Question for Bernie:
I am nearing the end of reading your book, Love, Medicine, and Miracles, which is just soul warming. I am just over a year on from my diagnoses of breast cancer closely followed by secondary metastases on both lungs.
I am 44 years old and have been with my partner for 10 years. We do not have any children (I waited until it was too late, never anticipating that I would get cancer!) My question is how do you pick yourself up? I try and try so hard to be positive again on the outside, so now everyone thinks I am strong and doing well. But inside I am feeling lost and bewildered.
When I got the diagnosis, I gave up smoking and never drank alcohol anyway. I’m finding it so hard to get a positive outlook on life and am not sure if I am depressed. Before all of this I was not very successful in my chosen field of art/design. I retrained in graphics but still success eluded me. I always thought I’d have at least one child and now I can’t have any which feels like a big loss.
I am alive, though, and am truly grateful for that, but I find myself asking, “What am I alive for? I have no career, no children and feel a failure, how do I carry on?” Here’s my blog if you’re interested: http://fightingthebeastwithin.blogspot.co.uk/
Thank you for being here and offering some help.
Love and light.
Bernie’s Answer:
You need to create a life you can love and a body you can love despite the cancer.
Take a closer look at how you define “having children.” That may be the real issue for you. There are many who need you and can help you to find meaning in your life, whether you adopt a child, become a foster parent, or work with adults in need of love and care.
Please remember that immortality is through love and not having children.
Decide to do everything you can to learn how to live for the day. For all of us, whether we are on a healing journey because of illness or not, only ever have today. The key to happiness, whatever is going on in your life, is to understand that truth and make the absolute most of each and every day.
If you like animals and are in a position to care for one, get a furry pet to teach you how to live in the moment. If you can’t have a pet of your own, spend time with friends and family who do have pets and observe how the pets behave. You will soon see that they can teach us all a great deal about how to live in the moment.
I want you to stop being critical of yourself—abandon the past and its negative messages from parents and others and move forward. Don’t continue to use your energy to gain approval from those around you. That adds to stress because resentment can grow out of feeling, as you mention you do, that nobody knows how you truly feel. Be authentic and use your energy to strengthen your positivity.
You have potential to find exactly what you will be happy doing and feel good about doing. You can choose what you see, so eliminate the negative vision of life and replace it minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day with a positive one. Take back the power that is yours by rights and begin to behave lovingly not just for the benefit of those around you, but first for yourself.
Peace,
Bernie
Question for Bernie:
I am so worried. I have always been spiritual and even after a diagnosis of breast cancer which unfortunately has spread, I still manage to keep myself positive and upbeat.
My problem and question is regarding a disturbing dream that I feel I have had before. The dream involves my mother and me going to a dentist appointment. Whilst in the waiting room, my mum decides to get drunk on red wine (we are both Teetotalers in real life). She ends up going to the toilets and is gone for a long time. In the meantime all my old friends turn up and I tell them about my mum getting drunk which is out of character, and they hold my hand and just look at me.
Is this dream foretelling my death? I have had a mastectomy and was thinking maybe that was to do with my mum, a) getting drunk and, b) going missing! I have had prophetic dreams in the past, one of which came true the day after I dreamt it.
So sorry to trouble you, but I know you understand about signs/symbols and dreams as I am presently reading your book Love, Medicine and Miracles.
Love to you.
Bernie’s Answer:
I do not think this dream is about your death so please don’t continue to worry. I think it is about your breast developing cancer and the treatment choice of mastectomy. Breasts are closely associated with the maternal role of a woman, and in your case, one of them acted “out of character” like your mother did in your dream by getting drunk. It then “disappeared” as your mother did when she went to the restroom where things get flushed down the drain…and as your breast did in “real life” when you were treated with mastectomy.
Your old friends are the other parts of you which are still present and are asking for you to show them that you still love them by returning to a life you can love in a body that you love.
I am always reminded by dreams such as yours how connected our mind, bodies and spirits truly are—if anyone has any doubt.
Peace,
Bernie
Question for Bernie:
If you don’t mind….why do you think God would take my life (children) from me….why me? I’ve been portraying the “try me” but I wonder “why me?”
Bernie’s Answer:
God did not choose to take your children from you. It is simply that perfection is not creation. A perfect world is a “magic trick” that no one is prepared for or can learn from. If you were God you would understand why.
For me God is the intelligent, loving, conscious energy from which all creation comes. God has no specific religion affiliation.
I respect my God and feel I am a child of God.
All I can say is that we are here to live and learn and it can be painful. But we are blessed with an intelligence that allows us to look within ourselves and find strength when we need it. We are also blessed with the ability to offer strength to others during their difficulties—we can mirror what some of us know God to be by loving ourselves and others.
The choice is yours as to what the loss teaches and means to you. It might strengthen you in unexpected ways. You might learn how to find your inner self and to love that self so that all you can be is able to emerge. Many changes come from upheaval in our lives, but we always retain the power to choose how we perceive those changes – as an enemy or as a steppingstone to finding our best self.
Peace,
Bernie