In this episode, Amanda shares her journey with terminal cancer with us - and the remarkable meeting with her oncologist when the evidence that the bone mets have been replaced with healthy bone. She has been declared NED or No Evidence of Disease. And she believes anyone can accomplish radical remission. Then we share a meditation for everyone which helps us move from fear to love - so we can live our fullest and best lives. We hope you will join us.
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Meditation music Licensed from: Nate Miller https://www.emanate7.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/user/Emanate7
thank you to Music from Pixabay for the intro music
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In this episode, Amanda shares her journey with terminal cancer with us - and the remarkable meeting with her oncologist when the evidence that the bone mets have been replaced with healthy bone. She has been declared NED or No Evidence of Disease. And she believes anyone can accomplish radical remission. Then we share a meditation for everyone which helps us move from fear to love - so we can live our fullest and best lives. We hope you will join us.
Pam's Information
Classes: Information and Classes and Hidden Brook Farm full Calendar
Reiki from the Farm™ Website Sign up for our newsletter and register for our free monthly online Reiki share!
Reiki from the Farm™ Instagram
Reiki from the Farm™ Facebook
Hidden Brook Farm Youtube channel
Law office website www.mccordiclaw.ca
Law office Facebook McCordic Law & Mediation | Facebook
Facebook for Amanda’s Tango with Terminal Cancer https://www.facebook.com/Amandas-Tango-with-Terminal-Cancer-From-Fear-to-Freedom-114525083792966
Radical Remission website: https://radicalremission.com/
Breakdown of steps Amanda took: https://www.hiddenbrook.ca/amanda-mccordic-break-down-of-steps-taken/
Meditation music Licensed from: Nate Miller https://www.emanate7.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/user/Emanate7
thank you to Music from Pixabay for the intro music
Register for our newsletter!
Pam: on this week's podcast, I am talking with my friend, Amanda [00:01:00] McCordic. Amanda has a really interesting story that begins even before receiving her terminal cancer diagnosis. And so I'm really glad that you could join us. Amanda, thank you for being here.
Amanda: I'm excited to be here.
Pam: Thank you. Before we begin, I just wanted to let you know about some of the classes that we have coming up.
On February 8th to 14th, I'll be teaching Reiki level one and two Reiki, masters class and an animal Reiki class all in the mountain time zone, March 14th to 27th, I'm teaching level one and two, masters, Karuna and animal Reiki in the Australian time zone.
But that might also work really well for some of you in North America, who would like to take an evening class with shorter days, because we're spreading the classes out a little bit more.
And May 3rd to 10th. I'm teaching level one and two, masters, animal Reiki and [00:02:00] animal communication.
And May 17th to 19th, another Karuna Reiki class. So if any of those speak to you, I hope you can join us. And Amanda, you've got some classes that you're looking to start, you also gave us a link to your Facebook page, which we will include in the podcast description, but you're expecting to teach some classes coming up as well. Aren't you?
Amanda: Yeah. So I recently felt called, to teach, which is really outside, My wheelhouse of experience, but I'm leaping in any way.
And my first class that'll be open to, anyone will be on April 15th and 16th, and that will be a Reiki level one and two, done over zoom just so that we know that it can go forward even in the days of COVID.
And then I actually felt called to do one the following week as well, which is april 22nd and 23rd. And that class will be a little bit different is that will be opened up to anyone [00:03:00] who has a chronic illness or a terminal illness or their caregiver. And that's really going to be the lens for which the course goes through. Yeah, I'm really quite excited about that next step in my journey.
Pam: I'm super excited about it and I can't wait for people to hear about your journey.
Before we begin. I am going to start with a brief invocation. So I'm just going to invite everyone to close your eyes and place your hands in gassho and activate your Reiki. And if you have Reiki, symbols, Just think about them or speak their names or draw them, or imagine them.
Then just invite them to surround you and be in the room with you. And to help you hear this podcast in the manner in which it was intended, we're talking about terminal diagnosis today. And we want to go through a lot of the ins and outs about that. And if [00:04:00] you have received a terminal diagnosis or know of someone who has, a loved one, we just want you to be open to receiving not only the messages, but the Reiki energy that is imbued throughout the entire talk and that we are sending to you today.
We want to invite the light of hope and courage and of health to flow through you and your loved ones.
We are so grateful to be of a lineage of light bringers who are creating wellness and health in the world today. Aho. Namaste and Amen.
My friend Amanda is a lawyer. She is from New Brunswick, Canada . She is an, Usui/Holy Fire three Reiki master. And she's soon to be and [00:05:00] Usui, Holy fire, Karuna Reiki. We met in 2019 just before she discovered a tumor in her breast.
In April of 2020, she was told that the cancer had spread into her bones and was terminal. And yet she is thankful for this diagnosis. Amanda. Welcome.
Amanda: Thank you, Pam. Yeah, I'm really excited to be here today. It feels like the next step, in my journey is starting today.
Pam: I love that Amanda and to begin would you mind telling people how we met.
Amanda: Yeah it's a neat story in and of itself. I have my own office, a law office, and my right hand woman at that office is my office manager and assistant Teresa. And Teresa is a really special person in my life. She's not just an employee, but she really is my work wife and her birthday was coming up and she's really quite hard to buy for [00:06:00] so I saw my neighbor had posted that her friend was coming from Alberta to do psychic readings in the summer. And I thought great I'll get her this, and it'll be something different that we can do together. And so I did that. I printed out a thing, paid for the session, put it in a card, gave it to Theresa.
Unfortunately something came up and that woman had to cancel. And so I said to Theresa, Go find somebody else to do this and we'll do it with somebody else. And so she found Christie Flynn, Christie Flynn was coming through town and keep in mind, this is maybe six months after Teresa's birthday.
So Theresa booked the sessions and we went and Christie, certainly had her finger on the pulse of my life instantly. But one of the things she said to me was you need to go see Pam Allen-LeBlanc. And you're lucky because she lives here, but it's really important that you go see her.
And sometimes when you hear things that you know are right, you just feel it. I knew she was right. And I always put myself last, I never did any meaningful self care. And so it's [00:07:00] almost a miracle in of itself that I followed up and did it because I deliberately had canceled, a years worth of massage therapy appointments.
And I had signed up for counseling and never gone. Because I always was putting everyone's needs before my own, but something in me knew that I needed to. And so December, 2019, I first talked to you and of course, December is when I found, the first tumor. That's not a coincidence. Everything lined up, just the way I needed it to.
Pam: I think we had one session and you found the tumor after that. Didn't you, Amanda?
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. And I was very cavalier about it in the beginning. Oh yeah, I have this lump, might be cancer. Might not be, but it'll be fine.
Pam: Tell me what happened after that.
Amanda: So yeah we started our sessions and I did enjoy them. But I was still very much stuck in my old ways. And cancer was a thing. It should have been a big wake up call, but it really wasn't. Yeah. I was so committed to my old ways and my old habits. And the biggest part of that of course is being, was being a martyr.
[00:08:00] My identity was tied up in my martyr complex, which I didn't fully appreciate at the time. So what that means, I guess for me, was I ran around buffering everybody from their natural consequences of bad decisions. And that was both in my personal life and in my professional life.
I'm a divorce lawyer and I had gotten a specialization, an unwanted specialization in high conflict divorces. And so I absorbed everyone's pain. And I tried to process it for them because I felt I was stronger and could handle it for them. I really thought it came out of a place of love in some ways it did, but a lot of it came out of a place of fear. A fear that they couldn't manage their lives as well as I could
Pam: Managed them for them.
Amanda: I really felt for years, if everyone just did exactly as I said, we'd have a perfectly happy life. I know how ridiculous that is, but I just had such sound advice. Really? So I did make self-care a [00:09:00] little bit more of a priority, in the first months of my cancer diagnosis, but it was really, April 2nd, 2020 was the moment where it crystallized where my oncologist looked me in the eye and told me I was going to die.
Pam: Yeah.
Amanda: And I'm a fixer, I'm a problem solver. And so I immediately went to problem solving. Okay. Okay, what can I do? And to be told, there's nothing you can do. And that was really, she was kind about it, but that was a fair message is that there was nothing I do. That it was out of my hands and largely out of their hands. She said when I asked for a timeline, Being a numbers person.
She said, it's hard to know. The average is three to five years. And I remember her saying three to five years, but some people go much faster. And I didn't realize at the time that when she said some people go much faster, that she meant me. And it's probably a good thing that I only remember that kind of later.
Because three to 5 sounded bad enough, that was enough to handle it. And my daughter's [00:10:00] nine, she was eight when I got the diagnosis. And I'm 37. So 37, my daughter's eight and my son is 18. But my son is my stepson and he lost his mom when he was nine.
Pam: Yeah.
Amanda: So the thought of him losing another mom, really hit. And you know what, for someone like me who is literally spent all of her life running around, looking after everybody else and trying to buffer everybody, the thoughts of all of a sudden leaving my children on the earth without me was hands down the worst part.
I certainly grieved what I didn't think I would get to do, the dreams that I felt that were going to be not fulfilled, but really what I had to push through was a thought of leaving all these people behind. And I just kept thinking like, " you jerk, you have buffered everything for all these people, and now they don't know how to function without you, and know you're leaving them."
Pam: Okay.
Amanda: And I just thought like, what have you been doing? So I had to [00:11:00] get through that. But yeah, so I, sometimes gloss over just how dark some of that time was, but it was dark and of course that was happening right at the height of COVID, everybody was in lockdown.
Yeah. The natural kind of community and societal resources. Weren't there. I had to tell my mom over the phone. Yeah. I thought I was going to die in three years and my poor mother my poor mother, she didn't get to see me for probably eight weeks. Eight or 10 weeks after I had to tell her that news.
And I just kept saying, mom, if you could see me, you'd feel better because I'm not sick, I'm getting better. I'm healing. But she didn't have the benefit of that. And in some ways, I guess it was good because it really forced everyone has to go inward. Because we didn't have the natural crutches that we would have when society is open and free. We really had to go into ourselves and go [00:12:00] into our house. My little family here. And that's maybe what we needed, maybe the outside noise of some of that would have slowed our progress. Cause we did, we did progress really quickly with it.
Pam: You did. I remember being astounded. We worked together every week. And I remember being astounded at your progress just in every area of your life.
You came and you studied Reiki level one and two, as soon as you could. We're supposed to have six months between level two and masters and we had five and a half months and I contacted the ICRT and said, "is that okay?" And I don't even think I threw in the terminal cancer diagnosis. I think I just asked if it was okay. And they said, Oh yes, that, in this situation it was only two weeks. It was fine.
You worked hard at it and you pulled out all the stops and a little while later you found out that your oncologist had not thought it was going to be three to five years, had she?
Amanda: No. So it was now it's funny, but so [00:13:00] I met with her in April when she told me I was going to die.
And then I had a follow-up by phone in may. And that follow-up was odd to me at the time, because she said, you must be really tired now. And I said, no, I'm sleeping great. And she said, you must be just. Napping all the time.
And I said, no, I'm still working. And she said, "Oh, how were you still working?" And, there was, she just kept saying to me, you must be so sick. And then, so the next time I saw her in person Would it have been in September. And in the summer I had done stereotactic radiation.
So the day that I saw her, I was actually really sick. And I thought I had COVID but had gotten the all clear. So I drug my very sick body in there and it was the worst I had looked in a year. And she came in and she was her whole demeanor was different.
And she said to me, "I didn't expect to see you today." And I responded, "Oh, I wouldn't miss an oncology appointment." And then she said, "no, I didn't think I'd [00:14:00] see you today. I didn't think you would still be here." And she said cancer as aggressive yours, the medication typically doesn't have time to work. That it's effective medication, but it needs a time to build up in the system. And she thought that I would have passed before the drugs had times to time to help.
And that's what they had warned me. Both my main oncologist and my rad oncologist had said that what their expectation was is that the cancer was going to explode through me. Through my organs, my lungs and my brain.
Pam: It was in your bones, Amanda?
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. It was metasticized to three spots. So two ribs and then my tailbone. So really right along my spine is where the issues were.
Pam: Yeah.
Amanda: And then by the time I actually think was so aggressive. So they found the first tumor in December, 2019. By the time I had a mastectomy in February, I had three large tumors and four developing spots.
And in fact, they didn't get clear margins because one of the tumors had grown so fast that they. Between the MRI and when [00:15:00] I had the mastectomy that they were surprised when they opened me up. So it was very, it was a grade three cancer. So it's the most aggressive on the scale of cancer.
Pam: And she told you, she thought you were not going to make it past July. Hadn't she?
Amanda: Yeah, that's what she said. In April, when she saw me, she didn't think I would still be on this earth by July. And it's so funny. Cause she told me that and she said, but you're doing so well now. And your numbers are so good and you look so good.
And again, like I looked like dog's breakfast cause I was so sick at the time. And it turns out that it turns that it was a side effect from the radiation I had. I didn't find that out until later. And I had actually had some significant lung damage that They thought it was pneumonia at first, but several rounds of antibiotics didn't fix it.
But all that to say at the time when I was feeling so sick is when she, she all sudden became so hopeful. And she's still pessimistic. She's still very pessimistic, but that's okay. I really feel part of my journey is opening her up to a little bit of hope.
And one of the things I think I [00:16:00] need to do at some point is do a whether it's a Ted talk or some kind of talk on how to tell someone they're dying.
Pam: Yes. Because it was presented to you in a way that left you really empty.
Amanda: There's such a fear among medical professionals of false hope, right?
Pam: Yes.
Amanda: And I'm really fortunate in that I am well-positioned to push back against somebody in her her level of authority. So I have, I'm more comfortable saying to her, I know you think I'm going to die, but I disagree, or I know you think I'm going to die from cancer, but I disagree in a way that so many people are not, I think my profession has opened me up to one, being fairly inquisitive, and I like to ask questions.
But I also understand that everybody, every profession, no matter what the profession is, they're all human and they don't [00:17:00] know. And sometimes they don't know what they don't know. And so I think part of what my journey is to work with those cynical oncologists to say, I can understand why you would think I'm going to die. I just have a little bit of hope that maybe it will work out.
Pam: Yeah. Or allow me to have a little bit of hope. I remember working with you and the thing that you were most frustrated with is that they're not giving me even a little bit of hope to work with. And I think that's the message you'd like to bring forward to them
Amanda: Yeah. It's true because I remember saying to the rad oncologist , I got it in my head that 10 years was my first goal. Amelia, by then she had turned nine, so I thought 10 years that she'll be 19. I didn't want to ruin her grade 12 year by dying in it. So I had a patient that to her grade 12 year and then I'll die, and the she'll go to university and it'll be fine.
So I thought 10 years, and I remember saying to my rad oncologist. "I just need a little bit of faint hope that this is possible." And so he said and he's lovely, absolutely lovely. But he said "highly improbable. [00:18:00] Maybe possible to live 10 years." And I took that "maybe possible" and ran with it because that's all I needed.
I just kept saying, "all I need is faint hope." And so that got me on my journey thinking, okay, 10 years that seems manageable. And then I was reading. I was reading something and the words, "spontaneous remission." I came over it and this, the energy or God, whoever you want to say.
And when it speaks to me I love the voice cause it's very matter of fact, it doesn't particularly care if I believe it or not. It never tries to convince me. It's just a very matter of fact statement. Yes. Which aligns with my soul. I love it.
But it just said , those are the two words you needed to read in this book.
I don't even know if I finished the book. I think the very clear energy was "those were the two words that I needed to know." And so that led me off on this quest to find out if other people had healed from stuff like this. And what I discovered was there is not a [00:19:00] cancer on this earth that hasn't had a case, a documented case of spontaneous remission.
And when I started looking at out there, there's lots of people that have walked this path that I'm on successfully, who have been cancer-free for many years who science or current medical mainstream cannot explain. And I wasn't alone. And I remember there's a radical remission book. And from that there's a Facebook group that I'm now a part of where people share their stories of radical remission.
And I remember reading about, a woman at the same kind of breast cancer as me and same diagnosis. And, she was like 15 years out or something of them not being able to, what they call it: NED, which is no evidence of disease NED. So she's 15 years where they can't find the cancer. And I remember just crying and it struck me at the time, how emotional I was, but I realized that I had been walking this path all this time [00:20:00] with my own hope.
But now that I could see that others had walked it successfully, I didn't feel as alone. And I had the wonderful support, like my, you know, my God, I am loved and everybody just came around me, but it still was a lonely walk cause nobody really knows what it's like. And to stumble across those people, telling their stories and knowing that, Oh my gosh, they did it.
This is not a fool's errand. This can work. Yeah.
So that was really good. And then I also, there's growing literature out there about that. I'm working my way through a book called "Cured" right now, which has been it's the science behind all of it.
It's amazing to me. If this isn't, I call it hippy dippy stuff. But it's not, it's science that we don't understand yet.
Pam: There is a lot of science around the energy work, around the healing, around what we do. As a scientist myself, I really had to investigate that when I began doing Reiki and it's [00:21:00] incredible how much science there is to back up things like Reiki and spontaneous remission.
And it's quite wonderful, but you actually took that hope and you ran with it amanda, we talked about it. And one of the things with Reiki is that we always like to combine Reiki with other therapies, with traditional medicine. And so you decided there were some treatment options. You decided to take them, we did regular Reiki. You did some other things too for yourself. Didn't you.
Amanda: Yeah. So how I think about it is, in the beginning I thought about it, it's evolved, but in the beginning I thought about it as a war in my body. And on the one side, there was my body's immune system and my healing and myself and on the other side was the cancer.
And so I really thought about how I could feed what I was doing, not just food, but everything I was doing was providing supplies and ammunitions to one of the two sides. And so I really [00:22:00] had to decide where my allegiance was and that was to myself. And so I immediately started doing intermittent fasting, there's a lot of science behind that, junk starting the immune system and also cancer cells have a harder time breaking down fat as energy.
In fact, they generally can't. And so if you deny them, if you don't eat, then you move into ketosis. And that's where your body burns your fat reserves. So it starves the cancer. And then I doubled up on that by doing keto where again, you starve your body of sugar. And so I did that very faithfully for three months.
There hasn't been an area of my life that I've said "no Reiki can't touch." I Reiki everything. And I remember having a conversation with myself where I thought damn, is the Reiki energy going to get annoyed at me? Like I'm Reiki-ing everything, and then the next day was our regular meditation.
And in the meditation you actually said, " you can use Reiki as much, or as little as you want." you answered the [00:23:00] question that I hadn't asked you, that I had asked the universe. And so I ran with it. And so I, I can't find a parking spot. I Reiki it, my computer's not working.
I Reiki it. I have a heat light that I put on that I used to put on my cancerous spots. There's some great science emerging around cancer cells breakdown between 102 and 108 degrees. Whereas normal cells because of their you know, perfectly formed veins can whisk the heat away. The cancer cells can't.
So I use a heat lamp and I put Reiki in that. I Reiki my medication every night. I take a big bowl of supplements and herbs and addition to the mainstream pills that I'm on. I Reiki them all. Everything has been Reiki'd to within an inch of its life in this house.
Well, and
Pam: I think Reiki really guided your journey, Amanda, in our sessions, quite often, I just listen. And so I'm never sure what's going to come through for healing. But one session I was particularly guided to tell you [00:24:00] that you needed to read a book that I had never read. It didn't even know what it was about by Anita Moorjani called Dying, to be me.
I said, "I'm getting a very clear message here to read that book." And you said. "Oh, I happen to have it in my stack of books here to read. I'll pull it out and read it this weekend." I said great. And then we went on and did our session, and I remember that session you told me the following week, because that session was all around how there really were only two things love and fear. And that everything in life came back to love and fear and went into the duality and how we could let go of fear. And I knew that it was a crucial learning or a crucial session to your healing. And the following week I laughed because you said that " I thought you were full of crap."
And then I went and read that book and I said, Oh, what's the book about? And you said exactly what the session was about.
Amanda: Because I [00:25:00] remember in the meditation, sometimes I'm really deep and I, my automatic mind or my conscious mind is turned off. But in that session, it wasn't and, you said that you said every decision you make is either from, out of love or fear. And my lawyer, your brain, like I didn't shoot right up, but my brain I did.
And I thought that's not true. There's lots of different things that motivate people. And I started my brain going through all the things that motivate people. And then when I picked up that book to read it, not only was it the exact book I needed at that moment. And also I sent a copy to my mom actually at the same time, because it was the hope I think we both needed . But that book was really about, choosing to make decisions through love and the importance of love.
And now that is, one of the fundamental guiding principles of my life. And I'm still practicing it. And now that I'm back to working, full-time in my practice and it's a litigious practice and, so I'm learning how to blend that in.
I get an email that, used to make me see [00:26:00] red, and now I think, OK, why are you seeing red? What are you afraid of? And I try not to write it back until I can do it through lens of love. So while still being a lawyer and protecting my client's interests, but at the same work can be done through the lens of love.
And I know how hippy-dippy that sounds, but once you get in the practice of it, it's just as effective, you make better decisions and it doesn't come at the huge, emotional toll that living in fear and making decisions based on fear does. And in fact, going to the issue of fear in talking about kind of the things that I did, I really credit a lot of my recovery with getting over my fear of death. And my fear of leaving my children.
I have the image of looking after my mom when she got old and I thought who's gonna look after my mom. And who's gonna look after my husband and who's going after my children and getting over that fear. I don't think I could have healed.
Pam: I remember when you came to me and said [00:27:00] that you had really made peace with dying, and I found that really profound. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Amanda: Yeah. I just, I don't think I could have healed. I don't think my body would have been in a place to heal if I'd held onto that fear of dying.
So where we're at right now is they can't find any evidence of disease in my body, so they can see where it used to be because there's now beautiful, bright white bone in its place.
Pam: So you really felt that when you made peace with death was when you were able to turn the corner. And be able to heal.
And I remember that distinctly, I felt that it was an incredible and brave decision. Do you want to talk about that?
Amanda: Yeah. I did lots of things to heal my body and heal my life, but I think one of the key steps was really getting my head around around death and just being comfortable with it.
And so where we're at now [00:28:00] with it is I don't think I'm going to die from cancer. But if I do it's okay. And I really mean that. If I die tomorrow from the cancer or from anything else, I will not regret the journey I've made since last April I would do it all over again and still find value in it.
And I think the reason for that is, if you have that fear in your body, you've got that fight or flight response, just waiting. And that's where your energy goes. If you're feeding your fear, whatever that fear may be. Then your body knows that. It can't be at peace and it can't rest.
And it can't divert energy to your immune system to allow yourself to heal. And so it becomes a block or a barrier. And so I'm really okay with dying, which my family hates me saying. But I am. I'm not scared of it. I see it as a transition now. I'm a little bit curious about it, to be honest. But I don't, sorry, mom, but it is, it's totally changed for me.
And it's been a blessing in and of itself. It's [00:29:00] been a blessing just to let go of that fear.
As of November of 2020, but I found it in January, they can't see any evidence of cancer in me, so they can see where my bone Mets used to be.
But now they're, this brilliant, beautiful light, which is healed bone. So I've healed the spots where there was cancer. And by now they would have expected either me to be dead or the cancer just to be everywhere. And they checked me top to bottom and there's no other cancer spots.
And it's considered no evidence of disease, which is a small miracle, really or a big miracle. Yeah. But that wouldn't be possible if I really didn't get comfortable with the idea of my own mortality and dying and , I think it was so key to my martyr syndrome.
When you run around and convince yourself that nobody can look after themselves, Without your help. And then all of a sudden you can't be there. It, it really brings home the problem with that system. And so now I'm so much more focused on supporting others in their journey and getting out of the [00:30:00] way of their personal growth.
And I know all I've learned because of my challenges, all the dark days, all the things I've learned and who am I didn't deny them. Those learning opportunities as well. And when I look back at my journey, since last April I'm thankful for every good day I had and I had a lot of really good days.
I also had a lot of really what at the time, I would've called bad days or hard days or sick days. And when I look back now, at those I'm as thankful or more thankful for those hard days, because those are the days I learned the most. I was sick for about 10 days. And all I could do was lay outside or, I have this beautiful chair that I got for mother's day.
I would lay in this chair and just watch the trees and I would listen to our meditations over and over again. And now I look back and I think what a special time that was, I was so sick. I couldn't do anything, but sit and think, and that's exactly what I needed.
Pam: I remember you telling me once that [00:31:00] you felt the cancer was a gift and that it had brought more joy and peace into your life than you had previously experienced, and you were thankful for it.
Amanda: I am thankful for it. I know there's this whole marketing thing out there in our society, kick cancer in the ass or, F you cancer, or, cancer's the enemy.
And I know that's what the marketing of the cancer society is. And I understand where that comes from, but I just never felt that. For me, cancer has been a blessing and more than being a blessing, it's been a crutch. I was on the wrong path. I was full of self-loathing even though nobody would've guessed. I had everything society says you should have.
I have two children, a boy and a girl. I have a big fancy house. I have a beautiful backyard. I've got new trucks. I go on nice vacations and I've got expensive jewelry. I have a successful business. I had it all and, and [00:32:00] none of it made me happy. None of it made me feel like I was living the right life.
I used to think all the time is this really what I'm supposed to be doing? The answer was no. And cancer was my crutch. It was my crutch to break bad habits that I don't know if I would've had the strength of conviction to break on my own. Most specifically the martyr habit.
When you have these toxic traits, for me, the cancer really was the crutch that came in and helped me break those. And I don't think I could have done it without the cancer, the terminal cancer wasn't enough. It really would be terminal for me to my head in the sand.
But it changed the whole dialogue internally about the cancer. And so I realized that the cancer for me was a manifestation of all that wasn't healthy in my life and that I needed to heal all of it.
I take a ridiculous amount of supplements, but I knew I needed to heal my whole life, not just my body. And so that changed the dialogue. And when I meditated, and I meditate a lot, I [00:33:00] would talk to the cancer, the energy behind the cancer, and I would thank it.
I would thank it for showing me what I really wanted and what was really important. And for getting me off the path that was, slowly eroding my soul. And then as I moved through my own personal growth and all the different areas, I started saying to the cancer, thank you so much, but I don't need you anymore.
You can go. You've taught me my lesson. I've learned it. Thank you so much. You can leave. And I felt it. In fact I had those scans in November and my oncologist looked at them, she had said they were good, Didn't really elaborate on them very much.
It was only in January when I met with a rad oncologist that he went through them all with me and I finally realized just how amazing it was and that I was right. In that timeframe when I said to you, I think the cancer's gone. I found out later that in fact, yeah, it was,
Pam: Yeah. I felt it [00:34:00] to be gone too then I remember.
Amanda: Yeah, and I don't feel it. I, feel better than I have felt in years.
Pam: Amanda, if you've got some advice for people who are either in your situation or who have loved ones in your situation, what would it be? And I do want to point out that you channeled a very beautiful piece of work that we're going to link to the podcast.
And it just outlined all the actual steps that Reiki guided you to take. But what advice would you have to offer? To someone who's in this situation or who has a loved one in this situation.
Amanda: The overachiever in me wants to blurt out a hundred different things, but I think there's two main things. The first is don't abdicate your health to somebody else. Even your doctor. You really have to take ownership of it. I've compiled a list of what I did that doesn't mean that's going to work for you. I really see it as [00:35:00] jumping off points. Breadcrumbs for people to follow, but you really have to go do your own soul searching and do your own path and just get your mind, change the dialogue when you're thinking about your cancer. Don't think of it as the worst thing that ever happened to you. Think of it as a challenge that could lead to the best things that's ever happened to you. And it's possible, I look at my life and every morning I wake up, I think, thank goodness I got cancer.
I'm not to say that I, I'm thankful it's gone, but I'm more thankful it came. And secondly, there's hope like there's always hope. Always hope. The story, the book that you had recommended that I read, that we talked about earlier, she was on her death bed and it was everywhere and she was clinically dead.
And that was 20 years ago and she's still walking the earth and that is a well-documented it's been under the scrutiny, like that happened. Nobody disputes that happened.
And when I first started walking this path, I really thought that, He had to be a rare miracle for that to happen.
That's not the case. There's [00:36:00] more radical remission than people realize. And there's just always hope, you don't have to be this rare, magical unicorn for it all to fall into place. Anybody can do this.
And when you look at the things that I do now, it is so far removed who I was a year and a half ago.
I'm continuously learning about nutrition. I knew nothing about that. I grew up on processed food and I still love processed food. I'm learning all of it. I'm making a Rick Simpson oil, which is a cannabis oil that is used to treat a bunch of things, but certainly cancer. I make that.
And then I turned it into suppositories because I don't like being high and I don't get high that way. So I do it through suppositories. I make those in my kitchen. I can't make a decent pasta sauce. Like I can't. And here I am, like I'm not somebody that knew anything about essential oils.
I don't know anything about crystals. I type a straight-laced personality. And here I am stepping out and trying all these things. So anybody can do it. Anybody can save [00:37:00] themself. That's what it is. It's you have to take ownership of that journey and you've got to see it as a journey.
A journey that has merit. And I talked on the early days about finding the silver linings. There are so many silver linings to a terminal diagnosis. Sometimes we're too upset and clouded by the darkness to see them. But when you start looking, they're there.
Pam: There's a Tim McGraw song live like you were dying.
And I think in some ways it can be a blessing to really have an opportunity to examine our lives and how we're living them. And to just ask, is this how I want to go forward? If my time is actually limited, which we're all in the process of dying. So our time is limited...
Amanda: We've all got a terminal diagnosis that's right.
Pam: And I think it, it provides an opportunity.
And I remember that's might've been one of our leading conversations when we first, when you [00:38:00] first received that diagnosis. And you agreed, you began to look for the opportunities. And I can't tell you how pleased I am for you. And how this turned out and I'm so thankful that you showed up today.
I think one of the things you mentioned is that there are more spontaneous remissions than we realize, but I think it takes a certain amount of courage to come forward and share like you are. So I really appreciate that. We've also put a link in the podcast notes to your website. And so if anybody does want to connect with Amanda directly or stay in touch with her, by all means And go ahead and join her Facebook group.
And Amanda, if that group the Facebook group on radical remission, is that an open group?
Amanda: So there is an open group, and then there's also a course that you can take on radical remission. And what it is they go through all the nine factors that they found that people consistently did, who [00:39:00] had radical remission.
And and so they go through those. Nine steps with you? I got a little bit cheeky. I signed up for the course and then didn't complete it because when I looked forward, the nine things were all stuff that I was intuitively already doing.
Pam: That Reiki has already led you to.
Amanda: Yeah but I had a good giggle over it because, it was like a checklist. And it was all stuff that I had felt guided to. And even some of the stuff like when I talk about guidance couldn't figure it out. I was eating my weight in spinach and artichoke dip like I was eating ridiculous amounts of I still do.
And then I read that the artichoke is one of the kind of foods that they're looking at now, more and more as a superfood for anticancer properties. And I just thought, you know what, I'm going to listen to my body and give it what it wants. And yeah, there is an open group and then a more specialized group.
Pam: Let's include all the link to their website, Amanda, just in case anybody wants to check it out. [00:40:00]
Amanda: Yeah. The nice thing about it is you can put in the kind of cancer you have, and then it pops out stories of people who have the same kind, which is just amazing when you do that.
Pam: Yeah. That's brilliant. So that you realize that it is possible. It can happen.
Amanda: Yeah, I think the first step really is hope you have to have a belief that it's possible. And I was really lucky in my journey that I have a friend who about eight years ago now he got a terminal diagnosis and his kind of aggressive cancer didn't have any good mainstream treatments. And he healed himself through a lot of the things that I did. So I was really fortunate in, he stepped forward. The day after I got my diagnosis, he FaceTimed me from his home in the North.
And he looked me in the eyes and he said, you're not gonna die from this if you don't want to. And then my daughter came in, and he said to her, I don't want you to worry too much, your mom's not going to die from this.
And I remember thinking like, Whoa, that's a big statement. And she, gave him a pretty intense, dirty look, but, [00:41:00] so I had the benefit of knowing somebody personally to who had walked that walk. And and I think that made a really big difference for me as far as allowing my heart to hope.
And sometimes it's really hard to hope. I found the hardest days for me to have hope were the days I had to go into the oncology department and I'm, I'm 37. I look really healthy. I've got lots of hair and I sit in the waiting room around people who are almost dead.
And who, a lot of times I feel would rather be dead because the disease and the treatment of the disease has taken so much from them. And it was so hard to have hope there. Cause I thought who do you think you are to think that you know, better than all these oncologists. They've seen thousands of people go down this path and who do you think you are to say no, I don't, I'm not going to go down that path.
And so the hardest place to have hope is in the oncology department But I did some meditations on that. And in the beginning, I never left the [00:42:00] oncology department without crying in my car in the parking lot. And now I can go in there and it doesn't impact me because I don't know what those people's paths are and what they're here to learn.
And that's not my job. And my path that is for me to heal so that I can show others how to heal. And and I don't know how that's gonna unfold, but I'm not particularly worried about it. Everything is going to come together at the right time, in the right place, because it's meant to be, and I'm on my authentic path with my authentic self and there's no energy put into worrying anymore.
I put all my energy into doing
Pam: Amanda, that is such a beautiful story. And I'm so grateful that you agreed to come on here today and share all of this with the listeners. I think that one of the things you just said is that it helped that you knew someone personally, I feel like you're doing [00:43:00] this will allow other people to know someone personally, just through the candid way that you've shared your story. So thank you so much.
Amanda: It's a joy to. It's it's my life's purpose now.
Pam: It truly is, and I'm thankful that we got to work together on this. And I know you're not the only person that I've ever worked with, who had a terminal diagnosis who came out the other side into health.
But I really appreciate that we have a platform now to share that with the podcast. So I really appreciate you coming forward to do that. I think we're going to move into our meditation today. And our meditation is just about moving from fear to love no matter where you are in your life, whether you have a terminal diagnosis or not.
So if you're driving or operating a vehicle, These meditations can sometimes go pretty deep. So I'm just going to invite you to push, [00:44:00] pause, or pull over onto the side of the road so that you can listen safely. Amanda, before we go into the meditation, is there anything else you'd like to leave our listeners with?
Amanda: Just one thing and that's be kind to yourself. Love yourself just as you are. Today in this moment without reserve. You don't need to change to deserve love, and just love yourself.
Pam: Thank you, amanda. I'm going to share a typical type of meditation that you and I would have done together.
So I'm just going to invite the listeners to close your eyes and take a deep breath. And just begin letting go of the worries and the stress of your day and of everything you need to think about later. This moment is about you and for you. So give yourself this time to focus your attention on you.
[00:45:00]And remember that just for today, you will not worry or anger. You will be kind. To all others, including yourself, you will be filled with gratitude and devoted to your work and to your life path, whatever that may be. And these are the five principles of Reiki.
I invite you to imagine now that it's a beautiful day, it's warm and sunny, and that there's a beautiful path winding through a forest with enormous cathedral trees. And as you walk through this path, you can feel the energy of the earth flow up through the bottoms of your feet. As the [00:46:00] energy of the forest and the life essence of it flows into your body through your breath.
And the light of Reiki and the enlightened beings surrounds you and you feel very safe and guided and protected.
And as you walk along, you come to a clearing in the forest and in the middle of the clearing is a small Hill covered with soft grass and beautiful wild flowers.
I invite you to climb up the Hill and when you get to the top of the Hill to lie down gazing at the sky, and now as you gaze the sky, a beautiful beam of light pierces, the clouds and shines down upon you.
And you realize today that this is [00:47:00] the gift and the light of love. This is love coming to you from the grace of God, from the source energy.
I invite you to open your heart and receive the love and to make a conscious decision to release any fear or stress or worry any of the energies that come from fear so that you might have the opportunity to live your fullest life. And we'll spend some time here today.
[00:50:00] [00:49:00] [00:48:00]You can continue with your experience as long as you feel guided. But when you are ready, take a deep breath, bring your awareness to your eyes, slowly open your eyes and come back.
[00:51:00]I want to thank you all so much for joining us here today. And Amanda, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your story with us.
Amanda: It was my pleasure.
Pam: Have a wonderful week. Everyone. I look forward to touching base with you next week for our next podcast. Namaste.