Miracle after miracle, my life is at a whole new edge. As I begin to embrace my life

from the perspective of health and wanting to share my experience of cancer with others, I'm

now realizing the gift, the opportunities after the diagnosis are limitless. I never imagined that I would gain a sense of purpose, a richer, more colorful life after all those decades of struggle behind me. As I hear myself saying, "if I only knew then, what I know now", are mere words of conditioning that do not serve me any longer. After the diagnosis of cancer, I had my head up in the clouds, romantically fictionalizing, creating a fairy tale ending to my imagined shortened life. The gift of cancer afforded me the luxury to dream, I attempted and succeeded to manifest my desires, securing the perfect job, having the perfect child, finding a back up family, getting my ducks in a row; I did not understand the consequences of my choices.

After the diagnosis, all I thought about was what I wanted. What I wanted to do, think, eat, feel and experience. I never took my thinking beyond my own needs. Perhaps though, this is exactly what was required for my recipe to healing. By giving to my self, I learned about my unique body mechanics. I had to recondition my conditioned past, and had to refrain from being overly concerned about the best interest of others.  Naturally, I wanted others,  my family, my co-workers to care about me, however if they did not agree with my way of coping, I withdrew my attention from them. It was all about me.

Just recently, after graduating from Journey Into Healing at the Chopra Center, my adult son Adam was withholding his affection from me in a most obvious way. As learned through the Chopra Center, I was taught to ask questions, to get into the "other" persons skin. Well to me, that what quite the opposite of everything I had been doing over the last couple of decades in my quest to survive and thrive from cancer. Part of the reason of pursuing certification through the Chopra Center was to share with others the recipe of finding new life, new health, and a purposeful life after tragedy. I never once, took the time, a breath, to understand the consequences of my personal choices and how it affected Adam. All these years I have been thanking Adam for being my gift of life, and sharing with him how his birth prompted me to fight the battle, challenge my doctors, telling him how his birth afforded me the will that I would not otherwise have allowed myself to have.

I was blown away, and yet grateful to Adam for telling me his side of my experience of cancer. Being in a state of continued calm, noticing the turbulence of Adam emotions as he slammed the car door, I encouraged him to share with me that which clouding his otherwise cheerful self. Adam told me that I probably would not like what I was about to hear, yet I knew I had to listen. As Adam began, he stated that he understood why I choose to conceive a child after my diagnosis, but that he felt it was a completely self-centered motive, and that he felt that my choice was not well thought out. After all, here he was, 26 years old, with no hands on father, a life long memory of a mother who was always on her death bed, and as a teenager he was always in a state of panic, wondering if when he returned home from school, I would be in the hospital, or if he would find me on the floor from a grand mall seizure. I did recognize the impact my dis-ease had on his ability to have a happy, carefree, creative, supportive, protected upbringing. I began to weep, with joy, as a sense of ebullience bubbled up inside me as I saw his childlike innocence morphing through his constricted body language. It was beautiful that Adam felt FREE enough to share his perspective with me.

After affirming what I heard him share with me, a sense of relief, a restored sense of happiness, closeness, followed by several hugs confirmed that this experience was a great one. In the eye of the hurricane was the calm, the peace, the unbounded, limitless pool of love, forgiveness and bonding. I saw myself in Adam, and Adam saw himself in me.

The twists and turns of this story remind that life is not about the destination, it's about the journey. The fact that my son was born, and partnered with me on this earth to travel this unknown destiny is one that promotes a deep desire to keep on learning, sharing, and connecting with others who question their own purpose in life. The key to health, is happiness - there is no other way, you have no choice but to find your childlike essence of spirit, soul, merging child with child, joy with joy, bliss with bliss - being happy is the key to health. There are no edges in space, like the universe your spirit has no boundaries. To merge spirit with universe, ask yourself the three soul questions, Who Am I, What Do I Really, Really Want, and How Can I Serve Others. The union of soul with soul, like the eye of a hurricane you are the peace within the eye of a hurricane. We are the same, Tat Tvam Asi, I see the other in myself, I see myself in others.

There is no choice, let your spirit free!

www.deborahshemesh.com for recipes, references, classes, and history.