![]() To kick off the new year, Nate reflects on the healing power of the mind. He gives his thoughts on what it means to adopt a healthy perspective and the impact that our frame of mind can have on our overall health. Nate explains that even the most well-intentioned people occasionally let their monkey mind and ego take them to a dark place when things don’t go according to plan—something that we can all relate to, especially coming off of 2022! But he also reminds us that tough moments, no matter how grueling, are all just moments in time. Nate encourages us to become the hero of our own story by making peace with uncertainty, and by committing to living a fully engaged life full of gratitude and joy regardless of our circumstances. Key Topics:
Transcript:
Welcome to Cold Water, Hot Coffee. Disciplines for starting your day with clarity and purpose. I’m Nate Scharff, I’m your host. THIS… is episode eleven. Our topic title is: Healing Perspectives. Let’s get started This is episode 11, we are going to kick off the new year with a discussion on healing. 2022 was a big year for me. I launched this podcast, my sons moved to Long Beach, and I wrestled with a cancer diagnosis, surgery and chemo in the Fall. Highs and lows. Since there’s been compassion and questions about my health status, I want to give you a quick update on my health. Opener: Driving back from LB on the MLK weekend, after a long weekend visiting my sons. Car in front of me had a window sticker reading “I Hate my Life”, oddly, in a playful pink bubble font. Ironically, the car was a sports convertible, the poster child for “fun car”. Driving around in a convertible in Southern California with an “I Hate My Life” sticker is like being on a jetski on a sunny day, with a frown on your face. It just doesn’t fit. I had a few thoughts about this person and their commitment to a negative perspective. First, I wondered where they were going? Are they off to a support group? What does this person do for work? And then, I thought… “Well, at least they’re being honest”. Even if we don’t slap that bumper sticker on our car, I know many of us feel this way on any given day, especially after navigating an economic year that put a strain on everyone’s wallet and sense of well being. My August 2022 surgery went well and the cancer did not spread. In January of this year, the doctors did find a new tumor in my bladder. This tumor was much smaller and high up in my bladder. Their take was the chemo treatments injected into my bladder didn’t reach up that high in the bladder, so…. another surgery late January, and another round of chemo in 2023. Yuck. I walked out of the urology department with my own version of the “I hate my life sticker” in my head… at least for a bit. Fear. Despondency. Sadness. Frustration. I didn’t want to do another semester with chemo treatments draining my energy. I didn’t want to suffer. I didn’t want to die. Before this diagnosis, I was feeling strong and excited to have this behind me. I was hitting the gym and had regained the 10 pounds I lost during chemo. But, here it was. I still have cancer and I am not done. The universe had something else in store for me. More suffering. More learning. More growth. More acceptance. More resilience. More gratitude. After that examination and despite my spiritual awareness and study, I found my monkey mind and ego taking me to a dark place… for about three weeks. Poor sleep and distracted living ensued. I contemplated taking the semester off and a host of other impulsive moves to run away from my situation. Fear and despair started building a nest in my psyche. Fear that I was going to die from cancerous innards, and despair that I was heading down a trail of medical invasion and suffering. Around this time of year, December and early January had several good swells, and many mornings I found myself oceanbound at 5:30 am, driving in the dark, and singing “I don’t wanna die, I’m not gonna die” to a playlist of heavy metal songs. I banged the steering wheel and yelled at the top of my lungs while tears ran down my face. Park, get my shit together, wax up and head off to surf with my crew. On one of these mornings, I drove in silence, too down to play music. It was dark and cold, and nobody was on the road yet. A conversation with myself played out in my head. “You ARE going to die. Maybe sooner than you thought. And you will leave this body. But your soul will endure. All your worries and suffering and striving in this physical world will be over. Which means, none of this shit in your head matters. It will all be over soon, anyways. 1 year. 10 years. 30 years. It’s all just a brief moment in time. Who are you to think you deserve to escape death, to think you deserve more time than those who had already gone before you? I found myself repeating one thought. “It will all be over soon, anyways. None of this shit matters.” A smile broke across my face. I started chuckling, and then howling with laughter. Jimi Hendrix did have it right “Live is but a joke”. I think the main learning I’ve received from my new diagnosis is to make peace with uncertainty. Many of us do not like knowing the answer, especially when our safety and security is the question. We want to be in control. We make plans. We protect our stuff with insurance and savings and security systems. We eat healthy food and exercise and believe we are going to be ok. And, usually we are right, at least for a while. But, not forever. There are no guarantees in this life. Life is often not fair. I think the question to ask is not “Am I going to be ok”, but rather “Can I be OK with not knowing if I’m going to be OK?” Death is not an error. It is a biological reality. “Can I be OK with not knowing if I’m going to be OK?”...THAT is a somewhat taboo perspective in the capitalist meritocracy that is America, where we subscribe to the belief that everyone’s station in life is the result of their choices. If you are responsible and work hard, you will achieve safety and security. But the REALITY is, shit happens. Life is fragile. Security is not guaranteed. But, we can still choose to live a fully engaged life with gratitude, regardless of our circumstances. Yes, it is great when our life is working and we are manifesting what we want, and we feel accomplished and happy and have gratitude, and probably some pride too. But it is truly saintly when we can wake up with gratitude when our life has none of those blessings. Some will stand back and judge these people as fools or unfortunate losers. “There but for the grace of God go I”. So how do we maintain our stability when life brings us uncertainty? How do we find that inner courage and strength to weather the storm? What faith do we tap into? Community. Religion. Family. Friends. These powerful connections can help us weather the storm. But, sometimes, they may not be enough. I’d like to offer one more pillar. YOU. You can be the hero of your own story. Don’t be afraid of dying - be afraid of not living. Our time here is limited, so live with courage and intention. I reframed my diagnosis as a blessing. This was a reminder of who I am, why I am here, and what matters. My mission, and my path, are unchanged. There is nothing to fear. I am reminded that stillness is the doorway to peace. This diagnosis has enabled me to go more inward, and spend more time with my mind being still. Yes, there are crises and threats that require us to spring into action, but reactivity is not always the appropriate response to a fearful situation. I realized, if my affairs are in order and all of my medical appointments are scheduled… there are no additional actions to take. There was nothing else to DO, no other plans to make, no other remedies to chase. Rather than worry and spin out in reactivity… what if I instead go still. What if I spend time sitting on my patio, breathing slowly, listening to music and visualizing this new tumor evaporating? Considering that the placebo effect is as effective as the drug 34% of the time, even the medical community cannot deny the power of the mind and the belief of healing. So Lay on the ground and let the sun warm my body. What if being still and visualizing healing is the BEST thing I can do for myself. A calm, trusting and self-loving approach to healing instead of a fearful, reactive response The rational fear that spurred me into action is no longer needed. If I am still in fear, it is an irrational fear of my choosing. How many distractions are we willing to let go of, and replace with stillness? With positive visualization? With healing? How does it feel to lean into RELAXING as the solution to dis-ease? How open are you to some time spent on healing visualization? If you want to give it a try, find a comfortable place to lay down. Place your left hand on your heart and your right hand on your stomach. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and slowly, like waves washing up and receding on a gentle sandy beach. Play some gentle instrumental music. If you are in a noisy area, pop in some ear plugs. Mentally repeat some loving mantras to yourself. One of my favorites is “I am resting. I am healing”. With each exhale, visualize that your exhale is expelling heat and toxins from your body. Breathe in fresh clean, restorative air. With my inhales, I envision my breath flowing out, scrubbing out disease RESEARCH: According to explodingtopics.com, the average daily screen time in America 2023 is 7 hours and 4 minutes. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-stats. That’s a wrap for this episode. Thanks for joining me in our expiration of remembering who you are in times of fearI hope you found some comfort and tools you can use from this episode. life. For more about this podcast go to cold waterhotcoffee.com. If you want to learn more about me, click ABOUT on our website menu. We are here to help you reclaim your teenage fire. You are not done yet with life. Let's fill the tank. Let’s get you back on the road. Thanks for joining me for episode four of Cold Water Hot Coffee.
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