Q: It seems like one of the things that I had the most fear about was when anybody got cancer, because it seems like in our family we have a lot of people that get it, and two months ago I was told that I had it in my arm. I had it cut out and it seems like everything is fine now, but what has spun from that is this huge avalanche of fear and anger that feels like somehow our family is playing out something through the generations in this cancer, and I’d really like it to stop at me.

John: For it to stop with you, then you would be at home with cancer. You being okay with cancer having a home in your body. You having no aversion toward that, no fear. Just softness.

Q: People say to me that cancer comes from unexpressed anger. Is that what it is?

John: Do you know that that is true? You are impressed by it, but do you know it?

Q: No. I don’t know it. It seems like whenever I drop into a knowing around the cancer it’s like a deep grieving. There is just rawness and sadness and I’m completely lame in the middle of it.

John: When such grieving lets, there’s healing within. It is when the grieving will not let that there is anger within or defeat within.

Q: When I drop into the sadness, it’s like I struggle to find a place in my mind where I can just go numb. It seems like it’s been a place I have gone to all my life. I don’t want to go there anymore. I let myself feel so much of it and then I either get angry or I go hide somewhere in my mind. I don’t know how to stay just in the rawness.

John: By being open to feel and hurt without having to do. When you mix hurting with doing, you get defeat or anger. Be open to feel and to hurt without having to do something with it. Hurting within, without bringing your will into it. Letting what is there be there, without you engaging in it, without you doing something with it. When you are not engaging in the pain, then pain makes you whole.

Pain gets you in touch with the deep in you. Pain gets you in touch with your core. Pain shows you what you’ve taken down into your core that doesn’t need to be there, that you’ve kept there and held there as a belief. Pain is that cutting within that frees you from what has been holding you.

When you protect that pain, that secures the old holding within. Then that holding becomes more solid within your core. When you let pain be and you’re not mixing it with any doing, then pain frees you, heals you, and takes you deep into what you know. Pain, when you are not mixing it with doing, that pain gives you clarity.

When you’re doing something with your pain instead of just letting it be, that hides the pain. Hidden pain within causes confusion in your heart. That brings confusion into your mind.

Q: So is cancer an expression of this hidden pain?

John: Cancer is just cancer. You can interpret and hear possibilities as to why that cancer is there and not one of those possibilities or interpretations is worth believing in your heart. Believe in your heart only what you know is true.

When you drop deep within, there’s a knowing of something that something is true concerning that cancer and it has nothing to do with what you would think in your mind. That knowing within concerning cancer is you knowing that it is okay, regardless of what you think or feel, regardless of what others think or feel.

It’s not your understanding concerning cancer that matters at all. It is only your most simple okayness in the midst of it that matters; your whole heart relaxing even with cancer; your whole heart relaxing in the midst of all of life when you perceive that you are gaining something or losing something. You being that relaxation of heart instead of you being the gain or the loss. That is your will opening up and letting, instead of your will being used to take.

Your will is your capacity to receive: receiving pain, receiving the acquiring of something, receiving the loss of something. You being receiving, and no longer holding or taking. You resting in power without having to use your power. That gives you power to live. Power let go of is power received. Power taken and kept is power thrown away to an idea.

Q: So it doesn’t matter if there’s anything amongst my family that we share or pass around or disable each other with.

John: What are you meaning? What you are referring to?

Q: Well, it just felt like perhaps in the patterning we’ve just continued to feed a disabled-ness and it’s manifested in the cancer.

John: Feeding disablement is when you make being disabled matter. Cancer doesn’t disable you. It only disables your body.

Q: So can you tell me what cancer is, or it doesn’t even matter?

John: It’s something that disables your body, and when cancer is disabling you, then you’re using that cancer to disable your self. Then you’re using something that is happening to your body, using something and making it happen to you. When you make cancer about your self, then you’re using cancer to be that holding, using cancer for self-insistence instead of you being okay with cancer, even if it is within your body.

Cancer doesn’t take anything away from you. Cancer gives you something: a new fresh opportunity to very gently be. Cancer takes something away from you only if you have made this life and this existence all about you.

Q: So when I go into sadness and I feel so much lameness, is that just a discovery that I have made it about me? That’s where the anger and shame can come?

John: Something is interrupting your wanting. Instead of you letting that perceived interruption be. If you have cancer, let it kiss you instead of you baring your teeth at it. If you are baring your teeth at cancer then you’re not knowing your self. You’re not being your real self.

If you’re baring your teeth at cancer you’re at odds with your self. The way that you treat that cancer, that only shows how you treat your self. Whatever seems to be happening to your mind, to your feelings, to your body, let that kiss you. That is love seeing cancer, instead of self-importance. Cancer is not a threat to love. Cancer is a threat only to self-importance, because it is cutting that self-importance short.

Q: That’s what I experienced when I first heard about it. I thought I would be seventy or eighty before I had to look at anything to do with mortality, and it was like walking into a cement wall.

John: That cement wall was always inside. Cancer only showed it to you. Cancer is the revealer of your heart. It will instantly show you everything that is in it. Cancer shows every root in your heart. It shows you everything that you have been growing in your heart. Cancer shows you what you are presently being. Cancer is a big, wonderful mirror. It’s there to show you what is there within you.

When you’re being real, then cancer lets you see that reality that you’re being. When you’re not being real then cancer shows you that reality that you’re trying to be. Cancer can only threaten what you are holding onto, what you are wanting. It cannot actually threaten anything.

Let cancer nurse your heart back to health. Let cancer take your heart deep into what you know. Cancer isn’t there to beat you up. Cancer is there to sweeten you up. It’s there to deepen your first love. It is not there to deepen what you’re wanting. Cancer is a natural tenderizer of the heart.

Q: It seems that I’ve been holding on to all of the confusion and the pain and the anger because I know that when I let go into the sadness fully, it’s going to cost me everything.

John: It’s not letting go into the sadness; it’s you letting go into okayness in the midst of sadness. When you disappear into okayness you don’t lose your self. You find your self. When you disappear into okayness, then you’re all brought back. Then cancer is your opportunity to be all brought back.

You can deal with the cancer in your body any which way that seems best, while you are letting that cancer deal with you any which way that seems best. That is you having a wonderful relationship with cancer. You dealing with it graciously in removing it or letting it be, and you also letting it deal with you graciously.

Cancer is many opportunities coming all at once. Cancer is not bad. It is also not good. It is okay. It has shown you how sunk you are in what you are wanting. Every messenger that comes to you, not one of them is to ever be beaten up. They are all to be let in.

Cancer is there to make a new window in your house.