You've Always Had the Power My Dear

My Meditation Journey

May is National Meditation Month. I teach meditation, and people assume I must be a peaceful person. It wasn't always so. My meditation journey started in 2002...after a breast cancer diagnosis. I hope that sharing my story might inspire someone out there to commit to a meditation practice in their life. 

The previous five years to my cancer diagnosis had been the most difficult of my life. A high risk twin pregnancy that involved a lot of bed rest and a premature delivery...followed by my 38-year-old husband dying suddenly of a heart attack while taking our six-month-old twin daughters for a stroll. ...followed by me getting remarried four years later...followed by a breast cancer diagnosis two weeks after the wedding. Yep. All that happened. I saw three doctors for my treatment options, and when I asked them if they thought stress had anything to do with me getting cancer, two of them said "no." I didn't believe them. There was no history of breast cancer in my family, and I had always been healthy. In my heart of hearts, in the core of my being, I knew there was a connection.

Treatment consisted of a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, and a trial drug called Herceptin. Herceptin eventually turned out to be the new gold standard for the type of cancer I had. As difficult as it was going through all that treatment, there's a weird sense of safety about it. You feel like you are actively doing something, and that is comforting. What they don't tell you about is how you will feel when treatment is over and that sense of having a safety net is no longer there. You'd think it would be wonderful to be finished with treatment, and it was...and it wasn't. I recall waking up each morning, and my first thought would be "What if it comes back." I wondered if I would ever again have a day when that thought, that fear, wasn't the first thing that popped into my head. It felt paralyzing. I knew I had a lot of past trauma to process, and I knew that I had to find a way to find my peace of mind again. 

A Fork In the Road

I had my treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, one of the premier cancer treatment centers in the country. I was fortunate to live only a 40-minute drive away. Toward the end of my treatment, while walking through the lobby, I caught a glimpse of a flyer for a pilot mind, body, spirit class for breast cancer survivors. It was being held at a facility called The Rose, close to my home. Instantly, I knew this is what I was looking for. The Rose is a mammography center that was started by breast cancer surgeon, Dr. Dixie Melillo. It provides free or low cost mammograms to women who can't afford one. It's an amazing place that has saved countless lives. Dr. Dixie, as she is affectionately called, is amazing too. She believes strongly in the mind, body, spirit connection and offered the use of a room at The Rose for the class. She even attended some classes herself. That's where I first learned about meditation, in a roomful of breast cancer survivors led by an instructor named Marnie Morrison. That class set me on a path that changed my life. 

As I began to practice the meditations and the spiritual principles I learned in the class, I began to reclaim the sense of peace I had lost. Life was busy with two young daughters, so I wasn't able to be as consistent as I wanted to be. There were times I was away from meditation for weeks at a time, but something in me always called me back to it. I knew it was an important key for my mental, physical, and spiritual health. I always felt calmer and more resilient when I meditated. It created a wonderful ripple effect in my life. My baseline of calm was changing for the better. 

Breaking the Habit of Being Myself

Fast forward a few years to 2016. I was still practicing the spiritual principles I had learned. I was working on the skill of creating change in my life through the practice of intent and meditation. I was getting pretty good at it, but every time things were going really well, something would inevitably happen that would set me back. It was so frustrating. One day, it dawned on me that I felt like I was stuck in some kind of unconscious pattern. That pattern was sabotaging me every time I began to make progress. In that moment, I asked the universe out loud to please help me figure out what was holding me back. And I really meant it. Three days later, I came across a book called Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza. It was one of those synchronistic moments, and I knew it was the answer to my prayer. 

I dove into Dr. Joe's work, and I began to understand how past beliefs, experiences, and habits get stuck in our subconscious mind and how our brain creates neural pathways for them that can keep us stuck in the past. It all began to make sense to me. I started doing Dr. Joe's meditations daily. I felt so much better that I didn't want to miss a day. Believe me, when you start to see tangible results in your life, it motivates you to keep going. Mediations became something I looked forward to, not just something I "should" do. My meditation practice became a priority to me like healthy eating or taking a daily vitamin, or getting enough sleep and exercise. If I missed a day, I noticed I felt different. 

Then the pandemic happened. I was looking for something to help occupy my time during lockdown, and I decide to enroll in an online course to become certified as a meditation teacher. I wanted to help other people experience its many benefits. Not only did I want to teach people how to meditate. but like Dr. Joe, I wanted to teach them why and how meditation works and how we can use it free ourselves from old patterns that no longer serve us.

The Rubber Meets the Road

Another thing happened at the beginning of the pandemic. I went in for my annual mammogram, and this time, after eighteen cancer-free years, there were some tiny calcifications in the same breast as before. I was able to get a biopsy the day before The Rose had to go into lockdown. The biopsy showed some cancerous cells, but no tumor. Since the breast had already had treatment before, the treatment now was a mastectomy. The problem was that hospitals at that time were only doing emergency and high-priority surgeries. MIne was neither since everything appeared to be contained, and there was no tumor. I had to wait three months for surgery. And you had better believe that I meditated every single day of those three months. I surprised myself at how calm I stayed throughout that time. I meditated on feelings of health and wholeness. I imagined all the cancerous cells staying contained or even disappearing. I visualized everything about the surgery going smoothly. Meditation helped me keep my sanity during a time that was already so insane. 

Everything about the surgery went super smooth. Several synchronicities happened on the day of the surgery that truly felt like divine guidance and protection. There were no tumors, and everything was still contained and removed. I felt so much gratitude. 

There's No Place Like Home

Now you know why I am passionate about teaching meditation and why I started Pando Unlimited. It's a hard-earned labor of love for me born from the school of hard knocks. I know now that I am much bigger than my body. I keep thinking of The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy's ruby slippers. You know, that scene at the end of the movie where Glinda tells Dorothy that all she had to do to go home was to click her heels together three times and say, "There's no place like home." She had the power all along, but she had to find out for herself. That's how I feel when I meditate. It's like going home. I had the power all along. You have the power. We all do. We have more power than we can imagine. That's why I call it Pando Unlimited. I actually have a photo of Dorothy's ruby slippers on the wall of my meditation space. It reminds me of the wonderful feeling I get every time I close my eyes and sink into my heart. Home. "There's no place like home." I want you to experience that feeling too. Click your heels. Let's go...

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