Join us by reading one chapter per week of our book The Healing Circle which includes inspiring true stories and teaching from the ‘Skills for Healing’ Cancer Weekend Retreats. Each week we will post the next chapter of our book, links to related video, and a blog about the chapter. Learn about recent scientific advances in the body-mind-spirit connection, updates of the people featured in our book, and our reflections on each chapter. Read the whole book for free by accessing the previous blog posts. Please send us your comments and questions! Deep peace and healing, Rob Rutledge, MD and Timothy Walker, PhD
Previous Chapters:
The Healing Circle Book Chapter Blog: Chapter Three – What is Healing
Read chapter three: The Healing Circle - What is Healing
Watch the Video: Friday Evening Introduction On a Friday evening, fifty people affected by cancer gathered in a large circle to begin a Skills for Healing weekend retreat. Tim (Dr. Walker) and Rob (Dr. Rutledge) share some of their personal stories and the meaning of "Skills for Healing Retreat" at the start of the program.
Blog by Dr. Rob Rutledge
I'm looking out my dining room window suddenly enveloped in a deep sense of peace. Sunlight bounces off icing cake layers of snow, the frosted trees stand completely still. Hardly a thought comes up and my mind seems to expand outward. I'm part of everything - part of life itself. I can sense my body, my emotional energy, even my thoughts coming up but I am also the presence, the deep stillness, the peace that holds it all. This is my already existing wholeness.
I find it miraculous that when we take away all our striving, all our judgments, all of our thoughts like "life should not be this way" or "I'm not good enough" what we're left with is an incredibly peaceful and vibrant energy. There could be nothingness or even a negative energy but our default state is so overwhelmingly positive. This simple presence, the simple consciousness, the awareness that holds all of our experience is love itself. At our core this is what we are.
Healing happens automatically when we begin to recognize this truth. Jackie and John (the two actual and universal characters in the book chapter) feel their lives have been shattered because they have identified themselves with what they do. At this level of understanding there is a lot of suffering. It is expected that our human egos will go through mourning when we lose function. Experiencing those emotions is a healthy process that will unfold naturally. But we can also hold all of our lives with a loving energy like a mother cuddling a distraught infant. The baby is perfect - utterly whole - even when it's upset. We are the mother and the child.
The second miracle is that something within our being wants us to heal. Somehow we are being drawn towards experiencing our wholeness. Our internal voice whispers "Love yourself as you are right now. Love life as it is right now - in this wonderful moment of being."
Welcome home.
Dr. Rob Rutledge is a Radiation Oncologist in Halifax, Nova Scotia, specializing in breast, prostate and pediatric cancers. He is also an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University.
In 1999, Rob co-created the 'Skills for Healing' Cancer Weekend Retreats. These weekend support groups teach a powerful and integrated approach to the cancer diagnosis and ways to heal at levels of body, mind and spirit. To date, more than 1,600 people have attended the retreats in over 20 cities across Canada and abroad.
Rob also leads the Healing and Cancer Foundation, a Registered Charity, that freely offers educational videos, documentaries, and webcasting seminars - and he is co-author of a book called The Healing Circle, which captures the teachings and inspirational stories from the weekend retreats.
In 2010, Rob received Cancer Care Nova Scotia's Award for Excellence in Patient Care and, in 2006 Doctors Nova Scotia presented him with the Health Promotion Award in recognition of his contribution to physician health and health promotion in cancer patients.
Blog by Dr. Timothy Walker
At the beginning of every mindfulness group I ask: Where do you feel most at peace, relaxed and whole? The answers range: walking on a beach, at my cottage on the lake, reading, surfing, taking a bath, walking my dog, playing tennis, holding my sleeping grandchild, listening to music, petting my cat while it purrs on my lap, in the woods, watching a sunrise. Many people with cancer are especially good at identifying these moments and seeking them out. Something in their mindset has shifted since their diagnosis that helps them appreciate the simple little moments that shine with the fullness of life.
We all have these little moments of simple presence and peace no matter how brief they may seem or how often they go unnoticed. The problem seems to be that we've been programmed to think that they're unimportant. We tend to believe that we need to get on with living, which means being busy, meeting challenges, engaging with stress and worry - all for the sake of our outer accomplishments only.
It is in our nature to heal. It is in our nature to feel whole, at peace and even content and grateful for the goodness of life itself. Yet there is a tendency in our modern culture to stray from our deeper wisdom of wholeness and healing into a maze often structured with intercrossing pathways of struggle, confusion, stress and discontent. Many of us are split within ourselves. A wise part of us knows that we can stay connected to our wholeness and unconditional worthiness and even bring that sense of well-being into our challenges in life. Operating at the same time is another part of us that is identified with an image of ourselves based on memories of the past or in projections of the future.
For example in my own life I had severe learning problems in elementary school and developed an identity connected with those feelings of inadequacy. I had an inner voice that said "try harder" and a tendency toward self-sabotage that arose over and over in those years. Every now and then when these feelings are triggered by new life situations I can either replay them or I can be mindful of the present moment, opening my mind to the possibilities that are not associated with holding on to that old identity. The new neural pathways associated with mindfulness and awareness are laid down one moment at a time and each time we choose to be mindful is a victory for healing.
By practicing mindfulness and awareness we can deliberately enjoy the little moments that shine with the fullness of life and we can gradually realize that even in the midst of stress, fear and pain, the fullness of life is still shining. In doing this we start to heal the split within ourselves and gradually come back home to our true nature of wholeness.
Timothy Walker Ph.D. is a mindfulness teacher and psychotherapist living in Halifax Nova Scotia with over 30 years experience integrating mindfulness into counselling, education and healthcare. He is co-author of the The Healing Circle: integrating science, wisdom and compassion in reclaiming wholeness on the cancer journey and co-founded with Dr Rob Rutledge the Healing and Cancer Foundation. He designed and has taught with Dr. Rutledge the Skills for Healing Weekend Retreats for people living with cancer and their family members 42 times since 1999 in 20 cities across North America touching the lives of more than 1600 people. He has taught at Dalhousie University, Acadia University, and Mount St. Vincent University as well as hundreds of workshops, seminars and retreats Internationally. In his private practice, The Healing Circle, Timothy sees individuals, couples and families and welcomes distant consultations.
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