The Healing Circle
by
Dr. Robert Rutledge, MD
and by
Timothy Walker, PhD
Copyright 2011 Dr. Robert Rutledge, MD,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0489-9
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
How can you heal after a cancer diagnosis?
The Healing Circle helps readers to answer this question for themselves. The book integrates science, wisdom and compassion, and offers a practical approach and fresh perspective on how to heal at the levels of body, mind and spirit. The Healing Circle is primarily for those who have been given a cancer diagnosis and their loved ones, but is also highly relevant for medical professionals and everyone on the healing journey of life.
For over 10 years, Rob Rutledge, MD, Oncologist and Associate Professor of Medicine, and Timothy Walker, PhD, Psychotherapist and Spiritual Teacher, have empowered people affected by cancer at the ‘Skills for Healing Weekend Retreats’ in over a dozen cities internationally. The skills and loving perspective they teach can help transform the experience of cancer into a journey of psychological and spiritual growth – maximizing the chance of recovery!
The Healing Circle closely follows one of the retreats, and teaches you how to:
•Negotiate the medical system and receive ‘complete cancer care’
•Empower your body with simple and effective healing techniques
•Recognize stress and learn the relaxation response
•Reframe distressing thoughts and emotions
•Develop mindfulness to tap into your innate wisdom and natural capacity to heal
Woven through these teachings are the inspiring true stories of people who have attended a retreat, and integrated wisdom and love into their lives. Each story is different, yet there are universal themes that go beyond the personal into the realm of possibility and healing.
Reading these stories and absorbing the profound teaching can empower you on the cancer journey, warm your heart, and help you to reclaim your already existing wholeness.
DEDICATION
To our mothers who faced cancer with bravery and grace,
And to all those whose lives are touched by cancer,
May they be at peace and free from suffering,
And find fulfillment in reclaiming wholeness.
Before the Beginning
“Awaken Heart” was the title of the poster placed just outside the room where physicians review medical charts and dictate letters at our cancer centre. I stopped between seeing patients, curious to absorb these words set in a background of a powder-blue sky. As I read further, my mind seemed to expand and a feeling of calm, mixed with excitement and possibility, came over me. The poster was an advertisement for a stress reduction course offered by Dr. Timothy Walker, a local psychotherapist. Somehow I knew my life was about to change.
At that time, in 1998, I lived in two worlds. Early in my career, as a busy oncologist with a young family, working and teaching at a University hospital, I spent most of my time taking care of people who often shook with fear during their first appointment with me. Through really listening to them, and providing clear information and a treatment plan, I did my best to be a competent and compassionate physician. At medical rounds, in front of my colleagues, I was viewed as a promising physician-scientist.
But my inner world was much richer. I had started to facilitate a weekly cancer support group with the clinic social worker and knew of a space where peace and love seemed to grow, even in turbulent times. I learned healing was possible in a person’s life regardless of what was happening on their x-rays. I yearned for a way to marry these two worlds, to empower people by integrating the science of conventional medicine with the wisdom and experience arising in the support groups.
With poster in hand, I immediately set up an appointment with Dr. Walker. I learned Tim had studied mindfulness-based stress reduction with Jon Kabat-Zinn and had been teaching meditation and many other healing techniques for years. Tim drew on the vast teachings of the world’s spiritual traditions to present an inspiring message which is simple to understand and universal in appeal.
But what was most striking at our first meeting was his presence. Tim’s company brings a feeling of spaciousness, an expanded feeling of compassion and joy. It reminds me of being with some of my pediatric patients who are wise old souls in young bodies. With them, as with Tim, it’s as if the rest of the world falls away and time comes to a standstill. Tim taught me how to meditate and, over the last decade, his teachings continue to have a profound effect on my own spiritual growth.
During our first few meetings, we dreamed up a weekend cancer support group called the “Skills for Healing Weekend Retreat” and I began to garner support. The stars aligned. The hospital provided a wooden-floored ballroom free of charge. The Canadian Cancer Society donated $2500 so we could provide lunches and offer the retreat for free. We pinned up and mailed posters far and wide. I hummed with excitement as the big day approached.
The First Retreats
On a Friday evening in 1999, fifty strangers, with all types and stages of cancer, sat in a huge circle of chairs looking anxiously at each other. Tim and I probably appeared just as nervous as we stood up to introduce ourselves. I asked for a volunteer to be the first in the circle to tell a bit about their cancer story and to focus on what was most difficult.
A bright-eyed woman put up her hand and accepted the microphone. With her first few words, the bubble of anxiety surrounding the group disappeared, immediately replaced by a container of compassion. The intense energy of deep caring continued to grow and envelop our group, through our tears and laughter, as we sat, listened, and learned from one another.
By Sunday afternoon, gone were the furrowed brows of Friday evening, and people sat back in their chairs, their bodies relaxed and their faces shining. They exchanged phone numbers and email addresses as they made plans to get together again. I floated out of the ballroom at the end of the retreat, so grateful to have been infused with the love of these wonderful people.
After the first retreat, I figured I had just had a once-in-a-lifetime experience created by bringing together a unique group of old souls. Tim and I organized a second retreat six months later with some trepidation as to what would happen. But when we gathered in the circle, the same loving energy permeated the ballroom and the same magical transformation of forty strangers becoming one community occurred.
