Over the past year plus, I have distilled the following information from my research into holistic cancer therapy:

1. We all have cancer cells in our bodies. Our bodies are wired to fight these cancer cells through our immune system, most notably, through our liver, which purifies the body by eliminating toxins.

2. If we develop “cancer” per se, then something is out of whack with our immune system – which needs a high dose injection of immune activation (the equivalent of those paddle thingamadoogees that are used to bring back to life someone whose heart rate went flat after a cardiac arrest).

3. Here are some of the things that are helpful for activating the immune system:

Pure diet:
There is conflicting research into what the optimal diet consists of, but it seems that it should have any of the following elements – organic; raw OR raw-heavy; vegan OR plant-emphasized with raw dairy and/or organic, pasture-raised meat thrown in for good measure; sweetener-free (of all sorts); gluten-free; soy-free; and no frying except with coconut oil or butter, to avoid free radicals. Also eat low-sugar fruits, like berries and kiwi, and avoid high-sugar fruits, like bananas and dates.

Juicing:
Juice many times a day, using fresh organic greens – spinach, kale, chard, broccoli, celery, cucumber, etc. Minimize or do not use fruits or carrots, to keep the sugar content low.

Vegetables:
Emphasize raw, cruciferous veggies.

Supplements:
Take supplements tailored to the specific cancer, including but not limited to detox support packets that promote bile in the liver. Some people use coffee enemas to cleanse the liver and promote bile.

Sweat:
Move the body to activate the lymphatic system, which drains toxins. Jump on a trampoline, which apparently is especially good for activating the lymphatic system. Sweat in a dry sauna.

Dry brush:
Use a natural fiber brush or loopah sponge to dry-brush the skin – activating the body’s detoxification process, by eliminating dead skin cells.

Soak in Epsom salts:
Add Epsom salts to a hot bath. The salts pull toxins from the body.

Elimination of coffee:
Coffee is acidic, and the objective is to make the body as alkaline as possible, because cancer apparently can’t live in alkaline environments. So stop drinking coffee or any caffeine substances.

IV injections
This is the one thing I have not yet tried, but I have heard from various reputable sources – including people who have healed naturally from cancer – that IV infusions of Vitamin C are very helpful in fighting cancer.

It took a whole lot of research and processing to discern the useful information out there from the crap floating around. It also is super time consuming to engage all these methods on a daily basis — especially considering not only the time involved in cooking fresh nutritious meals, but also the time involved in cleaning up after oneself, three times a day. Then there’s the fact that it’s a pain in the ass to take some supplements on an empty stomach but others on a full stomach, to take up to 10 supplements a day, some a few times a day, and to drink liquids that make you want to puke. Did I mention the lethargy and moodiness – including severe depression – that came with the elimination of coffee? It’s been rough.

Then there’s all the anxiety that comes along with a massive increase in my health-related expenses (food bill alone has tripled) and a massive decrease in the amount of time I can work each day – leading to a constant struggle to meet basic living expenses. Without my drugs of choice (coffee, chocolate) as coping mechanisms, well, it’s a wicked-demanding lifestyle.

Every day I go through a mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional gymnasium. And after over a year of this discipline, with eight months super-duper-never-futzing-even-once hardcore, I’m exhausted. Among other things, this lifestyle is quite alienating. I can’t go out and enjoy meals with friends, for example, because I don’t live near even one organic restaurant, never mind all my other dietary requirements. I can’t eat at friends’ homes. I can’t even drink anything, unless they have purified water and organic herbal teas.

Today I was coming down really hard on myself. I had three chocolate peanut butter cups (organic) and drank a bottle of sparkling apple cider (also organic). In my world, that’s the equivalent of downing a box of donuts, eating five slices of pizza, and drinking a liter of soda. I was feeling like a complete miserable failure, because while I have been doing some things consistently and other things inconsistently, I can’t seem to do all of it all the time these days.

That’s when I decided to ease up on myself. Instead of fresh veggies all the time, which involve washing, chopping, and cleaning up, I’m going to let myself buy frozen veggies, pre-washed, pre-packaged salad greens, and – gasp! – canned beans. All organic and otherwise “up to code,” of course. I might also let myself juice eight glasses in the morning, and store the juice in a glass container during the day, so that I can cut down on the amount of times I’m washing veggies and cleaning up the damn juicer.

Anyhow, that’s where I’m at right now. I’m recommitting to my lifestyle, patting myself on the back for the gargantuan changes I’ve made over the past year (the hardest by far being eliminating coffee, after 15 years of drinking it every single day), and doing what I can. Because it’s better to do it 80% consistently than to burn out on 100% and give up altogether.

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I’d like to say that the moment I discovered how to transcend pain through dance, I promptly ran off and danced myself back into the athletic shape I was in prior to the car crash. But the truth is, for a few years I continued outsourcing my healthcare to doctors and bodyworkers – even as I repeatedly experienced dramatic and immediate results with dance, and even after I successfully taught other people to dance away their pain.

The deference cost me. One of my most debilitating injuries, in fact, came at the hands of a chiropractor, just a few months after I’d taken my first healing dance steps. Even then, following that traumatic incident, I persisted in turning to doctors, physical therapists, personal trainers, and yoga teachers, in search of the person who could heal me.

“Loolwa,” my mother said repeatedly, “Dance!” But, you know, that was Mom telling me I could heal myself. As far as I was concerned, my healing would come through the hands of a formally-trained healthcare professional. Dance, though effective every single time in reducing or eliminating my pain, was too out there to be real. I chalked up the transformations to coincidence or, at best, I saw dance as a way to get myself well enough to find the real practitioner and start the real healing.

I have asked a number of holistic health practitioners why they think it took me years to trust the reality of my experience, instead of seeing it as a freak occurrence each and every single time it happened. Integrative medicine leader Andrew Weil, MD, replied that American health care “has us all dependent on high-tech solutions” and that as a result, Americans have little confidence in their body’s ability to restore health. Dr. Simon and pain specialist James Dillard, MD, DC, CAc, both responded that we are conditioned to defer to doctors as the ultimate authority figure, and that our deference is exacerbated when we are sick, frightened, and in need of help.

Fortunately my mom persisted in getting me to recognize my self-healing abilities. One day, I was sharing the frustration, the outright desperation, that I was experiencing in looking for a practitioner who could understand and hold the space for all my different needs and philosophies about healing. “Loolwa,” my mom said evenly. “You are the healer you have been seeking. Dance.” Somehow, that time, my mom’s words sank in. And so I began to dance regularly.

Over the next couple of years, a whole-body transformation snuck up on me: Suddenly I would realize I was lifting heavy bags. Or holding several things in my hands, while turning the keys in the door. Or scrubbing the tub. Basic things I had not been able to do for years.

When I first started dancing every day, I regularly woke up with pain levels somewhere between a 7-9, danced the pain down to a 2-3, went to sleep after a pretty good day, then woke up right back where I’d started – in horrific levels of pain. While I was frustrated that the dance effect didn’t seem to stick overnight, I felt grateful to have a tool to get through each day with minimal discomfort. Over the months , however, the intensity of morning pain lessened. And lessened. Until there was hardly any pain. And then no pain.

Drawing from this intuitive and transformational experience, I developed a dance method that organically blends movement, breath work, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, and energy work. Most of what I teach in my dance classes came to me during inspired moments of my own healing journey – particularly in my living room dance sessions. (I always dance with a notebook and pen at hand!)

Since teaching others this approach to dance, I have come to learn that it does not discriminate between causes of pain. Students with arthritis, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), migraines, lupus, degenerative disc disease, poorly-healed injuries, and myofascial pain have reported dramatically increased mobility, significantly lowered pain, or altogether eliminated pain at the end of a one-hour dance session. It is not uncommon to see expressions of shock at the end of a dance class – the same kind of disbelief I myself felt in the early years.

I want to share the unbelievable experience of stepping through a dance portal to spontaneous healing. Not only have informal trials demonstrated that this method has a 96% rate of efficacy, but it also can be done in the comfort of one’s living room or bed. Wearing ratty-tatty PJs. On a really bad hair day. For free. That last part is especially good news for those of us who have burned a big fat hole in our pockets — front-line casualties of our  crazy  healthcare system.

For all these reasons, I launched Dancing with Pain®. Through this company, I am developing a line of natural pain relief products and services – including live and multimedia dance classes, lifestyle management workshops, practitioner training seminars, and inspirational merchandise. My ultimate goal is to create the Dancing with Pain® Institute, providing certification programs for dance method teachers and healthcare practitioners, as well as annual conferences for the chronic pain community – patients and practitioners together, exchanging ideas and knowledge.

I know this dream will take years to achieve. But as I say in my classes: Start where you are, do what you can, and keep on keeping on.

Want to learn how to dance with your pain? Be sure to check out the Dancing with Pain store, for the “Breakfast Mix,” the first in our series of downloadable audio classes.

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I know, I know, this is totally late in the game, because the Dancing with Pain video contest was like, eons ago, but you can say I’ve had a lot on my plate recently. So I’m finally getting around to the runner up for the winner of the Dancing with Pain video contest. Click here to check out the dance video called, “Gravity,” dedicated to Endometriosis, performed by Arielle Denise Dance. Also check out this awesome article Arielle wrote about liturgical dance. I love the powerful, spiritually-connected way that Arielle moves, and I love how she talks about that connection in the article. You can follow Arielle on Twitter, at @A_healthyDANCEr.

Want to learn how to dance with your pain? Be sure to check out the Dancing with Pain store, for the “Breakfast Mix,” the first in our series of downloadable audio classes.

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If you’re interested in dance for natural pain relief, keep in mind that you can do it from anywhere, at any time. So go ahead and create your own personal dance studio for natural pain relief grooves! This dance “studio” can be in your bed, on your living room couch, on the floor near your baby’s crib, hell, even under the dining room table, where you are writhing around in pain after dinner. Turn that wiggle & jiggle into a dance!

The idea of dance for natural pain relief is, in a nutshell, radically different than that of dance for performance – which is how our culture generally relates to dance. You don’t need a hard body, wicked cute clothes, sex appeal, or moves to write home about. You just need to respond to the music – whether in your pain-free zones in your body (never ever go into your pain zones!) or in your mind (if, you know, your entire body is a pain zone).

Slowly and gently explore your comfort zones. Get curious: How can your shoulder move without pain? Up and down? Side to side? Back and forth? In circular motions? The basic idea is replacing the “pain-pain-pain” soundtrack with a pleasure soundtrack. In essence, we’re reintroducing the idea that movement can be comfortable and a source of joy.

So go ahead: Dance under-cover in your fashion forward BedQuarters, in your ratty-tatty pajamas or buck-naked. Dance in your chair near the computer, while tweeting with your pain buddies. Dance with your kids, your partner (or partners, for you naughty polyamorous types), or your dog. Just dance.

Want to learn how to dance with your pain? Be sure to check out the Dancing with Pain store, for the “Breakfast Mix,” the first in our series of downloadable audio classes.

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