest that we do not deeply care for those around us, for this we should, but more to say that we need to tend to our own garden first so that when in full bloom we have something to offer others that is not at great expense to ourselves.

62. Saying that something is a result of luck is an excuse for not taking responsibility of our choices and actions.

63. Thank you for such a tender blog Anne – it takes all the ‘fight, fear and mysticism’ out of cancer and allows us to consider the part we may have been playing, through our own choices.

    1. That’s it – our choices. And the great thing is that we can choose differently and new every moment of every day and if we do start to choose self love over comfort, honesty over illusion and many more, then we can definitely make a difference as to how our body will feel and what it wants to communicate too.

64. It is not a funny subject, but it did make me laugh when I read: “when something ‘bad’ happens, like a diagnosis of cancer, we are not so quick to take the credit for it! We are very willing to call it ‘bad luck’.” The fact that the way we live and our choices have an indisputable impact on our health is increasingly becoming common knowledge.

    Calling it bad luck just keeps us in the false belief that we are helpless and at the mercy of a random and senseless universe. Choosing responsibility and accountability is far more empowering since if we have a part to play in creating something, that means we also have the power to do something about it.

65. Why does it often take an incidence of “bad luck” for us to stop and re-evaluate our lives? Maybe if we all came to realise that there is no such thing as “bad luck”, or any luck, when it comes to our health, but that in general it is the way we have been living that has lead to the unwelcome diagnosis. To teach our children to be responsible for their precious bodies from young would certainly, in my opinion, do away with blaming anything and anyone for what is going on inside us, and instead look at it as a “blessing in disguise”.

66. We are funny how we view things, what is luck and does it really give us anything or is it more of a throw away line that we attempt to use to explain things. Are we ever really ‘lucky’ or is this word just a surface layer of what we can read deeper underneath. To have luck you would have to be lucky, such a crazy word when you use it over and over. How to we get from one place to another? Say from bed to the fridge, do we just by luck end up at the fridge or do we make a series of movements and choices to get there? Interesting how we apply luck blindly or is it just blind luck. Our choices and movements bring us to where we are and no luck just the truth of it.

67. The shift from ‘being at the whim of fate’ to taking responsibility for all aspects of our lives is a quantum shift of awareness.

68. We are very selective at the time of taking credit for things that happen to us. We accept some and have a ready explanation for them. We do not accept others and have no explanation for them. So, bad luck. Bad luck may work for someone if that which happens to them is not really serious and recovers from it. But, if it is something really serious, bad luck does not really help the person, as it misses the point to be learnt and does not generate the changes the condition asks for as part of the healing that the illness offers.

69. The idea, or rather, fact that cancer, like all illness and disease is our body’s way of discarding that which should not be in it, is pretty amazing, and whilst it isn’t pleasant to go through, what a blessing to have the opportunity to get rid of it.

70. ‘…how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things? ‘ This line really stood out for me. Makes good sense. We don’t get to pick and choose, we create it all, so we’re responsible for it all.

71. Interesting how we crave recognition for our contribution to our ‘good’ luck but are not so willing to take responsibility for our ‘bad’ luck. Accepting that everything happens for a reason has made me much more wiling to see the times when I have been stopped by illness as a blessing in disguise and an invitation to look at how I have been living and make adjustments.

72. The same as natural disasters on our planet, we must see that what goes in, must come out.

73. For me Anne the answer to your question is simple; having had and recovered from the ravages of breast cancer and the treatment was a divine blessing. Definitely a huge wake up call to make different more self loving choices which in turn leads to a more joyful purposeful life.

74. To understand an illness as the result of our choices and way of living means to accept the full responsibility for it. To understand that the body develops the illness to clear itself of the accumulated disharmonious ‘ill’ means honouring the body for its wisdom, honesty and never ceasing activity to balance and sustain or restore harmony. This is huge in face of a world that lives mainly in ignorance and denial of these 2 universal laws expressing through our body – absolute responsibility or karma and the divinity of the body, ie the body always being a part of and being in alignment with the universe. Could it be that illness and disease are a way of cleansing, reflecting, healing, awakening awareness and calling us to account? Approaching illness and disease, the process of healing and the way we live based on this understanding will change humanity for good in every aspect of life.

75. It is so shocking to receive a serious diagnosis such as cancer and yet we are often so surprised because we have been so unaware of the quality that we lived and how we treated ourselves.

76. “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living? What if indeed? Having had cancer myself also I know this to be true. As you mention, we are so quick to take credit for the good things that happen to us – but don’t want to take responsibility for the ‘bad’ things. We need to wake up.

77. What if cancer is a wake up call, a call to take a moment or stop to look at how we are living, could we be living in a way that contributes to us having cancer? ‘What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?’

78. Hi Anne, your blog made me consider how we have pigeon holed cancer into ‘bad’ – assuming ‘good’ is to not have cancer. But what if we looked at it as a marker of truth – ie if we get cancer – what is it asking us to look at or heal? if we were to look at it this way it takes the shame and pity and sympathy away and therefore does not carry the ‘bad’ stigma we have attached to illness and disease. Now more than ever, with more and more people having an ailment in the world, isn’t it time to approach things in a different way, with truth?

79. Ah yes, those ‘good luck’ and ‘bad luck’ labels are nothing more than a ‘convenient truth’.

80. Definitely not ‘bad luck’ to get cancer. Even if we get tested for suspected cancer and then find out it isn’t that but some so-called ‘lesser’ illness or disease, we feel relieved. But however we have been living that led us to the diagnosis of ‘not cancer but something else’, could well become cancer if we do not change the quality of the way in which we live. It is a reprieve in some ways, but it is also an equal opportunity to cancer to stop, really take stock of how we have been living and make the changes needed to live in a more self-loving way.

81. “the diagnosis of cancer, or any other serious illness, could become an opportunity to look deeply at ourselves, at our lives, and to live in a way that was truly loving, caring and supporting of ourselves.” A beautiful appreciation of how our body lovingly tells us how we are, or are not, caring for ourselves.

82. “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?” I absolutely agree Cancer is Not a Curse and for me when diagnosed with breast cancer it was an opportunity to stop and reassess life in every way and just the beginning of making loving and responsible choices for myself and body. The curse would be if I continued living in the same way pre-diagnosis as I am not sure where my life would be now.

83. We so need stop moments… And we actually need signposts to guide us in how to have these moments without such big things happening to us… Because when we do stop, we have much more chance of actually feeling how we truly are and what is going on in our body.

84. I had never really considered viewing the good luck, bad luck comments in that way but you are absolutely right, it seems that there is a selective abdication of responsibility and accountability dependent on how judged we are going to be by ourselves or others,

85. I now view illness and disease as a clearing of what does not belong, and often a wake-up call to stop and reflect on the choices we have been making. When viewed this way there is no ‘fight’ against cancer, instead there is a choice to co-operate with the body, to listen to what it has to say and to support it to heal. Luck does not come into it.

86. What a simple way to consider the reasons that we develop illness and disease. Its so true that ‘luck’ isn’t the reason for anything, ‘luck’ in life, both good or bad, is a direct result of everything we have chosen before.

87. What I have found is that it is not so much the physical, psychological or emotional ailment or behaviour that is the biggest grip, but rather the relationship with the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Every time I take away the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ label my relationship with the situation changes. So then what is our relationship with ‘good’ and ‘bad’?

88. A simple message in this article that answers one of the worlds biggest questions “why me?”. When ‘bad things happen’ it is not because we are being struck down, punished or because we deserve it. It is a helping hand, a stop moment, a sign, a life line, a voice that has no words but if it did it would say ‘come back to what you know is true and I will reflect true health to you.’

89. Another thing I have heard said about cancer is that ‘why does it happen to good people’ – as if getting cancer is a punishment for what we believe to be bad behaviour or actions. It would seem that this belief system is exposed as false by the fact that all kinds of people get cancer – so called good and bad people. My feeling is that there is a much bigger picture here, in the understanding of illness and disease, one that we are only just beginning to explore and one that will radically change the course of medicine.

90. Many years ago I supported a friend going through treatment for Leukaemia. It was a time of deepening self-awareness for her which was very clear and bizarre as it might sound, she often looked radiant and more vital than she had before her diagnosis. I have heard many people say that getting cancer was a blessing for them and supported them to make different life choices. Perhaps then, making different choices is a preventative medicine in itself. It’s hard to measure really because we cannot know how many people would have become ill, but made proactive lifestyle choices that changed the course of their dis-ease. For me, there is an element of common sense in this though. Our lifestyle affects our health and wellbeing and therefore we can make choices that can change our course.

91. What an inspirational blog Anne – from your first words until the last word I felt like I was getting a warm shower to remind me that I am the one who is responsible, and not my bad luck or my genes.

92. There is so much out there about fighting and kicking cancer’s butt, and many cancer patients pride themselves on being able to get back to how they lived life before cancer… but with even more of a ferocity than before. Grabbing life and running with it so to say…. yet this is not true, and only a way to live with more of a drive. Could it be this mentality and livingness is what initiated the stop with cancer in the first place? Is that way of living really what we would choose to go back to if we really felt what our body was calling for?

93. The result of seeing that there are no coincidences in life is absolute responsibility. Not in living a perfect life and not making mistakes, but understanding that everything our bodies reflect back to us, can be worked with, our sensitivity refined, our path of evolution understood and the greater truth about life itself revealed.

94. It is these scientific findings that will change the way we heal once we open up to possibilities.

95. What if we are completely powerful in life, in the choice we choose to make? What if every situation and scenario is effectively controlled by us? Then we would have to say as you do Anne, that there is no such thing as luck, but just consequences of energy we align to in life. When you feel this to be true as I do, we can understand that no disease or illness can ever be ‘bad’ as it is simply giving us a reading on our relationship with our power.

96. These are great questions for us all to ponder on – What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?. The more we accept this as the loving process that it is the greater the healing that can occur.

97. This would truly be a great start.

98. katecherley you have hit the nail on the head with what you have shared here… ‘listening intently to our bodies for they are our greatest teachers.’

99. I agree Anne, I feel that all illness and disease is our bodies loving us and showing us the error of our ways. It is not punishment but a loving reminder that we are delicate and refined beings and to live in opposition to this does not serve.

100. Also one I’m sure many have heard a lot is ‘it always happens to the nicest people!’ Anne you have exposed the absurdity of the beliefs and ideals we can cling to that support our comfortable existence… like ‘oh your lucky’ and ‘oh bad luck’. What if we saw it like a dog that has had a bath and stands there in the sun shaking every last drop of water of its back? The water being everything we have absorbed that is not who we are and have been running with for this life or many lives, being shaken off.

101. Just because something has the momentum of a meteoroid… In this case the world’s inclination to just keep on going until something bad happens, doesn’t mean that this is an inevitable path… It is actually possible to know one’s self enough to hit the stop button ourselves without waiting for the crash.

102. Of all diseases, a big fat one is our continual belief in ‘bad’ and ‘good’. For as you show with your experience Anne, every incident and situation in life is presented to assist us to return to truth. This design is truly divine and when understood, we can see it is much grander than any good.

     1. Hi Joseph, I love the way you call out the evil of the separative ideal of the ‘good and bad’ scenario. After all we are love and anything or way we are living that is not that naturally needs to be exposed to give us an opportunity to clear it.

103. As you say Anne, cancer is definitely a big wake up call, a big stop, an indication, that something is not right. There must be one or many areas in life, where the person with cancer lives a lie. And this lie needs to be addressed, that is part of the healing, to become very honest and to make new loving choices.

104. We are responsible for the bad things that happen to us and the good things that happen to us. Cancer is not necessary a bad thing it’s actually a blessing from our body giving us a chance to stop reflect how we have been living and an opportunity for our body to clear and heal those old patterns. Sometimes the clearing happens and you can continue to live your life with out it ever coming back and sometimes you may die from the clearing. But in truth either way we have had a great opportunity in clearing and healing.

105. This is true Sally scientists now say that 9 out of 10 cases of cancer is caused by environmental and lifestyle choices, not cell mutation as previously presented. Serge Benhayon has been saying this for over 10 years. Science at last catching up with the Ageless Wisdom.

106. Anne, what you share confirms that how we live determines our bodies capacity to stay in optimum health or not. In organisational psychology we often say company success depends on good team work: people working together. In personal psychology our team member is ourselves: learning to honour and work with our body, not against it, is the way to true health.

     1. Yes Kehinde2012, we can be our own worst enemy as we get into the habit of ‘fighting’ against ourselves and not working with the body but against its natural flow, hence why we get sick. So true that when we honour and work with our bodies, ie we listen to them, this is the way to true health, and our bodies have much to tell us.

107. What you share here Anne applies to any illness we have. We can so often settle for situations and behaviours that are ‘a bit better’ or ‘not so bad’. What our body is showing us with illness is these ways are not the full picture. Like a signage post back to our true divinity, illness is the greatest guide we ever had.

     1. And as well as it being the greatest guide, its also the truest way to heal deeply, if we take on board the lessons we are learning from it all and integrate a new way to be.

     2. It is being in that seemingly comfortable place that is very inhibiting of our evolution. At least with the shock of cancer it is a wake up call that encourages us to look deeply to how we have been living and therefore in a position to make a truly supportive change.

108. it does seem to be a track record for humanity, that we need a big stop to actually stop and evaluate where we are in our lives and what is happening… One could imagine and revolution where very very small incidences, or things that happened to us would be sufficient for us to be able to stop, take stock, re evaluate what we are doing, reconfigure the way we are living, and for this to be all that is needed.

109. it’s great that cancer can be the great big STOP that enforces a look at the way we are living. But also it can be simply a clearing out of something that has been let go of because of the changes that have already made. In this case it can be a celebration of the healing that has already been done.

     1. Great point Rebecca – in either case, it represents an opportunity to discard from the body what no longer belongs and / or is not reflective of a loving choices, however in both cases it also requires taking responsibility for, and being very honest with ourselves about, our past choices.

110. So, is it luck, or is it not? Are we responsible, or are we not? We are responsible for everything we create in our lives including illness and disease. When we resist this truth it is because we are resisting owning what we created, resisting responsibility, thus resisting the support, the learning and evolving that is also present. When we are ready to make change everything is there to support us and hold us, this has been my experience.

111. Anne I have often heard many people say that being diagnosed with cancer or any other illnesses stops them in their track and makes them look at how they are living. This makes me wonder whether this is actually “bad luck” or a “good luck” in having the choice to re-evaluate how we live or go carry on the way we have been living.

112. Listening to our bodies is one of those extremely obvious qualities that we can override until the messages are so strong that we cannot override them any more… And it is always a matter of choice.

113. Yes it is true what you say, we do tend to say certain things are good luck, other things are bad luck, but we don’t look at or consider our contribution to the ‘luck’ and especially in relation to illness. I know I have experienced illness many times, and each time there has been something for me to address in terms of how I have been living. This has been deeply empowering and also supports me to work on living in a way that the illness does not get recreated.

114. In the past I also saw cancer as bad luck and as a kind of punishment. A typical question would be “Why me?”, “What have I done wrong?”. To see cancer and a disease in general as a blessing, as a big stop and opportunity to change my life to a better one, brings me back to my responsibility and it is always up to my choices, if my life is awesome or not.

     1. Yes indeed to see it as a blessing is indeed a huge paradigm shift. We are conditioned by the way medicine is currently delivered to view it as something not helpful to us – it’s seen as a hindrance. Yet from what Anne describes it is actually a blessing, I can see how it has in fact supported her to take much more care of herself in daily life, post cancer treatment, where the real healing occurs.

115. This way of looking at illness and disease is healing in itself, I may not have cancer, but have had a condition that has continued for over a year and a half now. I could go into the victimhood that I have been struck down with bad luck, which I did do initially, which only worsened the situation. But after that and the more and more I have accepted that this condition is as a result of my choices, my whole situation has not felt as heavy. It’s like the illness is one load and then by our choice in claiming it was ‘bad luck’ or being a victim is another heavy load piled on top, which then actually prevents us from addressing and supporting the body with the first condition!

     1. I agree Leigh, to see illness and disease in this way is indeed very healing as it sets the course of how we move forward with our illness making it much easier to ‘accept’ that our body has brought us to a loving stop in order to re-assess our lives, and make different choices that truly support our body. Or we choose victimhood which is ‘heavy’ and keeps us stuck and repeating the same old….

     2. So true Leigh, the moment we go into the victim role or react to our body, the illness gets worse. For me the key ingredient for healing is first and foremost understanding for myself – no matter how bad my choices were in the past, I will start to understand why have I done this or that. And with a greater awareness and understanding, I will be able to make new loving choices – the journey for healing can begin.

116. Cancer has such a negative and random effect on people, people see it is a random effect but what you have hinted on Anne is how our life can affect us having cancer and also how our life is after.

117. What you have shared Anne is super important for those without a cancer diagnosis. For if we really look at how we are living, we are probably not that far away from one. But often it’s not until the diagnosis that we begin to ask why?

118. That’s an interesting statistic that two thirds of cancers are thought to be bad luck. As you say it was such an important stop for you and it gave you the space to reflect on how you were living and what choices you were making. It seems if we stick with the ‘bad luck’ hypothesis then we are missing out on a great opportunity.

119. There is nothing like a diagnosis of cancer or any serious illness for that matter to bring a person back down to earth (sometimes with a thud) about what is truly important in life. Like you Anne I have had so many people share with me that after the initial shock settles, they do indeed stop re evaluate and simplify their life with the clarity of what actually is important and truly matters to them.

120. Thank you Anne for a great blog, showing how in truth what we call bad luck can become our greatest blessing if we are willing to take responsibility and see that our choices have led us to this point. Our bodies present us with this possibility.

121. It is very liberating when we start to take responsibility for our health and bring a deeper understanding into what true medicine and healing is. This priceless and fascinating library of free audio and quotes on Esoteric Medicine: http://www.unimedliving.com/voice/audio-by-category/esoteric-medicine-audio has a lot of absolutely wonderful and liberating content on this subject.

122. A very intelligent article Anne, thank you. With your line, “…I am free of cancer now, but if I start to walk in the old way, to make the same old choices again, my leg gently calls me back, with a little twinge, a gentle reminder that the way I am walking is no longer true for me, and offers me an opportunity to come back to me, to who I truly am….” I too am provided with a similar opportunity. I don’t have cancer but for a long time have had muscle pain in my lower back, caused from choosing to deal with life by hardening up. This pain has all but gone now, having healed it with support from Curtis Benhayon and through living the way of the livingness as presented by Serge Benhayon, but if I ‘start to walk in the old way’ as you have put it, if I use force to get through a situation, that pain springs back into action. It happened only last Saturday, where I hardened up and spoke to my daughter from anger and not from understanding. I realised immediately and as such, changed my behaviour as well as rested my physical body and the pain has now gone again. What a marker of truth the body is for me.

     1. What a marker of truth the body is for me. And for me too Suzanne. Our bodies contain so much wisdom and intelligence, and all we have to do is listen….my body communicates easily the more I love and honour my body in everything I do.

123. I recall having acute back pain, sharper than the usual back pain I was accustomed to, I was in reaction to this pain, cursing it, wondering why I had it, etc. Then I spoke with a wise man who suggested that the pain was an old way of being, releasing from my body, this transformed my back pain into something to celebrate. Funny how understanding can totally change perception.

124. most of my life was about really punishing my body with intense physical activity, alternating with hours and decades of sitting still in so-called meditation… I never was able to really listen to my body, but now I am, and for this I am deeply grateful, but I also know how amazing it would be for our children, and our children’s children, to be able to know this so they could actually experience a life where they are not just catching up but to feel the beauty that comes from really listening to this vessel of divinity which is our body.

125. This really stood out when reading your blog Anne and I felt shocked

     ‘Yet, when something ‘bad’ happens, like a diagnosis of cancer, we are not so quick to take the credit for it! We are very willing to call it ‘bad luck’.’

     But it is oh so true. Gosh if we looked at life like this we would be so much more responsible and perhaps we would learn much quicker!

126. This is a beautiful article to read and appreciate Anne thank you. The true meaning of illness and disease and cancer being an opportunity to heal oneself from one’s way of living is indeed a gift if we choose to see it this way and make changes. This is then a true healing and a great blessing for us all.

127. These scenarios that are called ‘bad luck’ are an alarm bell that we have gone too far, the body is telling us it’s time to discard the ills I’ve had to store, whether it be cancer, a broken leg or a car accident they are all delivering a message. With the teachings of Universal Medicine and the support of the practitioner we have access to read the cause of our ills, which gives us the opportunity and awareness to change the patterns. I have a friend with a brain tumour and she has asked that only positive words are to be used around her and no negative energy allowed which doesn’t allow any Truth or responsibility or reflection. It’s interesting that the world in general have not associated illness and disease with the bodies need to discard an ill energy.

     It will indeed be mastery when we connect Conventional Medicine and Esoteric Medicine as one holds the key to the other!

128. I often see large billboards asking us to support the fight against cancer, and I ask myself what would happen if the world knew it wasn’t a fight, but as Anne shares, a blessing, an opportunity deliberately given to us to stop, grow and heal. How much money would we save that could be spent on other areas of support, how much would the medical system change, how much would treatments change, how many peoples lives would change? It would completely change the world.

     1. Supporting the fight against cancer is a great set up and is something I am currently writing about because it is a great distraction to not look at what the cancer in your body is telling you and what changes you are needing to make that can truly support recovery and healing.

129. Thank you Anne for offering the opportunity to stop and feel, we know what we need to do and change in our lives to truly support ourselves to live much more joy and vitality and heal. The truth is at times I can override this and seek outside myself for answers, busy myself or pretend I don’t know what to do to support myself back to health, but I do. It takes a moment to stop and be still, and I can feel. My body speaks so loud and clear.

     1. I love your last sentence “My body speaks so loud and clear.” Our body is such a great teacher and the moment I listen, the body tells me exactly what it needs.

130. Great postulation Anne that “when something ‘bad’ happens, like a diagnosis of cancer, we are not so quick to take the credit for it! We are very willing to call it ‘bad luck’”. I know that I’ve certainly looked at external factors as to why I might have experienced something, whether it’s an illness or an unwanted situation for example. Looking for those reasons, causes or explanations ‘out there’ actually meant I wasn’t willing to look more deeply at my own part in it, and therefore, missing out on the learning that comes from these ‘bad luck’ scenarios and the opportunity to live in a more loving and caring way.

131. I love the responsibility that this asks of us – to consider the part we play in our ill-health and what it can teach us about the way we choose to live. Empowering us to no longer be victims of circumstance but masters of our own health.

132. ‘What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?’ This is a great question Anne and something we can all ponder on, not only for cancer but for the manifestation of all illness and disease in our bodies and their relationship with how we have been living. Great blog.

     1. We all inherently know that our body always tells us the truth, that’s the only language that it speaks. When we truly understand this, we will understand Responsibility.

        1. Absolutely Jennifer. The body is like a living document of every move and expression we have ever made! It is there laid out clearly for all to see. It is so ‘convenient’ the way we as a race have intentionally ignored this and gone into a story of the way an illness comes out of the blue. I know I have done this!

133. What you say in your blog is very important Anne, thank you for sharing. Like you say many cancer patients already experienced being diagnosed by cancer as a turning point for the better in their life. Still a lot of patients feel their body is letting them down while in fact the body is gracefully offering healing and a STOP that is very needed.

134. It is not often the word ‘blessing’ is used with the word ‘cancer’ and this is what allows us to step back to see the bigger picture at play.

     1. I agree Marcia, the words often associated with cancer is battle or a fight – which for me, conjures up suits of armours, struggles and war, that cancer is an enemy. But what Anne has offered here, that cancer or any illness and disease is actually a blessing, our bodies way of saying: “hey I love you so much, something is not right about how you are living your life”… it completely changes everything.

135. Words from a true physician. Inviting us to look underneath the symptoms to find the cause and then make changes in the way we live to heal the harm we cause ourselves while seeking support from the medical profession to cope with the symptoms.

     1. Beautifully expressed Mary, “Inviting us to look underneath the symptoms” I love this, for it is so common nowadays that when we have an illness or disease such as cancer we are fixated on the symptoms and choose to be blind to the way in which we have been living, rather than taking the opportunity and moment to reflect on our choices we usually looking for the quickest solution. How blessing would it be to have a physician who supports us to develop a level of awareness to the illness.

     2. That is so important what you are saying, to look underneath the symptoms. Very often I still focus too much on the symptoms, instead of looking at the root cause, which would bring true healing to my body.

136. Such an important and key sharing Anne that allows us to see the greater picture at play and the opportunity our body offers to deeply self-care and self-love. A true gift.

137. My understanding exactly Anne. Blaming or attributing so called good and bad to something as intangible as luck is so commonplace. This is how people live and how cultures have been created for thousands of years. There is something so disempowering about this mentality, for that’s what it seems to me, a mental approach that provides room for escape from one’s own choices. If I can hope for good luck to win the lottery, I don’t need to take responsibility for making unsupportive financial decisions over my lifetime; if I had an accident and smashed up my car because someone else ran a red light and it was just bad luck, again, I need not take any responsibility for the multitude of decisions I had made to put me in that position. Don’t we become victims of life?

138. It is blogs and comments like these that can help people start seeing the bigger picture. Great contribution Anne.

139. Whilst we allow the nonsensical notion of good or bad luck we conveniently dodge true connection to ourselves, other people and events. They are the same, both lead us to assume something is out of our hands, beyond our control, creating a victor or a victim, a winner or loser that leads to the ‘why me’ or ‘why not me’ mentality, we become trapped in a limbo of inequality. The statement “Gee, that was a bit of bad luck” is a door closer. By considering our choices and questioning our lifestyles we open the door to a much deeper understanding, connection and greater empowerment. Things start to make a lot of sense and we’re released from ‘limbo land’.

140. Our bodies are amazing the way they clear what is foreign to them. The choice of energy we align to determines the state of our health. I know for me I once had no idea I was so harsh on myself and living in a racy anxious state which I had normalised since I was a child. That was comfortable to me because I didn’t remember feeling any other way until I came across Universal Medicine and discovered how to connect to my authentic self through the gentle breath meditation. The more I hold that connection the deeper it gets and the more in tune with my body I become and an more aware of when something is out of balance with my health.

141. Indeed Anne, I live by the saying, “there is no such thing as luck, only hard work” (Serge Benhayon). We can work hard at being loving, healthy, vital and well or we can work hard at being unloving, disregarding and abusive in our lives. Either way it has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with choices.

     1. Hear hear Terri-Anne. You’ve nailed it.

     2. I agree Terri Anne, you have expressed it very clearly, as it has nothing to do with luck, it all depends on our own level commitment to ourselves and the way we treat our bodies.

142. ‘Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?’
     Thank you Anne, we need to ask these questions because we are no victims of ‘bad luck’. This is so disempowering and keeps us busy with the irresponsibility we are living with and this brings us a lot of illness and diseases and a very ‘unhealthy’ healthcare. Any illness is for us to go inward and to look honestly to how we have been living, not as critique but to observe whether our choices have been supporting us or not. An opportunity to build more love for ourselves.

143. I really love these lines “what if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living? Imagine if we went to the doctor and spoke about the choices we were making that were bringing about our ill health and then sought support to make better choices? If we did that our health service would look really different than it does now.

     1. I agree, Anne is offering us the possibility that our body is not failing us by getting sick, but by helping us deal with what we have been doing to it. I also love your offer here Elizabeth, asking us to consider how much more Medical practitioners would be supported if we came with an acceptance of that level of responsibility.

     2. I agree Elizabeth, bringing that level of responsibility would change everything, as we would be supporting doctors to truly support us with all our ailments and diseases.

     3. That word ‘together’ makes all the difference. The doctor has the responsibility for diagnosis and prescribing treatment, the patient has the responsibility to visit the doctor in the first place, and then work with the doctor, if necessary by making changes in lifestyle that may have led to the diagnosis, and to support the treatment with rest and self care.

144. Yes, I agree Anne – we are very quick to accept ‘good luck’ but then write off the other happenings as ‘bad luck’ when they aren’t to our liking. What a huge missed opportunity!

     1. Yes gilesch why do we only want to associate with ‘good luck’ and absolutely run when we are presented ‘ bad luck’ is it in the word I just used ‘presented’. We don’t want to be present or responsible for what is being shown to us so we shut it out and yes we just missed a huge opportunity!

145. This change of view is so precious powerful and generally life changing! Not just in the case of cancer but everything “not healthy” that occurs in my body. But it has a certain power if someone who had cancer, can state it to be a blessing. This inspires me to gather quotations of people in different momentums of experiencing illness and healing to publish them. And how healing these quotations can be, because of all the lived experience and awareness that would come with it.

     1. This would be such a powerful and healing document – people sharing how their illness or disease has been a true blessing, made them stop and come to their senses and most likely, confirmed something that we all know deep inside but like to push under the carpet, until it happens to us.

146. A great point, Anne. So true – we often feel insulted when our achievement has been put as a result of luck, and our effort or hard work is not recognised, and we like to claim it was our doing; but when it doesn’t suit, it’s a ‘bad luck’ as if there is no part we have played in it and there’s nothing we can do about it. How empowering is that if we are able to see ‘bad lucks’ as an opportunity to stop and look at our past choices and bring healing.

     1. I agree Fumiyo. We need to accept that in truth their is no such thing as ‘luck’, but is merely something we use to absolve ourselves of the responsibility that we do not want to embrace.

147. I had a conversation today with someone who has cancer and also their friend. I asked how they felt about having cancer, and their response made me realise just how important blogs like this are and what Universal Medicine present. They bring to the fore the truth we all deserve and know deep down.

     1. In consideration of the last comment I made, imagine the thousands and thousands of lives that would change if people knew and wanted to hear the truth. We would no longer give our power away to the belief or excuse there is nothing we can do. The truth is, it is all down to every single little choice we make.

148. Dear Anne thank you for this blog, I have not had cancer or a serious illness, but people close to me have, alongside many other people I have met in my life. How amazing would it be if cancer or any illness was not seen as something to beat and fight, and as you have shared an actual blessing and opportunity to re-evaluate our life choices. A deeper opportunity to self reflect, and give ourself the true love and care we and our bodies deserve.

149. There are so many things in life that give us that shock, that hitting a brick wall feeling, but as Anne says, every one of these can be an opportunity to grow in awareness, to feel and see a bigger picture in life, and to go deeper within ourselves, always learning.

     1. Awesome point here cjames2012. It’s not only the big disease diagnosis that provide us with an opportunity to stop but any event in life including accidents, relationship issues, events at work etc. The point is often not the stop itself but whether or not we pay attention to the choices we made to get us to the stop in the first place, and then whether or not we are really prepared to take responsibility for our choices, or whether we are seeking temporary relief from our symptoms to avoid taking this responsibility.

     2. I agree James – no matter what happens to us, we can always learn something and our awareness of life gets bigger and bigger.

150. Anne, this study you refer to is what seems to me an example of bad research. The researcher makes a lot of unspoken assumptions and then comes to a conclusion. When you go through the unstated assumptions you realise that some of them are preposterous or, more politely, are not necessarily definitely true.

151. This is such a great blog to re read Anne, as it very simply poses, extends and brings a greater dimension to the generalized view about the development of cancer. It’s like the goal posts are widened, redefining, how the way we live is a vital ingredient with the development of cancer. This certainly brings to the fore, how self care and responsibility are essential qualities for health.

     1. Beautifully expressed Jo, what if luck whether it be good or bad has nothing to do with our lives and what happens in them and there is in fact a greater dimension to all our lives. Indeed maybe we are not the victims of life we sometimes think we are, hence the removing the concept of all luck from the equation.

        1. Yes Suse, great follow-up… and What if it’s got nothing to do with luck, as you suggest, but the choices we make? Choices to live with more care, and with a more self loving way that honours our body… Rather than choices that are self harmful or abusive? Rather than be a recipient of a lifestyle, maybe being a participant in life, making it more self loving, that this will affect our choices and subsequent health?

152. Wise words Anne, a must read.

153. With all the money put in to trying to find the cure for cancer, why don’t they take some of it and put it into showing people that the way we live and the choices we make are the cause and as you say Anne it is not bad luck. Are people ready to listen yet? It still seems far to easy to blame the microwave , the power pylons or chemicals in the food or whatever – anything but truly accepting responsibility ourselves.

154. The other day during a workshop run by Universal Medicine I had the amazing opportunity to talk about how I would react if I was diagnosed with cancer. And it felt great to be honest and see that of course I’d freak out, ask why me, think life was unfair and cry a lot – but what I’d also do is take a step back – bring understanding to the situation and heal why the cancer is there rather than just trying to fix it and get on with life.
     What this showed me was the absolute beauty Universal Medicine has offered me – and how I can see a much bigger picture than just the symptoms I get.
     This is true medicine – evolving medicine and healing medicine.

     1. Thank you hvmorden, your comment has given me a stop to be more honest and to admit that my head would offer me what I know to be true – that it was a blessing. However, as you say, I too would probably freak out in the moment, and then step back and seek loving support and acceptance for the blessing that my body was offering me.

        The more I am willing to embrace all of life the more simple and beautiful my life becomes.

        1. Gorgeous Susan. I suppose we can never know how we will truly react until the situation is in front of us, however even just speaking about it before it happens gives a foundation and clarity and a choice on how we react.
           We might all behave differently to avoid feeling what is happening, but there is always the importance of bringing understanding to the situation. This for me is also beautiful for how I would support someone I know who has just been diagnosed with cancer, support them to understand, to stop and to feel what is going on when they perhaps want to run away and bury what is going on.

     2. Great to call this out. It reminds me to appreciate how much I have grown already and to appreciate all that Universal Medicine has to offer. It also reminds me of my responsibility to put the knowledge I acquired to use. Not just for me but for everyone else’s sake.

155. “When something ‘good’ happens, like getting a great job or buying a new car, people tend to say “aren’t you lucky?” And when they do, we can be quick to point out that we worked hard for it, and we deserve it. Yet, when something ‘bad’ happens, like a diagnosis of cancer, we are not so quick to take the credit for it! We are very willing to call it ‘bad luck’.” A very valid point Anne. Responsibility is such an important topic of conversation. All of our choices and actions have consequences.

156. I love this part and it made me laugh a lot; “when something ‘bad’ happens, like a diagnosis of cancer, we are not so quick to take the credit for it! We are very willing to call it ‘bad luck’”. But it’s actually really true more often than not we don’t want to look at the choices we have made that may have lead to any condition or disease, we even have science to cover up for it, blaming so many things on the outside. Thank you for being someone who is willing to see it differently.

157. Anne, something that’s always jumped-out for me when I get sick – is the fact that I know somewhere along the line I’ve not taken care of myself. Why then, don’t many of us extend this sort of observation to the more serious illnesses we experience? There’s been periods in my life with a broken bone or otherwise, whereby I’ve been forced to stop, lay in bed and naturally with that comes contemplation. May we listen to the ‘stops’ that crop-up along the way. Thanks for a simple and revealing blog.

158. Love this blog Anne, it is so real and understanding that each of our choices either supports the body or harms it. I really needed to connect to this wisdom today ~ “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?” Hear, hear – I feel the absolute truth presented here.

159. Yes to this question. It is important for us all to know that cancer is in fact not a bad or good luck game. As being well explained in this article, it makes no sense to say yes to responsibility when something good happens and no to responsibility when something bad happens. That almost seems like an escape from reality. We need to realize that yes there is an aspect that we might not know (or are consciously aware of) why we are sick in the first place, but we need to find a way to come closer to why we are sick. And this question would be then: if it is not for ‘luck’, for who is it then?

160. An amazing testimony that the body knows best; that it is more intelligent than our brain regarding what is truly good for us and what is not. It is the body, not the brain that takes action ‘so to speak’ when the brain is out of control commanding the body against itself. It is the body, not the brain that helps us to stay in track in the way forward.

     1. I had an older friend who was a boat builder who always had time to explain how to do a job on a boat I was working on. One day he gave me a revelation from a calender. It said “Don’t sit thinking how you are going to do a job, get started and wonder how you did it”. Most people want to think they are inteligent and take all the credit for doing a job. I give thanks to God for moving my hands.

161. Amazing how good we are at shirking responsibility. I would never have considered how we take responsibility for the ‘good luck’ we experience, but not for the ‘bad luck’. Is it possible there is no such thing as luck even?? That everything really is a product of our choices, even if we can’t always see the connection?
     My favourite part of this article Anne, is this line ‘What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it…’ WOW…why aren’t we looking at it like that in society? This makes perfect sense!!

162. Anne ,what a great conversation to open up and question how we have lived in relation to illness and disease rather than just bad luck. I like the way you have compared how we like to claim good luck with commitment, responsibility and hard work and quoted: “Yet, when something ‘bad’ happens, like a diagnosis of cancer, we are not so quick to take the credit for it! We are very willing to call it ‘bad luck’.” That just exposes how we can be so irresponsible for the care and looking after our selves or even questioning our lifestyles or part in it.
     I have noticed myself in the past it also took an accident, incident or illness to make me stop, pause or look deeper into how I was living and where I was at.

163. I have been reflecting a lot on the lack of responsibility we take for our ill-health. I love to imagine as a nurse caring for people who understand that there is something in the way they are living that created the illness. The conversations we have would then not have to be full of sympathy but a deep honesty and willingness to heal. It would be a great place to start from to begin a holistic treatment plan that includes not just the recovery but how to live in a way that will heal and clear the underlying cause

     1. This is beautiful Fiona. How wonderful would it be for all nurses to have this level of awareness and thus be able to accept that illness for people is a blessing and opportunity to heal the stuff that separates them from who they truly are. Sympathy is rife in nursing which leads to feelings of exhaustion and resentment – I have experienced this in my own nursing career. Learning to observe and accept where people are at and the choices they make has been such a huge support for me. It has allowed me to bring true caring to my role as a nurse and to offer real support. It is through the presentations of Universal Medicine and by practicing the Gentle Breath Meditation that I have learnt how to observe and not absorb.

164. I am always inspired by people who take responsibility for their part to play in their illness and disease, and then choose a different way going forward, to truly heal – who, as you describe, see it as a blessing. Thank you, Anne, it removes the fear that we have about cancer and other ‘inflictions’.

165. It feels like there has been some movement towards understanding our bodies and why we end up with diseases like cancer. There is a lot out there in cancer prevention knowledge around foods and healthy eating choices … But are we doing this out of fear rather than listening to our bodies, listening to that deeper aspect of ourselves, that very knowing and wise being inside of us?

     I wonder with the change of perspective you offer, Anne, people will cease to be afraid they “might” get cancer and live in fear of it, as I feel many of us do – the other choice seems to be to ignore it – but that doesn’t work. What is underlying the fear of getting this disease? As you say many cancer patients report it as a blessing, a time to stop and take stock of how they have been living.

     Perhaps whenever we feel the fear that we feel around cancer, instead of reacting, we could take it as a cue to stop NOW and check in with how we are living and whether we are being true to ourselves … Rather than fearing become another cancer statistic.

166. It is indeed empowering Stephen to realise that everything in my life thus far has been my creation, and if I have created, then I can un-do and recreate anew, in the knowing that every moment is a choice to accept and allow more love or not.

     1. I agree jacqmcfadden04, it is tremendously empowering to know that when we change our choices we have different outcomes. This brings a great sense of responsibility.

167. I would say we are displaying more intelligence the more responsive we are to the small changes that we notice in our bodies that may reduce our likelihood of being affected by a larger bodily reaction. I have been not so intelligent at times where I have ignored clear signs that my body is not coping with what I have chosen to put in it or make it endure and have suffered the consequential larger health issues. I do find it empowering to consider the process in this way where it is completely my responsibility and that my actions have consequences.

168. This was a revelation for me this morning…. That we defend ‘good luck’ as a result of our hard work and choices, but accept ‘bad luck’ as something out of our control… tricky little game we play with that simple example…thanks Anne.

169. “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?”
     If we all took more loving responsibility for our life choices, is it possible that the cancer rates would no longer be skyrocketing despite advancements in medical technology?

170. Beautifully said Anne. I have not experienced cancer but I have been ill. I have found that when I do take the opportunity to stop and consider how I became ill, I discover that it is in fact an opportunity to really look at the choices that I have made, to question if they are truly supporting me. And from this place, the way I choose to heal becomes a nurturing and deeply supportive experience. So in this way, yes, I feel illness can truly be a blessing.

171. I love the point you make about us willing to step up and take the credit for when things go well, but we don’t want to see that we have equally created the not so well things. I am constantly fascinated by the denial we go into, myself included, when we refuse to look at our choices and would rather blame anything and everything on something or somebody else like children. What you have demonstrated here is “an adult” way of dealing with something potentially catastrophic by seeing it for the message it was about your ill choices. Thank you.

172. I haven’t had cancer but I did have a heart attack and that was a blessing because it got me to stop and start to live in a very different way – and the funny thing was that I almost willed it because I knew that something had to give and I knew I was over doing everything so in a way it was pre-ordained. My luck was that, by having that stop moment, I was suddenly free to listen to my body and listen to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and look at what was behind it all – and, Yes, change my living.

     1. Michael, having a serious illness can be a real eye opener, and a wake up call that we need to look at making changes to the way we run our lives.
        I know this from my stay in hospital in Vietnam.
        I remember Serge Benhayon’s words: “Mike has gone to hospital for a love adjustment.” How right he was.

        1. Mike I so much resonate with what you are saying as my wake up call also came from a hospital stay from a SEH 4 workshop, when my heart went out of rhythm. My hospital stay was certainly ‘a love adjustment”. One that was needed for making changes in my life.

     2. I love your comment Michael, a beautiful sharing.

173. Whether it be illness or disease or an accident, nothing happens without a reason, therefore there are no accidents. If I twist or go over on my ankle at work I have to seriously look at the way I have been working. I’m not sure I could ever greet news of the big C as a blessing but I would seriously look at the choices I had made to get me to this point.

174. Anne, I love the absolute honesty and openness in your blog, with not one ounce of emotion or the need to ‘fight’ cancer as we so often see promoted. I now know the truth, through my own lived experience, that there is no such thing as luck – everything is down to our choices.

     1. I agree Gylrae, everything that happens to us we have created in some way, shape or form, and I have come to understand that every choice we make either confirms and supports us or it reinforces the illusion and comfort we are choosing.

175. Your presentation here of being diagnosed with an illness such as cancer is so touchingly tender, Anne. The self-love in which you write with affirms your statement that you are now free of cancer. The graceful and loving way in which you are now walking your walk can be tangibly felt and is a gift that you are sharing with all who read your blog.

176. Thanks Anne the STOP of illness and dis-ease is one which if we understand is a body response to illness as opposed to ‘bad luck’ is a blessing if we actually make positive changes that are heeded by the warning(s). Great blog and food for thought.

177. True Anne. Illness and Disease, and indeed death are very much an inevitable part of life. In the case of the former, however, it perhaps need not be so inevitable as it has become. Even still, it would serve us better if we developed a healthier and more honest relationship with illness and disease, for shame, guilt and regret assist no one, and such points in time offer us an opportunity to reflect and consider how we have lived, and how we could live.

178. Thank you Anne. My body has decided that it needs a loudspeaker to get my attention, so used I was to overriding its signals. Now it broadcasts loud and strong and relentlessly if I choose to not listen, or to literally poison myself with any frustration or anger or resentment. It hurts, but what hurts most is any choice I make not to be who I truly am

179. Viewing cancer or any serious illness as an opportunity to reflect and maybe choose a different way to live makes so much sense. Many people however want to ‘get back to normal’ and yet it is that normal which possibly initiated the causes for the cancer manifesting. Making new choices for my way of living has enabled me to stay cancer-free for over 13 years now. Thankyou for your article Anne.

180. You raise a great point Anne – when something good happens to us we want to take all the credit, but when something bad happens we put it down to it simply being bad luck, which is certainly not taking responsibility. What’s interesting is that if we were to take responsibility for the choices that led up to that point, we would be more likely not to make them again.

181. I could really feel the disconnect in me between what happens to my body and my choices. I don’t think I wanted to take responsibility because not feeling the body was a way to “live freely”, as if responsibility was a burden or to be avoided, instead of as part of a loving way to nurture the physical vessel that holds me. Responsibility to me had such negative connotations, it was presented to me growing up as a very serious thing that would make me unhappy but I had to do it! It’s interesting how these things come up from reading blogs and how much impact beliefs and experience have on serious things like health. Imagine a world where we teach responsibility as a joyous thing because it means taking loving care of ourselves and everyone around us?

182. A few years ago I would never have considered cancer to be a blessing, in disguise or not. It was something that you got and then had to deal with. But by taking responsibly for how life is lived I can see how cancer is a gift for stopping what needs to be stopped so that there can be more love. I guess in part this new understanding about cancer has come from a new understanding about what love is, what it feels like, and how it is lived in normal everyday life.

183. Anne I always used to be afraid of getting sick, getting ill. Hearing people talk about what a blessing or grace getting cancer or an illness can be is against everything I used to think. Yet what I can understand is there are many patterns, ways that I’ve lived that are not me things that I created to “survive”. To consider that in absolute love perhaps that illness is showing me that what is really needed is for me to live the true and full me gives a very different relationship with a condition and furthermore how I live my life.

184. What a gift my recent stop has been, I now see how necessary it was to give me the opportunity and Grace to change patterns and time to implement and live in connection and deepening relationship with myself and others. Never could I describe it ‘ as bad luck ‘ the communication from my Soul was too evident and it is a ‘true blessing’.

185. From victim to not just managing one’s life but living with ever growing responsibility and love. That has to be a blessing doesn’t it?

186. It has only been in the past few years that I have accepted illness and disease comes from our way of living. In my early days I lived by the rule ‘if you’re going to get it then you will’, this led me to lead a very disregarding and irresponsible life. Living this way enables you to put the blame solely on the bad luck you have been dealt.

187. Very true how when things go wrong in life we are quick to blame our surroundings and others, yet if they’re ‘going well’ we quite often jump at the chance to get recognised for that.

188. Unlucky or a blessing; this is huge because neither changes the fact in front of you, but both would set you up for a completely different relationship with the healing process.

     1. So true Joel, depending on what your mindset is or attitude towards cancer or any illness whether you see it as unlucky or the blessing that made you stop to reassess your life which provided the space and the opportunity to make new more loving life style choices that truly support your body; does indeed set you up for a completely different relationship with the healing and recovery process and how you are going to live every day after your recovery.

     2. So true Joel, depending on what your mindset is or attitude towards cancer or any illness whether you see it as unlucky or the blessing that made you stop to reassess your life which provided the space and the opportunity to make new more loving life style choices that truly support your body; does indeed set you up for a completely different relationship with the healing and recovery process and how you are going to live every day after your recovery.

189. Anne you have deconstructed this whole idea about having cancer and turned it on it’s head. It is just amazing to hear you say “I feel I have been given another chance in life, and an opportunity to make it all about love and evolution”. Thank you for sharing your light

190. I have watched the graceful recovery of a dear friend from breast cancer. The responsibility she took in her own healing and understanding of the disease was inspirational and a wonderful example for others who may feel victim to their cancer. It was just as you say Anne.

     1. It really is an opportunity to connect to why you have the cancer and to reflect on the way you have been living, that has created the cancer. After the initial shock of finding out you have it at some point you are going to ask yourself how did I get this? The ‘Why me’ is the victim not wanting to be honest. To know and see that there is another way and to see cancer as a blessing could possibly seemed far fetched but it you can stop and look at the way you have been then you can support yourself to heal it from the inside out.

191. And how that would change the world in which we live Anne, if instead of going into how unlucky we are, the poor me syndrome and everything and anything to avoid taking responsibility for how we live, we did actually let ourselves see that cancer is not the curse and end we think it is, but a huge blessing from our body’s natural intelligence letting go of something that does not belong to the grace of who we truly are and a powerful reminder to live more in line with this grace and not against it.

192. I hear and see it often, Anne. Seeing something as ‘good’ luck or ‘bad’ luck allows a person to take no responsibility for whatever is happening in their lives. It says no need to think twice about the choices you are making because the outcome has nothing to do with you. It is undermining, de-valuing and creates a cycle of feeling ‘less than’. Opening up the consideration that things happen as a result of the choices we make, brings a whole different approach to life. We can choose the quality of what we bring to each moment and experience a greater richness in ourselves and in life. When something then happens it can then be a ‘Blessing’, an opportunity to go deeper and that richness we have discovered becomes richer. So empowering, thanks Anne.

193. Yes, Gill. Responsibility taken in this way is a joyful dose of medicine!

194. Deep down we all know that the way we live has its influence on our bodies but living in a responsible and caring way with our bodies and listening to their signs and taking them seriously is something else. Most of the times the body gets the blame. What you are offering to us here Anne is taking responsibility and to truly listen to our bodies and take care for ourselves. As you say ‘It was a huge wake-up call, and a call to live a more loving and true way of life, in a much deeper way than I had been willing to look at life, up until then. It was a call to make the changes that deep down, I knew I had to make’.

     1. Yes, Annelies, our body does indeed get the blame for showing us the consequences of our choices. But our body is the vessel for a being who is making those choices.

195. Our bodies are letting us know all the time what is going on but we are so used to overriding the signals that it’s sometimes only when we get the big ’wakeup call’ that we actually take notice. As you say Anne, we do know deep down the changes we need to take, so why do we delay taking responsibility until it is almost too late?

     1. That is indeed the question, Sandra: If we already know what our choices are leading to, and know that there will be consequences of them, why do we delay making different, more loving choices? What is it about us that stubbornly refuses to listen to the messages of our body until we are faced with the harsh reality of losing it?

196. “So, is it luck, or is it not? Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?” You pose a great question Anne. Indeed, how can we take credit for the good things that happen to us and absolve ourselves from any part we may have played when life ‘deals us a bad hand.’ Knowing that, through my choices, I have responsibility for every thing that happens to me is great, because then I can make different choices, rather than thinking it is ‘fate’.

     1. Yes sueq2012, so many see people see life itself as a game of chance or luck, which is actually pretty dis-empowering. I love what Anne has so beautifully brought to question here – luck versus responsibility.

197. This is so important as so many people truly believe that getting cancer is just bad luck. Indeed medicine itself has perpetuated this myth in its ignorance of the deeper understanding of the human being and body. Great that you are showing a different way Anne – a way that is healing when it is embraced in full.

198. I have often heard patients say that a serious illness has provoked them to “wake up”, stop taking life for granted and evaluate. Some go on to make more loving choices, changing their ways and living with more care and nurturing of themselves, and others may do that for a little while, till they feel marginally better and then go back to the old familiar way. Each is a choice and the consequences of those choices seem to become very apparent for each, given time.

     1. This is so true, Jeanette. The consequences of our choices do become apparent, sooner or later, and going back to our old ways may be why diseases relapse and cancers recur, after a period of grace.

        1. Jeanette and Anne this is such an important discussion, how once made the more loving choices it is important to maintain them and keep looking after oneself. It is so easily done slipping back to old ways once you have positive results but as you both say eventually the consequences to our choices come along and what was ‘cured’ can re-appear as the same illness/disease or another one.

199. The diagnosis of a serious illness can make you evaluate so much, and questions that would naturally surface in the later stages of life are brought forward, like facing our mortality, get to be considered. It can be a real opportunity to evaluate how we live, what’s important and our needs v’s our wants. It’s great to know you are cancer free Anne, thanks for an insightful blog.

     1. Thank you, Matthew. That is indeed the grace of any disease – it shows us that there is a dis-ease in the way we have been living, and calls us to make more loving choices in life. I feel I have been given another chance in life, and an opportunity to make it all about love and evolution.

     2. HI Matthew, it’s interesting isn’t it that it takes such a powerful wake-up, to actually start to come back to a bigger picture perspective for many, or most people. As we hear, there is growing illness and disease, exponential growth in many cases; one can only wish for all of those who are diagnosed that they too come to ask quality questions and raise their awareness in parallel with that growth curve (or even better, would to be ahead and stay ahead of it to avoid the approaching health calamities world wide).

200. You make a very good point Anne that we are all for taking responsibility for the “good” things that happen in life but often want to blame something or someone else for the “bad” things. If we understand that our health is our responsibility and that whether or not we get illness and disease is as a result of the way we are choosing to live then we can feel very empowered with this knowing.

     1. So true Deborah. Taking responsibility for our choices is the key to opening the door to health and yes it is empowering with this knowing.

        1. Thank you Anne, Deborah, Lorraine and Serge Benhayon. I agree, to me life has two sets of glasses, one rose-coloured and the other blackened or we are wearing blinkers. Good or bad is all relative for each is a perspective that can be described as a learning or reawakening. As we return to our divinely natural ways ‘good’ is replaced by joy-full and ‘bad’ ceases to exist.

        2. Very cool Greg – love it, ‘As we return to our divinely natural ways ‘good’ is replaced by joy-full and ‘bad’ ceases to exist’. That is so encouraging for those ‘struggle’ days to have a reminder that is is simply about returning to our divine knowing.

     2. Absolutely, Deborah. It is not about blaming ourselves or giving ourselves a hard time – or even worse, blaming someone else –but about taking responsibility, which gives us the ability to respond, and empowers us to make loving changes in our lives.

     3. This is so pertinent Deborah. People shy away from responsibility as if it’s a burden whereas the real burden is what we carry on our shoulders, what weighs hugely on our bodies as a result of not being responsible.

     4. That is so poignant isn’t it – the wanting to see the good as to being directly from something we have done but every bad thing as bad luck. The games we play!!! The irony is that life becomes so much more enjoyable – truly – when we take responsibility for where we are at and how we got here.

201. To see and deal with cancer in this way gave you the opportunity to understand yourself more and live differently guided by your body. A very refreshing way to approach illness and truly heal rather than leaving it to luck. Thank you.

202. “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?” this is such a profound quote Anne. The sooner we look at cancer as a result of the way we choose to live the sooner we can get on top of it. Blaming it on bad luck is an irresponsible cop out that will see disease flourish.

     1. so true Bernard

203. Thank you Anne for this beautiful invitation to consider that being diagnosed with a serious illness such as cancer can be a blessing, in that it is an opportunity to evaluate the way we have chosen to live. ‘Luck’ seems to me to be simply an opportunity to avoid taking responsibility for our choices and what we have chosen to align to for ourselves. Our bodies are always reflecting what is needed to maintain a state of harmony so we are then able to live to our fullest potential. We only need to listen and honor the truth being presented, as this truth comes from within us.

204. What I feel from reading this is that responsibility is preventative and to take more seriously the choices I make and what I allow into my life, like stress etc, and not to wait till disease manifests to create greater change. It’s almost like the commitment is not fully there because “I’m ok, I don’t have cancer”, yet the commitment in me needs to be to my preciousness now and not because I’m off the hook because I don’t have a “bad” diagnosis.
     I’ve recently been feeling that the choices I have made, the drives and momentums of motion I’ve been in, and how they’ve affected my body and wellbeing deeply, it’s very confronting because I think I’m getting away with it at the time because the effects aren’t instant. The change that’s come is not so much in making changes because of how bad choices have harmed, but making choices now because I’m precious and valuable and deserve a rich, full life. And, because I care for me.
     a completely different foundation to respond from. Understanding what I choose and how I have to live that choice and its effect is very powerful. What I’m really choosing is “life”.

205. A friend’s mother was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer and the shock was palpable. We as a society perhaps are beginning to feel this shock as our loved ones and indeed ourselves become ill. Perhaps it’s nature’s way of getting us to really look at the way we are living, because if it didn’t, what would really stop us from living in disarray, disharmony, disfunction and disaster? Perhaps the dis-ease is the only positive “dis” in this list.

206. Hi Anne, I really like the point you are making here – we are often very willing to take credit for the ‘good luck’ in our lives but not so willing for the so called ‘bad’ and those occurences are measured on what we think is good and bad anyway.

207. “Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?” This is a great line of questioning Anne, how convenient it is to be selectively responsible! Surely being responsible is knowing that we have a choice in every situation and with anyone thing. To see the ‘bad luck’ but go deeper with it, is a responsible choice in itself.

208. It is so true what you are saying. We are not willing to take responsibility for illnesses or things that are seen as not so good in our lives but will gladly take the credit for good things that happen in our lives. However what I have recently felt and seen is although it may make us squirm to see, feel and take responsibility for the not so great things it is deeply healing to do so and address them as only then we can truly evolve.

209. With the incidence of cancer advancing every year despite improvements in medical diagnosis and treatment, we need to look at ourselves and question why?
     By taking responsibility for our daily choices in how we live, we can change the statistics. And could it be that the missing link with disease is the energetic factor that Serge Benhayon at Universal Medicine has proposed?

     1. Yes Loretta, with the increase in cancer, despite the advancing treatments, we have not asked ourselves why this might be. Only by asking the question ‘why’ can we begin to look at our daily choices, what has changed over the years and how we are living as societies everywhere. The sharp increase in statistics cannot be by chance there has to be a reason underneath it all. The missing link could well be the energetic factor, our emotions and our choices, as Serge Benhayon has presented. Considering the dilemma we are now in, shouldn’t we be wise enough to explore every available option before the statistics claim, one out of every one person will contract cancer at some point in their lives? Isn’t this the way the current statistics are heading?

210. This is beautiful Anne, what you have written makes complete sense and gives us back the power to make changes in our lives and access what is not working, rather than feel that it is unlucky and out of our hands.

211. Cancer is such a major part of our modern lives, it seems that we are going to need to start to learn new ways of dealing with it and all that it is showing us. This article is a great support in that journey.

212. I was introduced to someone recently who had just recovered from an aggressive prostate cancer. When asked where he was born, he replied with something to the effect of: “I wasn’t born mate, I’m so hard, I was chiselled-out of rock”. He was a really lovely guy, in lots of ways and I wanted to suggest him to read this blog – but all in good time…

213. Anne, as you have shared, the way we approach and see illness and disease is something that I feel we need to look at. Perhaps the more we understand and appreciate the body showing us that something is wrong, that some way of living now or in the past needs to be gotten rid of, then we can have a far more solid, empowered and responsible relationship with our health.
     It’s interesting how you share that any time you may start to walk in old ways you get an instant sign – I am sure we all get this, yet don’t take the time to listen and respond as you have shared. A loving lesson for us all.

214. Conventional medicine has specialized in treating the cancer itself, but the origins of the cancer are not truly understood and are chalked up to bad luck.
     Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have specialized in understanding the lifestyle and energetic causes of disease. What a great partnership these two make. We can have what does not belong in our bodies diagnosed, isolated and treated. But we also have the opportunity to recognize the lifestyle and emotional causes. Now we have holistic medicine.

215. Thank you Anne. The body lives our choices and reflects them back to us. Our wellbeing is therefore our responsibility.

216. I saw a headline today that ‘broccoli may hold the key to head and throat cancer’ and reading this article, I now realise how simple life could become if more people were stopping and considering this option – “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?”
     I know I went down the ‘broccoli’ route for many years when it came to illness and disease, and it was when my body said ‘no more’ with cancer that I really stopped and looked at what was being shown to me, so yes I agree a diagnosis is a blessing and great opportunity to take responsibility for our choices and lives. Thank you Anne.

217. Beautiful Anne, I love how you say “What if cancer were not a curse but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it and that should not be there?” This takes responsibility to a whole different level, as our bodies reflect our choices in life.

218. There is something so beautifully humbling about any kind of illness or disease. It is our body telling us we need to stop and take care of it. We can resist this and soldier on and fight against our bodies, or we can surrender to the power and beauty of the healing that is being offered. In the end, it is our bodies that shout the loudest. It is well worth listening.

219. I have heard quite a few people say that their cancer diagnosis was a blessing in disguise, albeit a huge shock when they were first told about it. Is it possible that deep down we know that we are not leading a true life and that there is another way to live?

220. I love how you gently steer the discussion around to self responsibilty, for this is exactly where it needs to end up. Some are ready to hear that and others not. But as the message of Universal Medicine spreads maybe more will be able to come to a greater awareness around how each choice in life has a consequence. With thanks for sharing your personal and professional experiences Anne.

221. It is a great point you make Anne that we are quick to give credit for when something ‘good’ happens but not when it is something ‘bad’ happens. That in fact, as you go on to demonstrate, that in reality there is no difference in that both are a result of our choices.

222. I have found that amongst family and friends who have been diagnosed with cancer that there seems to be a couple of reactions. One group see it as ‘bad luck’, ‘genetic’ etc and yet another group seems to accept it as an opportunity to review how they have been living their life and to make some adjustments accordingly. This latter group seem to find a new type of positive meaning in their lives while the former group seem to feel life is out of their control and just happens ie ‘is just the luck of the draw’. Thanks, Anne for sharing your experiences – it helps confirm for me what I have long felt was true.

223. I am one of those people who say it was a blessing, with many opportunities to learn, evolve and take responsibility for past choices.
     I loved reading your blog Anne and appreciated the wisdom you shared

224. Re-reading your blog Anne is great, as I began to ponder more on the relationship between lifestyle and behavior patterns and how these factors have an influence over illness and dis-ease. It would be interesting to see if, in the future, when listing a person’s past medical history, that a person’s lifestyle, emotional and behavior patterns will be listed to, as a way for epidemiology to gather research between emotional responses and its relationship to diseases.

225. “If we could see life that way, the diagnosis of cancer, or any other serious illness, could become an opportunity to look deeply at ourselves, at our lives, and to live in a way that was truly loving, caring and supporting of ourselves.” This line Anne sums it and calls us to take responsibility for the way we live our lives, everything has a cause and affect. If we live in a way that is in disregard, then our body is going to show us this. If we live in a way where we honour and truly care for our body, we too will feel this in our body. Having had a wake up call with cancer, I too now choose the latter.

226. Thank you Anne for blessing us with this blog. It shows that taking responsibility for all of our choices in life – good or bad – can truly be felt from our bodies. If we listen and honour what our beautiful bodies are telling us, then we can heal ourselves.

227. From my own very personal and recent experience I know that illness is most definitely a blessing in disguise. Thank you Anne.

228. What you say here Anne is often what people don’t want to say – or look at. When we are sick and feeling terrible in our bodies it can be quite confronting to consider that we may have caused it in some way. What is beautiful though is that regardless we can use illness and disease as an opportunity to stop, and evaluate when the clarity is there about how we have been living and how we may do things differently to – if at all possible – not end up in that spot again. A great reflection Anne, thank you.

229. I absolutely agree with all you have shared Anne and this has been my experience in developing cancer, especially when you say “The diagnosis of cancer was a shock, and a very big STOP in my life. It was no longer possible to delude myself that everything was fine,” although it would have been great if my body hadn’t had to stop me in this way when it did it was a blessing, and I am glad I had an opportunity to make changes.

230. As you have illustrated Anne, cancer can be a blessing if the root cause is realised and lifestyle changes are made.

231. Since I have come to a deeper understanding that the body is communicating with us all the time whether I am living in a supportive way or uncaring way based on lifestyle choices…and my relationship with me – I know now that there is no such thing as luck – whether it is bad or good – but it’s about choices and what may seem to be ‘bad luck’ can actually be an opportunity such as Anne shared about her cancer experience….to honestly look at how we are living and are we being driven to keep everything ‘alright’ and ignore that it’s not, or are we living a quality of life that is loving and wanting to live who we are!

232. The more I hear people share about the illness or disease they are experiencing the more I learn about the absolute blessing they and everyone they know have received. So often we can think that ‘something has gone wrong’ rather than see it as an incredible prompt to make the changes we are being called to make.

     1. I agree from my own experience Vicky. I first saw my cancer diagnosis as a sudden wake up call, an alarm clock going off on high volume. And it was, but feeling blessed took a while and it took meeting Serge Benhayon and learning with Universal Medicine. Now after more than 10 years I can see it was a blessing. I started to make very different, more loving choices and the way I live now – the way of the livingness – I can say, is it for me.

        1. Yes, Ingrid, the blessing that is cancer is well disguised at first! Thank God for Serge Benhayon, who has offered us the opportunity to see everything (even cancer) as a blessing, and who has shown us that there is a way to live that is true for our bodies. The Way of the Livingness is my religion – my loving way of living life in full connection – too.

233. Thank you Anne, I love the point you make about us taking the credit for the good things that happen in our lives and yet are slow to take responsibility for the bad, putting it down to ‘bad luck’. It is beautiful when we are asked to stop and look at ourselves, reflect on the way we have been living and as you say make changes which you already knew needed to be made but hadn’t done so yet.

234. The way I see illness and disease has completely changed since meeting Serge Benhayon. He has helped me remember that every single choice I make is impacting my body. It makes total sense now and thanks to Universal Medicine I have a whole new awareness and appreciation of how everything affects everything.

235. I equally find this blog powerful Stephen, and even more so coming from a medical professional who has gone through the trauma that this disease can bring. From the lived experience, Anne brings an authority and an authenticity that could deeply inspire the medical profession to look at disease and illness from another angle.

236. I have been pondering on why cancer has a quality about it like no other disease. There is a kind of awe and dread that persists, and I am wondering if it is because it is the body creating too many of its own cells, magnifying itself. This makes it truly an illness that we can feel is about our own choices in life, and I am sure many people feel that deep down, even if they don’t express it. If that is so, then taking responsibility for our own healing by changing the patterns in our lives is the gift that cancer gives us.

     1. What an interesting pondering, Joan. Cancer does indeed have a pall around it, and for me, it is not the scariest or nastiest disease you can contract.

        Isn’t it interesting that we ‘contract’ an illness? – perhaps from living in ‘contraction’ to who we truly are!.

        1. Hmm, Anne, more pondering about that. There is a kind of reverence for cancer from the medical profession as if they still consider it to be a disease that IS contracted, whereas I feel that they do now realise that heart disease and even diabetes and liver and kidney diseases are something to do with the patient’s lifestyle, if not the whole truth of their energetic life style. That cancer is also our responsibility through having contracted away from who we really are and our potential to be our full selves is still an unaccepted fact, and hence encourages an attitude of mystery around it. It goes to the deeper level that eventually will be accepted as the cause of all diseases.

        2. Now there is a point Anne. We have the choice to live in contraction or not, so we are definitely choosing if we contract any form of illness or disease. It makes me think about how we can then be ‘surprised’ at a diagnosis. We certainly know how to play games and tell ourselves lies.

237. It’s really powerful to read of someone who has experienced Cancer take full responsibility for the disease. I can’t help but feel that this responsibility is the best way to manage any illness because in doing so we are open to addressing the cause of how we come to be affected in the first place. How brilliant the level of body awareness you now describe, to view a slight twinge as a sign to consider managing your health feels very empowering for your health care. While I have not experienced cancer I have suffered other forms of ill health in my life and I have found a similar approach which took a lot of refining, to be quite transformative of my wellbeing. Fantastic sharing Anne.

     1. Thank you, Stephen. It is indeed powerful to take full responsibility for ourselves – for where we are in life and for the choices we have made that have lead us here. Without blame, shame or regret – just loving awareness and responsibility. And from that point of evolution, more loving choices can be made.

        1. This is so true, but how many of us avoid this responsibility, and resist healing for this very reason. In the resistance we are effectively resisting our own power.

238. The blessing of cancer can be so for all the family and friends of the patient too, if only that opportunity were recognized and taken. Why wait for disease to become that serious, when you can turn your life around right now?

     1. This is a really good point, Dianne as the disease is not just for the patient but as you say an opportunity for anyone witness to the healing process. We can choose to make a different choice at any time.

     2. Yes, Dianne – why wait? We all know the changes we need to make in the way we live our lives – why wait for cancer before we make them? Why not be inspired by others who have turned their lives around, and make those changes willingly, for ourselves?

        1. Why wait, indeed! One of the problems about why we wait is that the ‘quick fix’ mentality is so strongly at work in society. This mentality also has with it the ‘quick sickness’ idea that disease just suddenly ‘happens’. Have you heard statements like these (which I have heard expressed in person)?:
           “Well I ate/drank that and I didn’t get sick”. What? Does it take rampant food poisoning or allergy to indicate that something might not be healthy for you? What about accumulated effects?
           “Why do I suddenly have breast cancer out of the blue and only 2 months left to live? I was healthy until last week!” As if it’s only when the scans show a problem that the illness began….
           “How could he drop dead of a heart attack at 40? He was fit as a fiddle and never been to the doctor in his life.” But did anyone factor in that constant intense physical training makes a huge increased load of free radicals in the body, leading to damage to blood vessels and heart among other things?
           “It’s just the luck of the draw.” Luck…good or bad, the ultimate excuse for passivity! Truly, in a connected universe there is no such thing as luck.
           “Grandpa smoked cigarettes every day since he was 16 and he lived to be 80.” You cannot generalize from the apparent ‘escape’ of an occasional person. In the days of our grandparents and in a less toxic world, the ones who made it to adulthood and had babies without dying, were usually of a pretty strong constitution and likely to be able to survive just about anything for a time. That does not translate to the bulk of humanity today!
           There’s a great lack of responsibility in these expressions. But also they indicate that there seems to be a general blindness in society (in spite of a great deal of evidence to the contrary) to the fact that disease develops usually over a long period of time as choice builds upon choice over and over. Cell by cell. Organ by organ. System by system. Compounded when the various choices interact harmfully.

239. Many would see this as controversial – that the world is not built to take responsibility when an illness is genetic, when someone has lived a healthy life and now are sick. There is more blame associated with cancer than there is responsibility. Your blog Anne really does ask us to stop and consider if what happens to us could be related to how we are truly living. And this to me isn’t based on how often I go to the gym, or only indulging ‘sometimes’. It is so much more than what I do – it is how I am in every moment. We have a long way to go as a society to look at life this way, Perhaps taking a little bit more responsibility for our health is the first step.

     1. I absolutely agree, it has everything to do with how we are in every moment. I was one those people who did everything I thought was good for me, but still got cancer. I know now, that it is about the quality of how I do things that is the most important, not what I do.

        1. Wow Donna – it’s beautiful to hear you taking responsibility for your cancer and seeing that it isn’t luck that determines if we get sick or not. That is amazing.

        2. This is a beautiful point to make, Donna. There is so much advice out there on what to do and not to do to not get cancer, but not much talk about the quality of the being who is doing all that doing! It is indeed all about the quality we are in, in every moment, as we do what we do. And if that quality is loving, so will be the choices that we make.

240. I love re-reading this blog and feeling the joyful responsibility of appreciating that life and disease does not just happen to you, but rather we affect everything around us and within us through the choices we make on a daily basis.

     1. Well summarised Janet… it is a joyful responsibility and deepens our understanding to life in general. Showing we aren’t helpless victims to accidents or diseases.

     2. Joyful responsibility – now they are two words we are not used to using together! Beautiful, Janet – it is lovely to feel that it is indeed joyful to be responsible for ourselves and the way we are in life.

        1. Yes indeed. Joyful Responsibility should be a subject in the school curriculum!

241. Thanks for posting this blog Anne, a subject that needs further discussion. The media presents people with cancer as victims and is always talking about “fighting the disease” when in truth it is our body clearing what does not belong, as a result of our own choices. If everyone could take responsibility for everything in their lives, including illness and disease, then “good luck” and “bad luck” would not be a factor.

     1. This is true Irene and I have found by embracing this way of living I actually feel far more empowered, more open, more able to see the impact of my choices – and less likely to call anything ‘luck’ or feel at the effect of situations whatever they are.

242. This is an amazing and much needed article. ‘What if cancer wasn’t a curse, but our body’s way of gettting rid of something that doesn’t belong to it,’ wow that question alone brings all that I ever see in the media and society’s treatment of it as the enemy that’s got to be beaten into question. It asks for a deeper understanding and appreciation of what’s going on. It asks me to consider there is a greater wisdom that is going on, that I could connect to if I so chose.

     1. Yes I agree Karin, Anne is sharing with us all the flip side of our illness and disease as opportunities to look deeper within and to learn from our choices and what our body is presenting. It is truly amazing to view it in this way as part of our own evolutionary growth and healing.

243. This is such a beautiful example of how our body can give us very wise advice to call us back to truth: “If I start to walk in the old way, to make the same old choices again, my leg gently calls me back, with a little twinge, a gentle reminder that the way I am walking is no longer true for me, and offers me an opportunity to come back to me, to who I truly am.”

     1. Yes, Rosanna, our bodies talk to us all the time, in such delicate and powerful ways. I am slowly learning to listen to mine, and every day my love and care and respect for it deepens.

        1. That’s beautiful Anne, I can feel from what you say, how delicately my body talks to me and it is up to me to hold it in that same delicacy to be able to listen and take heed.

        2. So true Rosanna. Our bodies are our greatest educator if only we let them.

244. Beautiful sharing Anne. It is interesting how society doesn’t want to own up to being responsible for all their choices in their lives, by the attitude of seeing cancer as “bad luck”.

     1. Yes it is interesting just how much we don’t want to know at times and prefer to turn a blind eye.

     2. That’s so true, I have known so many who have had cancer and the first thing they say it’s just my bad luck I got cancer. At no point do they want to reflect on how they have been living their lives and take responsibility. It’s crazy how society has become.

        1. Maybe it is not so crazy. Perhaps people know the truth of why they are where they are, but they don’t feel able to make the changes that deep down they know need to be made, so they settle for blaming bad luck and other factors outside themselves. I know I was very fond of playing the blame game, until not so long ago – it is a recipe for misery though. Taking responsibility for everything we think, say and do is, in the end, much more joyful.

245. Thank you Anne, what I can feel from your blog is that there is no such thing as luck, that everything happens for a reason, that reason being the choices we make. Saying there is such a thing as luck is actually giving our power away and avoiding self responsibility as to how and why we got where or what in the first place. And as you say, is it that any illness or disease is actually bad luck or really a blessing being offered to make us stop and re-evaluate.

     1. It is so helpful, gylrae, for those who are going through illness, to be able to read comments such as yours and to know that we have choices, that we are able to turn around the way we live and understand the innate wisdom that the body offers us.

246. Beautiful Anne. If every single choice leads to the next choice, be it large or small, then it makes sense to know that there is no luck to be found. Just choices that pave our way.

     1. That is an extraordinary statistic Ariana. I have also seen it written many times that 80% of cancers are lifestyle related. I know that statistics can be skewed to represent what we want to show, which is clearly the case in the 1/3 bad luck stats! We just keep wanting to run away from the simple in our face fact that we are responsible for everything we do, say, think AND IT DOES MATTER to our matter : ).

247. So much truth and clarity in your share Anne, and I totally agree and relate. 4 years ago, I also found that my journey with cancer was a positive experience and it was indeed a blessing in disguise because it was the ‘stop’, I needed in order to turn my life around.

     1. I love hearing this Jacqmcfadden04, it is blogs like this and comments like yours that show us that illness and disease don’t have to be the nightmare we think it is going to be, there is so much healing offered to us by our own bodies when they clear the unloving ways we have be living.

        1. I agree Samantha that hearing about Jacqmcfadden04’s experience is one that is totally inspiring for others to take their own healing path which can turn their lives around.

248. The reason I love this blog is that it just oozes truth and responsibility, I’m not saying I’d be overjoyed to get the big C but I would definitely take responsibility and know that there was no luck bad or good involved but that it was a direct result of my many not so wise choices.

249. If I truly accept that their is no accidents or good or bad luck, I have to take responsibility for what I have created for myself and that can be very exposing at times but worth it. Because I get the opportunity to stop repeating ill choices and patterns that just ongoingly occur.

250. ‘How can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?’ I love what you propose here Anne. It’s all too easy to bury our head in the sand when it comes to anything so called ‘bad’ happening to us and presenting that cancer or any illness is in fact a gift is a way I now subscribe to. Everything is energy and therefore if everything is because of energy, when a cut, a cold or a cancer comes to us, what is the energy that is playing out before us. Understanding this can be the gift so we can discard a way of living that is not serving the preciousness we are.

251. Years ago I would have thought it was a bad luck but today after attending Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine courses and having a greater understanding that our choices and the way we live is a reflection in our bodies. That Everything is Energy and there for Everything is Because of Energy – This can not be avoided and taking responsibility for the choices we make exposes cancer and any illness for what it is. Our own creation.

     1. Natalie, you have summed this up so well. Years ago I dreaded the word “cancer” and felt the fear of getting it because I thought it was pot luck and just fell on its victims randomly. Now, like you after attending Universal Medicine courses I realise that what ever illness manifests itself through my body is a result of my lived choices. Although a little alarming because it spotlights exactly where I haven’t taken responsibility, it is also very empowering because I can consciously choose differently. When I do make more self loving choices I can feel my body respond accordingly. It’s amazing to feel the correspondence of my body to what I am choosing.

     2. Well said Natalie, any illness in our bodies can be traced back to the way we’ve chosen to live up to that point, and with honesty we can see clearly the way we have created such disharmony in ourselves.

252. Absolutely Anne, the day that we start to feel the truth of illness and take responsibility for them being there, will be a great turn around for human kind.

253. Selective responsibility! How true that we turn it off and on depending on if it suits us. It reminds me of selective hearing (only hearing what we want to hear) or selective sight (when you can’t be bothered looking properly and want someone else to do it for you). I have friends and family who found cancer to be such an opportunity to re-evaluate and make changes that have been needed for years.

254. I agree Anne; there is no such thing as bad luck. Each of us makes our own luck. If something “bad” happens and you tell yourself it’s bad luck, you miss out on the opportunity to learn from what caused it, and you are destined to make the same mistake again.

255. I agree Anne, all illness and disease is an opportunity to stop and reflect on how we have been living up until that moment. And then, if we so choose we can make different lifestyle choices. This calls us to self-responsibility.

256. Your are so right Anne, luck has nothing to do with anything, whether it be ‘good’ or ‘bad’. I particularly like this part…”What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?”
     There is so much in these 2 questions that would allow us to not only reflect honestly on ourselves, but also bring back a true sense of responsibility, without any self-blame or criticism. In fact if we began to look at all aspects of our lives in this way, luck would never enter into it, for we would feel the lack of responsibility (the brush off) in our response.

257. I agree Shirley-Ann, often we have known for sometime what changes we need to make – either the food we eat, or exercising etc, but we often don’t make a change till we have to.

     1. Too right Rebecca, we totally take our bodies for granted until something happens, believing that “it won’t happen to me”, and when it does we want someone or something to blame. We feel that disease is our enemy, something to be battled against instead of accepting it as a blessing and looking deeply at our choices as to why this happened in the first place.

258. Anne you’ve shown here that illness, no matter how serious, can be a point of reflection and a way back towards becoming more loving and caring towards ourselves.

259. Thanks Anne for sharing your thoughts around cancer. And that There could be another way to view it but the traditional way that does not require self-responsibility

260. Thank you Anna for the understanding of how cancer can be viewed and seen as a blessing, and an opportunity for us to stop and look at the way we have been living. It is great to have an opportunity which allows us to make choices that could support us in healing such a condition like cancer. Definitely a blessing indeed.

261. I love this Anne, it is such a turn around from the usual assumptions about and attitudes to all illness and disease, but most of all cancer, for as you say there is still some sort of stigma around it. That immanence of death, with time before it happens to reflect and experience and feel. certainly in many case brings people to recognise that their way of lives have contributed to its development in the body. Then it does indeed become the gift of life and not the bane of the living.

262. Brilliant Anne – it feels like there is real lack of understanding the impact of our choices when it comes to illness and disease. I know I used to use the word luck to rid me of all responsibility – but what I know now is that all the many choices I make will add up to a particular result. So luck doesn’t really play a role for me these days. It’s a great question for society to really ask ourselves – in that could how we are living be directly related to what comes our way.

263. it does take some changes in our thinking to start to consider that having an illness like cancer is actually a blessing and not just ‘bad luck’, but I have slowly come to appreciate that when I get a health issue it gives me the opportunity to look at how I have been living up until that point and the choices I have made.
     It is quite common for people who have suffered a heart attack to change the way they are with themselves and appreciate life more.

264. How powerful this piece is Anne and love this question, “how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?” What you’re talking about is how often we are selective in our responsibility, or how we compartmentalise it i.e. the good from the bad. Responsibility is all encompassing, and as you share in this post it comes down to the choices we make – every single one of them. And that when we are aware of this, can see that each choice made are countless opportunities in which to develop and deepen the relationship with ourselves and really get to know who we are and the life we are leading. Beautiful.

265. It’s an interesting and different concept to look at an illness as a blessing, because it does make us stop and re-evaluate how we have been living our lives. Lots of people make changes how they live after a serious illness.

266. Beautifully said, Anne. Look at any issue, illness or disease in this way is to me a fundamental part of true medicine – looking at ‘the whole’ of what is going on, and taking responsibility for the part we have played in it, as best we can. Even if not readily apparent initially, as you’ve shared, we do know, ‘deep down’, that such an occurrence is offering us a wake-up call to something we’ve been aware of, but likely pushed down/aside/ignored/dismissed… and not valued as important.
     The thing is, WE are important, and WE are valuable beyond measure. And are we living in a way that honours all that this truly means?
     In this context, an illness can indeed be a blessing – one that offers the opportunity to get in touch with how valuable we truly are.
     Thank-you for your words of wisdom and clarity Anne. You are indeed a true physician, in truest sense of the word, being one who rightly considers the whole of the body and the beings that we are.

267. Dear Anne, the more I listen to my body, the more I can feel that it holds the key to understanding myself, as well as my past and present choices. We can really learn from it, and I understand from this wonderful blog that cancer is the body’s way of communicating loudly to us about a behaviour or pattern that is unloving, and that there is always the potential to change.

268. Wow, if more people could see illness and disease as an opportunity to wake up and asses their lives, what a huge difference to the health services worldwide this would make. I know for sure it has to mine after being diagnosed with cancer. After the initial shock and emotions had lessened I was able to feel how this disease was a blessing to stop the ways I was living, and now after major surgery I still feel blessed by the experience as changes in how I love and care for myself have been made which have benefitted my health and my family’s life. Thank you Anne, for stepping forward and inviting us to consider that our bodies know exactly what they are doing and no luck is involved.

     1. Totally agree JS when you say ‘”if more people could see illness and disease as an opportunity to wake up and asses their lives, what a huge difference to the health services worldwide this would make.” As with you, it was also my realisation that cancer “was a blessing to stop the ways I was living” and “I still feel blessed by the experience”. It would make a great difference if doctors explained to their patients that any disease is a consequence of the way that they have been living and no luck is involved.

     2. Absolutely Julie, the key to averting the overload crisis of health services is for all of us to take responsibility for our own lives and the way we live it, as you have so powerfully done. Self-care and self-love is the ‘formula’ that will change the direction of the prevailing health demise, and brings us and our society back to health.

269. This is such a great article: giving us all the opportunity to consider that we are not just powerless victims of circumstance but active participants in our own lives. Our bodies are our greatest guides and when I listen attentively to what mine is showing me I have a great foundation from which to make my next decisions and choices.

270. There is certainly much to learn and embrace from all illness and disease. Sometimes it can be a message about how we are living now and sometimes it can be related to a way we lived in the past and no longer live, however the body still needs to clear that. It is a blessing to take the opportunity to feel what it truly is for us without any judgement whatsoever and the knowing that what is offered is always a healing.

271. Your article proves that cancer was a blessing in disguise.

272. Thank you Anne for starting the conversation on the topic that most shy away from. To blame the cancer on bad luck or something outside ourselves simply allows people to remove themselves from any responsibility for their own life, while becoming the victim. But to stop and ask; “what is my part in the development of this cancer” offers such an amazing opportunity to take a deep and honest look at “ how have I been living and have I been caring for my body as well as I could?”. Self responsibility – what a wonderful prescription, for a wonderful life.

273. “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?”
     This is a great question Anne, one which I find empowering as opposed to a continued ‘blame game’ or bad luck.

274. You have offered everyone a great opportunity to reflect on the choices we have made and the way we choose to live…Self-Responsibility would reduce the load on the health system dramatically, and the way we choose to live as a society would be very different!

275. Why is it that cancer is seen as “bad luck” or blamed for by your family genes? This then leaves you feeling helpless in the situation and giving your power away to the medical profession, putting pressure on them to find a cure. However, if we could stop, feel and reflect on how we have been living our lives and take responsibility on our past choices, what a difference this would be.
     Thank you Anne for showing us this to be the true healing approach to illness and disease.

276. Anne you bring a greater insight into illness and disease, if we could see it as moment to stop and reflect on our lives, and what it is that brought us to the point of being ill – whether it is cancer, heart disease or many of the ailments we see today – this would change how we view being ill. Just saying it is bad luck does not ask us to look further, it just becomes one of those things that happen in life and relinquishes us from looking at our responsibility in how we have been living.

277. Absolutely Anne, you have left the reader to ponder on what is it truly our bodies are telling us when we have illness and disease. It is so much wiser to look to what we have been doing and the way we have been living physically and emotionally, than to feel a victim and blame the illness. Only this way will we get to the root cause of all our inflictions.

     1. So true Samantha, rather than just stopping at treating the symptoms of illness such as cancer, perhaps more is needed in terms of looking at the root cause of them and addressing these.

278. The more I get to know my body and understand how sensitive I am, the more I understand how the lifestyle I choose is related to my health. There are obvious examples like feeling depleted after rushing around, but there are other not so obvious ones, such as How I might take a conversation and feel my heart close down. I am appreciating this sensitivity rather than seeing it as a burden.

     1. Gorgeous comment Simon. Yes we can appreciate our sensitivity rather than see it as a burden. Our bodies tell us so much. We can marvel at this instead of seeing it as an inconvenience.

     2. A growing awareness of the sensitivity of our bodies is amazing, and like you say Simon, is certainly not a burden. Our body can tell us so much if we choose to listen and not take it for granted, and then become a victim if it all goes wrong. I am enjoying the new sensitivity I have in my body and I just enjoy spending time with me, and if sometimes my body shouts loudly I stop and listen, I owe my body that much.

279. Accepting that we may not only have a relationship with bringing on the ‘good’ things, but also the ‘bad’ things, allows a greater level of learning and responsibility. I used to think responsibility means blame and burden, but I have actually found that I feel more empowered knowing I am responsible. With responsibility I feel encouraged to be attentive, observe and learn, while if I call it fate and bad luck, I feel resigned and helpless like a sitting duck.

280. You bring deep wisdom to this topic Anne. ‘…responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things’.
     This says it all, obviously there is a lot we don’t like to admit when we know it caused or contributed to something bad.

281. The deep underlying issue of self-responsibility can be reflected on upon reading this, and this is one of the most important reflections for society today. Could it be that the prejudices and disbelief around reincarnation instilled in many of our societies current beliefs and religions, are there to prop up or reinforce the ongoing denial of something that is just simply going to happen , whether you believe it or not, as , if it is understood and embraced, this must lead to a revolution in self-responsibility that would fundamentally change society for the better.

282. What a great story to share. It can take a while to learn not to react, get upset or feel like a victim of whatever symptoms we may be suffering from in our body or issues we may have in our life. However what an amazing skill it becomes when we don’t react anymore and rather surrender, open up to deeply feel within ourselves with honesty and from there start see that those symptoms and issues are simply reflecting to us (and clearing) disharmonious ways of being we have chosen however do not have to chose anymore. It is life changing.

283. Anne, as one who was diagnosed with life threatening cancer more than 20 years ago, I can deeply relate to what you say and whole-heartedly agree. Although at the time I had not yet met Serge Benhayon, I very quickly realised that how I had been living to that point had manifested as cancer in the exact part of my body that was affected. I am also one of those people who can now say that it “was a blessing; that it was the best thing that could have happened” to me. Although I had medical treatment I know without a doubt that I would not be here now had I not stopped to re-evaluate my life and the way I had been living, and to make changes that I knew, deep down, needed to be made.

284. It s a huge blessing when we can look at any illness this way and it gets us to look at ourselves differently and change our behaviours. By having that ‘wake up call’, that ‘stop’ moment, you were given the opportunity to change the way you live your life, and we still get reminders with little messages should we slip again. Great to take notice of them.

285. ‘A blessing no longer in disguise’, what an absolutely beautiful way to put it Anne. Thank you for your sharing of knowing this to be true. Not as the victim but as the one who has the choice.

286. Your article is very inspiring Anne, and I feel it will be a big support to others, who have been diagnosed with cancer, to know that there is another way to view, and learn from their illness.

     1. I agree Elizabeth, an inspiring article to read for anyone diagnosed with cancer… and also for those who have not been diagnosed! A lovely blog revealing that we do have choice, we can view serious illness in another way – not just as an inconvenience, as bad luck, or even some battle to win, but as a healing and an opportunity to ‘take stock’ and make positive changes that enrich life.

        1. I agree, I see a serious illness as an opportunity to stop and re-address how we are living our life, and see it as an opportunity ito make changes.

287. I like here Anne how not only are you challenging the idea we have about luck and chance and fate in life but also challenging the notion that illness and disease is the bad evil monster that must be vanquished. So much cancer charity publicity and advertisements paint a picture of a war against cancer and that we must defeat the enemy. But as a cancer survivor yourself it is beautiful to hear how you have seen your illness as a blessing and a good thing that you needed to change your life for the better.

     1. I agree, Andrew. It must be disempowering to view cancer as something that has randomly happened to you that you must fight against as best you can. I would rather look at it responsibly and be open to learning more about what I chose that could have created such disharmony in my body.

288. How inspiring it would be if humanity came to see disease as ‘an opportunity to look deeply at ourselves, at our lives, and to live in a way that was truly loving, caring and supporting of ourselves.’ Thank you Anne for sharing how you chose to take responsibility for your health and wellbeing.

289. ‘Bad luck’ or ‘just one of those things’ puts the responsibility outside of yourself and accepting we have actually lived in a way that creates something in our body needing to heal is not something as a humanity we have stepped up to. If we can accept that responsibility we can make the first step towards truly healing.

290. A true opening for responsibility in looking at ourselves and what our body is showing us. A beautifully shared article offering the invitation of the possibility of looking a little closer at ourselves for the answers we seek.

291. Thank you Anne, for bringing the possibility and understanding of how we can view cancer as part of our healing as we are presented with the opportunity to look deep within ourselves and be honest about the changes we need to make in our lives.

292. The world would turn on its head if it was able to take up what you have shared here with your experiences Anne. By being open to the possibility that our behaviours and choices bring everything that happens to us in life, you changed unwanted behaviours and have attained a quality of life you had not thought possible. Imagine if millions of people engaged in this process you speak of?

     It would be revolutionary for the world to be open to the science of disease in our bodies as you speak of here; the possibility that disease is the body’s way of ridding and communicating to us that certain behaviours are causing the illness; this way we would take so much more responsibility for our behaviours.

     I also read about the research that two thirds of cancer is caused by bad luck. This information is misleading but worse still, it denies those individuals with cancer to engage in that process you speak of, to reflect, stop, re-evalute and change the way they are living. Instead they do not evolve or make improved adjustments in their life – but stay on the ‘blame’ cycle, having been given a ticket to take minimal responsibility for what is happening to them. A loss for the individual and the world.

     1. You are right Gina, that the research that two thirds of cancer is caused by bad luck denies those individuals with cancer to engage in that process of reflecting, stopping, re-evaluating and changing the way we are living. It doesn’t ask us to be responsible for our choices.

293. What if cancer wasn’t a disease to be got rid of and a return to ‘ normal ‘ life as soon as possible, but a wake up call for us to be more responsible with how we behave and think and act. We and society would need to change somewhat! Recently in the news in the UK it was possetted that cancer was indeed due to bad luck or fate, so that we could do nothing about it. This leaves the ill person powerless and a victim to circumstance. But what if it were a different scenario? What if the way we live, through our choices, does indeed have an effect on illness and disease? What then? Responsibility calling……

     1. Yes I agree – self responsibility is the biggest commodity that the health care system (and us as individuals), is yet to tap into. Can’t wait to see the results as this is taken up more in our society.

        1. Yes it is the way forward, taking responsibility of our own health is a vast resource just waiting for us to explore and benefit from. What different questions we ask ourselves when we realise that we are in charge of our health.

        2. That is so true that Self-Responsibility is the way forward to better health and wellbeing. I know since I have started to bring that into my life things have changed and I actually feel amazing on a regular basis if not daily.

     2. I agree Sue- responsibility calling!

        I love the way you have shared ‘what if’s?’ . . . Illness and disease is definitely a blessing, a shift, a clearing of the way we have been with our bodies – and it is our body returning to its natural state.
        What we need to look at – is why does our body need to return to its natural state?
        How far from our natural state have we diverted?
        And in what ways have we been with our bodies that has caused such illness? etc.
        These are the questions that could be asked.

        1. What great questions Johanna, I feel my body’s natural state is complete harmony with itself, all humanity, nature, planet earth and the universe. When I feel how my body is today, I know, even if I feel great, that I still have a lot of shifting and clearing to do. And that’s my responsibility, I’m not leaving it to chance.

     3. Good point Sue, our attitude towards cancer or any other illness and disease is really quite disempowering. To blame something outside of ourselves is always the easy option, to take responsibility requires a lot more honesty. As a race, are we ready to be that honest?

294. Thanks Anne, there is such a cursing stigma out there around illness and so often the opportunity missed for people to see the blessing. It is such a simple equation that the choices we make equals the outcome we get but if it’s not what we want we somehow manage to pin it on something else. Quite hilarious really, but why so? Is the body meant to be perfect and are we meant to live ‘perfect lives’ or are we here to learn about cause and effect – that we actually have a choice as to what outcomes our choices will have on us if we so choose to know!

     1. Awesome Amber, we choose the outcomes of our lives, whether we choose to realise that or not.

        1. Absolutely right, we DO choose the outcomes of our lives, and if we only realised it, how empowering that would be, to know that we have a choice and are not victims of circumstance.

295. Beautyfull Anne the opportunity to be who you truly are should not ever be frowned at. If that opportunity is there in each moment, or it is brought to our attention through our body or an accident or event — What does life really offer us all the time?

296. Anne, I just had an aha moment reading this. I never made the link that when we describe good luck we are so quick to take the credit for it however bad luck is a different story. True responsibility is not selective, it is a constant opportunity to be aware, learn and adjust accordingly. The way I see it, our body just keeps loving us, bringing us back to the balance and harmony it is naturally pulled to be. In the case of cancer, I love your suggestion that it could actually “be a blessing, no longer in disguise!” Pink ribbon day would become obsolete!

     1. That was a bit of an aha moment for me too Sara. In the past I often tried to weasel out of things if something turned out bad, not wanting to take the blame and at the same time finding somewhere else to lay it if I could. Yet I fully took credit for any thing ‘good’.
        Knowing what I do now through study with Universal Medicine, it is a great relief to actually take responsibility for myself and my choices, my body has responded to that loving awareness in many beautiful ways as it no longer feels burdened by the denial and disregard for it I was previously in.

297. I love this blog. Make the same old choices and walk the same old way and you will get what you have always got. Choose to walk in a different way and bring some self-love and awareness to life and watch the changes take place. Very simple really.

298. Awesome blog Anne, so thank you. I have asked people from many different walks of life over the years after they have had accidents or illness “Whether it’s been a good opportunity to STOP and reconsider things? Or was it all just a bad unfortunate, unnecessary experience? ” So far every person as answered that their life has changed for the better and that it was a big wake up call.
     How much people truly change or let go of definitely differs. I think the majority of us would prefer to make a few changes and bounce around on top of the issue.
     We hold onto an idea of “random” or “chance” when it comes to cancer in order to take less responsibility in the situation, as to face it all sometimes seems too painful. The truth is there is no escaping the feelings you are running away from as they just keep on knocking until somebody is home.

     The blessing you speak of is that cancer and the illness can be a confirmation that our bodies are in touch enough that they recognise when something does not fit. I get more worried about the old relatives I have that drink and smoke endlessly and never get that stop. It’s like their bodies don’t have the energy to send a message as they are struggling to keep up with the basics.

     When I was a smoker I didn’t really get sick, but when I stopped for a long period my body played catch up and cleared out the damage. Playing catch up from times long gone by is also a possibility. People used to say to me when I changed to a cleaner way of living “You’re always sick” but I never got that when I was heavy party girl…not because I was healthier then but because my body didn’t feel like it had a hope in hell to send a message at that point. As soon as I gave my body a little space to talk it had a lot to say and it wasn’t very happy with the way I had been treating it. I now know the body is always talking to us – the question is only whether we are quite enough in ourselves to hear what it is saying.

     1. Really good point Rebecca. It is good to know and understand what is happening for a person rather than judge what appears to be happening on the outside.

299. Anne,
     It is interesting that we view cancer as ‘bad luck’, something that just happened. But as you question, what if our choices played a part and the way we were living……

300. To view cancer as an opportunity to look deeply at our lives and from that we can get a healing, is very different from the way society views this illness. It is taking our own responsibility of ourselves to do this, and know that we can actually make some changes for ourselves.

301. Absolutely Greg, and the deeper we connected to our own essence the more aware we become of the little things that we previously over-looked. It is a never ending journey of deepening and connecting.

302. The old luck theory has been blown way out the window for me since attending Universal Medicine presentations. I now know there is no such thing, no accidents or coincidences. Every thing happens because of the way we live. To me it just makes more sense.

303. You ask us all some very valuable questions here. I concur that it makes absolute common sense to me that even the slightest cold, or cut on a finger is a message that I am remiss in how I am treating the totally awesome, tender, love-filled man that I am.

304. Anne, I love how you point out how we look at good and bad luck. When we like something that ‘happens’ to us we call it good luck, when something not so good or terrible ‘happens’ to us we call it bad luck. One we welcome the other we fear but in both cases we leave it in somebody else’s hands (whoever that might be) that this luck happened to us and we feel it has nothing to do with what we do or can do. But this changes completely when we say it is actually in our hands and we take the responsibility of what happens, then we can deeply appreciate what we have got and at times make the changes that are necessary.

305. Thank you Anne for your beautiful sharing. I could not agree more with what you are saying. A diagnosis of cancer creates an opportunity to stop, feel, review, re-evaluate, take responsibility and change. The ‘bad luck’ story is nowadays increasingly sold by doctors as well ‘to soothe’ both the patient and themselves. It is a very easy and comfortable way out of responsibility. How much potential healing is waisted in promoting and choosing to believe that it is a matter of bad luck!
     Just recently I connected with someone who is dying of a rare form of connective tissue cancer and who shared with me she was told exactly the same – ‘bad luck’. There is no opening there for healing, as no-one has ever asked the very simple question: how were you living?
     Perhaps, in a not very far future, the cancer diagnosis will be so overwhelming in number that there will be the humbleness to ask ourselves what part we play in this through the way we live every day. That moment will be the beginning of the beautiful opportunity for what is true healing, that is, a healing which comes from taking responsibility for the choices we make.

306. I just keep coming back to the quote about the marriage between conventional medicine and esoteric medicine serving humanity – that’s what it is all about – best practice!

307. It’s so easy to blame when things go wrong with our body, yet 80% of all illness and disease are due to lifestyle factors. Thus the way we live plays a very big part in our health. Even a common cold is showing us that we have lived in a way that has led us to a point where our immune system has become depleted enough that a virus can take hold. I love what this blog presents – that illness, as upsetting and challenging as it may be, is an opportunity to stop, reflect and make changes to how we live.

308. That’s shocking Jane… 1 in 2 statistic that’s huge! The impact on society from cancer is already intense but the implications of what you share is even greater. Looking at the illness from a different perspective, such as Anne’s, is so very, very needed.

309. This is a beautiful question to ask.

310. I love how you have brought it back to self responsibility. This seems the missing ingredient we often like to ignore.

311. Thanks Anne for your beautiful insight. It is amazing how the awareness of what we do to ourselves is often so easy to ignore, suppress or divert. But if we would be a little more honest and actually take stock, we can admit that we knew the hard living was actually hurting us all along. For me it’s difficult to face the extent of just how much I have over-ridden what my body has pleaded for, and to ask why, knowing I was slowly destroying myself, that I kept on going! Seems crazy. But stopping and taking stock is a great first step and then getting to understand why opens up a whole new level of awareness and understanding – and my body loves me for it.

312. Anne, I have never really thought about what you have presented here, about how we view bad luck, but indeed how true it is! Awesome revelation.

313. It’s still common for people to play the victim and get very defensive when asked to look at how they live in relation to their illness. I know I did exactly that in the past. It’s only since being able to understand how often my body talks to me – that I’ve been able to understand illness as an extreme way for our bodies to say STOP. I have Universal Medicine to thank for presenting this to me.

     1. Yes it leaves such a big ‘ouch’ to see how I have ignored the messages my body has been sending me. But to see illness as a blessing allows me to not get caught up so much in my self-loathing for letting it happen and get on with making more self-loving choices.

314. Some people use the diagnosis of cancer as an excuse to give up and stop trying, rather than using it as an opportunity to look at themselves and how they have been living and to make changes so as “..to live in a way that was truly loving and supportive… ” Thanks for the blog Anne.

315. Coming from your own experience of cancer to say it has been a blessing in your life is profound and makes sense on so many levels. The body is constantly balancing and re-calibrating itself for optimum health and the sooner we accept that disease is a part of this, the sooner we can learn to work with the body in the healing process. The personal process that you have shared here is inspiring for the many many people who are still “battling” disease. Thank you.

316. Yes Janet! It changes everything to know that. Thank you Body!

317. We all have a massive responsibility to look after ourselves – all our actions, thoughts and movements have to come in and through the body – so it is only natural for the body to show us what is Love and what is Not. Each and every choice is ours and ours alone.

318. If everyone saw cancer and illness in general simply as “our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it”, the healing process would be so different for the patient and the medical professional. Thank you, Anne, for your sharing.

     1. If we did see illness in the way that you describe, “our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it”, it would turn everything around and how we view getting sick. It’s huge!

     2. Great way to put it Janet.

319. I feel this is a very important message you are sharing Anne and one that I agree with whole heartedly. Society, in general, struggle with the notion that illness and disease is a blessing. That it is an opportunity to listen to our bodies and look at the lifestyle choices that have led to the illness. And from here be able to put in place changes that will support our being as well as our body.
     Imagine the world if this was the norm not as it is now, often blaming outside influences or circumstances or as you say, simply bad luck.

320. Indeed Anne it can be uncomfortable to feel that things that are ‘bad luck’ could have been led to with our choices in some way. This is why true education for people about what may be healing or harming is so important. So many people would not make the choices they make today if they had the information of how it really affects them. This can be uncomfortable to find out and discuss but we need to stop living ‘blind’ to how the way humans are living is degrading their health.

321. There’s a saying… ‘you make your own luck’. And so it is here – bad luck, good luck, either way it’s of our own devising.

     1. Super Victoria! A wise saying indeed. Blows the idea of ‘luck’ out of the big pond.

322. This is powerful – coming from a person who has had cancer and walked through it. Thanks, Anne.

     1. Yes, the power in your words Anne is your lived experience of cancer and how it was a tremendously positive experience for you. I can only relate to times when I have been sick and how much of a stop it is to feel less than the greatness we can feel. That is the beauty in that we have virtually all of us had a measure of feeling light, vibrant, vital and energised, it is then our choice whether we make that feeling our new normal by repeating the choices that gave us that feeling. That might be by going to bed early, or eating a light meal, or helping someone out, or taking extra care with a task, or interacting with people. The beauty is that there is always the opportunity to come to that quality of living, if it is something we are willing to do.

323. I agree with you Anne. Our bodies messages through illness are an opportunity to look deeply at how we have been living and make changes that are loving and supportive to ourselves. My body is always communicating with me giving me the opportunity to look deeper.

324. I really enjoyed what you wrote – how we so often label experiences based around luck and not our choices. The fact that we experience illness and disease is as you say our body’s way of communicating. It is our means to clear that which we have buried within and it must come out. “If we could see life that way, the diagnosis of cancer, or any other serious illness, could become an opportunity to look deeply at ourselves, at our lives, and to live in a way that was truly loving, caring and supporting of ourselves.” – how true this is.

325. What I have learned so far from life is that the ‘bad things’ that have happened to me, have all been a huge blessing. I have learned so much from that, but it has been my choice to be open to it and to say: this is a learning and whatever I need to learn from this, I am open to it. I feel life is never against me, but here for me to grow. It is my choice though to go against life or to surrender to it and go with it.

     1. I can relate to what you share Mariette… the “bad things” are a blessing and I have had more learning from them than the ‘good’. Accepting that there is something to be seen and learnt from all situations supports enormously in dealing with challenging situations.

326. An insightful approach to cancer, the word is used in such an emotive way often in society, it is great to challenge this and as you say “Many people who have had cancer say that it was a blessing;” I can relate to this concerning my own health, moments when I have been unwell have been a blessing because they have created a stop in my life and reflection. Without these moments I do not feel I would have as much clarity concerning certain choices I have made in the past that do not support me. Ill health of course can be distressing, but it is supportive to consider that there is something in the experience to learn.

327. “Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?” We are happy to take credit for the ‘good’ things. But, as you say, what about the ‘bad’ things? We are far less likely to accept responsibility for these. And yet, in this acceptance, and then a decision to make different choices, we can find a remarkable healing- if we so choose.

328. Great truth to write here Anne and even thou I haven’t had cancer there is no need for me to wait until it arrives before I start to look deeper at the way I am living my life. My body is very talkative and clearly lets me know (like yourself) with aches, twinges when I am not choosing to be loving in what I am doing. Taking responsibility for how I am and what I choose to do is an awesome place to start. Bring more awareness to myself, how I feel and listening to my body has been extraordinary and very revealing.

329. When we listen to our bodies we have the greatest ally. One that endlessly shows us whether our choices support or degrade our health and wellbeing.

     1. Well said Matilda, I agree listening to our body can be our greatest ally. I know the more I am open to listening the clearer the signals from my body get, guiding me lovingly through my day.

330. It’s great Anne that you can be so reflective when you are faced with a condition like cancer. I’m not sure how I would have handled it. I was working at a cancer clinic in Norway and I met so many beautiful people who I felt was handling themselves very well and we had many great chats about life and sometimes they shared about how they felt and what was going on for them emotionally and sometimes we just talked about everyday affairs. Overall I was amazed how settled they seemed with all the things they had to go through even though at times they had it quite rough. It was actually quite humbling to see.

331. I like your take on good luck and bad luck – interesting how we like to take the credit for only some of the things that happen to us in our life.

332. I have not had the experience of a cancer scare (so far), but if or when I do, I feel I may be more prepared to deal with it reading all these comments of how we can look at this disease in a different way.

333. Very Inspiring Anne thank you .It is great to see the responsibility we all have for our own health and our way of living and the celebration of our body guideing us along the way.Allowing ourselves the loving care and attention we all naturally deserve is a win win situtation for both ourselves and everyone else.

334. Anne it seems unfathomable to most that cancer – and all diseases for that matter – are in fact a blessing, as they call us back to love. One day that may be how we all see illness and disease, and as a result of the natural adjustments we will make, we may go some way towards reducing them significantly.

335. I recently heard someone say that cancer is random, unpredictable who it would affect. I actually agreed with her due to the fact that we are constantly bombarded with all the possible causes of cancer and what we can do to prevent it. Even if you followed all the must do’s and must not do’s on the ever increasing list of cancer causes, it does in fact still seem random ie. Even if you tick all the boxes you could still get it. What you touch on here Anne is a very important component not commonly discussed openly. A cancer scare for me was enough to bring me to a grinding holt and allow humility to bring me back and have an honest look at what I was choosing for myself and how I was living. It is a very personal process that doesn’t have a list to tick off to ensure I don’t get the disease. It was a process of deeply connecting to me and understanding and being more honest about what is truly going on and my part in the absolute mess and chaos we continually create for ourselves.

     1. Yes Suzanne, it’s true what you say about ticking off lists to not get cancer and then the shock of getting cancer with “but why me I did everything right?” Anne takes understanding of the cause of the disease to a whole new level and is quite a remarkable sharing.

     2. Well said Suzanne. It is a very personal experience for each body and I totally agree that it is not a tick box scenario. Each person has the choice to listen to even the smallest message that their body is reflecting to them.

336. We are responsible for everything our body reflects to us. That is the truth. Sometimes people see responsibility as a heavy burden to bear, but to me responsibility was my road to freedom from pain and suffering and illness. I now feel self-responsibility as a source of great joy. Great blog Anne.

     1. I totally agree Jeanette. With the reflection that our body gives us it lets us know even in the smallest way when it is feeling any form of disharmony. Its beautiful to read the level of self responsibility that many are taking by simply listening to and adhering to what their body is telling them.

337. Thank you Anne for sharing your very personal experience of cancer and what you have learned. Perhaps one day this wisdom will be taught in medical schools and to our physicians who are so overwhelmed by the number of their patients having this diagnosis and other debilitating diseases. In spite of the billions of dollars spent worldwide on medical research, there will never be a “cure” for cancer whilst we continue to live in ignorance of our responsibility for our every choice.

     1. This is so true, ‘In spite of the billions of dollars spent worldwide on medical research, there will never be a “cure” for cancer whilst we continue to live in ignorance of our responsibility for our every choice.’

338. Totally agree with you Anne on how any kind of illness in the body is a warning our body is giving us that something is wrong and to check in with ourself on being more supportive with this one and only body we live in. I had an injury few years back which left me crippled for a few months, and for me it was a real blessing, as it allowed me to slow down, which otherwise I was not going to, and learn to live a lot more lovingly with me and in effect with all others around me. Though my foot has healed, whenever I am doing more than I can handle, it become slightly tender to remind me to slow down. Our body is amazing as it’s constantly communicating to us if we choose to listen. From then it’s our responsibility what we do with these messages we get…make loving choices that support us and make that our way of living, or make not so loving choices and go back living in old patterns!

     1. I agree Pinky. I have osteoarthritis in my right knee and whenever I start to do more than I should, or start to put myself into disregard, my knee gently lets me know. As you say, we have a choice with what we do with these messages, we can override or make the loving decision to listen.

339. Anne this is an inspiring blog.
     Indeed if we could see life in this way – see illness in this light, our health services would be considerably less overwhelmed, through greater understanding & empowerment of how we can heal ourselves through the way we live and the choices we make. With these simple tools, we can shape a more responsible society.

     1. Well said lucindag, the impact on how our health system works would be immense and the door would be open for western medicine to join forces with Universal Medicine and build a support system for every person to not only work on the physical, but on the root causes underneath.

     2. Yes taking responsibility for how we got cancer and with the willingness to make the necessary changes would transform how the NHS worked.

340. This article feels very true to me, I often hear people talking about illness as ‘bad luck’ and ‘why me?’, when often it is clear that the person is living in a disregarding way. What you have written here feels like a very true way to live, ‘the diagnosis of cancer, or any other serious illness, could become an opportunity to look deeply at ourselves, at our lives, and to live in a way that was truly loving, caring and supporting of ourselves.’

341. When we live our lives without care and attention and become out of balance, the body has its way of making us pay attention and implores us to stop. It is beautiful that you were able to see the gift brought to you through cancer. You took responsibility for and charted your healing journey through self love and self care. . An amazing sharing Anne. Thank you.

     1. I agree. It is beautiful that Anne saw the gift of the healing, self-care and self-nurturing that took place for her through her cancer experience.

342. The body will always tell us when something is not right. It comes as a wake up call, saying do something about getting it repaired. Leave all your bad habits behind, and turn over a new way of living.

     1. A great way of expressing what goes on Mike, I wonder just how early on in a condition the body is letting us know something is not right. Perhaps a lot earlier than we currently choose to listen to?

        1. Good point David! It would then mean that the more awareness we have, and the more sensitive we become with our bodies, the more we can nip any niggles in the bud. It just means having enough love for ourselves to start to truly listen and take heed to what our body is telling us.

343. This is a beautiful blog Anne and I wholeheartedly agree with what you’re presenting here. We tend to associate taking responsibility with ‘blame’ but it is by no means the same thing. Taking responsibility and looking at why we have cancer or indeed any other illness, means being fully responsible for ourselves, claiming our power back to us and not walking in the belief that we are victims of circumstance or ‘luck’. If as a society and as a healthcare system as well we started to approaching disease in this light the benefits to humanity would be enormous.

     1. I agree Katerina, we often associate responsibility with blame, and so avoid it like the plague, when really responsibility is an opportunity to learn from our mistakes.

        1. Well said Rebecca, learning to take responsibility for all that we do is an opportunity that supports us to be more of who we really are.

        2. Yes Rebecca, seeing responsibility as an opportunity to learn rather than blame makes it something we can embrace.

     2. Very true. Responsibility and blame are often used as one. Having grown up in a culture that likes blaming someone or something for everything, I have found embracing responsibility in fact does away with blame, instead as you say it has allowed me to claim my power back. Developing an understanding about how my own choices and actions fundamentally affects everything that happens in my life has been life changing.

344. its cool that our body allows us to take that time to truly STOP what we have done, and to turn over a new page, so to speak. Taking responsibility for choices.

     1. Yes this is cool. If we choose to not initially listen to the small messages and stop, eventually our body very lovingly says ‘ I can no longer allow you to continue in this way’ and it stops us. This is beautiful because what I have observed when people get stopped with an illness or disease is that there is a reconnecting and a realising that happens around them needing to make more supportive choices for themselves, The drive of life stops and things that are truly important then get prioritised, e.g. caring for yourself and making time to rest or eat well. And only in this stopping does the momentum that got you there get realised.

345. If we were able to dispassionately consider, how would we rather life truly was, would we rather that what happened to us was driven by our choices, or would we rather that we were at the mercy of randomness and luck, surely we would choose the former, and with it the responsibly that comes with it? But there is such a taboo around suggesting that we have a role to play when it comes to illness and disease, we really don’t want that responsibility, perhaps because we often confuse it with blame and guilt. Thank you for breaking that taboo, and for showing us that this responsibility is about opportunity, not blame.

346. I am amazed! Many of us have spent so long searching for answers or true support with how to live life and to understand what is truly going on, but as your experience highlights Anne, is that our best support is actually with us all the time. Our physical bodies are always on our side. It is only a question of how deep we are willing to listen.

     1. Yes Joshua. How deep we are willing to listen and then act with the appropriate medical treatment, is the way forward to truly heal.

347. This is a great share Anne. Institutions pitching themselves to know the answers above and beyond the individual’s inner wisdom have done us a dis-service – and our own tendency to accept that others’ knowledge counts more than our own inner wisdom has made us as a society lazy so that we do not often even bother to check let alone trust what we feel. In this climate Universal Medicine has been a breath of fresh air bringing awareness to the constant prompting we have from our own body and has provided invaluable advice on how we can still our brains enough to benefit from this powerful alliance.

348. I love the bit about your leg twitching Anne, as it shows that if we develop the relationship with our body and learn to listen to what it tells us about our choices it does not always have to be a huge catastrophically stop to make us change our ways. It could be as much as little as a bump or a twitch that can make us stop and ask what it is that is telling us.

     1. Yes, agreed Carolien. Here’s to paying attention to the little messages that the body gives us as soon as we stop looking after ourselves.

349. That Sciencemag.org finding is a real one to stop at, and question: that two thirds of cancer cases can be attributed to ‘bad luck’. Quite right Anne, what does luck have to do with cancer? If we are responsible for each choice we make (no one else makes them for us!) then are we not responsible for the ‘luck’ in our lives? ergo our choices will have a say in the health or disease we experience.

350. What kind of excuse is it that someone can print a statistic like “a recent study attributed two thirds of cancer cases to ‘bad luck’”. It’s ridiculous and utterly irresponsible that, with everything that we and science know today, we just throw out a comment like that. There are of course reasons for it, but science is looking in the wrong place… and can’t admit that their billions of dollars of research has not been effective.

     1. This is huge Simon! Science has invested billions of dollars looking in the wrong places and is it possible that the industry needs to protect its position on this? By admitting that their research has not been effective would be quite an honest step to take and a brave one, then the opening to look at different possibilities might open up? However, my feeling is that there is a lot of pride at stake and the drive to keep going in the same track is strong.

351. Stupendous blog Anne, I totally agree, like everything that happens to us in life there is no luck, chance, accidents or coincidence, we are a direct result of the choices we make and getting an illness or disease is no exception but its still a little hard for me to see it as a blessing even though I know it is.

352. “I am free of cancer now, but if I start to walk in the old way, to make the same old choices again, my leg gently calls me back, with a little twinge, a gentle reminder that the way I am walking is no longer true for me, and offers me an opportunity to come back to me, to who I truly am.”
     If one truly stops to read this, it is absolute gold, for it reveals the real meaning behind illness and disease in the body and how we can avoid going down a harmful road if we heed the calls from our body.

353. Thank you Anne for sharing your experience. I have always felt that everything comes with blessings and what is presenting to us could be ‘good medicine’ it just happens to be bad tasting.

354. Thanks Anne. Cancer is becoming increasingly prevalent and widespread yet many of us still attribute it to ‘bad luck’ as you presented. That must mean our ‘luck’ as a human race must be getting continually worse? Strange that…

     1. Brilliant point Marshall. It is astonishing to see that a Scientific journal would attribute anything at all to ‘bad luck’. You would imagine that they might say something like, ‘we haven’t yet found the cause of cancer in two thirds of sufferers.’ A Universe founded on good and bad luck would be a very dicey thing indeed!

355. I love how you write so simply and have brought it back to such a tangible relatable example of ‘good or bad luck’, this certainly inspired me as your reader to ponder upon this for myself and wonder — do I actually want to leave anything in my life to the fate of ‘luck’ or do I want to live in a way where I feel self-empowered to make my own choices? and if so do I want to look back on them in the future and see them as good (loving) or bad (unloving, unsupportive) ones? Either way I am open to taking charge of my choices and learning as I go.

356. I met a man on the train today who has had lymph cancer and currently in remission. Recalling this amazing blog, I asked him how he felt about having cancer. He said that his work used to be ‘the master’ in his life and his family was ‘the slave’ that always came last in line, but now the reverse is true, and he now makes his life more about relationships and sharing his life (like with me on the train!) He certainly was able to feeling the blessing of his illness.

     1. Thanks Janet. Your encounter with the man in remission from lymph cancer on the train , and you account of what he has come to brought tears to my eyes. What a blessing.

357. Thank you Anne for presenting in such a simple and easy to understand way truth about what is often portrayed as a controversial and complicated topic. When things appear complicated it’s easy to give our power away and completely hand it over to the medical or complementary practitioner, thereby relinquishing responsibility… and for many also buying into the “bad luck” argument.

358. I love the simplicity in your writing. Great truths and great questions delivered with no complications. And I agree from experience that a very serious illness can be experienced as a blessing, a deepening or even the beginning of the self love that one had been procrastinating or avoiding for a whole life.

     1. Beautifully spotted Julia! Anne does have this amazing ability to deliver great truths with no complication. And I love the way you have said that illness ‘can be experienced as a blessing, a deepening or even the beginning of the selloff that one had been procrastinating or avoiding for a whole life’. How true. And how our bodies serve us well.

     2. I wonder how many people have been screeched to a halt by an illness or injury and have in some way recognised the opportunity presented; to review and reconsider their way of life and the choices they make. Just as there are many who get through whatever the episode is to return to their lives with no change in the way they do things, I feel there are many who, even if very subtly, allow their lives to be changed by their experiences and recognise the transformative nature of taking responsibility. This is an opportunity in our every days.

359. ‘It was no longer possible to delude myself that everything was fine, that there was “nothing to see here”, as I used to be fond of saying. It was a huge wake-up call, and a call to live a more loving and true way of life, in a much deeper way than I had been willing to look at life, up until then. It was a call to make the changes that deep down, I knew I had to make.’
     What you have said here Anne is profound – how many of us go around deluding ourself and thinking everything is fine when it clearly is not.
     My huge wake up call was not enough, I had to have another whammy before I was physically forced to stop as I really could not move. How awful and disregarding to wait until things are so bad before any real changes are made.
     I often wonder why or how we are programmed to live such love-less lives with no regard or respect for our body – the vehicle that puts up with every choice we make.
     It would be amazing if kids were taught how to connect and feel their body and learn how to communicate with it so they can respect their body from an early age.

     1. I agree Bina,… “It would be amazing if kids were taught how to connect and feel their body and learn how to communicate with it, so they can respect their body from an early age” and I feel that this will and is beginning to happen. It starts with us and then gets passed on to our kids and our grandchildren.

360. I appreciate this conversation about Cancer and whether it is bad luck or whether there is more to it. Since cancer is such an emotive subject and most of us have, or are currently, relating to it with helplessness, it is a perfect place to start to consider how our own personal choices intimately impact our life, how we are never a helpless bystander and how there is a perfect pattern to many of the seeming anomalies we see around us.

361. Beautiful article Anne. I feel the truth in what you are saying and love the analogy of good and bad luck, and how we are quick to claim responsibility when it is something good in our lives, but not so when it is something we deem bad, hard or challenging. You make a great point, and one that we should take into all areas of illness and disease.

362. Yes this is true Joan, when cancer is spoken about it is often taking a fighting stance against it… “me against cancer”. Anne is offering another possibility at looking at “me and the choices I made which resulted in cancer” which is less hard, more surrendering and accepting of the situation. By looking at the choices which led to cancer, empowers the patent to make different choices in their lives, which potentially can lead to deep healing.

     1. Good point Rachel. Seems to me ‘fighting’ is never the tool to bring back harmony – not in the world and not in my body.

363. Thank you Anne, It makes so much sense what you present here. And what I thought was great and that I have experienced myself, is that some part of our body can get a little twinge, pain or ailment, however it is actually just our body telling us that the way we are running the body isn’t true. And it is simply a STOP moment, to assess what isn’t true, and how we can live more truly to ourselves again. An evolutionary moment. To make change for the better. Our life is all in our hands like you say, not in fate or luck.

364. Thank you Anne, it feels like your diagnosis of cancer was indeed a blessing.

365. It has been a common approach to cancer to use fighting terminology in treating it,and this separates the cancer from the patient by viewing it as an outside enemy to be vanquished, whereas the cancer actually is our own cells multiplying too fast and cannot be separated from us.
     This makes absolute sense of your beautiful article Anne; if we recognise that how we have been living has brought this about, then we have the opportunity to welcome its presence with love, for the gift of healing it brings, by giving us the opportunity to change the way we live at a deep level.

366. That is a really good point you brought up Anne, that we are very active in taking responsibility for the ‘good luck’ parts of life but not so forthcoming when the ‘bad luck’ situations come around. How can we claim to have full responsibility in one quality of ‘luck’ but absolutely zero responsibility in just a different quality or that same ‘luck’? It doesn’t make sense. Claiming the ‘good luck’ situations confirms that we can make choices to bring us positive situations, claiming the ‘bad luck’ situations can also be a positive as it claims – I made it, I can unmake it. Rather than leaving us high and dry so to speak with nowhere to go.

     1. Absolutely Leigh; we are very happy to talk about the ‘good luck’ in our lives, but not so much the so called ‘bad luck’, and taking only half responsibility or telling 1 side of the story is definitely not a sustainable way of living.

367. It is interesting what you point out, that we are very willing to take responsibility for the good things that happen to us in life, but never the bad. However just as hard work and persistence can pay off in a great job, nice car or house say, so to can pushing your limits, not eating healthily or taking care of your body ‘pay off’ in you getting a wake up call in one form or another. The consequences of every choice we make needs to equally be taken responsibility for, no matter the outcome, because both outcomes are equally ‘good’ – for one confirms us, and one gives us the opportunity to change our ways.

     1. I really like this point, Rebecca, that we can’t lose, because either way we are being given the opportunity to look at ourselves in a truthful light, and we can only grow from that.

     2. Yes a great point Rebecca which really blows the lid off ‘right or wrong’, just always opportunities to heal.

368. Putting an illness down to bad luck does seem to me, to be a get out clause for not having to consider how we live and how we are with our bodies. I know I have been guilty of this in the past and still have to make sure I am not dismissive of any ills which come up, no matter how small.
     It is a great way to look at illness and disease with an appreciation for what it is showing us, instead of being overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness.

369. …”but if I start to walk in the old way, to make the same old choices again, my leg gently calls me back”. The body is a powerful reminder for me too, letting me know when I’m not looking after myself or something is up (if I choose to listen). All too often I’m moving too fast, and putting the ‘to do’ list first, but my body is always there gently tugging away saying ‘look at how you are living’. It is out most delicate and insistent instrument!

     1. Absolutely true Simon – the body is ‘our most delicate and insistent instrument!’, with ‘insistent’ as the key, wonderful, operative word. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have been the first to bring this largely ignored, yet very obvious and super-powerful truth to our human race. We have been given the key to the gates of Heaven.

        1. I totally agree Simon with what you are expressing here and Lyndy we certainly have been given the key. I certainly know from first hand experience how my leg, well it is actually my hip, calls me back if I start to walk in the old way, making old choices.

     2. I totally agree Simon that our body is always ready to let us know what is happening to it; we simply have to be willing to listen. As you say so beautifully: “ It is our most delicate and insistent instrument! and it deserves to be treated as such. There is no luck involved.

370. Thank you Anne. This article reminds me of the truth that there is a choice being made every moment and there is an outcome associated with the choice. The outcomes are the reflection of our choices. Embracing our choices without judgement brings us to honesty.

371. When we are ready to start to take responsibilities for choices we make (and have made), we are ready to know that “bad things” do not happen due to bad luck but they happen due to our choices and by accepting that, we can start to truly heal. I now know this because of the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. I am so grateful to them. There are so many people out there who do not know this yet. I do hope that articles such as this would get published in many newspapers and magazines so that people will have an opportunity to look at life from a different perspective.

     1. You are right Ryoko, looking at life from a different perspective such as this is a complete sea change to how we currently view it. It would be amazing to get this article published for others to read about illness from a different angle.

     2. So true Ryoko – The opportunity to look at life from different perspectives is so precious! Thank God that we have us – all around the world – to support us with a lot of viewpoints. And I agree, it not only would be great to have articles like that in many newspapers – it’s necessary.

372. “So, is it luck, or is it not? Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?” Such a poignant question Anne and one that would serve us well to ask ourselves. Thank you for sharing so clearly how disease is really just a way of our bodies talking to us so we can hear it’s message.

373. In answer to the question in the title of this article, I am definitely going with ‘blessing’. My personal experience of cancer and being around others who have, or have had it shows me over and over again that our bodies are the finest messengers we have. It is up to us what we do with the information imparted and that is the joy of responsibility.

374. If the answers to these very relevant questions were pondered at the outset perhaps less would need that loud STOP from the body for us to listen to what it’s telling us.

375. Thank you Anne. I hadn’t realised what was actually behind the words ‘good luck’ and ‘bad luck’ or how or in what situations we use them. Your blog is very thought provoking.

376. I love the beauty and the simplicity in your blog. Whenever cancer is talked about in the media or within my family it’s seen as a big enemy to be fought off at all costs. I feel in society there is a real pull to see it this way so the responsibilty of how one has been living that has contributed to its formation is wanting to be denied – and to say otherwise often incurrs an emotional backlash.

     So it’s beautiful to read how you recognise your body for its loving response to how you have lived. If I were to hear I had cancer I would work towards being graceful like you and responding to my body with love and not hatred for what it is showing me. Thank you for this tender reminder to treat my body with the love it deserves.

377. Beautifully written Anne. As a society we accept no responsibility for the choices we make. We choose what we eat and how we live, yet when an illness occurs it is “bad luck”. If we start looking at the illness as something that we can learn from then the “bad luck” changes to a “how fortunate I am”. 17 years ago I developed a heart condition with no obvious physical cause. I went into the “why me?” stage. I was so unlucky. I never looked at how I was living. Over 2-3 years the condition cleared but I had no understanding that I had some responsibility for the condition occurring. I can now see that it was a missed opportunity for me to look at how I was living and for me to make different choices. The choices I make are my responsibility and what comes from that is not bad luck, but a wonderful opportunity to look at those choices and learn.

378. Thank you Anne – I love how you have turned the good/luck and bad luck aspect of life and what happens to us, to one that has to do with our choices in life. So well said – as with most things in life, we do play a part, small or big in all that happens. I too call dis-ease a blessing – it is the body calling out louder and louder to be heard to make a change!

379. Awesome blog, Anne, thank you for sharing this very deep, but simple wisdom dismantling the myth of bad luck.

     1. True Rachel – This great blog shows, to call something “bad luck” is just giving power away…or rather trying to ignore our own power so as to not take responsibility.

     2. Yes, “dismantling the myth of bad luck”.

380. Beautifully written and honest sharing Anne, thank you. Many years ago I heard in a presentation a sentence that said ” Everything in life is a lesson or a gift.” At the time I did not understand that, as I had been involved, as a passenger, in a car accident and since then was in constant severe pain for many years; it stopped me from pretty much doing anything for myself. And when I heard that sentence I could not see the lesson (as I was not driving) nor the gift ( as I suffered so much). Years later I came to feel the truth in that the gift was to stop me in my tracks where I was heading, and the lesson was that I had to connect to myself to start the process of true healing from within. Today I am pain-free and am grateful that I was stopped so I can be where I am at now.

381. Thank you Anne for showing the blessing cancer can be as a reality and responsibility for us all to take heed of and see there really is another way to live our life, and that the loving changes we can make for ourselves really do make a difference. There is a bigger picture at play – we just dont choose to see it always.

382. Thanks Anne for telling it how it is re cancer.
     I feel people say it is ‘bad luck’ when someone is diagnosed with cancer because the majority of people don’t want to look at how to live their lives – they enjoy their comfort and life of disregard. They don’t want to take responsibility for their ill choices, that may have led to them getting cancer. However, what a blessing it can be when we become aware that it is an opportunity to stop, and truly honour our precious body.

383. “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?”
     I know of many people who, having experienced cancer and having successful treatment, then proceed to return to their ‘normal ‘lives. So much blame on their genes etc. – and no self-responsibility. I speak as one who did the same, except that I did remove many of the stresses from my life, which has since become more vital and vibrant since incorporating some of the ideas presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine practitioners.

     1. Very true Sue, if we can hang the blame for an illness/cancer on our genetic make up, then it seems to let us off the hook in having to look at why we got it in the first place and we can gallop back to the same old life style as before, no questions asked. Even if a disease has its roots in our genes, there is so much we can do to truly support our bodies. I know that the ideas and suggestions presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have gone a long way to supporting many people, yourself included to ask those un-comfortable and challenging questions and to create a new life style based on real self care and nurture with astounding results.

        1. Absolutely Rowena; by blaming an illness on our genes/DNA, it allows a lot of irresponsibility and avoidance of actually looking at what choices or way of living got us to the point of becoming sick.

        2. It is huge step to realise that we cannot blame anyone for anything. Yes, there are some behaviours that happen that we cannot condone, but we cannot blame. It is such a liberation from that old way of looking at things that kept us hooked into a self-destructive cycle of blame, taking our joy away. Thanks again Anne for the great article, and Susie for your pertinent comment.

384. What you have offered here in your sharing Anne, if it is understood by people, is the beginning of the ‘cure for cancer’ for which many millions have been spent in the search. To understand that it is a way for our bodies to clear a way of living that has not been congruent with our deeper true harmonious natures.

385. Anne wonderfully written and what an observation – the bad luck call essentially saying that it has nothing to do with me… the illness literally fell out of the sky. We all have a great opportunity to review and feel what needs to be looked at when the body delivers to us such graceful messages and markers.

     1. Well said Lee, these things don’t just fall on our heads, we have played a major part in their appearance. Serious illness is an amazing opportunity for us to begin to truly love ourselves, if we really allow ourselves to stop and question why it occurred and listen to what our bodies have to say.

386. It is so true many of us think an illness like cancer as being ‘bad luck’ or even have the victim mentally when diagnosed with a dis-ease. What we don’t currently do is realise this is our body showing us we have not been living in a harmonious way and that we have the dis-ease due to how we have lived. So really it is a blessing giving us the opportunity to stop the disregard we have been living in and start to self-love and self-care. We have a lot to learn here and it isn’t going to happen from millions of pounds being poured into laboratories it needs to come from us and how we live. Thank you for writing about a much needed topic that needs to be discussed and for showing there is another way to walking back to our health.

     1. Very true Vicky, we can throw a lot of money away on others finding a ‘solution’ to our ills or we can start to take responsibility for how we are living and start making choices that prevent us from looking for a ‘solution’.

     2. Great blog Anne you were offered a great opportunity to evolve and you claimed it what a beautiful journey for you. I love your comment Susie “back luck” is used as an excuse for many things as a total avoidance responsibility. well said. There is no bad luck, coincidences or inherited illness and dis-ease. We are responsible for what we ever we create through our lifestyle choices and karma.

387. A brilliant blog Anne; ‘bad luck’ is used as an excuse for many things, and can be a total avoidance of responsibility. It’s amazing to hear how instead of ‘bad luck’ being to blame for your cancer, you saw it as an opportunity to look at what choices you had made that may have led to the diagnosis, and then how you acted upon them to change your lifestyle.

     1. I agree Susie, it is amazing and very inspiring to hear Anne’s experience of looking at her choices that led up to the cancer diagnosis.

     2. Well said Suzie, spot on. “‘bad luck’ is used as an excuse for many things, and can be a total avoidance of responsibility”. This blog highlights the blame culture we currently live in, until we start taking true responsibility we will continue to see illness and disease rates escalate.

388. Yes, we have to go deeper to understand, what healing means. And it needs a kind of humbleness to come to the point, that such an illness could be a blessing.
     We are asked to see the bigger picture and to evaluate, what life is really about.

389. Thank you Anne, a good reminder that these incidents that ‘just seem to happen to us’, or are ‘bad luck’. Are truly a blessing and chance to re-evaluate the neglect we were living in, and start to make some positive changes.

390. Anne, what you have written is ‘gold’. It would be a wonderful step forward if more people understood cancer and illness as a form of bodily healing and an opportunity to live our lives differently. In the past I found it so easy to distract myself by looking at ways to get rid of symptoms when something was wrong, thus avoiding the responsibility to consider how I got to that point in the first place. However, since being involved in Universal Medicine I now realise the enormity of this illusion and it has made such a positive difference to how I approach my health and wellbeing.

     1. I agree Helen. By looking outside of ourselves, it is far too easy to get the ‘quick fix’ and then go back to the choices that gave us the illness. Taking responsibility for how we have come to have an illness in the first place is the first step we should take. As you say, this approach can lead to making and maintaining choices that will truly support us.

     2. Yes it would be a real sea change, most see illness as something to be ‘beaten’ ‘cured’ etc there is a us and them about it, but if we are able to allow a deeper connection to what is occurring within ourselves much can be unveiled.

     3. This is an awesome blog Anne, and I love what James and Helen are saying. It’s a pity that we often only become honest about how we are living once we get a bad diagnosis. The step to then admit that the diagnosis could have something to do with how we chose to live on a day to day basis; giving us a stop and an opportunity to learn how to take more loving care of ourselves.

391. Great blog Anne. I also know a lot of people who called their illness, disease or major injury a “blessing” because it brought them to a stop and made them re-considering their way of life. For example mothers learned from that that they have to care for themselves first in order to be able to care for their children and partner with true vitality. Without the stop they would have ended exhausted and unhappy. Now they are ready to care for themselves and to ask for support, knowing that they don´t have to do everything on their own which leaves them more vital and joyful and at the end with more precious time for their family. That´s huge.

     1. I agree Katrin, having an illness or disease enables a lot of people to actually stop and ask for help, which they were not able to do with out it, and so it really is a blessing for most people.

        1. I agree Rebecca – it is a blessing but we have to ask ourselves why do we need to wait for a major illness or disease before seeking help and support? What is it about the human psyche that has the desire to put function and the notion of needing everything around us to believe we are ok even when we may not be feeling that great. I know I often find it hard to ask for help as it exposes some of my weaknesses I have and so may make me somehow seem lesser or inadequate, but weaknesses they are only because I have not actually put effort and focus towards them.

        2. I agree James, and also the weaknesses are only there because we perceive them to be weaknesses, and actually they are just areas that need working on.

        3. Beautifully expressed Rebecca, the “weaknesses are only there because we perceive them to be weaknesses, and actually they are just areas that need working on”. Looking at our weaknesses this way takes away any self-judgement and self-criticism, because how can we expect something to be a strength when we have given no energy towards it? It is a bit like riding a bicycle – if you have never tried it is going to be a bit tricky at first, but the more time and effort you give towards learning to ride the bicycle the easier it becomes, so how could you possibly criticise yourself for not knowing how to ride a bicycle or not being able to, if you have never actually tried to! It also takes away comparison with others, as we can start to appreciate their strengths and learn from them.

        4. Brilliant analogy James, how can we judge or criticise ourselves for the areas in our life that aren’t so great or strong, if we haven’t put the time into working on them to be any other way. And often as soon as you see an area that isn’t working and actually start working on it, it almost instantly ceases to be a weakness and instead becomes an amazing learning and slowly a strength.

        5. It is amazing how much we can learn from each other, our bodies and from life when we stop trying to compete and be the best at everything.

        6. Totally agree Rebecca ~” weaknesses are only there because we perceive them to be weaknesses, and actually they are just areas that need working on”. The TRUTH expressed so simply.

392. Awesome Anne, beautifully expressed. Thank you.

393. Bad luck is such a convenient excuse for anything bad that happens! It avails us from having to look at the choices we might have made that created an illness or situation. Whoever invented ‘bad luck’ is probably the richest person in the world.

394. Ah..the convenience that bad luck brings! Now condoned by science!
     But we have such an opportunity to learn about ourselves when we listen to the messages our body sends us.
     That is the science to truly attend to – the science taught to us by that most patent of teachers, our body.

395. As you say Anne, cancer was a wakeup call, “It was a call to make the changes that deep down I knew I had to make”. I feel that with every person that can connect to their true selves and, like you, make those “loving, caring and supportive changes”, the more we will come to realise that illness can be seen “as a blessing” and not “bad luck”.

396. Thank you Anne for bringing up this question in regards to whether getting cancer is just ‘bad luck’ or if we should be taking a closer look at the choices we are making. It certainly seems it was a blessing in disguise for you to start making changes in your life.

397. Thank you Jane for making this vital point about the need to fundamentally shift the basis of cancer research. I generally do not give to cancer charities because the focus is typically on ‘finding a cure’. It has always seemed back to front to try and find the cure before understanding the cause. Then again, maybe it is simply that there is more money to be made by big pharmaceutical companies from ‘cures’.

398. Beautifully written and so simple. I have had a similar experience with fatigue when I was 25 and my initial response was “Why do I get the bad luck?” But after receiving esoteric healing and chakra puncture treatments, it enabled me to consider that maybe it was actually the way I was living and I soon realised it was not bad luck at all. I was living in a way that was exhausting my body. When we take responsibility for this it allows us to make changes to the way we live and as a result heal the cause of the problem. I am so thankful my body stopped me and asked me to consider the demands I was placing on it. I have much more energy now, but if I go back to old habits my body gently reminds me (with tiredness) I cannot treat it this way. I too found this to be a blessing.

     1. Great comment, Michelle. The line – “I am so thankful my body stopped me and asked me to consider the demands I was placing on it” says it all. I love that our bodies never stop telling the truth to us, no matter what we have put them through.

399. It is so great that you highlight how we tend to take the credit when things go well, but absolve any responsibility when things go badly. It is an obvious point full of common sense that we are absolutely responsible for everything in our life. A hard pill to swallow for some, but a pearl of wisdom for those who want to listen.

400. Anne, I hear this all the time from patients that I work with who have had cancer that it is a blessing in disguise because it has made them stop and reevaluate their lives.

401. I love the point you make about how we look at things in our life being good or bad luck, we often forget that we have a responsibility for all that happens in our lives and luck good or bad has nothing to do with it but rather the choices that we have made.

402. “I am free of cancer now, but if I start to walk in the old way, to make the same old choices again, my leg gently calls me back, with a little twinge, a gentle reminder that the way I am walking is no longer true for me, and offers me an opportunity to come back to me, to who I truly am.” This itself offers a great insight about how amazing and empowering our relationship can be with our body.

403. If it is so, that cancer or other illnesses are reflecting our choices against ourselves, against our natural way of being – it’s a strong reflection isn’t it? It reflects to me that I have lived a life of choices against me in such a powerful way that I maybe will die. That let me realize how powerful I am. It is a bit shocking and I am glad to have Universal Medicine -Wisdom and -Practioners on my side to help me to establish an accepting, embracing and celebrating relationship with my power.

404. I love the clarity and simplicity of this article. For me, and I am guessing many others, I always equated accepting responsibility as meaning I was to blame and still often feel that. Is this a big hurdle for us? We avoid accepting that our choices do govern and change our lives because when we do we turn on ourselves with blame. This requires ongoing attention from me – accepting the joy and power of responsibility, rather than using it as a weapon against myself.

405. What a great blog, Anne. It inspires me to look deeper into my life and take responsibility for what I observe. Thank you.

406. What an amazing revelation you have brought forth Anne. When viewing a diagnosis from your perspective, surely makes the reality of such a diagnosis much less frightening to deal with.
     It is far more empowering to know it was created by us and not just BAD LUCK paying a visit, for it offers us the opportunity to review and change lifestyle patterns and habits. Lovely to know our body is our friend.

407. Until one has had cancer or some other illness and looked truthfully within themselves, it is difficult to accept that we contribute and create this within ourselves. I know of so many who say “I just want this fixed” and not willing to go beyond that. Asking oneself “how did I create this” can be a painful question to ask as it means we are responsible for our choices in life and how we treat our bodies.

     My own experience with cancer has shown me it is the daily choices I make and how I live each moment that is the healing factor.

408. I agree with what you have shared here Anne. I too have had cancer and it was for me also a wake up call to look at how I had been living. I am one of those people who says that cancer has changed their life and that it is a blessing. I don’t see my cancer as ‘bad luck’. It was my body’s way of telling me that how I was living was not harmonious. I am deeply grateful that my body gave me this message, otherwise my life would be very different to how it is now. The ‘full stop’ that cancer offered me was an opportunity to change how I live. That I am deeply grateful for.

409. I agree with the notion about how luck is used.
     Are you lucky or are you not?
     Are you responsible or are you not?
     Great Blog Anne

410. A very interesting perspective Anne, it seems that a lot of people (myself included) want to take credit for the good, and excuse/justify the bad – but I love how you said that if we did end up taking responsibility for the ‘bad’, we could learn from it

411. Ok medicine, It’s time to take a deeper look and truly introduce the fact that lifestyle is a significant factor in the cause of illness, especially cancer, and it plays a much larger part than what is thought. A diagnosis can be quite a terrifying experience and really does floor you at first. We just need to make ‘Love’ of ourselves the leading preventative treatment to combat the spiraling demise of humanity.

     1. Beautifully said Matthew. It was not until I encountered Universal Medicine that I began to realise the enormity of the effect that life-style has on our health. I used to think, yes it has some influence, but now I can feel and see it right down to every little move we make. Thank you Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon!

412. In my experience an initial reaction to having cancer is a ‘why me’ feeling of powerlessness.
     What if, as Anne shares it is indeed a blessing in disguise that allows us to take stock, be honest with how we’ve already been feeling and make necessary changes that are truly loving.
     What if we begin to claim how powerful we are (when we don’t give it away) and live in a way that honours that.
     There is enough medical information in the world today that we know without doubt the harmful effects stress and anxiety, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, caffeine and sugar have on our amazing bodies.
     What if we begin to look at why we abuse ourselves in such accepted ways and what lays beneath our willingness to do so.

     1. Good point Julie, we do have the scientific evidence to prove that these substances harm us. It is time we took deep notice of this evidence and ask the bigger question, why on earth do we feel the need to poison ourselves? What is it that drives us to do such an un-natural thing?

413. It’s taken me a while to learn to work with my body. I had a problem with my eyes, they kept watering, quite profusely at times, which really affected my vision. I became very frustrated, saw a number of doctors, underwent a very unpleasant procedure, which helped for a while, then it just went back to how it was before. It was only when I stopped and felt into what it was that my body was trying to say to me that shortly afterwards all my symptoms went away. So easy to dismiss the wisdom and innate power we hold in our bodies. Our arrogant minds think they have all the answers.

414. Great writing Anne, It makes sense that we would be responsible for the ‘bad’ things as well if we are responsible for the ‘good’ things. It seems that we can definitely have a handle on our lives and experience what we need to as a result of how we are living and our lifestyle choices.

415. Anne, you have a way with words; to describe the way many people avoid any responsibility in their development of cancer is really eye opening. With a recent family member being diagnosed, avoiding any part in it at all, it’s a wonderful and evolutionary perspective on the subject.

416. I’ve also heard people refer to getting cancer with, it’s the luck of the draw, like were all in this big bowl and when your number’s pulled out well you get cancer… What !! This doesn’t even make sense, but how do we help others come to point where getting cancer can make sense for them?

417. I love how you have shared that everything is an opportunity to look deeply at ourselves. So much is being communicated to us all of the time in so many different ways.

418. It is so amazing in how far our body is assisting us in taking the right choices. You can try to evade them with your mind, as long as the illnesses that are coming up are not that grave, but at some point your body will clearly say “STOP”, be it through cancer or through anything else, that is confronting and limiting enough.
     This is indeed a blessing – like a natural emergency brake. There is so much love in there :o)

     1. Great point of truth Michael – “You can try to evade them with your mind, as long as the illnesses that are coming up are not that grave.” How much of this approach is actually applied to medical conditions? I would say from my experience in the past and observing the many people that I’m in contact with in my life – this is exactly how they approach it. Head in the sand, and if you’re really determined you put your head in the sand and bum up! This is not a helpful approach. It is understanding that is really needed to work through any illness.
        With head in sand, all that is needed is a bit of water (sympathy) and cement powder (why me?) and then you have cemented yourself in a hole.

        1. Sandra what you share here puts into context that we are first the ones that put our own head in the sand and then cement ourselves in. Learning to stop and take care of oneself even for “minor” issues is a big step as society, in my experience, views those that push through as being successful but as this article and the comments show the body offers us a great reflection if we choose to listen.

419. It can take some time to let go of old beliefs about illness – this was the case for me, that I believed illness was something that ‘happened’ to me or something to which I was a victim. It was when I had an eye condition many years ago and was told that it was manageable, not curable, but quite debilitating, that I felt it wasn’t a true way for me to live so I began to make lifestyle changes that supported me. In doing so, the symptoms dissipated which then evolved into a healing journey which thankfully culminated in hearing Serge Benhayon speak and my subsequent involvement with Universal Medicine. What I am coming to accept, is that all illness is a blessing for it brings a stop to ill behaviour and an opportunity to be more responsible for myself in my life which brings me more openness and joy.

420. I couldn’t agree more with your great observation Anne about how people tend to not consider ‘bad luck’ their own responsibility. I never believed in ‘luck’ in the first place, both good or bad, and always felt that we had a bigger play in what happens to us in our lives. You have shown how we can all really take things like severe illness as a huge sign that something has to change in our lives to be more loving with ourselves, which truly is a blessing if we can just listen to the signs instead of looking the other way and continuing on pushing through life. I know that now when I ignore even the smallest signs that I am pushing my body past what it wants to do, I tend to get almost instant feedback via various little accidents like running into something, dropping a pot, stubbing my toe, etc. that tell me something is off course with how I am living; just like your great example of the feeling you get in your leg, Anne.

421. thanks Anne for sharing Of your deepfelt experiences with cancer ! Me too recognize the STOPS ! And that its not AS much bad luck AS it is an eye opener ! … If We so choose to see it this way . By the way , not the way We are taught to see illness And dis-ease In Medical School . But now here is our chance ! – AS We learn through our own body to see it this way We also have an opportunity and responsibility to show our patients that there definitely is another way !

422. Great blog Anne, this is not a topic that is accepted by society as not many want to own up or look at how their life style has an affect on their body. I had been diagnosed with an illness about 12 years ago, and if I had kept going the way I did it would have meant a loss of a major organ or even cancer. It got me to stop and make the changes to bring me back to wellness. And my body gives me little reminders when I go off track. It is so simple, and needs to be shared.

     1. I agree Judith, and when you say…
        “and it delivers the answer as to how we can deal with our current health crisis”.
        Yes it does, and if only society were to truly listen then things would start to change. Unfortunately, I feel that we human beings like things to go beyond the crisis point before we start to look for answers. And it may be the case that many people aren’t ready – or willing – to look at themselves and take the responsibility that it COULD be their choices in life that cause illness and disease. It’s a totally different way of perceiving cancer and some may find it challenging, but the present system clearly isn’t working, so the more we bring this subject out into the open and into peoples’ awareness, the better.

423. What you suggest here Anne is a very challenging approach and really asks us to take responsibility for everything that happens to us in life; even for the incidences where we cannot so obviously connect the dots in what way they relate back to our choices. But usually if we allow ourselves to feel deeper into it, it unravels and we gain a deeper understanding of why things are happening to us.
     This is also a tremendously empowering approach and it delivers the answer as to how we can deal with our current health crisis.

424. It’s an interesting way to look at cancer or other illnesses Anne and a way that I feel does bring an honesty and responsibility to us. If it were true that illness and disease is a time to stop, look at how we’re living and make a change, then the rising number of people with cancer or other serious illnesses is then possibly an indication that the way we are living as a whole, as a society isn’t quite right. Food for thought.

     1. Indeed, Sandra it sure is “food for thought” with the increase in illness and disease rates worldwide – it is time we all look at the way we are living.

425. That is such a great offering, I hadn’t really considered how we decide what we say is good luck to have, and what we say is bad luck but it will stay with me now. Thank you Anne.

426. What a blessing your blog is, Anne, to start the conversation about what our bodies are communicating to us wordlessly through illnesses like cancer. It is inspirational that you had that perspective when you had the condition: true role modelling – no theorist here! Thank you!

427. “If we could see life that way, the diagnosis of cancer, or any other serious illness, could become an opportunity to look deeply at ourselves, at our lives, and to live in a way that was truly loving, caring and supporting of ourselves”. This change in understanding of disease and illness would totally change the diagnosis, delivery of the news, treatment process, and the after care that those many millions receive across the globe. That would be truly amazing to witness.

428. You’ve broken down a taboo here Anne. So often when people find out they have cancer or a similar disease, they fall into being the victim, usually totally affirmed by everyone around them. Asking this most poignant question, cutting through all the blame and guilt associated with this condition, and actually looking at the possibility that the cancer may be there for a reason is such a breakthrough.

     1. I totally agree Paul, Anne’s fabulous blog is a break through from the entrenched way of thinking about disease and especially cancer. I really loved how she realised it was a blessing from her body – a stop for her to re-evaluate how she had been living and treating herself and her body. It wasn’t something bad, or wrong that she had done that needed to be fixed – but a supportive message from her body that there was a more loving way for her to live. The beauty is our bodies always show us the truth of how we are living, they give us messages all the time. What I have learned too is that our bodies are super responsive to different choices we make that are more self caring – just as Anne’s body was for her.

429. I love the way you have expressed about taking responsibility, or not through the “bad luck” angle. We are quick to say that we have worked hard for something when something goes well and bad luck when something doesn’t go well. We do tend to generally think that illness and disease is random, that it can drop out of the sky like something unexpected, but through your blog you bring awareness that it could be our choices that affect our health and this is what we need to pay attention to.

430. It is a blessing reading your blog Anne – I love it.
     I had a major wake up call and ‘It was a call to make the changes that deep down, I knew I had to make’. You really have summed it up Anne.
     I knew I had to make changes as my life was spinning out of control and I was exhausted beyond words. It was a blessing looking back today but at the time it was a gross inconvenience and I found it boring and painful to be ill for so long.
     I would say that cancer or any other illness or disease is not a curse but our body giving us a strong and clear message that we need to stop and deal with this as our choices got us there. Blaming external factors means there is no responsibility. Its like saying it just happens and you are unlucky. I don’t buy that one anymore as I have chosen to take responsibility for ALL the choices I make everyday and the good news is I have not needed the GP in 6 years and that’s pretty amazing if you knew what a burden I was on our medical system.

431. Great article Anne – So true if we could see what happens to us whether it be an illness or a disease, an event or simply knocking our leg as a sign that we are out of harmony and one that is asking us to stop and re-connect to ourselves then the changes we would see would be huge. No longer would we ignore all the signs our bodies are telling us until it is too late, or we are far too stressed. I hear soo many people speaking of regret wishing they had made better choices, perhaps if simply listening to the little niggles would have been all it would have taken to live a life full of love. I know for me the more I listen to what my body is saying to me the more harmonious my life becomes!

432. I like the picture you suggest that my illness is like a good friend that takes me to the side and says: look, you’ve lost your way. Illness is nothing we have to fight against – it’s a lovely advice that I did put something in me that I now have to get rid of. To get rid of the consequences of our choices, Western Medicine is a great Supporter. And to find out why it was necessary to bring this message and to get rid of the underlying issues (and choices), Universal Medicine is the excellent Partner.

     1. Well put Sandra, seeing illness and disease as a positive messenger is a new concept, but when we are prepared to listen, they both bring valuable messages. And we are blessed with two very distinctive and extremely compatible assistants to help us respond to the messengers and find a new way to live our lives, a way that ensures the body does not have to send too many messengers to our door.

433. Very empowering thank you Anne, seeing cancer as a blessing, a message from our body and the choices as to how we have been living is a very different way to the bad luck presentation out there. It is great to have it seen for what it really is and makes living lovingly with our bodies so clearly important for everyone and a gift to ourselves.
     Beautiful sharing and so much more than good luck.

434. A lovely and wise blog Anne. As you say we are so willing to take credit for the ‘good’ in our life but not so willing to see the ‘bad’ in the same light. I know this is how I have lived life and have only recently begun to see pain and illness as a blessing. We put our body under so much stress and pressure it is no small wonder that it complains! It is only in my later life that I have come to appreciate what my body is telling me, and to take notice – and still I am learning.

435. What a profoundly beautiful and non judgmental offering you ‘ve shared with us all Anne, thank you.

436. I saw an ad the other day that said ‘help us find a cure for cancer’ but with what we are learning and you are a prime example, Anne, would our life have cancer in it if we eliminated what we did in life to cause it! How long has it taken for a large portion of the world not to smoke? There is the need for medicine to treat the things that we have allowed to form in our bodies because of our life choices. If cancer is because of our choices and we admit our part… is that not the true cure for cancer?

437. It is a great point you make Anne about the belief of bad luck where cancer is concerned. I grew up with a parent who was very fearful of getting cancer and considered it back luck to even talk about it just in case – but in the end cancer was written as the cause of death.

438. It is so great that your own body tells you when you ‘start to walk in the old way’. What a fabulous marker for knowing and feeling how it used to be, how you used to live and where that got you. What a celebration that you are now walking in a new way and cancer free.

439. I had never really thought about how we take credit for our luck when it appears to be good, and not so when it is perceived as being bad. Thank you Anne for expressing it in such a way. It gave me a bit of a giggle to see how we twist things around to not see things as they are, relinquishing the need to take responsibility. It is such an obvious thing that we all do all the time without really thinking about it. I wonder how many other seemingly ‘innocent’ things we say to keep us from seeing the truth of a matter.

440. Anne, I love your blog and the responsibility you took to evaluate your life and make loving choices that healed and supported your body. I know in my own life when I see something as ‘bad luck’ it is because I was not willing to take responsibility and see the choices that lead me there. Much more loving and empowering when we see these challenges as an’ opportunity to come back to me, to who I truly am.’ Beautifully said.

441. Anne, I totally get what you share here about your body bringing you back when you are ‘out’. In my case, I usually feel it whenever I am being less than loving with myself – when I have stepped out and away from my womanly body to ‘do’ or be more. Our bodies are remarkable and tell us all we need to know. Imagine learning this from kindergarten – and living it.

442. It is so awesome Anne to hear this wide-lens take on illness and cancer from a medical practitioner. You present such a turn-around from experiencing an illness as a victim and instead empowering us in the way we handle what our body is clearing, and how we appreciate this ‘stop’ point that the body offers.
     I especially love your opening analogy about ‘good luck’ and ‘bad luck’. As you say, we are quick to point out our new job has nothing to do with luck but what we contributed towards landing it,’Yet, when something “bad” happens, like a diagnosis of cancer, we are not so quick to take the credit for it! We are very willing to call it “bad luck.”‘ Awesome point Anne.
     And once we take responsibility for our lives and our bodies we begin to become a master of life, not at the mercy of what we imagine life is doling out to us.

     1. Well said Lyndy, I too loved Anne’s analogy of good luck and bad luck and have chosen this way to look at my life in the past. This perpetuates a victim mentality and keeps you very stuck indeed. By building a relationship with our self and our bodies we naturally become lovingly responsible for our lives. This feels like true freedom to me.

443. Very empowering to see the light of illness in this way Anne, thank you. To truly learn from our choices and take back responsibility, in acceptance and not in reaction, and to deeply appreciate and accept the wisdom of the body, what an inspiration for humanity.

444. Thanks Anne for raising the point that luck, be it good or bad, are in fact about choices. Cancer or any illness can have a significant effect on a person. The opportunity to re-evaluate the way they have been living and the choices that have been making is a blessing and a healing. Having this awakening and realisation without a diagnosis is the challenge, as this can bring the possibility of diverting a major illness when we live with more nurturing, self loving choices.

445. Anne so relate to ‘nothing to see here’ and the call to be gentle and tender as a normal every day way to be is something my body is longing for and when I live from drive and hardness my body lets me know loud and clear – stop, stop right now! What an amazing gift our bodies are when we are willing to listen.

446. This is a beautiful article Anne, with lots to ponder on. I feel like saying that cancer is just ‘bad luck’ is not only insulting to those diagnosed and to medical professionals and health workers looking to assist those wishing to make changes and take responsibility for their health, but also insensitive to those diagnosed – I feel that telling someone that they’ve just had ‘bad luck’ when it comes to something as serious and life altering as a diagnosis of cancer does not do the individual justice or allow, as you’ve so beautifully explained, for personal reflection, growth and change.

447. I have also learned that the symptoms presenting in my body are my body’s way of telling me that I have been making some unloving choices for myself and I have come to welcome the signs given to me so I can take responsibility and change. It feels wonderfully freeing to not be afraid of what is happening in my body, and know that I can take charge, and together, it and I, can start to heal.

448. Some people do indeed see cancer as a blessing, if not at first during the shock period, then at least later when they’ve had time to reflect on their life and choices. Have you noticed that often the people MOST shocked and emotionally distraught about cancer are not the patients but the family and friends? Fear of loss…. The loved ones fear losing a person in their life, but the person with cancer can celebrate ‘losing’ that “something that does not belong to it, that should not be there”. Lovely blog, Anne.

449. Anne, what you have written is so true, that we accept the good as our doing but the bad we don’t want to take responsibility for and we put it down to bad luck or fate.

450. I have not had cancer, but I can relate to what is discussed here. I have come to appreciate the wake up calls that life brings me. At first I was only able to own up to the fact that what I was facing was the outcome of something I ‘knew’ deep down was not right and had ignored, if it related to something physical like my boiler breaking down or someone letting me down. But slowly I have become aware of the same pattern with the signs that my body provides through aches and pains as well as illness and disease – all of it is directly connected to how I have been living – it is either a wake up call for me to change a harming way or if I have already made the change it is clearing itself of the previous harm – either way it is a blessing.

451. Anne, what you have written is so true how we accept the good and do not take responsibility for the bad, I had not appreciated this before.

452. Awesome blog Anne , to stand and be responsible for how we live and the energy we expect our body to live in is all empowering. To see the body as not keeping us in struggle but actually reflecting a way free from struggle and pain is a divine way to live.

453. It is a huge inspiration that a trained surgeon can talk like this – unconfined by the ‘flat-earth’ perspective that sees many professionals put the blinkers on when it comes to illness and disease and refuse to see the bigger energetic picture. Thank you Anne for a great blog.

     1. Thanks Rebecca, I love your ‘flat-earth’ reference, as it is indeed quite remarkable that the medical profession in general and psychologists too still see illness and disease as something that happens to you, rather than something you are responsible for. Anne certainly breaks the mould here once and for all.

     2. I agree Rebecca, that a trained surgeon can be so honest in this way is quite liberating for patients and the medical profession alike. Anne presents illness and disease in a way that makes a lot of sense and there is much to ponder on.

     3. I agree Rebecca so inspiring to hear a trained surgeon breaking the mould, widening the perspective of illness and disease and empowering the individual to realise that they themselves hold the key to their health and well-being. It seems absurd that it would be any other way.

454. Very true Anne you presented this very well. Putting cancer into the bad luck category has no responsibility attached to it. It is a very simple way of looking at cancer and is it possible that cancer helps us to learn and grow?

455. As people, we are generally very wishy washy when it comes to taking responsibility for our health, as you say, changing the story to suit our needs.

456. Gosh Anne, what an amazing blog with an amazing message. What an eye opener that we like to take credit for the ‘good’ and not for the ‘bad’ that happens to us. I just loved to read this because it is true.

457. Thank you Anne, for sharing a different perspective on cancer. Considering that cancer is on the increase, and the medical profession are still trying to come up with a cure, maybe it IS time to look at ourselves and the choices that we make with regard to ALL illness and disease.

458. Thanks Anne, it’s really great to hear your experience of how the cancer diagnosis was a stop and an opportunity to enrich your life and make it more loving through taking more responsibility for yourself. Responsibility can seem like such a weighted word but you’ve shown how it’s actually about just connecting deeper with ourselves and living what genuinely feels true to us. Thanks for sharing this.

459. Thank you Anne for your tender, honest sharing. It allows me to consider more deeply and appreciate the messages our body are continually sending us, if we want to stop, listen and take responsibility.

460. Cancer is the big one……..it is the one that asks us what kind of life have we been living and what kind of life do we wish we had been living. It is the one that can take what we may believe is all there is, to consider all that is possible. Why wait? Why not choose to have it all now? To be all that you are now and to love yourself and others honestly. As you have stated Anne, cancer brings one to a complete ‘stop’ and then living really begins.

461. Beautiful Anne. I have not had cancer but in my experience with those who have, there is often a lack of willingness to look at the responsibility of it. It is so much easier to leave it in the luck category as then one is not responsible. What a huge opportunity that is missed when this happens. And as Simone says, we don’t need to only apply this to cancer. We can apply this level responsibility to all area of our lives. It takes a real honesty with ourselves that can be extremely challenging.

462. very beautiful Anne and i love the simplicity in which you call upon taking responsibility for everything in our lives, not only what we deem an accomplishment. Our body is not the enemy and it is in communication with us all the time, sometimes it takes a big stop to remind us if this and to start listening again.

463. Thanks Anne, and I couldn’t agree more about the opportunity it represents. I love your point about good luck and bad luck… we are so quick to take the applause, but not so when it comes to looking deeply at mistakes we have made, even when our body is speaking ‘louder than words’.

464. Thank you for your beautiful expression Anne. I have found that by making more self-loving choices, without perfection, my health has improved immensely. Now if I get sick I am open to stopping and reflecting on how I have been living that has contributed to my body having to clear and heal my choices.

465. Thank you, Anne. You write so simply and yet wrap the whole subject of cancer up in a profound understanding of the nature of illness, based on your lived experience. This article is a blessing and a stop point for us all.

466. Hello Anne, thank you for starting to turn this one around. So many people now have been touched by cancer in some way. It is interesting as you say that we are willing to own the ‘good lucks’ but not so willing to own the ‘bad lucks’. I guess we have a fear of dying which I understand and so that maybe stops us from really looking at things like cancer. It seems to be almost a taboo subject ‘cancer’ and so if someone you know has it you don’t really tell them what you are feeling. You wrap them in cotton wool and hope for the best. I remember when my mother had cancer people including me tried to do everything for her. While this is great support and she needed that, I knew I wasn’t really being myself with her, I was scared of her dying and so it was almost like I would do anything to not let that happen. There is more responsibility we can bring to this as you say and we can look at these types of illness and diseases in a different light. This is possibly the first part, not actually getting the illness or disease but responsibly looking at why as people we get them in the first place. Not from a prevention point of view but accepting that if we live or have lived in a certain way then things like cancer are a part of that living. Not to wipe us out but to let us know that the way we are living isn’t ‘the way’ and to bring us back to another way. A true way as you have shown.

467. Thank you Anne. What happens to us in life is so often posed as ‘luck of the draw’ and doesn’t give us the opportunity to take charge of our own situation, health and well being. As you so beautifully describe, giving power back to ourselves in this way gives us the ability to respond to what our body is truly telling us.

468. Anne, thank you so much for writing this blog and sharing your experiences in such an open and beautiful way.

     All illness or disease, such as cancer, will often come with deep psychological challenges that do not only impact us as individuals but also our loving friends and family around us. Your sharing and the questions you have posed are indeed extremely valuable. Your sharing, in particular, and the gentle and expressive way you have raised the question around whether a blessing is being offered, are remarkably beautiful and an inspirational example to others that life is there to be embraced and lived in a loving way, that is indeed, caring and supportive of our body.

469. Anne you present this so simply which is great, how easy is it to claim the good things are as more than just “good luck” yet there are very few people who I’ve met that have claimed their role in getting cancer or any other illness or disease. If it’s not the genetics then it’s bad lack – as you say where do we fit into that and all the choices we make in every day on how we are living.

470. The way you talk about your own experience Anne, and the fact that you are now free from the cancer, really does start to show that there is another way to be with illness and disease. That it is not something to ‘fight’ but something to learn from that can bring us greater health and responsibility in the choices we make for ourselves.

471. The study you reference, Anne, seems to be a not-so-helpful way of thinking about cancer, and one that breeds irresponsibility and a ‘giving away of your power to supposed “Fate” kind of attitude – or this is at least true of the interpretation which the study has been laced with.

     Could it be that the factors behind cancer seemingly attributed to ‘bad luck’ are not bad luck at all, but are rather also part of the ‘environmental factors or inherited predispositions’ which lead to cancer? Only, what is at this time accepted as ‘fact’ by the scientific community will not allow for a contemplation that ‘random mutations’ may in fact not be random at all, but rather directly related to and determined by the choices made by the individual cancer patient?

     The study plays to the current limitations of scientific ‘knowledge’ in order to breed ignorance amongst people about the true causes of cancer, and to obscure the far more reason-adhered-to explanation that all illness and disease results from choices that the individual sufferer themselves have made.

     For, as Einstein said, ‘God does not play dice with the world’.

472. I love your conclusion, Anne – cancer could easily be seen as a blessing no longer in disguise. How valuable a ‘stop’ it has been for you is evident in the way you’ve written this blog with such a humble heart. Thank you for the blessing I received in having read it.

473. To hear cancer described as something to battle or to fight never feels true. This makes more sense that any illness is not a curse but an encounter that stops the way we have been living and allows us the opportunity to heal where before we have harmed.

474. Anne, great blog you’ve beautifully highlighted awareness and what we know. We’re often very ready to claim that good luck but not the bad, which doesn’t make sense (it’s either that we’re responsible or not – it can’t be both!). But both can be a blessing if we allow it, and become honest with ourselves about what is truly going on and what is needed. And we know deep down what that is but sometimes we need loving reminders and I love how you’ve embraced yours. Thanks for reminding me.

475. Anne Malatt – this is a great blog. I love the way you call in the responsibility factor. When you put it like this it makes no-sense to take the credit for the good things that happen in life and disassociate ourselves from those not so good things. Thank you for the reminder that we have a part to play in it all and looking at our lives from that perspective and making changes as you have, clearly can bring about enormous healing.

476. So simply and beautifully shared. I have not had cancer, but do look at everything in my life now as an opportunity to stop or pause and consider what is really going on. It is definitely not always easy, it can actually be quite a challenge being that honest with yourself. But, it is worth it to live in a body that is truly vital and that tells us when things are not quite right.

477. Thank-you Anne. I appreciate how you have used your own experience with cancer to show in a profound way that there is another way of looking at illness. I have found that even a relatively minor health condition is an opportunity to stop and ask myself, “How did I get here?” “What is my body telling me?”

478. Thank you Anne. I love the refreshing honesty of this blog. I also love how you have pointed out that we are quick to take the credit when things go well but not so quick when they don’t. It makes total sense that how we live and the choices we make each day impact our bodies either positively or negatively.

479. I love this blog as it calls out the irresponsibility we live in when we call something ‘bad luck’. Taking responsibility for our health and well-being is part of the healing and a deeply healing process it is. Thank you Anne for sharing your experience with this, as you are a living testimony of how illness and disease is in fact a blessing and an opportunity to make changes in our way of living. Very inspirational.

480. It’s pretty cool how our bodies talk to us and in your case Anne how your leg communicates with you and offers you an opportunity to walk in a new way.

481. Thank you for sharing your experience Anne, I have observed the way cancer can change people for better or worse depending on how much responsibility they are willing to take. In my own life I have come to accept that the symptoms that show up in my body are a result of my choices. Even a pimple can be a blessing if I allow it to be.

482. Great question to pose Anne. Love how you say we are willing to take the credit for the good things that happen to us but not those we perceive as bad. It’s so true.

483. Thank you Anne for gently raising our awareness to considering our part/responsibility of an illness – cancer in this case, as being something we have contributed to creating. I don’t feel that ‘life is a mixed bag of selective pot luck’.

484. Thank you for your blog, Anne, which is an awesome reminder that “the body is the marker of truth” and if we stop, feel and listen, we would live more in harmony with the body instead of overriding our body with our minds. There is no such thing as luck, – only c h o i c e s. Choices. Every moment.

485. Great point Anne that when good things happen we act as if we have earnt it or worked for it and even if it seems lucky we say we deserve it. However when there are things that happen that we don’t like or things in our life they we do not like, we say that it is all out of our control and that these things just happen to us and we have no part in it. It does not make sense to have these 2 contradictory and separate versions of life running simultaneously!

     1. No it does not make sense to have the two run simultaneously. And I have found that whenever I have chosen to suspend disbelief and consider how I may have personally contributed to the situation, I have come to great insights and have been empowered in my life. This has been equally powerful whether the situation seemed good or bad.

486. Very much like the “So, is it luck, or is it not? Are we responsible, or are we not?” – We should be consistent, aren’t we? If it’s luck or bad luck then it has nothing to do with us and we can’t take the credit for the beautiful things that happen in our life. If we are responsible for all, then we can appreciate ourselves and celebrate how great we are and act. All the beautiful people, things and situations in our life are then because of our choices, they are our responsibility. That’s wonderful. And if I am responsible for my illness and disease, then it’s also me who can make it different. This is empowering ourselves.

487. Thank you Anne, I feel you are right, cancer is the body’s way of saying that something is not right and that the body doesn’t want it there. I love your point about luck; if it is good luck we feel we deserve it, but if it is bad luck we wonder why the world is against us. We can’t have it both ways, if we have acted in a way to deserve the good luck then it is only fair to look at how we have acted in a way to ‘deserve’ the bad luck.

488. Cancer as ‘the cure’ and not ‘the curse’…?! There is much to consider in your wise evaluation of what you felt your experience with cancer offered you Anne. I have heard many others speak of similar, empowering experiences with this disease. How radical to stop, even for a brief moment and consider that cancer could actually be the ‘good guy’ and not the ‘bad guy’ and that in it lies an offering, a blessing of making choices that bring us back to love. Very inspiring – thankyou

489. Taking responsibility for cancer or any serious illness, is a huge step to make. And then to even see the illness as a blessing or a gift and be able to stop and appreciate ourselves in a different way, is another massive step. But perhaps it is the fact that we are all deserving of lives which are full and loving that is the reason why we have these steps presented to us?

490. Awesome blog Anne.
     I can certainly relate to your sharing for I too had been diagnosed with cancer and for me I see it as a blessing in disguise.
     At first I had the treatments, operations and everything that was needed. However being young I didn’t truly understand or appreciate how lucky I was. As I got older and my treatment ceased and it was just regular check ups, my partner and I decided to start a family. It was not until this point I truly began to feel all that my body had shared with me. An opportunity to stop, feel how the way I was living was impacting on my body and how the choices I made to live with more love and acceptance of self had supported me to heal and become cancer free.
     Going on to have 3 beautiful children and amazing pregnancies and births.
     Thank you Universal Medicine for sharing with me and humanity that there is another way.
     With the help and support of Universal Medicine and western medicine my life is very different to how it could have been.

491. I feel any illness is a blessing, it forces a stop in our busy life, especially when we have ignored the warnings our body has given us. It forces us to reflect at where we are at and how have we been living. At this point we still have a choice to heal or ignore. We are given so many chances from our body to heal our body. What I have understood through my own experience and the teachings of Ageless wisdom is to stop and listen to my body, as “it is the marker of all truths”. Continuous work in progress.

492. Anne -thank you for sharing this. It is amazing how many “stops” our body offers us. With the little “stops” we often tend to override these and carry on but with cancer – the very word shocks us into doing something. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we looked at how we were truly living after the little “stops” and make more loving choices. Would it be possible to reduce the incidence of cancer in this way because we have already made self loving choices and our body does not need to discard so much of the disharmonious energies.

493. Thanks Anne, for your sharing and your beautiful questions. What if an illness or a disease is what you suggest: a way for our body to let us know it can’t cope with the choices we made. So many opportunities for growth, insights and wisdom get the space to be there for us if we allow ourselves to consider this as a possiblity.

494. Anne this is a great blog. It exposes beliefs we have about illness and disease being ‘bad luck’ and the understanding of how our choices through life can result in dis-ease (disharmony) to our body and the opportunity to make different choices to be more aware of our body and responsible for lifestyle changes that are being called for by the disharmony in the body.

495. Anne this has been so beautifully expressed. I have also had cancer and while I needed to come to terms with the initial shock – the shock is what I needed to change the way in which I was living. I was in a momentum that kept me hard, arrogant and numb. I was not a big drinker, nor did I take drugs, smoke or party all night; however, I was in complete illusion that all was well in my World. I was not truly taking care of myself (far less truly loving myself and others) and the level of disregard I was allowing was debilitating. For me this was an eye opener and with honesty and openness I started to truly heal this. As a woman I can appreciate so much more of my own beauty, tenderness and my strength. I am forever learning and deepening my love and self worth… and that… IS something I can Trust!!

496. Thank you Anne, I have just recently found out that my father has bowel cancer and it has been an amazing gift – not only for him but also for the whole family. In speaking to my mother today she shared how she barely recognises my father. He has changed so much as she described the gentleness in his eyes, his gentle way of being and the sensitivity that is being shown. He is completely surrendering back into himself. This is my real father, a man of such tenderness and light. What I have learnt from him as he begins to depart this world is the fragility of human life and the truly divine essence of who we are and where we come from. Life is precious, we are precious and thus we have a choice to live the gift and essence of who we are regardless if we have an illness or not.

     1. A beautiful learning Marcia, and how wonderful your father is approaching his illness with such grace. I, too have walked with friends who have terminal cancer and witnessed the most amazing transformations as they faced death. As you say the divine essence becomes most evident, and it has always struck me as ironic that in many instances we have to wait until we have the death sentence before we embrace and live from our essence. There’s nothing like impending death to bring us to truth.

497. Beautiful Anne, it is so true. We quickly jump to claim ‘good luck’ and can’t wait to disown that luck when it apparently changes its tune. Our body does have this incredible ability to cleanse itself of everything that does not belong to it, which we experience as ill health. It is truly inspiring to hear how you respond to the messages your body sends you post cancer, the little reminders not to return to those old choices that lead it to having to clear malignant or mal-aligned energy from itself in the first place. Growing up and living in our bodies is our most fundamental relationship. It is very inspiring to hear how you are now honouring and nurturing that relationship, putting it first and foremost, there is much to be learnt from your example.

498. thank you for sharing this Anne. It is one thing for a non-cancer patient to say that cancer (and other illnesses) is a result of a lifestyle choices and a completely different one when it is from a cancer patient. It is also inspiring to hear how, in fact, it can be a blessing to bring one to the awareness of those choices and to change them.

     1. So beautifully said Jonathan…

     2. Absolutely Jonathan, when self responsibility comes from someone who is suffering from cancer or who has had cancer, it is inspiring.

499. It’s like cancer has come out of the closet – always a huge shock but no longer the enemy; an opportunity to stop, deeply reflect and make the changes that need to be made, and persist and further develop and fine tune them rather than abandon the insights and the learning the moment we have the ‘all clear’.

500. It is interesting what you say here Anne, many cancers have been shown to be life style choices such as lung cancer or liver cancer and this goes for most illnesses and diseases. Using the word ‘bad luck’ when we are sick caps us from taking responsibility for our illness, it does not ask us to look deeper into how we are living and the choices we make that led to getting cancer.

501. I enjoyed reading your article and the questions you have posed.
     “….Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things? ” This point, turns our lack of responsibility and beliefs about illness on it’s head. Very exposing indeed.

     1. I agree completely Michelle. I can’t say I know what it is like to have cancer but last year I had a car accident that has damaged my back. I’m in pain all day every day and there have been moments where it has been easy to feel sorry for myself. However, the thing that I feel has come out of this is that I have an opportunity to connect with my body all of the time because the pain makes me do this. I’ve lived in a racy nervous way most of my life but my back pain has made me slow down … right down .. and to take great care with all that I do. Thank you Anne for sharing this blog and for your insight.

502. A great sharing Anne, thank you for opening up and expanding on this topic and what you have come to feel from your own experience. A great question to ask and a great opportunity for self responsibility towards true healing. The body has a way of letting us know when we are going against our flow and taking the time to build that relationship and listen to the signs along the way is a huge support to our health and well being.

503. How can we only be responsible for the good things that happen to us and not the bad….? This is a great question. Life doesn’t work like this, nor does responsibility. It seems that when things like a disease or illness happen to us, we want to point our finger outside and blame anything or anyone outside of ourselves. But why? How powerful is it if we take full responsibility for also the ‘bad’ things and see that we have a choice in every moment. Then the ‘bad’ things are not that bad after all, but something that we can learn from and grow from. Nothing happens without a reason. Thank you Anne, for sharing this, in a time where there is much disease and illness, that it is time to ask: what is going on?

504. Thank you Anne. What you have written just makes sense. If we charge through life without looking how or where we are going and have an accident, we have to stop and accept that we are responsible. It is the same for illness and disease as much as it is for a broken bone if we live recklessly.

505. Good question Anne, is cancer bad luck or a blessing in disguise?
     Indeed we tend to take the credits when we are ‘lucky’ but do this not to ‘bad luck’ although this should be the same. It is interesting to question this way of behaviour. Does luck exist or not? According to definitions given on the internet ‘luck’ is defined as “a succes or failure brought by chance rather than through its own actions” so following this definition we do not have any influence on luck or bad luck. But what is true in this? Since everything is energy and everything is because of energy, what then is the energy behind luck and what is our responsibility in this? So to me it makes clear that we tend to use this kind of reasoning when we are not willing to take responsibility for our own choices in life, that everything that is happening to us does say anything about the way we live, and that the choices we make in life have an effect on our physical wellbeing.

     Therefore I appreciate your approach to investigate how people feel about getting cancer, what does it actually bring to their lives and how do they perceive it. I can feel that people can value the diagnosis of getting cancer as a blessing, because it gives them the opportunity to stop and to connect to the true value of life, to the richness and love it actually is, regardless of their physical health. So looking to illness and disease from this perspective we could value it as a blessing, as it provides us a way to reconnect back to the beautiful loving people we actually are. For me luck does not exist in this equation any more, it has all to do with taking my own responsibility in life for all the choices I have made.

506. Thank you Anne for sharing your experience. If we were prepared to see a diagnosis of cancer from this broader perspective, where we take responsibility for our part in it, it can be a deeply healing time. Even if there is no ‘cure’ as an outcome, a diagnosis can show us much, that is if we are honest and willing to consider the effects our choices and lifestyle have on our bodies. The ‘bad luck’ or seeing oneself as a victim has no room here, and it actually can be a very empowering time. It is the body’s way of assisting us to return to harmony through clearing what does not naturally belong. I very much appreciate the wisdom of my body.

507. That is an amazing blog Anne and it reveals something astonishing. Your questions: “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?” are something we have to ponder on deeply. It can help us to get more of an understanding why the rates of illness and diseases are so high and it can help the person who gets such a diagnosis as you describe so powerfully in your blog.

508. Totally Anne, I agree it is a blessing that it brings such a wake up call – however it is unfortunate that we tend to not listen to the smaller messages that our body gives us. As I watch friends going through their experiences with cancer, I see the blessings and the realisation that they humbly come to.

509. I’ve seen so many people have a ‘wake up call’ to all forms of illness, it’s like they only just start to appreciate everything in their life then, because of the thought of losing it. What if we lived life every day with full appreciation, because we can, not because of fear of losing it.

510. I love the question you raise Anne, “So is it luck or is it not? Are we responsible or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the good things and not the bad things?” After all life isn’t really a lottery and illness and disease aren’t in the luck of the draw.

511. Thank you for sharing your experience, Anne. This is so powerful. Our body is so amazingly, magically designed to function without us being aware of it all the time – we breathe and our heart beats without us telling it to, and how the body is able to discard what doesn’t belong through illness and disease is equally magical and divine, and ‘taking responsibilities instead of being an unlucky victim’ – is more easily said than done. Very inspiring. Thank you, Anne.

512. “A blessing no longer in disguise”, love this Anne! Speaking so openly instead of so undercover about illnesses such as cancer, I feel will allow it to become more of an open subject, and one in which we can openly discuss why we got the disease, and what we can do in regards its course towards our ultimate healing. Seeing that the illness is removing something that does not naturally belong in the body and that it is removing it because it is returning the body back to it natural stasis of balance, although big news, equally feels inspiring and empowering.

513. Wow Anne, you’ve hit the nail on the head! When something ‘good’ happens we take the credit of it, but when something ‘bad’ happens we call it bad luck and don’t take the credit. As you say, ” … how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?”
     As I am learning more and more from the Universal Meditation presentations and from my own experiences now that I am aware of it, the way I live and the choices I make have a huge effect on my quality of life and my health.

514. Anne I agree with your proposition that illness is a warning signal to make different choices in life. I have not suffered cancer but have noticed that even with seemingly minor conditions the body is telling me something. For example, I would always be getting cold sores, especially when my stress levels increased, and inevitably before a ‘special event’. Now I seldom break out with a cold sore, less than once a year, but when I do, for me it is a big STOP to look at the choices I have been making.

515. To see cancer as a blessing and not even in disguise might seem like a stretch – but inside (and maybe not even that deep down really ) I do know that all the ‘bad luck’ that I have so keenly wanted to blame on something/anything I can quite simply accept as a way of restoring balance that is offering me the freedom of my own responsibility. The only step I need to take is to have the will to truly be a student, open to learning – everything after that becomes a graceful lesson, just like this gorgeous blog!

516. Indeed Anne!! We are very quick to take responsibility for our “good luck” and equally as quick to avoid taking any responsibility for our “bad luck”. How would it look if we took responsibility for our entire life, every aspect of it, the “good” and the “bad”? Now that is a level of responsibility that few are willing to take.

517. There is a propensity to not be responsible for our choices and seek blame in something around and outside of ourselves. It is no different to being punched in a bar or nightclub even though you did nothing wrong, but the fact is you are responsible because you put yourself in a place where people are heavily drinking and taking drugs and have a tendency to become violent.

518. Absolutely agree Anne…that illness & disease comes FROM us, not TO us from the mysterious ether of ‘Bad luck’. I don’t need scientific proof as my body clearly tells me that my daily lifestyle choices affect the quality of vitality & health in my body. However It is great to see that the science of Epigenetics is showing the correlation between lifestyle choices and disease.

     I love how you make the analogy of how easily we take credit for the ‘good’ things that happen in our lives because of the choices that we personally make, but that many do not take an equal responsibility for the things that aren’t so great. We are often so quick to blame others for the ‘bad’ things in our life…it’s the radiation, the chemicals, the this, the that…the list is endless & I have heard some ridiculous things over the years. I remember when I had issues with my adrenals I chased my tail looking for all sorts of reasons as to why…when all along the answer was so simple, it was the way I was choosing to live.

     It is those challenging corners of our life where the gold is awaiting to be found – therein lies the choice to either continue down the same road in our old rigid patterns, or to stop and re-evaluate and consider our responsibility. Many that I know of who have paid attention to the stop offered, and turned the corner taking responsibility for their choices and their life, have most certainly found their pot of gold and are evolving in leaps and bounds. They have done this because they have seen the blessing that is being offered and the understanding that it is just a choice to turn the corner and walk down a different road.

519. It is powerful Anne how the very idea of ‘luck’ you highlight, lets us think and believe that things happen by accident and that we have no part to play. If we consider illness and disease are in fact not a coincidence but a sign back to us that the way we are living is not healthy – then what a system and body we have. Completely designed for harmony. We are indeed super fortunate, when you consider it this way.

520. This is so true what you say, if someone is ill we mainly are either sympathetic or see it as ‘bad luck’. I am with you in that we really need to see it as an opportunity and has happened because of how we have been living and that we can now make loving changes in the way we live.

521. Anne a truly thought provoking and fresh approach to a cancer diagnosis.
     This is an understanding that one of close family members with cancer came to with their diagnosis. Although it was a difficult connection to make, they knew there was a truth in it and it gave the opportunity to connect to what was truly important in their life.

522. Great blog Anne, thank you. Yes, by nature we are naturally harmonious people, and I agree with what you propose here that “ if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?”
     As what is not harmonious has to somehow come out of the body. This is a great approach to dealing with a diagnosis as it offers the opportunity to look at our choices and way we have been living. Certainly a process of true healing.

523. I love your blog Anne. I have not had cancer but can relate to this in my life. It is so true that we are happy to take responsibility for the ‘good things’ & would rather blame others or paint ourselves as unlucky when we get sick or feel tension. Every time I am in pain or feel exhausted, I am able to stop & look at how I have been that day, week, or month, etc. I have a marker that allows me to choose between going into the ‘why me?’, or to address the hard & busy way I have been living – an opportunity to go ahead in gentleness, with self-love & care. Illness & disease are truly a blessing.

     1. For me too Carmin; exhaustion is an excellent way to tell whether I’ve been looking after myself or disregarding my body.

524. I love this question Anne it leaves us nowhere to go than to look with honesty at the choices we have made: “So, is it luck, or is it not? Are we responsible, or are we not? And if we are, how can we be responsible for the ‘good’ things, and not the ‘bad’ things?” You took this chance to look more deeply and find a more loving way.

     1. Anne, I agree with Rosanna you have brought forwards questions about cancer and potentially all disease in a thought provoking and gentle way. Putting forwards the question that cancer may have been in part attributed to by lifestyle choices, behaviours and attitudes does not seem like such a big leap, some might even agree and say that it just makes sense. This topic more widely discussed might generate controversy and uproar for some and it might confront others although here it does not as it has been written with love.

525. I love your take on this topic. Your words show just how illogical it is to say ‘but we worked hard’ for that new promotion, job etc rather than accept it as good luck and then not see that the reverse also applies as well – ‘we worked hard’ for this illness, disease etc rather than accept it as bad luck. This concept of it being bad luck to become ill is a great example of the vagaries of the human condition most have been brought up to believe. How awesome now to have this article blow the lid off and expose just how lacking in logic this way of thinking is.

526. What an awesome blog Anne! I had not previously looked at the way we talk about ‘luck’ in this way, and that we often differentiate between some of our choices being ‘good’ luck and other choices being ‘bad’ luck when in truth they are ‘all’ of our choices regardless. So would it therefore not be possible to consider that instead of labeling certain things in our life as ‘good or bad’ luck, that it could instead be as a result of our ‘supportive’ or perhaps ‘ not so supportive’ choices? In this possibility, we also have the opportunity to consider the responsibility for our choices, and to know that we are always given the opportunity to choose again (or differently as the case may be) in every moment. Great reflection! Great Blog!

     1. Very well said Angela; we ALWAYS have the opportunity to choose what is ‘supportive’ or ‘unsupportive’ for us… And even when we choose the latter we are presented time and time again with the same choice.

527. Hi Anne -It rang a recognizable chord within me more than once in your article -and yes I agree that ‘luck’ as such has nothing much really to do with our experiences, whether they are seen to be of ‘good luck/lucky’ or ‘bad luck/unlucky’. To quote some of your words ‘serious illness could become an opportunity to look deeply at ourselves, at our lives and to live in a way that was truly loving, caring and supporting of ourselves.” It seems that we often bring about that ‘wake-up call’ our selves as a result of not listening to our true senses – the antennae of the whole body. I appreciate that this awareness has deepened within me as a result of attending the Universal Medicine presentations of Serge Benhayon.

528. Thank you Anne, for this gentle and deeply insightful blog … I especially liked the sentences:
     “What if cancer were not a curse, but our body’s way of getting rid of something that does not belong to it, that should not be there? And what if that something got there because of choices that we made, and the way we were living?”

     This is such a lovely way of looking at how our ‘body knowing’ communicates with us and a great way to be able to accept and respond to the big C instead of collapsing into a victim role; it supports a very helpful perspective.

     1. Absolutely Marian, so cancer can be seen as a blessing as it makes us stop and re-evaluate how we have been living, what have we done that has contributed to us getting this cancer?
        It is then up to us to make more loving choices to support our bodies.

529. Thanks for sharing this Anne. I have always felt everything happens for a reason – no accidents, no luck – it is magical in the divine design.

     1. I love that magic Debra. The way when I am not loving to my body it lets me know, loud and clear. The way when I am loving to my body, the rest of my life flows effortlessly. Luck is not involved, it really is all down to me.

530. I love what you say, that it’s like when something bad happens to us we are not responsible for it. It’s actually very strange that when something bad like getting cancer happens to us we don’t want to look at it, and that we only want the solution. And actually not want to look at the cause so it won’t happen again, as we do with things like problems with cars for example..

531. When we see things in our lives as unlucky it gives us a good excuse to not take any responsibility for what is playing out within them. I understand my life in a whole new way knowing that I play a very big part in what happens within it.

     1. Yes, when we don’t admit or take responsibility for our choices it is easy to fall for the fate, good or bad luck card. When we start to understand that we are responsible for how we react or respond to life then we start to develop a whole new awareness and relationship with ourselves and with others and life.

532. Yes, I agree Anne, cancer has been a blessing for me to re-consider how I was living my life and to be responsible for all choices I make, thank you for sharing.

533. Thank you Anne for this insightful blog. Indeed illness though seen as a curse is for many people a blessing in disguise. I have known many people who have expressed this. That their illness gave them the opportunity to re-evaluate their life, how they were living, their relationships and their lifestyle. It very often gives us a renewed appreciation of the gift of life and a deeper understanding and purpose.

534. This is so powerful Anne. As you have pointed out we are only willing to own our actions part of the time and blame something or even someone for the actions we don’t care to know about. The good luck, bad luck scenario is all too true.

535. Anne thanks for sharing this from your personal experience. Illness and disease of any sort is an opportunity to stop and ask ‘how did I get here, what choices have I been making’. It is very empowering to be able to say my choices got me here therefore my choices can make a true change for healing also. It puts you back in the drivers seat and no longer at the random mercy of luck and illness.

536. Thanks Anne, for going where many would not dare to tread and taking responsibiity for why you got sick. After all, we are the only ones with the keys to drive our own bodies, so of course our body will reflect the way we treat it.

537. Anne, this sharing is such a blessing for anyone of us who may have cancer or contemplates the possibilities of it developing in our bodies. Imagine if we were supported this way by the medical profession who diagnoses and treats the dis-ease. Imagine if we were gently asked about our lifestyles, the pressures we put ourselves under, whether our lives were governed by the demands of others etc. when we were diagnosed! If we took the notion of ‘lucky, unlucky, genetics, statistical facts etc’. out of the equation, it may open up the conversation about self awareness and self responsibility in relation to cancer and other illnesses.

538. I totally agree Anne, if we could really accept cancer as us finally hearing what our bodies are saying and an opportunity to change our lives as totally and expansively as I have, and sounds as though you have too, then maybe folk wouldn’t say,’bad luck’

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