Yesterday I experienced a real moment of vulnerability. I learned that 2 young people (37 years old both) passed away from cancer. A mixed bag of emotions arose. Fear, sadness, confusion, overwhelm and at the same time feeling lucky.

I was thinking how this illness still takes away lives of young, healthy people. And I got away with it. What were my chances? I never really wanted to know the statistics. But being suddenly confronted with the reality of death, I felt very vulnerable.

Life is so fragile. It’s a miracle. And in the course of that life, we, as human beings, are capable of amazing things. We never know when we are going to die. But we can choose how we are going to live our lives.

Either we avoid feeling vulnerable and put on a heavy armor of emotional toughness where we finish by numbing out our feelings. Or we embrace our vulnerability, and from that place we find the courage to show up and live a life where we feel fully alive.

With love,

Laurent

Life is always 50/50, meaning 50% positive emotions and 50% negative emotions. This contrast is necessary in order to feel something and become aware of it. If we were happy all the time, we wouldn’t know what happiness is. We only know what happiness is because we can contrast it with sadness for example. Experiencing our negative emotions is important if we want to be able to experience our positive ones.

Whatever your circumstances, life will always be 50/50. Because your emotions come from your thoughts and not from your circumstances. If you become rich, you will have rich people’s 50/50 life. The “rewards” and the “problems” that come with it, meaning the positive and negative thoughts you will have about your new life. It’s still 50/50, but with a different flavor.

Whatever your circumstances, you should be able to experience all your emotions, including happiness, joy, fulfillment, peace, excitement, etc. Going through cancer is no exception. In the moment, you can find reasons to feel happy and joyful. If you are not able to find happiness and joy in this moment (meaning if you cannot find thoughts that generate those feelings), you will unlikely find them once you’ve finished your treatment.

Take this opportunity to practice the skill of allowing your emotions. Practice allowing yourself to feel negative feelings when “times are good” and allowing yourself to feel positive feelings when “times are bad”. Allowing an emotion means letting the emotion arise without reacting, avoiding or pushing it away. Just being a silent observer and noticing the thought that triggered the emotion.

We’ve been created to feel. The richness of life comes from our ability to feel our emotions. And it has nothing to do with our circumstances.

With love,

Laurent

Yesterday, I learned the news of someone passing away from cancer. She was 37 years old. I didn’t know her personally, but I know she made an impact on the lives of people I do know. It was through the Instagram feed of one of them that I learned the news.

I was curious to know more about her and I started exploring her Instagram account. Going through her pictures, I ended up reading her post when she announced to her community that she had cancer. It was on April 12, 2019. The same day I was diagnosed with cancer. It took my breath away.

I felt heartbroken to see her struggles going through cancer treatment. But I also saw how she loved her family and friends. I saw how she infused optimism and joy to all those around her. She was also very passionate about her endeavors. She built several successful businesses. And she helped poor communities in East Africa embrace the new economy.

It reminded me one important lesson while I was going through cancer treatment. As much as I had very little control over the outcome of my treatment, I could decide how I wanted to live my life in the moment.

Because life is not in a week, a month or a year. Life is now and you get to decide how you want to live this moment. Do you want to live in fear, anger or regret? Or do you want to live from a place of love, fulfillment and excitement?

The question “Am I going to make it?” will only generate worry and fear. The right question to ask is: “How do I want to live this present moment?”

With love,

Laurent

While going through medical treatment, doctors didn’t recommend changing my dietary habits. It surprised me. No specific recommendation during the treatment but also post-treatment. It was as if it didn’t have anything to do, no correlation whatsoever.

I understand that it’s difficult to have clinical studies pinpoint exactly the impact of what you eat on a specific medical condition. There are so many different factors coming into play. Yet, we know that hereditary cancers are less than 5% of total cancers. It means 95% are related to stress, environmental factors and of course diet. Changing our diets would sound like a good idea to maximize the odds of healing and minimize the risk of recurrence.

Once diagnosed, I implemented a radical change in my diet. I was vegan for 6 months, and cut out any form of sugar, flour, wheat and alcohol. After 6 months, I started eating again some animal proteins, adding once in a while white fish and lean meat (turkey, chicken). No red meats, no curated foods, and still no sugar, flour or alcohol. Once I was cancer-free, I allowed myself to drink a glass of wine at Christmas and ate some dessert. It was interesting to see how both alcohol and sugar put me off. I was not feeling well after that.

Changing diets while going through cancer wasn’t so difficult. I had a compelling why. For me, it was a matter of life or death and I was going to put all odds on my side to win this battle. My discipline kept me from feeling any urges to do otherwise.

It became harder once I knew I was cancer-free. Urges to drink wine or eat sugar were arising regularly. These urges came from thoughts like “you deserve a glass of wine after all you went through” or “a bit of sugar isn’t going to do any harm”.

This time I got through it by allowing my urges and my emotions while not reacting to them. I observe myself; I look at my thoughts, I allow my feelings, and I let go. In the moment, it’s uncomfortable but it always fades away. And I remind myself why I’m doing this.

As time goes by, my urges are less intense and less frequent. It doesn’t mean I don’t have urges anymore. They arise occasionally. But I know how to manage them. And my future self who enjoys perfect health is grateful that I have developed such a skill.

With love,

Laurent

One strange phenomenon going through cancer is how relationships change. Whether it’s family, friends or colleagues, relationships take on a new dynamic as soon as the news is out there.

I had cancer in me for several years before the diagnosis. So, it’s not cancer that changed the dynamic. It changed when others became aware of my condition. What changed was suddenly people having their own thoughts about cancer. It triggered a variety of emotions in them and a set of new actions towards me.

Some were fearful and distanced themselves from me. Others felt invested of a mission, overly reaching out, giving me all the medical, dietary, lifestyle advice imaginable. A lot of people felt confused as they had never dealt with a situation like this in their past. They didn’t know how to deal with it.

Whatever people felt and did, it had nothing to do with me. It was all related to their thoughts about cancer. That’s why I didn’t feel angry, frustrated or sad when our relationships changed. I was only curious about the whole process. I didn’t judge anyone. I continued to feel love for those around me, even those that had decided to disappear temporarily from my life.

It also reminded me what I would do if I were in their shoes. When someone around you is going through a medical condition like cancer, what kind of relationship do you want to have with that person? Do you want a relationship with the person or with the medical condition? If your thoughts are all about the medical condition, that’s the relationship you’re having. I don’t say you need to ignore it. But be intentional with your thoughts about the other person. Be intentional about the emotions you want to feel. Be intentional on how you want to show up for him/her.

With love,

Laurent

I spent my whole day at the hospital. I arrived at 8:30 am and the whirlwind of apointments, checkups, radios, ingestion of contrasting liquids, blood tests, etc. started again.

With the same questions asked over and over again each time you meet a new nurse or MD. “First and last name?”. “Birthdate?”. “What medications are you on?”. “Any allergies to medication?”. “Any metal in the body?”, etc.

I felt tired and fed-up of having to go through all of this again.

And yet, I was curious about what was happening in my brain. I wasn’t tired and fed-up because of what I was going through. I felt tired and fed-up because my brain was holding on to the thought: “I am fed-up of having to go through all of this again”. I observed my brain grasping onto that thought. Justifying it and giving me all the good reasons why that thought was “true” when I dared to question it. It was a fascinating exercise to watch my own brain.

In the end, I let my brain think that thought if it wanted to. It didn’t feel good. I felt tired and fed-up. But I knew it had nothing to do with the hospital, nor the nurses, nor the doctors, nor the tests. I didn’t feel compelled to react to my feelings and try to change my external environment. I just let my brain do its thing and allowed myself to feel my feelings.

Sometimes, I will feel tired and fed-up, and that’s ok. Sometimes my brain will think “negative” thoughts, meaning thoughts that don’t feel good, and that’s ok. All I have to do is show love and compassion for myself during that moment. And by allowing without reacting, I release the tension. And sooner than one can imagine, my brain moves on and lets go of the thought that felt so uncomfortable.

With love,

Laurent

Being diagnosed with cancer is a terrifying moment. Our brain jumps into fight/flight mode immediately. Our focus is on the perceived danger. We lose perspective.

Our mind races on how to get rid of the problem. And quickly jumps to the question: “What’s wrong with me?”. It’s the perfect moment when we start trying to fix ourselves. While at the same time beating ourselves up for being where we are today.

What if nothing needed fixing?

You have cancer? This is part of your journey. It doesn’t make you less than.

You shouldn’t have cancer? It was always meant to be this way.

You cannot hate yourself to good health. You can only get there from a place of acceptance and love for who you are in this moment.

You are not the problem. You are worthy and complete, no matter what your life circumstances are. You are 100% loveable just as you are.

With love,

Laurent

After my surgery a month ago, I’m officially cancer-free. My cancer is gone. It’s in the past and the past is over. It cannot affect me anymore.

What affects me are my thoughts about my cancer, the story I choose to believe about it. I am having these thoughts in the present moment.

What’s great is that I can chose to think and to believe whatever I want. That’s where my power and freedom lie.

I chose to believe that my cancer was a blessing in disguise. That it was an opportunity for me to grow, to learn about myself and others, to share with others going through the same experience. It has empowered me tremendously, especially when I contemplate my future.

What is your story about cancer? Are you intentional about it? Does it empower you or does it hold you back? How does this story serve you for your future?

With love,

Laurent

I hear you coming. How can my cancer be neutral when I’m in so much pain? Going through cancer treatment, we experience pain on a regular basis: chemotherapy; radiation; surgery; blood tests; MRIs; CT or PET scans; needles; tubes; ripping band-aids; distasteful liquids… Our bodies go through a lot. We experience pain almost on a daily basis.

Pain is a sensation. Like cold, hot, pressure, texture of an object, or even hunger when you don’t eat for 3 days. A sensation is information going from your body to your brain. And pain is only that: information going from the body to the brain. What you make of that information is up to your brain to decide.

Your brain can decide that something is wrong. It needs to pay immediate attention to the sensation. To make sure our full attention is on this issue, the sensation of pain will increase. The enhanced sensation is again information sent to the brain. Our brain then thinks that something is terribly wrong and requires immediate action. This feedback loop is a survival mechanism, to put us quickly in fight or flight mode.

But the brain can also decide that everything is OK and not make a big deal of it. And in that case the experience of pain tends to fade or even disappear.

We see this with small children. Playing in the park with their friends, they run and fall. Being so caught up in their game, they jump back up and don’t seem to even feel any pain. The same child can fall at home in front of his mom. The mom runs to him saying that it’s awful, that he must have hurt himself, asking if he’s ok. The child this time feels lots of pain and starts crying like if it’s a matter of life or death.

Another example is when we go to the gym. Not only is it painful while we are lifting the weights, but then we have to deal with soreness for a weeklong. We can make it mean that we aren’t good at this, that it’s too hard, that it’s too painful. Again, the feedback loop will reinforce the sensation of pain. Or, we make it mean that we put in the right amount of effort, that it’s the way to being fit, that we have a healthy lifestyle. You get to a point where the pain not only doesn’t bother you but even where you look forward to feeling the soreness.

Our brain has tremendous power over our experience of pain. In my personal experience, I framed feeling pain as the way to returning to perfect health again. I would even frame it as a gift that my present self was offering to my future self. My present-self was going through the pain so that my future-self could enjoy perfect health (like the gym analogy).

If you experiencing pain right now in your life, what do you make it mean?

Pain is real. Suffering is optional.

With love,

Laurent