From my experience in my own healing journey of overcoming cancer and having worked with others with this “label”, I have found the following to be common themes:

Death Vows

These are strong beliefs where the person either casually or empathically, made a vow that they did not want to live. A vow is a belief that is a promise. It generally has emotion associated with it and can take on a life of its own. Examples of such vows are, “I would rather die, than live.” or “I want to kill myself.” Death vows can emerge during peak emotional experiences where the person feels trapped or that there is no other way out. What I have also found, that when death vows are made, generally the person does not mean it. In the heat of the moment the words just spontaneously emerge either as inner self talk or directed outwardly.

Un-forgiveness

An inability to forgive is linked to cancer. There is a difference between lip service forgiveness and true heart felt forgiveness. True forgiveness comes from within, and it occurs naturally when the past hurt or disappointment is released. When we find it in our hearts to whole-heartedly forgive ourselves and others, it creates an opening that unlocks a sense of peace, health and wholeness. Holding onto unforgiveness means that emotions such as anger, frustration and resentment fester beneath the surface and keep cortisol and adrenaline elevated, depleting natural killer cells which is one of the body’s defence mechanism against cancer cells replicating. You can read more about the healing power of forgiveness here.

Suppressed anger

Keeping any negative emotion suppressed can be harmful to health. It is toxic to the body, just like swallowing back down one’s own vomit. In a study conducted on 796 men and women, what was found was that those who bottled up their anger died from either heart disease or cancer. With anger, it is not always as simple as just express it. If anger is projected onto others it can be hurtful and sever relationships irrevocably. In addition, in my private practice I notice in the case of suppressed anger there are also beliefs and vows in place that prevent anger from being expressed. There is usually an early memory of parents fighting or anger being projected onto the child that makes the child decide, “Anger is bad, I must not get angry.” In fact the vow is so strong that the person would rather die, than risk getting angry.

The above 3 are the most significant emotional patterns that can cause cancer.

Other factors that could have an influence:

1. Low self esteem; not wanting to put oneself first; serving others first
2. Being overly critical; constantly beating oneself up; being harsh with self

In closing, while I have noticed these themes in my private practice and during the seminars I conduct, I will stay this: Everyone is unique and different and each person has their own story and life challenges. Who gets cancer and why, I really have no idea. I do as guided moment to moment as a channel.

Also read » 4 wonderfully simple ways to cultivate unconditional self-love

My top 3 tips to overcome these patterns are…

1. Uncover any death vows and find the healing method of choice to clear them from the root cause. My preferred method is The Journey which I have also used to clear my own cancer-related death vows

2. Releasing anger – You will have to work on consciously letting go of all the pent up anger accumulated over the years. Tantrum tapping can help you do that. The image below explains how it is done.
3. Forgiveness – First release the past hurt and pain and then forgiveness emerges automatically