The most disregarded part of our health is emotional and mental stress. Our emotions are so powerful that it impacts our physical health and body. Our emotional and mental stress creates chemical changes in our nervous system that impacts our immune system negatively. It can manifest in our bodies through disease, and physically make us sick. This is how powerful our thoughts and subconscious mind are.

We can be crushed by the power of what drives our emotions or we can harness that power and use it to our advantage to heal and live our best life.

My experience with hypnotherapy was pretty incredible. I had really no idea what it was about. I thought it was all about hypnosis and mind control, like when you’re being hypnotized. I was wrong. It’s all about guiding you to identify your own emotions and challenges you’d like to heal. The Mayo Clinic describes hypnotherapy as “a state in which you have heightened focus and concentration which makes you feel calm and relaxed, It helps you to gain control over undesired behaviors or to help you cope better with anxiety or pain.”

When I started hypnotherapy I wanted to first accept my cancer diagnosis. I wanted to let go of the anger, fear, sadness and overwhelming grief of possibly dying and leaving this world. It was hard for me to even process, let alone accept. How could one day I was healthy and the next day I was dying? So I signed up for an eight week hypnotherapy course to help address this head-on, and begin to heal my mind and emotions.

I had a lot of unresolved trauma and pain stored around losing my father unexpectedly at a young age. I know the body stores trauma and emotion, and if left unresolved it can manifest into disease and other ailments. I had a lot of pain and resentment surrounding my father's sudden passing - I felt like I had to grow up overnight. The grief was so overwhelming that I found it difficult to accept a world where my father was no longer alive in it. I had a lot of pain around him no longer being the rock in my life. I mourned his stability and unconditional love. He represented all of the things that I wanted in a man. I held onto a lot of anger and sadness about him not being here. It made all of the most beautiful moments of my life also the most painful.

This inner work was a long time coming and much needed. I decided to start this work while undergoing brain radiation and chemotherapy. I tend to be a person that guards my emotions and heart and I knew that this was a perfect opportunity and time when my whole world was fileted open and the walls were destroyed. I was at my most vulnerable stage in my entire life, next to the days following my father‘s passing. I recognized this feeling all too well. So I started this inner journey with a goal of healing and letting go of anything stored inside my body that might prevent me from continuing to heal.

I was angry at my chemotherapy drugs as I am not one to even take over-the-counter medication. So changing my perspective to see chemotherapy as medicine instead of poison was a huge accomplishment that hypnotherapy allowed me to do. I went from wanting to throw my pills at the wall and into the garbage to praying to being extremely grateful for them. Telling them “thank you so much for healing my body. I am so grateful that I am able to have your healing energy come help me.”

It’s interesting the things that get stored and locked away in our subconscious. Throughout these eight weeks I healed wounds that I never knew existed like feeling conditionally loved as a child based on school performance and following the rules. I began to see my father not as ripped from my life, but present in my life everyday as a guardian. I saw cancer as something I lived alongside but that my body was healed and that I was strong.

Cancer is an undeniable opportunity to address unresolved issues and emotions in your life. It can be a tough journey, but there are huge rewards. The biggest being ridding your body of stored pain and anger while it’s ridding itself of the disease, if you’re willing to do the work.

Learn more about hypnotherapy here.

To find a hypnotherapist, see The Do Cancer Directory.