Check out more about Jessica here, including here "Lifestyle Health Program".

After the hectic few months I’ve just had, I’m making a conscious decision to spend the next couple of months indulging in some downtime. It’s not that I have been neglecting my health in any way. Self care is always my number one priority, but after successfully launching my latest e-book I am going to reward my self with extra extra self care. Plus, I have less than two months left of Gerson Therapy, so I figured I would honour myself with some radical love during this time. If my life were a yoga class, this would be my Savasana.

What will this little healing hiatus entail? Well, by anyone else’s standards my day-to-day schedule is pretty much packed with self care practices, but I feel like I have room to ramp things up a little. I’m going to dedicate the next two months to bodywork and soul nurturing. I’m going to have two oncology massages per week instead of one, I’m going to see a healer, I’m going to turn off my computer earlier and go to bed earlier, I’m going to meditate more, do more yoga, spend more time writing and pondering and less time hustling and plotting. It’s going to be magical.

My Journey Experience. Warning: The following may be a little “out there” for some people.

A few weeks ago I read a book called The Journey by Brandon Bays. This book is about how Brandon healed herself, after being diagnosed with a tumour the size of a basketball, by being guided by her subconscious on an emotional healing journey. If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend it. Even if you don’t have an illness to address, the healing method uncovered in this book will intrigue you. It intrigued me so much so that I felt pulled to hunt down a Journey practitioner in my hometown. I found one and last week went to visit her to see if she could help me uncover any clues as to why or how I may have manifested cancer in my body. The result was fascinating.

Reading from the Journey script, Kerri (my practitioner) led me into a meditative state and then on a journey into my past, being guided by my subconscious. I was doubtful about how successful I would be at this, because I’ve never been great at visualisation exercises.

As expected, I got stuck. When Kerri asked me to recall images, I couldn’t picture anything and felt like I should make up something. When I told Kerri this she asked me how I felt about it. I said that it made me feel inadequate, and kind of like I was failing the exercise, and that made me ashamed. Little did I know, this statement was to become a tell tale sign of a pattern in my past.

As the journey went on, images from my childhood came to mind. I didn’t know whether I was forcing them, or my subconscious was actually co-operating, but Kerri said to voice them anyway. As I did, she recognised the pattern. Every memory that I brought up seemed to revolve around me feeling embarrassed or ashamed about not being good enough. When she probed me with questions about these memories, everything stemmed back to a belief I held about myself around the need to be special. The memories kept bubbling to the surface, and each one took me back to that underlying need to be special.

Where did that come from? Apparently it happened when I was very young, perhaps even when I was still in my mother’s womb, and I heard messages from my parents about the fact that I was a very special baby and I was going to grow up to be a very special person. My parents took eight years to have me, so to them I was beyond special. But some part of me held onto that thought, and allowed it to feed my ego going forward in life. I needed something to make me feel good enough – to make me “special”. You see before the age of seven, we have no filter. We absorb and believe everything we are told and hear – this is why events and messages from childhood can turn into limiting beliefs and have such a huge role in how we act as adults.

After my Journey experience was over, I thought about it and recognised even more of the pattern. I have always had felt a need to be defined by external titles and labels. At school I had to be the sporty one or the smart one so that I would be good enough. Out of school I had to get the amazing job and let that title define me, so that I would be good enough.

What does this have to do with manifesting cancer? Well, when I had the great job and still didn’t feel good enough, it seems like I created a condition in my body – a rare form of cancer – that would most definitely make me “special”.

Light bulb. As ridiculous as that may sound, my strong desire to be “special” may have played a part in the manifestation of my disease.

Because the whole point of the Journey experience is to pinpoint these underlying limiting beliefs and re-write them, Kerri then guided me to create new beliefs about myself. We imprinted these affirmations:

I am good enough.
I approve of myself.
I am free to be me.
I am and will always be enough.
I love myself and who I’ve become.

The other element of the Journey was a part where I had the chance to talk to my cancer. I visualised it by giving it a shape and a colour. I was blown away by how accurately and quickly I was able to bring my cancer to my mind’s eye. It was burgundy and really ugly to start off with. But after having a conversation with it and thanking it for everything it’s done for me, it actually became quite nice looking. It looked like a shiny balloon that then deflated and vanished after I cut the cord that attached it to me.

Like I said up above, some of you may think this is a little “out there” and “woo woo”. Once upon a time, I would have had the same sentiments. But coming from someone who has never danced with their subconscious with this kind of clarity before, I was blown away. And I truly do believe I have succeeded in connecting more of the dots and piecing together more of the puzzle as to how I created cancer in my reality. I also believe that in order to truly heal, we must address all levels – body, mind, and spirit.

I’m reading Deepak Chopra’s Power, Freedom and Grace at the moment, and the night after my Journey experience I picked it up and happened to read this passage:

When you are comfortable with both your strengths and weaknesses, you radiate simple, unaffected humanity … Self acceptance, total self acceptance, means self-forgiveness. When you forgive yourself and stop judging yourself, then you won’t judge others, and there will be less conflict in the world.