During a diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer the body is in a fragile state having to deal with the initial shock of the diagnosis as well as the physical affects of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and hormone therapy. Any one or several of the listed treatments is a lot for any woman to go through and self-nurturing during this time and beyond treatment plays an important role in assisting the body to recover and heal.

The following tips are a great starting point to developing a relationship with self-nurturing.

1. Connect with your body through feeling    

   To truly know what is going to feel supportive for ourselves it is necessary to develop a relationship with our body and how it feels moment to moment. When we stop to check in and feel our body on a regular basis we can start to listen to what it is telling us. For example, when checking in with our body, we may notice that we feel tired and rather than push the body we could then choose be to stop and rest rather than push through.

2. Become aware of HOW we are doing things

   What quality do we do them in? For example, is there a sense of rushing from one place to the next with little awareness of how we even got there ? Or do we drive somewhere and upon arrival not to remember the car trip at all? In other words are we living on autopilot? When we live on autopilot, it brings a level of anxiousness in our body as the mind is elsewhere to what it is that we are doing in that moment.

3. Develop conscious presence

   If the answer to the above point is yes, then it’s time to develop a relationship where our mind is with our body in what we do. This is called conscious presence and it is choosing to put our attention with our body in what it is that we do and in a quality of connection and gentleness. For example, when we walk, rather than being lost in thought and thinking of where you are going, put your attention with your feet and feel the ground as you walk, have an awareness of feeling yours arms and legs. It is shifting your attention from thinking into feeling and being with your body in all that you do. A great way to develop conscious presence is through the Gentle Breath Meditation.

4. Choose the quality of gentleness in how you move

   Try a simple exercise such as standing up and sitting down. Feel what this is like in your body. Then stand up and sit down again but this time with awareness and gently. Now clock how this feels for you. You may discover that when you choose to move your body gently, it feels different, it feels lovely. Now imagine what it would be like to choose to do everything gently. Try it, you may find that your relationship with your body changes to a more connected way. To learn more about conscious presence listen to these audio’s.

5. Make self-loving choices

   When we choose to be gentle in our bodies it becomes easier to make self-loving choices because we now have a reference point in our body that feels lovely. So for instance, if we have been practicing bringing gentleness in all that we do and we then begin to rush, it immediately stands out. In that moment we have a choice to recognise this and to either keep rushing or to choose a different quality of movement – that being gentle. Of course choosing gentleness is the more self-loving choice as it develops a harmonious relationship with our body.

Donna Nolan was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 at the age of 33. She now offers Cancer Support Sessions at Northern Beaches (Balgowlah), Cammeray or via Skype which work alongside conventional medicine treatments for breast cancer. For further reading My Reflections – 5 years on from Breast Cancer, My Unfolding Path to Understanding the Root Cause of Breast Cancer, 5 Tips for supporting you through chemotherapy and Yoga for Breast Cancer.

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Year to year it is always interesting to observe the changes in my life since the diagnosis I had of breast cancer in 2008. In the years leading up to the breast cancer, I was convinced that I was self-nurturing by practicing yoga, meditation, having a good diet and exercising regularly. However, although I thought I was doing all of the right things to be healthy, what I hadn’t considered or was aware of is the push, the drive and protection that I had been living in and therefore the fact that how I was approaching everything in my life came laced with a hardness and lack of trust. Therefore there was no true self-nurturing in my life and there wasn’t a quality of connection and gentleness in how I was with myself.

As women there has been and is a tendency, a drive to have it all – the career and family, being everything to everyone. Our focus has been on ‘doing’ and ‘achieving’, putting everyone else’s needs before our own, thinking that this is self-less, but it has led me to ponder at what expense has this come? In all of “the doing”, have we not lost our connection to the innate qualities that we all hold within as women – those qualities of gentleness and stillness?

Since breast cancer and through the Esoteric Healing Modalities I have come to understand that the most important thing in life is not what we do or what we achieve but the “HOW” we go about it all. The “HOW” being the quality of being in which we choose to approach or attend to everything in life. The other realisation I’ve come to is that unless we learn to self-nurture we cannot truly support another. The foundation of love for ourselves must be there first of all. As an example, if we are feeling tired or exhausted it is easy to snap at our partner, friends, work colleagues or the kids compared to if we have honoured our needs and supported ourselves we are then less likely to react.

By changing how we treat our body in a truly caring way, we develop a self-loving relationship that becomes a foundation of love from which we live. Life then feels very different, there is a stillness and a connection that comes from deep within that we are able to feel as we go about our daily deeds.

A woman’s breasts on an energetic level are her self-nurturing centres. What I have come to understand is that the cause of my breast cancer was a lack of self-nurturing.

Before breast cancer I was not truly honouring the precious woman that I am which is the same preciousness that is found in every woman equally.

With breast cancer (and other cancers) on the rise is it not time we question why illness and disease have and are exponentially increasing despite the amazing advances in medicine and technology? Could it be that we have lost the connection to the innate qualities of the woman, we have forgotten the preciousness of who we are. In all of the ‘doing’ we have left behind our connection to our essence which can only be felt through a deep honouring of ourselves.

Disease stems from a dis-connection from our body. When we as women learn to truly self-nurture I feel that the current trend in breast cancer may change.

So this month, as you see pink all around you, don’t just think pink, feel your own connection, your own quality of connection in all that you presently are doing.

Donna Nolan offers Cancer Support Sessions which are complementary to medicine. For further reading My Reflections – 5 years on from Breast Cancer,  My Unfolding Path to Understanding the Root Cause of Breast Cancer,  5 Tips for supporting you through chemotherapy and Yoga for Breast Cancer.

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Yoga is the practice of connecting to the innate preciousness, tenderness, beauty and stillness that we already are and resides within us all.

Yoga for breast cancer is about re learning as a woman how to connect to our inner beauty and stillness – to live a life of true joy and harmony.

As women, could it be that we have moved so far away from the essence of who we are, that we have forgotten how to tend and nurture ourselves – that we have forgotten who we really are?

Perhaps we have got caught up in the midst of life. We may have identified ourselves through the roles we play such as; the mother where the children come first no matter what, the friend who is always there to support others, the wife who cares for the family but puts herself last, the career woman who strives to be equal to any man – just to name a few examples.

Could it be that we have forgotten that we are delicious, we are tender, we are beautiful?

Could the roles we play, stop us from feeling who we really are?

Stillness is an energetic quality that we can all connect with and that is inside of us all (both men and women). It is a deep sense of connection with self where there is no doing, just a sense of being. Within this, lies a quietude – harmony within and contentment without any lack or need.  Once this energetic stillness is felt, it is a matter of taking this quality into all that we do (taking stillness into motion), but the key here is to connect with the stillness before going into motion.

To re connect to our inner-most part of ourselves requires us to work through the hurts (or emotions) that we hold onto that occupies lots of space in our minds and body. We can do this by allowing ourselves to stop and feel what is really going on rather than distracting ourselves with all of our ‘doing’ (motion). These hurts, which we identify with, are what stop us from feeling the essence of who we truly are.

We can re connect by making the choice to feel our body and develop a connection moment to moment that is gentle, loving and tender.

When the mind and body are with each other in whatever activity we are doing in a gentle and loving way, we are practising conscious presence.  As examples, when we walk, we can be with our body through feeling our feet on the ground and feeling our hips and shoulders swaying, when we sit at the computer and type, having an awareness of sitting within our body and feeling our finger tips tap at the keys. When conscious presence is developed and stillness is the energetic quality that we live from, this is yoga (union).

Conscious presence can be developed through making the choice to bring the qualities of gentleness and tenderness into all that you do.

If we took the time to stop and feel, we may notice that there could be anxiousness in the body or a quality of raciness that stems from living in a way where we are rushing around with too much to do, pleasing others, putting everyone else before ourselves. Perhaps we have been caught up in thinking that this is what makes a ‘good woman, a good mother, a good friend or wife’.

What if as women, we put how we are moment to moment and the quality of energy that we live in as the most important before we actually did anything? Would this not change how we live? Would this not allow us to make self loving choices that support us? And as we learn to truly support ourselves, would this then not allow us to naturally support others?

Could this quality of living from stillness be true yoga for breast cancer?

Yoga for breast cancer is not about fancy postures or breathing practises, yoga for breast cancer is about re connecting back to this stillness that innately resides within us all. When this is developed we are then living in yoga.

This article is inspired by the Work of Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine and the modality of Esoteric Yoga.

Donna Nolan offers Breast Cancer Support programs, Gentle Yoga, Meditation, Counselling and Esoteric Healing Cancer Support sessions to assist people through cancer at  the  Cammeray and Balgowlah clinics.. For more information Contact Us. Other related articles My Unfolding to Understanding the Root Cause of Breast Cancer, My Reflections – 5 years from Breast Cancer, Top 5 Tips to Support you through Chemotherapy, Tips for Self-nurturing during and beyond Breast Cancer.

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1) Rest and relax

Your body needs to recover. There is a lot going on in the body with all of the various drugs doing their thing. The part you play in the treatment is just as important, so rest as much as you can. Don’t push yourself to do all of the things that you normally do.

If you have never nurtured yourself before, now is the time to start

You will experience fatigue from the treatment and therefore stopping and taking a break to recover is super important. Ask family and friends for support during this time to assist you in what needs to be done day-to-day (refer to point 5).

2) Listen to what you body needs at any given time, moment to moment

This point follows on from the above one. Listen to what your body is telling you. Listen to it intently and honour your body in this delicate process. If it is telling you that you are tired then rest. Listen to what it wants to eat, what it doesn’t want to eat. Notice what zaps your energy and do less of this.

As your energy levels drop due to chemotherapy, learning how to conserve the energy that you have is paramount in your healing process. This can be developed by being aware of how you are with your body and being super gentle and tender with yourself.  For example, when walking, feel your legs and your hips, as you pick up a glass, feel your hands on the glass. By choosing to be with your body in a gentle way you can begin to develop a loving relationship with your body.

3) Introduce gentle exercise into your day  

If you have followed the above two points, you may end up spending quite a bit of time in bed or on the couch. It is also important that when you do feel well enough to, to bring some gentle exercise into your day. Some days it may be plenty to get up and walk from room to room, other days you may make it to the mail box, other days it may be several kilometres. Listen to your body and what you are capable of on any given day.

Gentle stretching and strengthening exercises are important to support you and your body through the treatment. Seek out a qualified practitioner to help develop a program specifically for you.

4) Look after your organs

Chemotherapy not only affects the cancer cells but it also affects the good cells – which is why you can feel unwell through the treatment. Your kidneys and liver are two vital organs that have a lot of work to do whilst you are going through treatment. The kidneys are like your battery pack and your liver is what helps you to detox the chemicals.

You can assist your organs during chemotherapy by; not drinking alcohol as any drop of alcohol will give the liver even more work to do, eating nourishing food, not drinking caffeine and limiting your sugar intake.

5) Allow people to support you. You deserve it

Chemotherapy is a tough time – you don’t have to do it alone. If you have always gotten on and done things by yourself, now is the time to change this pattern.  Ask family and friends for help, they will want to know how to assist you. Get in touch with what you are feeling and learn to express without holding back how they could be of useful.

If at times you don’t feel up for visitors, that’s OK too. Tell them that you prefer to have some time alone to rest but you would appreciate them dropping off a meal (which they could leave at the front door). Accept that others are there to help you if you let them – it is a win win situation. Learn to receive back from others.

Donna Nolan was diagnosed at the age of 33 with breast cancer in 2008 and underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

At Yoga & Healing we offer Cancer Support sessions, Yoga, Meditation, Esoteric Healing, Esoteric Connective Tissue Therapy, Yoga retreats and Counselling.  Sessions available at the Yoga & Healing Cammeray, Balgowlah and Balmain clinics. Contact Us to book a session or for more information.

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Many who have been through a serious illness or life event, will often say that it is life changing.

This is how my life has changed over the last five years;

• I now choose to go to bed early (around 9pm) on a daily basis as I find that this supports me in having the quality of rest that I need so that I wake up feeling refreshed and can enjoy the day ahead.

• If I am really tired, rather than put on a movie and check-out, I’ll go to bed even earlier and honour myself that I need the extra rest.

• I live moment to moment with my awareness being with my body as opposed to just thinking (with my awareness just being in the mental energy). I try not to indulge too much in unnecessary thoughts that do not serve me, instead I choose to connect and feel my body and listen to what it is telling me.

• I choose to be gentle and tender in my actions as this feels lovely in my body. It allows for a deeper connection with myself. If, for example, I’m disconnected (that is my mind is elsewhere to my body) and I slam a door, it now feels awful in my body, therefore the choice to be present becomes easier.

• I use a gentle breath as a reference point to come back to me. If I find that I’m not breathing gently, I know that I have disconnected from me. I take the time to pause for a moment, to re-connect.

• I no longer do things to “keep peace” with others.

• I express openly as to how I am feeling. If something doesn’t feel right, I let the person know  – without holding back.

• When emotions come up – rather than suppressing them, I allow myself to feel them. If I haven’t recognised them in the moment, I’ll take some time out to feel what is there is to be felt, no matter how unpleasant it is. I know that by doing this, that I’m not suppressing these emotions in my body and it allows them to clear.

• I am aware of the choices that I make knowing that it will have a consequence on my body and mind. For example, if I choose to indulge in a food such as sugar, I know that I will feel racy and it will be more difficult for me to be present with the loveliness and tenderness of who I really am.

• I no longer drink alcohol, eat sugar, dairy or gluten or have caffeine – as these foods  and drink do not support my body. They were foods/drink that I had for comfort, so as to not to feel what was truly going on for me or as “special treat” to escape feeling me.

• I no longer live life looking forward to special “moments” such as an event or even a piece of chocolate to feel life as exciting. Every moment is an opportunity to be present with myself and therefore “feels enough”.

• I no longer exercise (or practise yoga) in hardness. The way I exercise (and teach yoga) is that it is first of all about establishing the connection with my body and then listening to how my body would like to exercise in that moment. I no longer push my body beyond its limits. I listen and cultivate a gentle breath and use this as a guide to assist me in staying connected to me.

• I listen to the call of my body in any given moment. As an example I may take a rest, a short pause within my day to reconnect to my body – rather than push through to get my “to do” list done.

• I have been able to let go of some of the ideals and belief systems around what being a woman is, such as having to look or be a certain way. I am now inspired by women who are truly living in tenderness and with a felt sense of love in their bodies, rather than by the role models that I was presented with in the magazines as I grew up.

• Work is not about working hard to achieve something or to get somewhere. This is yet another ideal and belief that I held. Work is about bringing all of me to what it is that I do, no matter what it is. If I am doing this in connection, it then allows others to re-connect with themselves. Work then no longer is just about “me” and what “I can achieve”. It is about being in relationship with everyone and everything.

What I have learnt is that for me the underlying cause of breast cancer was lack of self-nurturing.

Having learnt to build a more loving relationship with my body, I now understand that how I live and the choices that I make have a direct impact on my body and how I feel.  What I have listed above are steps that I have and continue to take to build the gentleness, tenderness and love in my body. I certainly haven’t mastered them as yet, but each day is another opportunity to bring more awareness in how I am with myself.

Making the above choices has exposed the hardness, the disconnection and lack of self-nurturing that I had pre breast cancer. This was there in my body to be felt, which has not been fun at times. However, as I have connected back to my true essence – how do I feel five years on from breast cancer?

I am feeling more and more of what it felt like when I was really little. I feel like a joyful girl, who feels the beauty that is inside her and that which surrounds her.

Donna Nolan teaches Yoga and offers Esoteric Healing, Meditation, Connective Tissue Therapy and Cancer support sessions. Each day she is inspired by the teachings from Universal Medicine and Esoteric Women’s Health. 

You may also enjoy reading my full story My Unfolding Path of Understanding the Root Cause of Breast Cancer.

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The latest statistics from The Cancer Council NSW state that one in seven women will develop breast cancer by the age of 75. This is an astonishing figure. I was one of those people who had thought to herself, “not me, I’m too young, I’m too healthy”.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2008 at the age of thirty-three. It came as a shock as I had considered myself in near-perfect health condition. I led a holistic and balanced lifestyle with a nutritious diet, exercised regularly and practised yoga and meditation. I was the last person my friends would expect to be diagnosed with the disease.

As a yoga teacher, my job is all about the connection between the body, mind, spirit and soul. Yoga is about our relationships, with ourselves, with others and our environment.

From a yogic perspective, I did not believe that my breast cancer was random, nor that I was plain unlucky. In yoga, disease is caused when one becomes disconnected on some level.

I turned to Ayurveda for some answers. Ayurveda is the ancient Indian healing modality that addresses not only the physical body, but the cause of the disease. It teaches the “causes of breast cancer are both hereditary and acquired; the acquired causes being physical, emotional, spiritual, and environmental”.(Alakananda Devi Director of Alandi Ayurvedic Clinic, Colorado). Ruling out genetics and many of the other contributing factors that are listed as putting one at “risk”, I innately knew that I would have to search deep within to understand where my disease had stemmed from on an emotional and spiritual level.

Yoga and Ayurveda considers each person a multi-dimensional human being and therefore addresses illness and healing in a holistic way. According to yoga, there are five layers to our existence; our physical body (annamaya); our breathing/energy level (pranamaya); our intellect (manomaya); our personality/nature (vijnamaya); and the level of bliss/spirit (anandamaya). All of these levels are entwined, interconnected. What is manifested on one level affects the other levels. The body is not considered separate from the mind. For example, an illness can appear on the physical level, however its cause may derive from the emotions. An example is when we feel sick or have butterflies in the stomach when we worry.

I had come to the understanding that I had developed breast cancer because on some level other than that of my physical body, there was dis-ease. The cancer was a result of an imbalance within my being. I thus began my inward search to find the cause.

This quest led to an energetic healing modality in which I discovered how it was that I was “holding” on an emotional level that contributed to the breast cancer. I had lived my life in “protection mode” so as not to get hurt. The way we “hold” is not always so easy to see on the outside, however, it is an energetic pattern that I had learned from a young age and continued to build throughout my life. It has taken a lot of self-honesty and commitment to make changes in my life to shift this pattern.

My more recent studies over the past couple of years with Universal Medicine has helped me to understand on a deeper level that the energetic underlying cause of breast cancer is a lack of self-nurturing. It’s that simple. We do not love and nurture ourselves enough. To know this and then to change how we are is another (and much harder) story. We need to address the energy that we are living in.

How often do we as women put everyone before ourselves thinking that this is the “right thing to do”? Mothers are great at this. However, in reality, we can never truly love another, unless we have that relationship with ourselves first. For me, self-nurturing used to be about having a nice bath, perhaps attending a yoga class, or buying myself something nice. I have learned that none of these things have truly changed the energy that I’m living in.

How do we make this change? The first step is to be honest about where our bodies are at. To be honest, we need to re-learn how to “feel” our bodies. To take a step out of our heads and dive into our bodies. When we do this and are honest, for most of us we will see that we hold a lot of hardness, pain and hurt. How can love express in a body of hardness?

There is quite a gap between hardness and self-love. The key and the step between hardness and self-love is to be gentle. When we build gentleness in our bodies, we begin to experience living in a different energy. This energy now becomes gentleness. Over a period of time and with consistent practice, this gentleness becomes a way of being/living. We are then able to “feel” when we are not being gentle and it doesn’t feel lovely. With gentleness as a reference point, we are then inspired to go about being gentle in all that we do.

How do we learn to be gentle in our bodies? Some simple examples to look at within ourselves are: How do I walk? How do I open the door? How do I make my cup of tea? How do I do my yoga postures? How do I breathe? Is it with a hardness in my body or could I do these things with a gentle energy? How do I feel when I breathe a gentle breath? How do I feel when I walk in a gentle rhythm?

Interestingly enough, as you start to live in this rhythm of gentleness, the anger, the resentment and the constriction around the heart starts to dissolve – because you have changed the energy that you are living in. You will start to feel self-loving and then the choices you make in your life will reflect this.

Having learnt to make these changes in my own life, it feels beautiful when I re-connect with myself. I feel like me. I feel and connect to that amazingness that we all are and that we can all access. It’s all there – right inside of ourselves.

So that you do not become a statistic and perhaps saving yourself from surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy, you might want to ask yourself – what energy am I living in?

How can I be more gentle with myself? It does require time, patience and commitment to build the gentleness. I work on this on a daily basis. By living life this way, I do not live in fear of a reoccurence, as I know that I’m addressing the root cause of my cancer. Plus – it’s joyful, so why wouldn’t I?

Donna Nolan is a Sydney-based Yoga Teacher teaching gentle private, group and corporate classes and retreats. She also runs specific retreats for Cancer Support and offers Esoteric Healing for people with Cancer.  Contact donna@yogaandhealing.com.au

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