Month: May 2010

During the past three years, I have been honoured to witness Grace Gawler’s deep understanding of the human body and psyche demonstrated over and over with amazing results. I feel compelled to share something about this courageous woman so that more people can be aware of her work and in the hope she will attract the support she so rightly deserves.

Some people arrive on this planet knowing their destiny. They don’t take the myriad narcissistic detours life offers— the seductive ad copy, or the latest designer drug. They’re not ego driven but rather have a compelling urge to serve humanity. In some cases miracles occur around them; they achieve great results helping others. However their path is not always easy. With so much dysfunctional behaviour manifesting in the world today—Tiger Woods being the latest in an endless string—good news stories like Grace’s deserve to be told and spread widely.

This is the story of Grace Gawler—a life of service.

Very early in her life, Grace listened to her intuition and knew without a doubt she would become a healer. As a young Australian girl with long red hair and shining blue eyes, Grace could be found healing every sick or injured animal she encountered. At fifteen, after school and on weekends, she began working at her local veterinary clinic and was soon assisting the vet at the operating table. On Sundays, Grace alone had full responsibility for the clinic, monitoring severe trauma animals on drips, changing dressings and so on. Some animals had cancer so this was her introduction into cancer treatment and surgery.

Six years later, at twenty-one, now a vet nurse and part time model, her co-worker and boyfriend lost his leg to bone cancer. Defying family, friends and medical authorities who’d given him just two weeks to live, she responded to his request for marriage and took him on a healing honeymoon to the Philippines.

At the same time, Grace had been offered a lucrative contract with Vivien’s Modelling Agency that could have paid her way to study veterinary medicine. Turning down the contract, this healing angel devoted every waking minute to helping her new husband find a cure for his cancer. They succeeded, and in 1978 his remission received massive media publicity and they opened a centre, The Gawler Foundation, in Melbourne, that ultimately assisted thousands of cancer patients around the world.

Consider for a moment, the calibre of this remarkable woman in her early twenties. What inner qualities did she draw upon to marry a one legged man with cancer and a two week prognosis? What drove her to believe they would find a cure everyone believed impossible? In this spirit, Grace continues her mission today—and has achieved success with many end-stage cancer patients. As she says to patients, “you’ll run out of steam before I run out of healing options.”

As they built their house and established the Foundation into a world recognized centre for cancer care, Grace had four children, three birthed naturally in a farm shed with no kitchen or shower. One of the children was born with special needs and still lives with Grace at age twenty-nine. Her healing story with him is nothing short of miraculous but remains private. I’m awed by the gift of love and unlimited patience she has provided him over three decades. Like the miracle healing with her husband, her son is another great example of doing very well against all odds.

Over the years Grace added formal qualifications that would help her work be more effective. These included the sciences of anatomy, physiology, chemistry, pathology as well as naturopathy, herbal medicine and the jewel in the crown—body psychotherapy. She later developed her own form of hands-on energy work which she now teaches to therapists. Combine these with the field experience from working with 13,000 cancer patients in a 35 year career and one begins to grasp the depth of her work.

For all the loving assistance she has given others, Grace has not escaped personal tragedy. In 1996, she felt compelled to leave the Foundation she co-directed, when therapist integrity issues were not resolved to her professional standards. It cost her dearly—not only her soul source of income was gone but a year later she arrived home one day to find the man she’d spent years helping to survive severe bone cancer had left.

Grace’s body reflected the emotional shock and three days later she suffered a uterine prolapse. A routine surgery went terribly wrong and that was the last time she went to the toilet. She permanently lost colon function and all feeling from her waist to her thighs—sexual function was also gone. She still had three children at home, her health was ruined and there was no money.
Thirteen years and twenty surgeries later, including colostomies, ileostomies and numerous scrapes with death, journeying to Holland, Grace became the world’s first recipient of a bionically operated colon. It was finally her turn to receive a miracle! Now she could continue her valuable cancer work again.

There is another miracle to report! I was Grace’s PE teacher in 1970. We’d had occasional talks around about health and fitness. Three years ago, in 2007, we re-connected in an astounding and synchronistic way while I was living in the U.S. The chance of this happening was one in a million and I constantly reflect on the ‘Grace’ of it but that’s another story—suffice to say, I knew right away this was an event of high significance for me.

I’ve been with Grace for three years now and I’m increasingly in awe of her work. In 2009, she survived another brush with death when her bionics stopped. After two failed operations in Australia, our financial resources depleted from past medical debt, making a trip to Holland unachievable, we were able to raise money through the internet and ultimately travelled to Singapore where we found a solution.

I feel honoured to work with an angel like Grace. Her achievements with cancer patients are legendary because few healers draw from so many disciplines, yet she remains a humble servant and discourages the ‘angel’ label I use. Patients following her guidance do very well as affirmed by author, Candace Pert, (Molecules of Emotion) who remarked on her patient survival data.
Grace also has a gift for holding audiences spellbound whether they be oncologists, doctors, naturopaths or lay people alike.
Today, Grace has been at her desk since 4 am, excitedly researching a new version of an old vaccine that might help one of her patients with a serious prognosis. She won’t get paid for this work but knows that another life saved is a priceless reward. A magazine article about her work before Xmas resulted in numerous ‘end stage patients’ locating her and receiving new healing options.

At this moment, on top of her demanding schedule, Grace is faced with a severe financial challenge—it has cost her over $1 million dollars to regain her health. Keeping up with living expenses, her son’s care, promoting her work and helping anyone who comes to see her, regardless of whether they can afford to pay, is both her gift and challenge.

Together, we are currently appealing to Australian philanthropists to help support Grace’s healing work and establish a charitable trust, so that once again, as she did when she was co-director of the Gawler Foundation, she can reach larger numbers of deserving cancer sufferers who might benefit from her guidance. In the works are a book promotion of her new memoirs and a thirty minute documentary of her extraordinary life.

Please consider supporting Grace with a one time or monthly donation (www.gracegawler.com) knowing that your gift is an investment in a deeply caring practice that has served thousands and will continue to so as long as Grace is on this earth.

If just several hundred people donate $25 a month Grace will be able to expand her work without the financial stress she has been experiencing for over a decade. To kick this off Grace would donate a copy of her book Women of Silence to each contributor.

Three hundred donations at $100 each will enable the documentary on her life’s work to go into production. You can help turn these dreams into reality with your donations and in so doing support her work and the saving of many lives. And should the time come when you or a loved one are in need, you will know Grace will be there for you.

Written by pip Cornall Qld, Australia

For the past three years I’ve been an assistant to Grace Gawler. Grace is renowned for her 35 years of pioneering work with cancer patients. I assist Grace’s clients with yoga, breathing, relaxation skills and counselling and co-facilitate a variety of workshops for patients, therapists and care givers alike.
In these roles I’ve seen some massive ‘dysfunction’ (that’s being kind) and I’m both angry and concerned that lives are being needlessly lost due to choices based on spin, misinformation and hidden agendas. After a cancer diagnosis most patients are in a state of shock (PTSD). Many enter a frantic period of trying to chart the best healing and treatment options. It is vital they be given accurate information but that is not as easy as it should be. I offer the following in the hope that cancer patients will be thus alerted to the dysfunction within the industry and be enabled to make better decisions.
I observe two common approaches to cancer healing: One is grounded in science and the pragmatic while the other is more emotional. The latter seems to easily ‘devolve into an ‘airy-fairy’ approach where seemingly logical people go into denial, ‘dissociate’ and make decisions from a trance-like state. Such people exhibit a ‘doe-eyed’ quality which is quite obvious to us and we think- dangerous. I caution patients to become more self aware and notice when they are making an emotionally driven decision or a grounded intellectual one.
I know the ‘C’ word and associated fear along with a desire to follow ‘nature’s intelligence’ is partly to blame for the emotional approach. Prior to these last three years, I may have made similar choices myself so I write this from a point of compassion and understanding. Nevertheless I address this topic because it is serious—it can be a matter of less pain/more pain or life and death!
Interestingly both approaches can be applied to the three main healing paths which patients follow. These are the conventional (allopathic), alternative or complementary medicine routes.
Conventional therapies are evidence-based treatments that have been tested following scientific guidelines and proven to be safe and effective at curing cancer, slowing its growth or providing relief from symptoms. These include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
Alternative therapies are used instead of conventional therapies. Most have not been scientifically tested or, have little evidence supporting their safety and effectiveness. E.G. laetrile, shark cartilage, special diets such as Gerson or macrobiotic and herbal treatments like mistletoe (NCCAM, 2004)
Complementary therapies are used with conventional treatments. They do not cure cancer but may help to relieve symptoms or side-effects and improve well-being. Some examples of complementary therapies are acupuncture, aromatherapy, art therapy, massage therapy, meditation, visualization and yoga (NCCAM, 2004). Complementary therapies are sometimes referred to as supportive care medicine.
My Observations:
1.    One woman spent two years in the jungles of South America before coming to Grace’s practice. She hoped the shamans and ‘plant medicine’s would cure her breast cancer. She returned with serious cancer spread and was deemed inoperable—an ulcer on her breast was deep enough for a cotton bud to disappear into. A simple early intervention would have been successful.
2.    Other patients were treated by ‘natural healers’—supposed ‘experts’ in cancer healing. One client worked with such a therapist for nearly seven years. He used expensive ‘machine-based’ tests to assure his clients they were in good health even while their cancer continued to spread. It is clear neither they nor their machines understood the nature of cancer.
3.    Some of these patients were told they no longer had cancer! They were thus lulled into complacency while within their bodies the cancer was growing and spreading. It took considerable persuasion by Grace to insist on some conventional tests such as MRI or PET scans to prove that her initial appraisal of advanced cancer was accurate.
4.    There are ‘entrepreneurs’ on the lucrative cancer speaking circuit making untested claims. Upon investigation many had dubious experience at supporting cancer patients or their medical histories or qualification did not check out. Some erroneously use the title ‘Dr’ to imply qualification and authority in cancer healing. Many of these are well known entities make vast sums of money with their sensationalised and often simplistic approaches—some wear cowboy hats. Such advice can be life threatening—the cancer continuing to spread while the patient trials a ‘raw food’ or radical diet.
5.    In my three years I seen that serious ‘dysfunction’ exists in both natural and conventional medical systems.
6.    Sadly within the conventional medical system I’ve seen examples of ‘bad’ doctors, oncologists and radiologists. They too are guilty of spin, misinformation and hidden agendas not revealed to patients.
7.    I’ve seen that truth is elusive in both systems and people will lie to protect their jobs, promote a hidden agenda (such as research) or line their pockets. The danger is that patients find it difficult to tell who is authentic and what treatments (of all types) are viable for their cancer.
8.    Significant numbers of patients who come to Grace’s practice are ‘end stage.’ Some have tragically made their decisions to follow the alternate route based Ian Gawler’s healing story—You Can Conquer Cancer—information Grace, as Ian’s full time care giver has always refuted—namely that a vegan diet and intensive meditation ‘cured’ his cancer. It has even been so reported in the prestigious Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) both in 1978 by Ainslie Meares and again in 2008 by Ruth Gawler and Professor Jelinek from the Gawler Foundation. The impact of such information is widespread. A simple Google search such as ‘meditation cures cancer’ or vegan diet cures cancer’ comes up with some 3-4 million articles—many quote the Ian Gawler or Ainslie Meares data which is now being refuted.
Pip Cornall – Paradise Point, Queensland, Australia – 2010

About Grace Gawler’s Cancer Work: It is not often a Naturopath is highly respected by leading oncologists in Australia and overseas but in Grace Gawler’s case there is good reason. After 35 years experience working with over 13,000 cancer patients, Grace is known for her uncanny intuition, an in-depth grasp of science and a broad range of complementary skills enabling her to guide the most ‘hopeless’ of cancer patients to recovery.
Although in recent years there has been much talk of ‘integrative medicine,’ few countries have adopted it widely. Grace is concerned that all too often, the term ‘holistic medicine’ is weighted to mean a range of alternative therapies which completely ignore—even haughtily dismiss western (allopathic) medicine.
But bridging the gap is Grace’s forte. It’s not uncommon for her patients to sail through chemotherapy with minimal discomfit and side effects. Nurses and oncologists, observing their excellent positive response to the chemo, commonly ask what else they are doing to get such good results.
Such partnering is true integrative medicine according to Grace and a direct contrast to the horror stories heard from patients who were ‘treated’ by self proclaimed ‘natural’ cancer healers. Lulled into a false sense of security while the tumours were steadily growing, these patients received treatments that were not only illegal in some cases, but often aggravated or hastened the disease. Some come to Grace as ‘end stage’ cases whom she often refers to overseas clinics for highly effective cancer treatment where the survival rate is higher and the treatment regime less harsh.
There is much unnecessary polarisation between proponents of natural and western medicine. The loser is the patient. An intelligent ‘partnership’ between the two is long overdue.
History: Back in 1974, Grace was a 21 year old vet nurse when her casual boyfriend and co veterinarian, Ian Gawler lost his leg to bone cancer. Defying family, friends and medical authorities, who gave Ian only weeks to live, Grace took a powerful proactive stance which is legendary today. Ian survived, their case became famous and soon they established a cancer healing centre guiding thousands of cancer patients.
Grace’s unique start was an excellent foundation for her life work. Grace explains that long before she studied naturopathy, from the age of 15 while still at high school, she was a part time vet nurse. Due to her enthusiasm Grace was soon assisting in serious operations. When Ian fell ill she had years of working on animals with cancer and also had trialled natural and conventional methods of healing.
Between 1974 and 1978, when Ian finally had his cancer remission, Grace was primed to be an extraordinary 24/7 healer, care giver, guide, researcher and motivator.  She went on to become a distinction level naturopath studying under Dorothy Hall and in the 90’s, her USA based study of body-psychotherapy with the famed Dr Ilana Rubenfeld, added to an expansive tool bag.
Although Ian Gawler initially acknowledged Grace’s innate flair for partnering natural and scientific medicine, his remarkable recovery is, unfortunately, one of the most misreported cancer recovery stories virally circulating the globe today. These stories, with the help of the internet are likely responsible in the recent upsurges of patients who misguidedly try to treat their cancer using natural methods alone.

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Navigating a Realistic Pathway to Cancer Recovery – Workshop

You’ve just been given a diagnosis—the big ‘C.” You thought it would never be you! You’re suddenly aware of the ‘time bomb’ ticking inside you and go into shock. Then comes a frantic period when you try to ascertain the best treatment options. Well meaning friends flay you with countless anecdotes—Uncle Harry cured his cancer eating purple emu droppings and so on. You soon experience friend-advice overload.

You scan the internet only to find out there are many types and stages even of the one cancer; many types of breast cancer for example. You type ‘meditation cures cancer’ into Google—there are close to 4 million articles to research. Now you’re in internet overload—too many opposing claims—who do you believe—what applies to you? You need reliable answers fast!

The answer may be closer than you think! For the first time in Australia, Grace Gawler will present a workshop specifically designed to take the confusion out of cancer and cancer therapies. Based on 35 years experience with over 13,000 patients, beginning as primary care giver, then qualified natural therapist, followed by a personal patient experience with a life challenging condition, Grace will share simple and practical steps to optimise your recovery.

This one day course based around Grace’s booklet ‘A Helping Hand’ will cover all that patients and care givers need to know, such as how to merge the medical and complementary models for your benefit. Attendees will explore segments such as after diagnosis – now what, understanding the nature of cancer, exploring medical options, understanding your immune system, cause and effect, theories and science, how to deal with apparent set-backs, wise use of supplements, creating your New Life using Grace’s ‘Pie Chart’ approach, and ‘possibility thinking’ Grace is assisted by men’s health advocate and author partner, Pip Cornall.

Grace Gawler: Forensic Naturopath, Herbalist, Whole Health Practitioner – DHM (dist) ATMS DBSc, Internationally recognized pioneer of Supportive Care Medicine for people with cancer. Inspired and co founded the Gawler Foundation in Victoria Assisted 13,000 cancer patients to recovery in 35 year career. Patron – Reiki Australia, Recipient of Rotary Jean Harris Award for health services. Founder of G.E.M – unique energy method for optimal healing (similar to body—psychotherapy)
Contact: Grace on or www.gracegawler.com
Weekend Workshops – $130.00 (early bird rates)