Healing Cancer With Hypnosis: A Rock Named Rose
By Susan Justice
On the evening before my thirty-seventh birthday, I found myself in a great deal of pain which led me to the emergency room of Marin General Hospital. When a tumor of unknown origin was found to be the cause of the pain, everything in my life began to change. The prognosis was not good. I was told that the tumor had to be removed. That it had spread throughout my pelvis and into my leg and was growing rapidly. Unfortunately the only way they could remove it was to perform a hemipelvectomy, the removal of my leg and hip. The doctor said I had about six months to live otherwise. Well, that was a lot to accept. And I couldn’t accept it. I had a four year old son I was young but suddenly my life was nearly over. I felt that I probably wouldn’t live through that surgery and if I did that I would die of depression anyway. There had to be another way!
I was alone in my hospital room in the evening after being told that a tumor was growing in my body. My heart was open and I was feeling the beauty of the little lights twinkling on the hillside outside my window and appreciating the flowers that filled my room, and I knew that I was not alone. I knew then that I wanted to live and to heal my life. To heal all the pain that had brought me to this point. In the stillness of that moment, an inner voice told me that I was going to be okay, that I had important work to do…and to let it begin now. This message became the foundation for my faith.
After weeks of test and surgeries, I said no to the hemipelvectomy and without even realizing what I was doing, I went straight toward Spirit for my healing. I became a spiritual warrior on a quest to heal my life. I felt that the pain I carried in my heart had created this illness. I knew that I had to learn to love myself in a much greater way and to forgive myself and all others. I had a lot of spiritual support around me and my faith was strong. I asked that I be guided to the highest healing places for me and that I be allowed to live and to heal my life, so that I might be a living example of God’s great healing energy. And I was guided. I worked with some remarkable healers that helped me to gain a better understanding about illness and healing and about myself.
It was during this time I was guided to Alchemical Hypnotherapy. With its gentle and powerful processes I was able to get to the heart of the matter quickly, which is what I needed. It helped me clear away the misperceptions that I carried about myself and others that caused me pain and suffering. It was a pathway that showed me how to love myself as I recovered and discovered lost parts of my Self, including the deepest and most divine places within me. Because I was in great need of healing, I was willing to do whatever it took to find a way to heal.
My biggest single breakthrough happened on a beautiful autumn day. I remember how the colors and the fresh air and the beauty touched my awareness. Every breath I took was filled with gratitude, just for being alive and somehow knowing I was being guided. That day I was gently guided on an Alchemical journey inside my body to meet the tumor that was growing there. I was surprised to find a smooth shiny black rock there. This moved me to tears because my image of the tumor until then was of a rock with very rough and pointed edges. I had actually found a rock that fit my thoughts and image of the tumor, it was heavy and jagged and filled with crystals and I ceremoniously smashed that rock to smithereens with a sledgehammer, demanding the tumor to leave my body. I was serious about it.
When I met this smooth shiny black rock something very different was evoked within me. I knew I was making progress, this was a much different and better image. My therapist guided me to speak with this rock that represented the tumor. To ask whatever questions I wanted to ask. The first question I asked was “Why did you come here?” The reply was, “I was asked to come here.” By whom? “By little Susie. Listen, she is here.” The little girl I met that day was frightened, lonely and indeed, abandoned. She was terribly frightened in so many ways; There was fear of abuse and abandonment, fear of others’ anger, and fear that she really didn’t deserve to be loved. I was so deeply moved by this child part of myself. How long she had been neglected. As I talked with her and tried to win her trust, I asked her how I could help. She said she wanted to be free…free to be herself and express love and joy as much as she could. But there had been so much fear and pain that she didn’t know whether she could stand to live any longer. I found a strength and power within me that made a bold rescue of the little girl, and I made a vow to give her all the love, freedom, attention and healing that she needed. She was no longer abandoned and alone. I had recovered a part of myself that was essential to my healing.
Together we returned to speak with the tumor and I asked the shiny black rock what is your name?” the reply was: “Rose.” This made me cry because that was the name I had chosen to give to the baby girl I was trying to conceive when the tumor was discovered. I asked, “Why did you come to me in this way?” The response changed my awareness forever. “I came to help you. You were needing to make important changes in your life that you were afraid to make on your own. I heard your call for help.” The tumor had come to help me! I cried as I came to realize and accept that this illness was here to teach me and to help me.
I made friends with the tumor that day and I made a connection with my inner child. These experiences changed the course of my life. From that moment on I wholeheartedly listened to the wisdom of the illness and I embraced my inner child. By loving her I have learned to love all of my Self, deeply, gently, with compassion and kindness and to release the past and to forgive. I had found at last the inner strength and spiritual resources needed to make the necessary changes. Answers came from within me and I learned to trust myself and believe in myself. I made many changes in my life over those years. Two and a half years later the tumor was completely gone. It has now been twelve years since that night in the emergency room my cancer remains in “remission”. More importantly, to this day little Susie is an integral part of my life and her new happiness fills my life with joy.
Susan Justice is an Alchemical Hypnotherapist in Marin County, California specializing in healing chronic illness.
For more incredible articles of healing with hypnosis, visit the library page on the Alchemy Institute website
