Israel is promising to have a cure for cancer within a year.
And while this sparks hope in some fearful patients and family members, one lingering "truth" that continues to surface is the sobering reality that "hope is not a method."
Do we honestly believe we can cure Cancer aka a disease driven largely by lifestyle?
Brace Yourself
Before continuing through this article, please note that this topic is extremely controversial.
And we humans love controversy and drama.
My intention though is not to spark controversy, yet only to invite the reader and my health coaching clients to think deeper about the subject of cancer than they ever have before.
I have lost close family members and friends to this battle and I currently have friends and family members battling.
The Reality Of The Situation
We cannot deny the fact that bad things happen to good people.
The world is not, and will not, evolve a certain way despite how hard we think, hope, and pray that it should.
But, and this is a huge BUT, there is mounting evidence that cancer itself is simply not always a genetic disease.
Some cancers are due to genetic predisposition, albeit only a small percentage of them. Some are largely brought on by our decisions, choices, and inhabited regions.
How we think, act, believe, eat, drink, sleep, live, and pray all play active and on going roles in whether or not we are stricken or diagnosed with cancer.
The Elephant In The Room
These Israeli scientists have made a bold claim.
Curing a disease that is primarily a result of human behavior would indeed require controlling another human's thinking and actions.
And in case any parents, spouses, friends, children, and pet-owners out there have forgotten, controlling another's mind is all but impossible.
Let us not forget that God himself gave Adam and Eve explicit instruction not to eat from the tree and even he could not control their thoughts and actions.
Let us not be fooled into thinking these mere human scientists can overcome the travesty of human choice.
Will they find a better treatment than what we currently have?
More than likely, yes.
Will they "cure" a disease that is deeply rooted in faulty thinking and behavior?
Don't hold your breath.
Yet, what they have managed to do is create a lot of buzz, which of course draws a lot of attention and eyes, which of course draws more advertisers, and more dollars on their research.
Because when the FDA won't fund your research because they may not make money on the deal, what else is a poor researcher to do aside from look to outside funding sources?
Israeli scientists even go as far to claim:
“Our cancer cure will be effective from day one, will last a duration of a few weeks and will have no or minimal side-effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market.”
Now, before you read any further, I want you to reread that claim and ask yourself:
How is it that we continue to poison our cancer patients with chemo for months, yet out of left field, they will have a cure that has no side effects and will only last mere weeks?
But Chemo is the solution, right?
- Is chemo effective for some cancers? Yes, you bet.
- But, is it also a poison with horrible side-effects? You bet.
- Do most patients that are treated with chemo end up having the cancer return if they don't change the thinking or the behavior that got them there in the first place?
You Bet!
How do we "cure" the real problem?
Herein lies the problem:
Living in the world today, we are drowning in information while at the same time starving for motivation.
It is quite literally the same as obese individuals starving for nutrition while drowning in excess calories. While most "researchers" and doctors are continuing to bark up the wrong tree for a "cure."
The sea of information we are offered is riddled with charismatic voices singing the praises of self-improvement and showering us all with endless tips and tricks on how we can enhance our lives, health, and bank accounts.
Yet, the majority of America struggles to put these hacks and recipes into action
- One in three Americans are obese or morbidly obese EVEN THOUGH we have access to better nutrition at the lowest cost than ever before in history.
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There are millions of diet books, websites, and gurus out on the market and yet we are getting fatter and sicker...
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Gyms and health clubs oversell memberships by 400% at the beginning of the year.
400%! Why?
Because they are certain that after the first two weeks of the year and only a couple of weeks in May before beach vacation, only 10% of the members will show up to utilize the facilities.
How do we "cure" that?
And even when we are literally confronted with a life or death decision, most cannot muster what is necessary to deviate from their fatal norms.
For example, a Harvard study confronted a handful of patients with lifestyle related diseases that if continued would kill them. Diseases such as smoking, cardiovascular disease, and Diabetes.
Yet, even when presented with the "cure" packaged up simply in the form of cessation from those behaviors, 87% would not, and could not, avoid this death sentence.
Apparently, despite having a "cure" shoved in front of our faces, most would rather die than change their behavior.
And beyond the realm of health, 8 out of 10 of us are disengaged in our jobs, our marriages, and our parenting DESPITE the charades of "incentivizing", team building, and love experts.
If behavioral scientists know what will "motivate" and "inspire" us, why do we not latch on to those brighter tomorrows?
We "know better", yet we cannot seem to "do better."
We seem to be enthralled with finding and waiting for a "cure" that will somehow overcome our crappy lifestyle decisions and thinking, as opposed to stopping or changing those first.
We would rather bail water out of our boat, incessantly, as opposed to looking for the hole in the bottom of it and patching it once and for all.
It is old knowledge, yet just not a popular or common notion in our day:
If you want to know what someone will be like tomorrow, look at how they behaved yesterday and today.
That trumps any behavioral science that you can drum up. But, even if we look to the research, the statistics don't lie.
We are much more interested in our entertainments and "having fun" than we are in visualizing how our actions and choices will influence our future.
When we live by no real principles other than our own indulgences, and those closest to us perform and think in the same manner, could anyone really be confused as to why there is such rampant obesity, cancer, and physical sin being performed in our culture?
Our Thoughts And Beliefs Control Our Physiology
And while the brevity of this article cannot begin to unravel the causes and triggers of the complexities of Cancer, there are numerous occasions where the power of belief, placebo, and prayer have perplexed even the most studious researchers.
We cannot begin to explain how our thoughts and beliefs control our physiology, but any curious human would struggle to debate the pragmatics of the results.
In his book, "The War Of Art", Stephen Pressfield gives us a glimpse into the power of shifting our thoughts, altering our behavior, and changing our consciousness:
“What happens in that instant when we learned we may soon die, Tom Laughlin contends, is that the seat of our consciousness shifts..."
This is how Tom Laughlin’s foundation battles cancer.
- He counsels his clients not just to make that shift mentally but to live it out in their lives.
- He supports the housewife in resuming her career in social work, urges the businessman to return to the violin, assists the Vietnam vet to write his novel.
Miraculously, cancers go into remission. People recover.
"Is it possible?"
Tom Laughlin asks, that the disease itself evolved as a consequence of action taken (are not taken) in our lives?
- Could our unlived lives have exacted there a vengeance upon us in the form of cancer?
- And if they did, can we cure ourselves, now, by living these lives out?”
But, for the reader, the challenge presented is not in wondering if a cure is on the horizon, but in asking oneself why they are waiting to be saved from something that can largely be controlled and prevented themselves?