Month: March 2011

Grace Gawler – GeM a solution for emotional distress in cancer patients

A key solution for cancer patients for effective stress reduction, gentle yet profound emotional release and for letting go of chronic tension with sustained benefits!

For the next week or so – this blog will focus on solutions for emotional and stress related issues for cancer patients based on my 35 years experience. Today I will discuss GeM ( Grace empowerment Method)

About GeM: GeM is ground-breaking method that incorporates body psycho-therapy, effective/invitational language, imagery & relaxation combined with ‘safe’ non-intentional touch. There has never been a safer, more helpful stress reduction method for cancer patients…

I conduct two-day highly experiential training intensives designed for all touch and hands-on therapists, massage & Reiki practitioners and naturopaths plus anyone who works in cancer support.

Although not a Reiki practitioner myself – I see the enormous value in touch for life!  I am patron of Reiki Australia

In 1979 I began my training with ATMS Founder Dorothy Hall after assisting then husband Ian Gawler through his cancer crisis. My ‘touch therapy’ made a huge contribution to his recovery. I graduated at distinction level in 1984, then added other science & anatomy/physiology studies to my skills plus overseas trainings with many experts in their different modalities of healing. I spent many years with Dr Ilana Rubenfeld – the USA’s doyenne of body psychotherapy (RSM) who endorses my unique approach to non cathartic stress release for cancer patients. Dr Rubenfeld named my Method – GeM.

What patients say: 
Testimonial – Gayle M NSW: Jan 2011 has this to say about GeM
“As a patient with advanced metastatic breast cancer, I first saw Grace in 2008 when I felt hopelsss and helpless about my poor prognosis. I experienced 2 sessions with Grace’s hands-on G.e.M approach. The sessions impacted me deeply – hard to explain… but I felt more centred, grounded and connected that I had ever felt in my entire life.
I could sense my body unwinding, muscles just melting and tension draining away.
I felt as if I was wider – taking up more space and it kept on…it sustained. I have had ups and downs in my cancer condition since, but it is now January 2011! I have no doubt that Grace’s GeM approach was the turning point for me to use my illness as a learning curve.  

 Picture 1 – Before GeM session.

 

Instead of a fear-based doomed experience. I walked out her door a different woman. Since Ihave had overseas holidays and I live well. Whatever happenedduring those sessions has seen me embrace empowerment and peace of mind that I never thought possible.”

Picture 2- After 1st GeM session

 

 Picture 3- below left. Same Client one month after 1 st GeM

Same client. No wig 1 month after GeM

Chronic Stress creates cascades of  bio-chemical pathways that alter body chemistry that subsequently relate to holding patterns that sculpt and create ’emotional’ anatomy within muscles structures. ‘Emotional’ anatomy is a study of the body’s habitual tension or flaccidity that creates our shape and defines areas where energy is either contained or exhausted – over-expressed or under-expressed.

 For cancer patients – life trauma(s) prior to diagnosis or trauma around surgery, effects of medical treatments, changes in body image and sexuality, stress, loss of independence, redundancy or work issues and unplanned for /uninvited change all take their toll not only on mind and emotions – but also in the body which can be likened. With a thorough understanding of these processes and learning to identify where a cancer patient might need help to effectively let go of stress held in muscles. GeM helps cancer patients to reconnect with their bodies in a re energising and powerful way. Patients always report a sense of groundedness and empowerment after a session as if they had just learned a martial art!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmut7UNEMjQ&w=425&h=349]

 

 

Please spread the word…

If you know someone who who like to value – add this unique method then please foward this blog URL
or if you know a groups who would like to organise a GeM  training interstate or overseas – then please have them contact me. I also offer one on one GeM sessions to patients.
see more on the training page at www.gracegawler.com/institute

Training with the Grace Gawler Institute for Integrated Cancer Solutions

Mini Masterclass Training Intensive – Saturday & Sunday April 2 & 3 2011 – 9.30 am – 6 pm both days – Gold Coast.email institute@gracegawler.com or call 07 5577 2997
FEE $550 for 2 days includes: Training, refreshments, morn/aft tea, lunch, workshop manual, materials, email mentoring/follow up, certificate of attendance.

  

Grace Gawler Institute – How emotions can affect the healing and recovery process in cancer

Part 3. The Importance of Emotions in Healing and Recovery

www.gracegawler.com/institute – Visit our jollyologist page

Continued from previous post.

Illness proved to be a great teacher for me although it was quite a shock  having been a supporter of so many for so long to find myself in a bubble of silence and isolation; made worse by living in the countryside. However, despite the situation – I considered myself lucky in that my background in supportive care and emotional therapies meant that I had ‘inner tools’ and knowledge just waiting to be accessed in my own crisis. I also knew I had the power of choice to move into victim or victor. The majority of my previous cancer patients had no such tool-kit of options – they had to start at the beginning – they had no dress rehearsals – no specific coping skills – cancer for them was a new and uninvited experience.

I now realise what a monumental quest it is to recover from a life challenging condition and how careful we as therapists must be when suggesting massive change whether it be dietary, social, emotional/psychological or physical. My professional training has had many highlights, but walking in the shoes of the patient has been my most profound and fertile learning field.  

 The Emotional connection: E-motions are energy in motion. That is… unless we repress them. When they are in movement and flowing we experience good psychological health and physical health. Albert Szent-Georgyi (1960) said “In every culture and in every medical tradition before ours, healing was accompanied by moving energy”.

This moving energy is also reflected in our bodies and immune system. In the video of real live blood (below) watch how an active neutrophil (one of our white cells) actively seeks and destroys bacteria (the black dot). This is not passive  – but pro active movement. When movement stops so does life.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnlULOjUhSQ&w=425&h=349]

When we experience a shock of some kind emotions can move with amazing force and rapid expression and can have physical consequences as in my case – my uterus literally fell out with a force that was dramatic. For someone else, an experience can be so shocking that emotions can ‘freeze’ – the condition eventually recognized as PTSD and or many dissociative states.   If we learn to deny and repress our emotional expression the chronic damming up effect can result in us becoming powerless. As I wrote in my Women of Silence poem – “Too much held too often can take its toll.”  This can reflect in a sense of deep hopelessness feeling unable to affect change and feeling “stuck” – thus our health becomes compromised.

Unresolved emotional, spiritual and physical pain results in an unrelenting ill ease. Repressed emotions can also result in withdrawal from life’s activities and create a void of loneliness and isolation from community. Sometimes this can be so powerful like ‘Bone-Pointing’ it can take away our will to live – our will to ‘be’. As a background intervention – emotional healing can have dramatically freeing consequences – the freedom to live and the freedom to die.

Recently I was asked to visit a young woman in hospital she was struggling for her life – too tired to lived – too fearful to die. I will call her June.  June had 5 children – her youngest was 18 months. Her family of origin are amazingly supportive. Diagnosed with kidney cancer – she had a kidney removed 2 years ago, declined chemotherapy, followed the books and internet advice and spent a small fortune on natural therapies. June became pregnant and then had a horrific delivery and emergency caesarean.  She kept up with the natural way to cure her cancer until advanced secondary tumours were diagnosed in her abdomen and lungs.  She then travelled to an expensive overseas clinic for treatment, with some improvement but deteriorated again as soon as she arrived back in Brisbane. Admitted and discharged by several hospitals and deemed palliative – she found her way to an oncologist who was willing to treat her. Her weight had plummeted to less than 40 kgs. 

Now there was no choice but to try chemotherapy. Her life hung in the balance for many days as her lungs slowly filled with fluid. This beautiful young woman was suffering deeply from an ailment that no-one had addressed in her recovery plan because no one had asked her about her life or emotional state….Silence. No one had dared to go there and she deteriorated. As it turned out June was in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship and had been for the course of her marriage. Her spirit and hope for a future had shattered – she was stuck – sick and tired of the battle. She almost died late last week and needed fluid drained from her lungs. She decided she wanted to live but didn’t know what to do or how to go about it.

We had a heart to heart – soul to soul discussion – and she spoke of her life.  Together we worked out a plan of intention for how her future might change in other words…. was there a possibility for things to be different.  Although too ill to act or do anything now – she now has a ray of hope and a plan to see her children grow.

Importantly – there is no chemotherapy – no natural substance with miraculous healing powers than can cure or heal this malady which is most accurately termed soul sickness.

Since these extra interventions – her oncologist reports she has turned a corner & he believes she might make it! June has gained weight, looks brighter and is keen to engage in life once again for however long that might be.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote “Life is like a card game, it is not about being dealt a good hand but how you play a band hand well!”  Some issues in life do just appear out of left field and depending how much spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical credit that we have in that very ‘personal bank account’, we may look at the glass as being half full or half empty.  If that “bank account” is empty when trauma pays us a visit – and…If we are spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and physically bankrupt; then we will have little resources (“credit”) left to withstand the onslaught. In June’s case she was emotionally, psychologically, physically and spiritually bankrupt.

This often presents as difficulties with personal boundaries, feeling empty (a shell) and or a feeling of being numbed to life. This can be identified as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

We are often tested in life as to how well we can play that ‘bad hand’. Preferably when traumas or shocks occur we can act from the place of the fullness of our being rather than as a victim of life dwelling on the emptiness of our being. In the early stages of healing the effect of the trauma needs to be dealt with in order to move emotional energy, place some deposits in the “bank account” and reframe the experience of life.

Next post – recognising emotional trauma in cancer patients and what to do about it – how to put deposits into your ‘bank account’.

www.gracegawler.com/institute  Visit our jollyologist page

Grace Gawler – Grace Gawler Institute: How emotions can affect the healing and recovery process in cancer patients

Part 2. The Importance of Emotions in Healing and RecoveryPlease pass on this blog URL to anyone you know who is dealing with cancer
help can also be found at www.gracegawler.com/institute

It is challenging to find the words to discuss emotional material. Our feelings and emotions are so personal, internal. Emotions – be they positive or negative – up or down, have an influence on the brain and brain chemicals. Those chemicals, neuro-peptides, hormones, endorphins to name a few, can influence the body’s chemistry. Day to day more flippant emotions are natural – they come and they go. Where emotions begin to be significant in terms of our health, is in the areas of chronic stress and trauma especially long term or unrelenting trauma. Feelings and affects associated with traumatic events can alter chemistry in mind and body. Below I relate my own experience around this important issue as an example. When talking of emotions and illness it is important not to lean into self-blame or the “I caused my cancer” trip. This article is adapted from my previously published article in the British Holistic Medical Journal. For more on emotions see Reviews on the menu or purchase  Women of Silence the Emotional Healing of Breast Cancer – book and eBook format. Continue reading “Grace Gawler – Grace Gawler Institute: How emotions can affect the healing and recovery process in cancer patients”

Grace Gawler Grace Gawler Institute – why alternative medicine is often not enough in cancer treatment.

Part one of Understanding Cancer:
A key function of the Grace Gawler Institute is education about cancer. Being a veteran – I have seen a lot during my 35 years of working with cancer patients. Most cancer patients I see in my practice have foregone conventional therapy for what appears to be the more logical solution of natural remedies. Some choose not to have surgery and go totally natural while others have their initial surgery and refuse further treatments or future diagnostic monitoring. Surely our bodies know what to do – the theory being that if we can just get our bodies nourished by a flood of good food, juices and doses of mega supplements – that it will fix the multitude of dietary and lifestyle sins we have committed in the immediate past and the damage passed on to us via genes and damaged DNA – add to that mix the environmental pollutants of the present. Believe me – it is not that simple!

I was raised believing that good food and a healthy lifestyle can prevent certain illnesses and I believe that is a possibility; however times have changed and so has the environment we live in. We are often exposed to hundreds – maybe even thousands of cancer causing substances as we innocently go about our daily lives – it is a cost of the conveniences that we love, the products we use and the 20th and 21st century lifestyles we’ve lived.

Unlike 35 years ago when I began working with cancer patients, many patients who contact me now seem to have had quite reasonable diets; they are disappointed because they had tried in earnest to cancer-proof their lives by becoming vegetarian, vegan, juicing daily, exercising at the gym going to yoga and practising meditation daily and positive thinking etc. They are surprised to learn that yogis, naturopaths, meditators & natural lifestyle folk can all succumb to cancer. There must be more to this cancer riddle than seems obvious. Continue reading “Grace Gawler Grace Gawler Institute – why alternative medicine is often not enough in cancer treatment.”

The Grace Gawler Institute Launches the “Survive and Thrive Club”

The Grace Gawler Institute for Integrated Cancer Solutions 

Hello and Welcome: – The Survive and Thrive Club has been launched as a part of the my new Australian Charity –  The Grace Gawler Institute for Integrated Cancer Solutions – experts in survival strategies. Some already generous donors have helped with establishing the Grace Gawler Institute with the aim that we can create a truly charitable institution with low administration costs, small staff numbers & high service output utilising the lastest technology including a  “Cancer Cyber Center” that can provide low cost tools, information via eBooks, webinars, skype consultations , online courses and 2-3 day residential retreats. There are more exciting free broadcast plans in the pipeline.

It is the first step towards complementary and collaborative care that can be provided to needy. It has always been my belief that cancer patients should be able to receive exactly the same level of care – whether complementary or mainstream medicine, or a combination of both without the added burden of  being financially stressed as well as critically ill. Illness brings about tremendous suffering on all levels of existence and the ripple effect through family units is often a very sad consequence. I appreciate that when your life depends on finding cash in order to survive – it is a very stressful situation. The following recent publication short exerpt highlights the issues discussed on this blog

Financial Worries Top Psychosocial Concern of Cancer Patients – Elsevier Global Medical News. 2011 Feb 28, B Bates ANAHEIM, CALIF. (EGMN) – “Highlighting shifting priorities after the recession, nearly half of all recent psychosocial consultations with patients at a leading cancer center involved financial worries, rather than adjustment issues or other pressing mental health concerns…”

When I inspired and co founded the Gawler Foundation in the early 80’s, as a result of being Ian Gawler’s sole care-giver from 1974-1978; my vision was to raise funds from areas of society such as corporate Australia so that  continuity of services and longevity of the organisation could be assured while providing free services. If clients wish to pay for service or  make a donation towards services then it would automatically help others who were financially compromised and can’t pay for services. As organisations grow &  more people’s visions become involved- it becomes challenging  to hold to ideals. 

Grace Gawler
Me after life saving surgery 2000

However – although I resigned from the Gawler Foundation in 1996, I still hold to those ideals, in fact my passion has increased fuelled no doubt by my own experience. Since 1997 I have been through 20 surgical procedures myself over a 13 year period and having to relocate geographically 14 times including overseas for one year. My debt levels to survive were and are still enormous. With teenage children in my care for some of that time including a son with special needs. My situation is unfortunately far too common.

 I feel I have been at the coalface over cancer care as a care-giver, service provider to more than 13,000 patients during my career then a patient. It was not cancer in my case – but severe complications from a hysterectomy. Unable to use my bowels – the results were very similar to a cancer patient’s experience. My situation was life threatening many times and I am now minus 5 ft of large colon and 5 ft of small bowel due to nerve damage and impaction. 2002 – 2003 I had an experimental procedure for a bionic colon – it was a success and a world first procedure performed in Holland. I know a great deal about surviving and thriving and will share many of my tips via. Select the link below to join – its free – no obligation – cancel at at any time  The Survive and Thrive Club .

 The Survive and Thrive Club  offers cancer patients at all stages of their illness, the opportunity to source accurate, (real) evidence-based medicine and cancer information.

Its a Free Sign-up to receive regular newsletters with tips for:
Survival
Recovery strategies
Evidence-based research
Cancer nutrition & recipes
Notice of events, giveaways, competitions
And new Grace Gawler Products.

  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCBqfFK5VIs]

Free sign up to
The Survive & Thrive Club

Gold Coast – Australia

The Grace Gawler Institute Launches the "Survive and Thrive Club"

The Grace Gawler Institute for Integrated Cancer Solutions 

Hello and Welcome: – The Survive and Thrive Club has been launched as a part of the my new Australian Charity –  The Grace Gawler Institute for Integrated Cancer Solutions – experts in survival strategies. Some already generous donors have helped with establishing the Grace Gawler Institute with the aim that we can create a truly charitable institution with low administration costs, small staff numbers & high service output utilising the lastest technology including a  “Cancer Cyber Center” that can provide low cost tools, information via eBooks, webinars, skype consultations , online courses and 2-3 day residential retreats. There are more exciting free broadcast plans in the pipeline.

It is the first step towards complementary and collaborative care that can be provided to needy. It has always been my belief that cancer patients should be able to receive exactly the same level of care – whether complementary or mainstream medicine, or a combination of both without the added burden of  being financially stressed as well as critically ill. Illness brings about tremendous suffering on all levels of existence and the ripple effect through family units is often a very sad consequence. I appreciate that when your life depends on finding cash in order to survive – it is a very stressful situation. The following recent publication short exerpt highlights the issues discussed on this blog

Financial Worries Top Psychosocial Concern of Cancer Patients – Elsevier Global Medical News. 2011 Feb 28, B Bates ANAHEIM, CALIF. (EGMN) – “Highlighting shifting priorities after the recession, nearly half of all recent psychosocial consultations with patients at a leading cancer center involved financial worries, rather than adjustment issues or other pressing mental health concerns…”

When I inspired and co founded the Gawler Foundation in the early 80’s, as a result of being Ian Gawler’s sole care-giver from 1974-1978; my vision was to raise funds from areas of society such as corporate Australia so that  continuity of services and longevity of the organisation could be assured while providing free services. If clients wish to pay for service or  make a donation towards services then it would automatically help others who were financially compromised and can’t pay for services. As organisations grow &  more people’s visions become involved- it becomes challenging  to hold to ideals. 

Grace Gawler
Me after life saving surgery 2000

However – although I resigned from the Gawler Foundation in 1996, I still hold to those ideals, in fact my passion has increased fuelled no doubt by my own experience. Since 1997 I have been through 20 surgical procedures myself over a 13 year period and having to relocate geographically 14 times including overseas for one year. My debt levels to survive were and are still enormous. With teenage children in my care for some of that time including a son with special needs. My situation is unfortunately far too common.

 I feel I have been at the coalface over cancer care as a care-giver, service provider to more than 13,000 patients during my career then a patient. It was not cancer in my case – but severe complications from a hysterectomy. Unable to use my bowels – the results were very similar to a cancer patient’s experience. My situation was life threatening many times and I am now minus 5 ft of large colon and 5 ft of small bowel due to nerve damage and impaction. 2002 – 2003 I had an experimental procedure for a bionic colon – it was a success and a world first procedure performed in Holland. I know a great deal about surviving and thriving and will share many of my tips via. Select the link below to join – its free – no obligation – cancel at at any time  The Survive and Thrive Club .

 The Survive and Thrive Club  offers cancer patients at all stages of their illness, the opportunity to source accurate, (real) evidence-based medicine and cancer information.

Its a Free Sign-up to receive regular newsletters with tips for:
Survival
Recovery strategies
Evidence-based research
Cancer nutrition & recipes
Notice of events, giveaways, competitions
And new Grace Gawler Products.

  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCBqfFK5VIs]

Free sign up to
The Survive & Thrive Club

Gold Coast – Australia