cancerjourney, Author at The Cancer Journey Institute

3 Misconceptions of Cancer Healing

Posted on April 17, 2013 by cancerjourney

Often we get asked, “What is the RIGHT way to heal my cancer?” Not to sound cliché, but the answer is “Everyone is different and so YOUR way is your RIGHT way.” And many of us run into some strong misconceptions that can limit our healing. Here are the 3 most common ones many may encounter:

1. Having a laser focus on my health is all I need to get through my cancer.

The Truth: Having a clear focus on your health is important when dealing with cancer. However, true cancer healing needs to be done on the body, mind, and spirit levels. Forgetting a key aspect of what makes you whole, is like ignoring your home and family while you focus on work. One day, you’ll look up from your desk and find that your home and family life have become complete disasters and everything feels like it’s falling apart.

2. If I tell people about my cancer, I’ll be treated differently.

The Truth: Traveling your Cancer Journey can be a lonely. Even with an abundant support network loneliness can set in and make it hard to be motivated to continue healing. So, the more you can include others into your cancer healing, the better.

I’ve heard so often that cancer folks don’t share their illness with others because they don’t want to be looked at or treated like a sick person or someone who is dying. I understand completely. And, when you stand in your power around your cancer, you can help others learn to be with you in the way that you need. You can teach them.

You can ask for what you need, some nutritious, yummy food or someone to take a walk in nature with, and let them know that you are still the person you were before your cancer. You can be treated and seen as vibrant, useful, and alive during your cancer journey.

How can you share what you’re going through and still laugh, sing, dance, and play with others as part of your cancer healing?

3. Once I finish treatment, everything will go back to normal.

The Truth: The completion of treatment (or at least, active treatment) is a milestone; one to be celebrated and acknowledged. However, just because treatment is done does not mean that you are no longer feeling the effects from treatment. The effects move slowly out of our body. It takes time for the treatment to do what it needs to do and then leave our body.

It doesn’t matter whether you are healing from surgery or an extensive chemo/radiation regime, recovery takes time. There is no magic formula or date when all will be well; it will take as long as it does. Recovery is still part of your cancer journey. Knowing that you are different, changed somehow from your cancer, is key. Different isn’t bad. Different is different. Embracing your “New Different You” is part of standing in your power.

Keri Lehmann

Posted on April 17, 2013 by cancerjourney

Keri Lehmann, Director of Program Development
CPCC & Master Cancer Coach
Caregiver

Keri believes that love is the greatest healing elixir. “When someone learns to love themself, quantum healing is possible,” says Keri. “That’s why coaching is so powerful.” As a coach and coach trainer, she gets to be both a teacher and a healer, something she feels is part of her destiny. Over the course of 20 years, Keri has loved a lot of clients.

Keri saw the profound healing effects of coaching when one of her beloved clients, Shariann, experienced a recurrence. “Nobody else in my life was allowing me to feel what I was feeling,” says Shariann. Smitten with Shariann’s courage, grace, and vision for a world where cancer coaching is readily available, Keri was delighted when Shariann asked her to become part of The Cancer Journey. Feeling feelings are a major component of the Panic to Powerful Programs.

Along with her coaching experience, Keri’s coach training background includes being a faculty member for the Coaches Training Institute (CTI). She is a perpetual student of metaphysics and brings spiritual depth to her work at The Cancer Journey. She has traveled cancer journeys with two other great loves of her life – her husband and her mother. Keri lives in Pacifica, a coastal town in the SF Bay Area, with her husband, Jay, their teenage son, Dylan, and the family dog, Bosco. They all get coached from time to time.

An interview with Keri:

What inspires you to get up in the morning? When the light of day shines through my window and I feel so grateful that I have this day to love and be loved! I adore my work, so I get excited to see who I get to be with and what I get to co-create. There is so much fun to be had! It also helps that most days I need to take my son to school 🙂

What are you scared of? I’m most scared of having Spiritual Amnesia – believing the lie that I’m separate from The Divine or Forgetting that I’m loved and loving. That is so painful. I also have to say what scares me most is that something would happen to Dylan and he’d be hurt and frightened and I wouldn’t be there to comfort him. I don’t have any desire to go skydiving, so I’m scared of jumping out of a plane 🙂

People often underestimate the power of . . . Love. I do believe it is the most powerful force in the Universe. We also underestimate the power of Vulnerability. There is power in REALness! It allows us to connect at the level of our Soul.

I am in my power when . . . I’m coaching and in the present moment. I’m in my power when I remember who I am and how loved I am, when I’m connected and Real.

If you could have one super power, what would you choose? Teleporting, it would be so cool to just zip somewhere, hug somebody who needs a hug, and zip back.

Shariann Tom

Posted on April 17, 2013 by cancerjourney

Shariann Tom, Founder & President
CPCC and Master Cancer Coach
5 time cancer survivor (Lymphoma & GIST)

The Cancer Journey blends two turning points for founder Shariann: surviving four bouts of lymphoma, one bout with a GIST, and making life coaching her profession. The profound contrast between facing cancer without a coach and a cancer journey with a coach inspired Shariann to start a movement dedicated to cancer patients, caregivers and survivors. “I was in a state of panic and coaching allowed me to feel I had power.” Hence, the “Panic to Powerful™ Program” and Cancer Journey Coaching was born. “I want this for everyone who is touched by cancer,” says Shariann, “it gives people access to True Healing.”

Shariann’s 16 years of coaching and coach training combined with her 16 years in Corporate America in business management, sales, and marketing, gives her the balance needed to run and operate an innovative company. Shariann is regularly asked to speak to Cancer Support Centers and health conferences across the country. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she can be near her family, both nuclear and extended.

An interview with Shariann:

What inspires you to get up in the morning? I happily wake up in the morning knowing that there is a new adventure waiting for me. Adventures excite me because they are a chance to grow, expand, and love more.

What are you scared of? I am most scared of being taken out of the game too soon. “I came to play.”

People often underestimate the power of . . . “20-seconds of courage,” feeling our feelings, and loving ourselves.

I am in my power when . . . I get out of my head and come from my heart. Trust is a big opening of power for me as I let go of trying to control outcomes.

If you could have one super power, what would you choose? It would be multiplicity so that I can be in more places at the same time and have an abundance of experiences. I thought about being able to expand the day, but if there were multiples of me, I wouldn’t need to.