Woke up with a start at 3 a.m. Not sure exactly what woke me. Reached into my armpit and found a sizable lump. Damn!

I have been feeling odd pains in my armpit for some time now, but I wasn’t sure what they were. It is a surgical site, so some pains are healing pains. These have always felt like pressure pains. Something is pressing on something that is not as it should be, causing discomfort, and awareness that something is not as it should be. Now at least I know what it is.

I jumped up, got my infrared laser and used it, probably for a total of 3 minutes. Then I reminded myself it was time to get serious and stop avoiding. (I have been telling myself that “everything is fine.” I stopped with my focus on healing foods and meditation.) Maybe I needed a break. Maybe I just wasn’t ready for the next step. No matter I am ready for the next steps now.

I turned on my light, pulled down several books (off of my newly created shelves in my new home). One of the books I pulled down is Does Your Body Lie? Heal the Person, Not the Sickness by Luis Martin Simoes. Angel Marlowe, my thermographer, recommended it. I have probably had it for 6 or 7 months without opening it. 

I expected a book with chapters and general explanations of why the body’s physical illnesses have underlying emotional causes. I didn’t expect a listing of physical illnesses and their specific emotional issues. And interestingly enough, the book opened to flatulence first. I have had a lot of gas lately, so I was interested in what it said. 

    “Fermentation takes place in the ascending colon (beginning of the large bowel). The person who suffers from problems in this area tries to decide whether to keep stuff in or let it out. Fermentation is caused by sugar in the body. When the person experiences doubts about his capacity to decide whether to keep stuff in or let it out, he may suffer from flatulence and pain. Flatulence is the release of tension and air from the bowel, and it causes relief. It may be associated with tension with the Father or a male role model: perhaps a partner, supervisor, or boyfriend. In short it involves tension with a model of masculine behavior.”

Wow. That hits home. Those blinders that I had on … the “everything is fine” blinders, just slipped a bit. So I moved to the section on cancer. I am adding a few bits from the book.

    “A cancer cell is not an agent that attacks the body from the outside. It is a cell that, at a particular moment and for a particular reason, decides to alter its job at the service of a particular organ. And what is the reason why the cell has decided to change its role? This is the crucial question that needs to be asked. The reason is that life in the organism where it performed its task is no longer adequate. Fighting a cancer cell only makes it stronger. Let us recall what we said at the beginning of this book: Everything starts at a conscience level. In other words, the person has created cancer through his own way of thinking and living. We need to understand what message the cancer cell is telling us about our lives. We need to understand what we need to change about our lives. Cancer is the product of deep tension in a person’s life, which, for some reason, he has decided to hide and repress.”

So I can relate to this as well. I often feel deep tension. I can see how the relationship with my father was the foundation for the tension. I could not show weakness or vulnerability. I could not be myself or the consequence was punishment. 

    “It is important to find out in which part of the body cancer occurs, and understand what that part of the body is trying to show us.”

    “In any case, the less a person verbalizes his emotional tensions, the more his body will show him those very tensions in the form of a symptom, and, in the case of repressed tension, in the form of cancer.”

I agree. I certainly couldn’t voice my issues with my husband. He always shut down or pretended to understand and then modified his outward behavior. But I also feel that my abdominal epilepsy and dental infections acted as magnifiers for my emotional tension. So then the book fell open to the pancreas section. My cancer is in my breast, but a) my father died of pancreatic cancer and b) I feel like my pancreas does not work properly. So I read … blah, blah, “see other entries.” I went to pancreas – hypoglycemia.

“The person who suffers from hypoglycemia has too little sugar in his blood.” “In this case it is the person who does not believe he deserves sweetness, tenderness, and love.”

Whoa, immediate tears. This passage struck a nerve. Love surrounds me. But what about love as tenderness? Love as sweetness? I was taught (by my father) that those things are worthy of disdain. They expose us to pain and ridicule as vulnerability does. Tenderness and sweetness are to be made fun of;  to be withheld. I was not shown tenderness or sweetness. And if I was, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. As I was taught, it was bad and wrong. No male relationship, that I can recall, has contained tenderness and sweetness (except maybe Bill). Oddly in the back of my mind, has been running the instinctual thought that love is the next step. I was thinking the thought meant a relationship with a man. But … a new thought arose … how have I been tender with myself? How have I treated myself with sweetness? Can I actually “be” in tender and sweet love? It feels odd, uncomfortable. It definitely pushes my boundaries, pushing me out of my comfort zone. I can love. But it is a love of action, of doing. It is not so much a love of tenderness. And the lack of tenderness, the wall to prevent tenderness, to protect vulnerability, that holding of the wall … is TENSION. 

My next challenge is to dissolve the wall, embrace vulnerability of love by being tender and sweet with myself. Excuse me while I let this sink in and the tears flow out.