Beyond the Body: Unveiling the Spiritual Roots of Cancer and Healing

Cancer—it’s a scary term. Many people who hear it for their first time their life literally turns upside down. I witness this daily as patients come into my clinic, newly diagnosed, looking for answers, It's a term that can evoke intense emotions, fear, sadness, anxiety, and sometimes even despair.

Usually, when I am seeing patients for consultation(our first visit), one of the questions I frequently get asked is why did I get this cancer? Sometimes it's very obvious. If someone is a heavy smoking, 2 packs of cigarettes per day for 30+ years, it's not very hard to connect the dots and medical science has a good explanation for why. But in majority of cases our Western Medicine can't really explain why this particular patient has cancer. Sure there's explanations on the molecular and cellular level.. DNA mutations, cellular damage, unchecked proliferation. But we can't really explain why this person (who might have been a very healthy physical life) has now developed cancer.

After treating cancer for more than a decade, I came to notice trends. I expanded my view beyond just the physical and I came to see patterns. I saw that many times, in my cancer patients their emotions were also dysregulated. There was a lot of anxiety, longstanding anxiety that predated the cancer diagnosis. Some patients carry a lot of negativity. Or guilt ... shame.. or many other heavy emotional burdens.

These observations were what led me to ask a question: what if cancer is not just a challenge of the body but also a reflection of our emotions and spirit? Beneath the surface of our cells and tissues lies a deeper story waiting to be understood.

When we consider cancer merely as a physical ailment, we risk overlooking its strong connections to our emotional/spiritual state and psychological health. This narrow viewpoint might explain why traditional treatments sometimes fall short. Although more and more people are cured now with modern surgical techniques, radiation therapy, chemo and immunotherapy, many are not able to be cured. Additionally, many people who are cured or in remission experience relapses, with the cancer returning. We also know now that cancer cases are rising at a very rapid rate among younger populations. It seems that the hypothesis of cancer as merely a physical disease is incomplete.

Let’s explore how our spirit and emotions intertwine with our physical health, especially regarding cancer.

The Illness of Modern Life

In our fast-paced society, there’s often a heavy emphasis on external achievements, such as career success, money, and status. This relentless pursuit can distract us from our internal landscape—the realm of emotions and spiritual well-being. High levels of stress and unresolved emotional issues can create fertile ground for diseases like cancer to develop.

We know that chronic inflammation drives cancer, as well as other chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease. If you think about how you feel when you are anxious or sad, and how tight your body is, is it not unreasonable to think that your cells can also feel that on a cellular and molecular level? If you are constantly under stress, is it too far fetched to think that affects every cell in your body? Prolonged exposure to negative emotions can compromise the immune system, making the body more susceptible to illness.

Recognizing and addressing these emotional burdens is vital for healing.

The Mind-Body Connection

To grasp cancer beyond its physical manifestation, we must explore the mind-body connection. Scientific studies reveal that stress and emotional conflicts can disrupt immune function, alter hormone levels, and hinder cellular repair mechanisms.

For example, high stress levels can lead to inflammation and tissue changes, potentially increasing cancer risk. A study found that individuals experiencing prolonged emotional distress have a significantly reduced ability to repair damaged cells.

If we target the cancer with chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, but don't address what caused the cancer in the first place, it will be very hard to cure the cancer. Smokers who continue to smoke during chemoradiation are less likely to be cured. So if patients have lived in constant anxiety and stress, which very likely contributed to their cancer diagnosis, and we do not address those, can that also affect their chances of cure? I would certainly say so.

There is a difference between cure and healing. Cure means that we have been able to entirely remove the cancer. But in my opinion, what we should be striving for is healing. Healing is returning the body to its initial state of homeostasis. Therefore, healing involves an approach of addressing the patient as a whole, not just the body, but also as a siritual band emotional being. And that is what I mean by holistic oncology.

Please join me on this journey as we explore this topic more together and expand our understanding of cancer.