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Cure / Heal

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Discussion Starter:           Some thoughts about curing, healing and being healed.....

May you be at peace.  May your heart remain open.  May you awaken to the light of your own true nature.  May you be healed.  May you be a source of healing to all beings.
The Metta of the Buddha

To heal is to unify the physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual selves into an integrated and harmonious whole.  To cure is to eliminate a demonstrable disease process.   One can be healed without being cured.
Bruce Hopkins, LMT

I can be cured.  I can be healed.  I can be cured but not healed.  I can be healed but not cured.

Improving the quality of the cancer journey for is not just about easing the journey through the dark nights of diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, surgery, and waiting, waiting, waiting.......  It is also about healing the heart and soul, so that the patient emerges from the process a stronger, happier person - regardless of the medical outcome.

Happiness is a not a destination, but the journey.  Dealing with cancer is both destination and journey.  Medicine is concerned with the quality of the destination.  Massage is concerned with the quality of the journey.
Bruce Hopkins, LMT

Rachael Naomi Remen, MD and others have written extensively about the difference between cure and heal.  This is a particularly useful distinction for cancer patients.  Cure has a very straightforward technical definition.  To cure is to eliminate a demonstrable disease process.  This is the primary focus of your doctors.  Heal is more complex.  The word heal comes from Norse and Old English bringing meanings of hale, whole, healthy and holy.  To heal is to become a complete person.

I have cancer.  For me to heal, I need clarity about what is my business, what is your business and what is God's business.  My business is what I can control, my thoughts and my actions.  Your business is what you can control, your thoughts and your actions.  God's business is what neither you nor I can control. 

Gratitude, joy, acceptance, love, peace....  These are the principle elements of healing.

If you see what you do each day as your way of loving the world and helping it heal, then life gets to be a lot different.  The difference between burning up and burning out is the difference between loving what you are doing and not loving it.
Bernie Siegel, MD

It's not about curing the disease, but healing the life; then the physical benefits come.
Bernie Siegel, MD

Massage soothes the body, easing mind and spirit.  Mind and spirit, in turn, remind the body of its God given power to self-heal.
Bruce Hopkins, LMT

Healing is personal and subjective and can't be quantified. You simply can't measure it objectively when it occurs. Only the patient can tell you.  Healing is related to wholeness, and wholeness is experienced in connection with others.
Earl Mgebroff, MD (from an article in Medical Economics)

Oncology massage therapists are ideally situated to observe and participate in our clients' experiences. 

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