Rosenbaum - Here for now: living well with cancer through mindfulness

Here For Now

Living Well with Cancer
Through Mindfulness

by

Elana Rosenbaum, MS, LICSW

2005-2011 by Elana Rosenbaum. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. For information address Satya House Publications, Post Office Box 122, Hardwick, Massachusetts 01037-0122.

ISBN 978-1-935874-12-6

ISBN 978-0-9729191-2-8 (paperback)

Published by Satya House Publications
Post Office Box 122
Hardwick, Massachusetts 01037-0122
www.satyahouse.com

The meditation first appeared in Tricycle , Spring 2005.

This book is dedicated to my husband David,
who held my hand and comforted me with his presence
when I was ill and keeps my spirit alive and joyous
through all my days.

*

In Appreciation

To all who pray for me, love me, and sustain me, thank you.
I am filled with gratitude.
In appreciation,
May these blessings be received:

May the one who was a source of blessing for our ancestors bring the blessings of healing upon those who we name in our hearts
a healing of body and a healing of spirit.
May those in whose care they are entrusted be gifted with wisdom and skill in their care.
May family and friends who surround them be gifted with love and openness, strength and trust in their care.

May we all be blessed.
May we all be well.
May we all live in love and freedom.

Table of Contents

Section I

Section II

Section III

Section IV

Foreword

There was a moment standing at the foot of Elanas bed in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit gazing down on her bald head and feeling the labored breathing of the pneumonia she had contracted after her stem cell treatment, when I thought we might actually lose her that very day. Apparently a lot of other people, including some of the staff on the Unit, thought so too. But Elana did not die. She came back from what looked, from the outside, to be deaths very door. Her life force just hung on, against all odds, and she somehow hung in with it.

It didnt surprise those of us who knew her... Elana Rosenbaum defines commitment, resolve, determination, and stubborn perseverance. In my experience of it, having worked closely together in the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness at the UMass Medical Center for close to twenty years, that is how she approaches everything; her work, her meditation practice, her life. What it feels like ultimately, radiating out of her and all around her, is love. You can feel it in these pages, in which she shares with us her wild ride, and even more importantly, her dharma energies and wisdom. One testament to her energies and wisdom is that, in the months following her discharge from the Transplant Unit, a good number of the staff signed up to take the Stress Reduction Program, having witnessed something in her that comes in large measure out of her meditation practice, and wanting to acquire it for themselves and perhaps as an aid for other patients facing the same rock wall of being brought to deaths door in order to save them.

Elana embodies in herself everything she teaches others, for the most part now cancer patients. Her authority, her authenticity, and her personal commitment entrain just about everyone into the beauty already to be found in their own lives, often obscured by the shadow of their disease, and all the ghosts of fear and pain and turmoil associated with it.

You have to know Elana to really appreciate her luminosity, her effervescence, and her unbridled enthusiasm for life. She radiates the determination and, strange to say, the innocence and purity of the Little Engine That Could like nobody else I have ever met. Now, in these pages, you have a priceless opportunity to get to know her and share in her remarkable energies. You have here the priceless opportunity to explore the power of mindfulness in the service of coming to terms with things as they actually are a good way to think of healing and above all, you have the priceless opportunity to come to know yourself, intimately, in ways that may make all the difference. As the poet, Kabir, put it, Fantastic! Dont let a chance like this go by!

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Preface to the Second Edition

Sometimes people ask me, Are you cured?

Cured of what? I ask them.

I know they are referring to cancer, which in my case is lymphoma, but cancer has never been the problem. It is my attitude towards cancer, not whether it recurs, that is relevant.

Of course, I like it when my energy is good and my body is functioning smoothly. I still get nervous before CT Scans. But this passes. I continue to learn that I dont have to like what happens and that feelings be they pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral are transitory. When I dont cling to what I wish was present, but instead keep myself open to what is occurring, there is no problem. Practicing being mindful of my attitude and my actions makes a difference.

So, I thank people for caring, tell them, I am well, and we move on. My preference is to talk about freedom and happiness. I am interested personally and professionally in how it can be achieved and maintained.

Mindfulness remains central to my life. I bring it into my practice as a psychotherapist and teach it in the workshops I lead. Im now also teaching medical school students and find myself emphasizing the importance of kindness and compassion, as well as ethical behavior. There seems to be a new hunger to apply mindfulness to medicine, a practice that is being increasingly used and researched.

I feel honored that my own experience has inspired a large research study that is currently measuring the effectiveness of mindfulness for patients who are undergoing stem cell transplants. I am the consultant to this study. I also continue to teach meditation in different venues and to study it myself.

So, it is with much gratitude that I introduce this second edition of Here for Now.

I am alive. I am well. I continue to challenge myself to be fully here for now.

What about you?

Elana Rosenbaum

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book could not have come into being without the help of many people who consistently supported me with their unflagging generosity of spirit, love, kindness and care. Without them I would not be alive today. Id like to thank my husband David Levitin for his patience and dedication in caring for me and reading and re-reading my manuscript and checking it for grammatical errors even at the end of a long work day; my brother Bob Rosenbaum who took time off from work and humored me and rearranged all the spices in my cabinet when I could barely eat; my niece Bekka who visited me in the hospital and cheered me up with ice cream cone tattoos to paste on my bald head; my niece Anna who is lovely inside and out; my cousins, especially Walter, Jon, Sherry and Jane Sass, Susan Giordano, and Christine Sass, my sisters-in-law Judi Davis and Pat Levitin and my brother-in-law Peter Levitin and his family: Jennifer, Gregory, Cynthia, and Stephen.

I also thank my dharma brothers and sisters who are my colleagues at The Center for Mindfulness and give me spiritual and emotional sustenance. I give thanks to Jon Kabat-Zinn for hiring me as a teacher in the Stress Reduction Program all those many years ago and having faith in me even when I doubted myself. Jon, you have changed my life; your love, generosity, and vision continue to inspire me. Saki Santorelli, who now directs the Center, has been a special friend and brother, fighting me, supporting me and loving me. Thank you for your wisdom, love and poetic soul. My dear, dear friends and soul sisters, Florence Meyer and Melissa Blacker, who carry on the tradition and enhance it by their shining wisdom and beauty; my roommate and fellow traveler Ferris Urbanowski, with whom Ive shared many adventures; my fellow teachers, Fernando de Torrijos, Pam Erdman, James Carmody, Diana Kamila, Nerina Hendry, Ellen Wingard, Rafaela Morales, and Debby Beck. Also Larry Horowitz, and his wife Karen, whose photo of women supporting each other during a birthing still hangs in my house; Ann Skillings, Leigh Emery, Michael and Rachel Bratt, Judy and Ira Ockene, Jean Baril, Leslie Lynch, Carol Lewis, Roberta Lewis, Betty Flodin, Diane Spinney and all others who have entered the doors of the Stress Reduction Clinic be they staff, patients or interns.