I had terminal cancer in 1975 and was told that I had just one or two months to live. The tumor was in my spinal cord – in the neck – and as it grew it was pressing the spinal cord against the inside of the spinal canal. My right arm had become paralyzed, and my legs were spastic. An operation to remove the tumor had been unsuccessful, and I was told that for various reasons chemotherapy and radiation therapy would not work. Doctors warned me the end might come very suddenly, any moment, if I coughed or sneezed.

I was faced with a reality in which each day was possibly my last day, each hour my last hour. One thing I knew for sure – for whatever time I had remaining, I wanted to be happy, just being myself.

For that reason, unappealing special diets made no sense to me, despite the claims they may help. Each meal was possibly my last meal and I wanted to eat what I really enjoyed. I had to be true to myself, to be real in all that I did.

My values shifted. I lived in the present moment and everything I did was for its own sake, because I really wanted to do it. Some things that had seemed important before suddenly weren’t any more. The only important thing was being happy and to me that meant doing whatever I felt happy doing, and not doing anything that made me unhappy.Two months later, I was still alive; I had run out of time, but I was still alive! One month later I was on overtime, and still alive. I wondered how long it could go on. New Year was five months away and I decided that if by some miracle I was still here, I would celebrate with a vacation in a tropical paradise. What I didn’t know then was how that vacation would save my life.

Five months later, I was celebrating the New Year in Martinique, having a mind-expanding talk with a man who was there to teach Zen meditation. He said to me: “Cancer begins in your mind, and that’s where you can go to get rid of it”. It was like someone had switched a light bulb on – it was so clear. I knew what he meant and could see how the cancer was a metaphor for things held in and not expressed. I saw how my former lifestyle and way of being had led to me killing myself in many ways. I realized there and then that if I changed my way of being, I could somehow release the symptoms. I could use my mind as a tool to accomplish the changes in my way of being, and in my body. For the first time since I had been given the diagnosis, I was able to consider a possibility of turning around my condition and getting rid of the cancer. I could save my life!

Several weeks later, I listened to a talk about Silva Mind Control, which teaches people how to use their mind as a tool. The idea presented was that our perceptions create our reality, and since we choose our perceptions, we can choose to change any aspect of our reality. My consciousness had been the effect of programming; in the same way that a computer produces results based on how it has been programmed. I could reprogram my consciousness.

My perception had been that I was terminally ill, so I had to reprogram my consciousness to create the perception that I was well. I was not prepared for such an abrupt shift. For some considerable time I had perceived myself as being in a state of deterioration, getting closer and closer to dying. I realized that I could much more easily create the perception that I was getting better and better, until I was eventually well. I knew the turnaround could happen in any moment. It was a matter of turning a switch in my mind, and insisting on knowing it had been turned.

The shift in my consciousness was immediate, I felt it, and I knew then that I was in a state of improvement. I also knew the importance of maintaining the integrity of my decision. From that moment on I knew that my perceptions had to reinforce the idea I was now getting better and better, so I would eventually be well. As I ate whatever food I wanted, I told myself it was exactly what my body needed and was asking for in order to accelerate the healing process. Physical sensations similar to electric shocks in my body had previously reinforced the idea that the tumor was growing. They still came, but now I chose to perceive them as evidence that the tumor was shrinking. My mind looked for more and more ways of knowing the improvement was happening.

I knew I had to stay away from people who insisted on seeing me as still terminally ill, not from any lack of love, but rather to maintain my own positive attitude toward the healing process. I had to be with people who were willing to encourage me on this seemingly impossible task I had set for myself. Whenever someone asked how I was doing, I insisted on answering, “Better and Better, thank you.”

I researched mental programming techniques, and learnt that if I put myself into a relaxed state and talked positively to myself for 15 minutes, three times a day, then within 66 days I could get myself to believe anything. And whatever I believed to be true would be true.

I knew that it was vital to maintain the positive programming, and that putting myself in a relaxed state of mind and talking positively to myself for 15 minutes, three times each day, was a part of the programming process I should in no way interfere with. There were temptations to not do the relaxations, and then I would remind myself that my life was at stake. Any such temptation, then, was something that stood between me and my life, and had to be removed, so that I could live.

This may all sound very simple, but it was not always easy. At times – especially early on – it was very difficult. Sometimes my thoughts or words acknowledged something other than the idea that I was improving. On such occasions I had to be honest with myself and see that I had ‘blown it’. I would start again, telling myself I had been on a practice run, and the real moment of change was now.

It did get easier. I was able to maintain positivity for just hours at first, then a day, then two days, and then I was solid. The program was working.

My doubting voice would occasionally make itself known, but I knew it did not represent truth. The encouraging voice within became my guide, leading me back to stable health, enabling me to maintain the single-mindedness of knowing positive changes were happening. When I was not feeling a symptom, I told myself that perhaps I would never feel that symptom again. If I did then experience the symptom again I would tell myself the process was not quite complete, but to acknowledge I was feeling the symptom less often and less severely than before. All was going well. I had to know positive changes were happening now even if they were not always evident. I would tell myself they were possibly just at the threshold of my perception, so I could eagerly anticipate evidence to justify this. I was always able to find something positive, and assure myself it wasn’t all imagination. There was much encouragement from my daughters, Jacki and Heather. Heather was only four years old at the time and she knew that love heals, so she frequently gave me magic healing kisses – every morning and every night. I could also sense six-year-old Jacki’s belief in me, and in my ability to somehow come through this crisis. No other possibility was acceptable to her. In her eyes, I could always see her connection with me.

During my relaxation periods, I would visualize the tumor and imagine a layer of cancer cells dying and being released by my body’s natural elimination system. I knew the change was happening, even if it was not obvious and noticeable. Each time I released waste products from my body I knew dead cancer cells were being eliminated. I insisted on knowing this was true.

I knew the cancer represented something held in and not expressed. With the tumor located right by my throat chakra (energy center) I also knew this meant I had been holding back the expression of my Being. Since I wasn’t exactly certain what this meant I decided it was imperative to express everything: every thought and every feeling. Whatever was in my consciousness and wanting to come out, I expressed it, knowing it was vital for my health. Before then I had held the perception that expressing led to discord, but now I saw how what I was expressing and communicating what I was expressing was appreciated by those around me and resulted in harmony. Another change in perception!

Before, I had had the belief that if I expressed what I really wanted to, something bad would happen. I had to reprogram that to the belief that if I expressed what I really wanted to, something wonderful would happen. I made that decision, and it was so. I found myself having less and less in common with my old friends. It was as though we had shared a common vibrational frequency before, say 547 cycles (whatever that means), and suddenly I found myself at 872 cycles, with few things to communicate to the 547-cycle people. I had to find new friends who were also at 872 so I could have someone to talk with.

I found myself attracted to the 872 crowd, and them to me, as though I had become selectively magnetic. Certain elements of my reality were being released which were no longer in accord with the new Being I was becoming. Deep within I knew the process was inevitable and should not be interfered with. I developed a sense of compassion and understanding and knew my life depended on releasing all elements not in accord with my new vibration. The process was simple, though not always easy.

I began each day as a process of self-discovery, with no preconceived notion of who I was, but with a willingness to discover the emerging me. There was a sense of delight with each new discovery.

Often I would imagine the scene in the doctor’s office after my work on myself was done. I would see him examining me and looking puzzled because he could find no tumor. I imagined him looking baffled and saying, “Perhaps we made a mistake.” I played this scene in my mind each day, during my relaxation periods.

About two months later I went to be examined by the very same doctor who had pronounced me terminally ill. He examined me and he found nothing. And guess what he said? “Perhaps we made a mistake.” I laughed all the way home.

An unexpected but wonderful side benefit of my healing process was that I no longer needed the eyeglasses I had worn for twenty years. I used to be nearsighted and astigmatic, but my vision changed and my eyesight was tested as ‘normal’. I have transformed my way of being. My lifestyle has changed dramatically. The work I do now as a healer and teacher is meaningful to me, important to others, and of service to humanity. I feel a ‘high’ when I heal and teach and I know that I am doing my life’s work.

The process of transformation is an integral part of the healing process, whether you’re healing your vision, releasing some serious illness, or if the imbalance exists on the mental or emotional level and has not yet reached the physical level. After my healing I was seeing the world quite differently, in a figurative and a literal sense. My outer vision had been transformed along with my inner vision. Curious about this ‘side benefit’ of my healing process I decided to research into what others were doing in the field of vision improvement.

I read all the books I could find on the subject, not because I needed to find out ‘how to do it’, but rather to discover ‘how I had done it’. I found eight books, and seven of them referred back to the eighth, which was Better Eyesight Without Glasses, by Dr. William Bates. He was a pioneer in the field, and his ideas had startled the conventional medical community back in the 1920’s.

Dr. Bates presented many remarkable ideas, but the style of his book was way too technical for many people, so others – like Margaret Darst Corbett and Aldous Huxley – wrote additional books, simplifying his ideas for the general public.

Dr. Charles Kelley of the Radix Institute in California was the first one who seemed to add new ideas, regarding the correlation of particular personality types to particular types of impaired vision. More recently, Dr. Richard Kavner, a behavioral optometrist, added some new information regarding brain/mind correlations and he achieved remarkable success through his work with children.

The constant factor in all these areas of vision improvement was the process of personal transformation – just as in my own personal experience. With the insight I gained by reading the works of those mentioned, I was able to build on their ideas, using my personal experience for additional insights.

I began talking to people about these ideas and helping them to explore the links between their own vision issues and their way of being. After a while, those I spoke to were giving me their eyeglasses, saying they no longer needed them. ….I began teaching others the self-healing tools I had used sharing the insights I had gained during my own process.

Some of those who came to me asked me to heal them. I was reluctant at first, feeling that each of us has the power and the ability to heal ourselves. Some people, however, had a difficult time, accepting that, or didn’t know how to generate for themselves the degree of clarity and objectivity necessary for the process. They believe more in my ability to heal them than in their ability to heal themselves. No matter how much I insisted that they could do it themselves, they held the perception that I should be the one to do it for them. If I refused, they left without being healed, and I didn’t feel good with that.

I thought if I were writing the script of this scenario, I could have done a better job, seeing an ending in which they were healed when they left, so I agreed to participate in the role of the healer in their process.

As I worked with more and more people, I could see more and more the relationship between what was happening in their bodies and what was happening in their consciousness. Gradually, a model developed which seemed to contain all the ideas I had explored, and which also reflected my experience, as well as what I had seen in the healings in which I had participated. The model developed in a system of healing that I decided to call the Body Mirror System, to represent the idea that one’s body is a mirror of one’s life.