About the Healing Circle

Healing Circles at Love Heals Cancer and ZenOnco.io are sacred conversational platforms. The sole purpose of Healing Circles is to give a safe space for cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and other relevant individuals to share their feelings and experiences. These Healing Circles come with zero judgment. They are a platform for individuals to rediscover their purpose in life and achieve motivation and support for attaining happiness and positivity. Cancer Treatment is an overwhelming and daunting process for the patient, family and caregivers involved. At these Healing Circles, we give individuals space to share their stories and feel at ease. Moreover, Healing Circles are based on different topics to help individuals reflect on elements like positivity, mindfulness, meditation, medical treatment, therapies, optimism, etc.

About the Speaker

Dr Sarat Addanki is the Founder and Director of Ayurway, an Ayurvedic doctor from the California College of Ayurveda, and an ex-caregiver to his mother, whom he lost to Breast Cancer. He did his Bachelor's in Computer Science and Engineering from Osmania University and has 25 years of experience as a software executive. Deeply distressed after losing his mother to breast cancer, he involved himself in Ayurveda and understood how it could benefit patients and help them overcome Pain. At Ayurway, Dr Addanki focuses on creating awareness about various natural healing processes through Ayurveda, Western Herbology, Panchakarma, Aroma Therapy, Mental Imagery, Music Therapy and bringing a new perspective towards cancer prevention and cure.

Dr Sarat Addanki shares his journey.

My mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in 2014. I just landed in San Francisco and got a call saying she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. The same afternoon I took a flight and moved back to India. She was very close to me, so I decided to be with her during her cancer journey. My family also moved back to support her in the next two days. We stayed with her for a year. I thought about how to give her strength and confidence and realized that time is one of the most essential things on this earth. A gift of time is significant. We spent a lot of time with my mother and ensured that we gave her confidence. She was a courageous person. I don't know how she processed it internally, but she was solid externally. Our main goal was to be with her, support her and even my daughter, who was just six years old, said she wanted to be with her grandmother.

At that time, I was not aware of all the things I had learned in the last five years. I was guided by Oncologists who did their job to the best of their knowledge, but I realized after she passed away that there is much more than Chemotherapy. This realization struck me very hard, and when we went back to the US, I was sitting and thinking about what went wrong. I figured out that I didn't do those things which could have improved her quality of life. The extension of life is not in our hands, but the quality of life is. And when the quality of life improves, the extension of life happens by default because nobody wants to exit the body when everything is in good shape unless God calls for a higher assignment. This realization made me learn Ayurveda, aromatherapy, music therapy,Guided Imageryand visualization, and many other complementary modalities.

How do Ayurveda and other therapies help patients in their cancer journey?

Our vision is to improve life quality and support holistic wellness. There are various scopes of services that help patients on their cancer journey in addition to their conventional treatment:-

Aromatherapy - Pre, during, and post-conventional treatment to address side effects

Ayurveda and Homoeopathy - Pre and post-conventional treatment. After conventional cancer treatments focus on eliminating toxins, long-term side effects, and cancer prevention.

Diet and nutrition - Pre, during and post-conventional cancer treatments. Extended diet and nutritional support at home to address and deal with the patient's significant issues. We are creating awareness about a healthier diet and lifestyle.

Guided imagery and visualization- Pre, during and post-conventional cancer treatments.

Marma Therapy- Pre, during and post-conventional Cancer Treatment completion.

Music (Sound Therapy), Chanting- Pre, during and post-conventional Cancer Treatment.

Product- Pre, during, and post-to manage inflammation, appetite, weight loss and other challenge faced due to conventional cancer treatments.

Yoga/Pranayama/Meditation- Pre, during and post-conventional Cancer Treatment for immediate management of short-term side effects.

Panchkarma- Pre, during, and post-conventional Cancer Treatment to alleviate acute side effects.

Ayurvedic herbs and marma therapy have improved immunity, sleep pattern, self-confidence, haemoglobin, circulation, and nutrient assimilation. It reduces CINV (Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting), anxiety, fatigue, constipation, acidity, bloating and inflammation. It helps to tolerate Chemotherapy, better complianccomplyventional treatments, and improve quality of life.

What is guided imagery?

Guided imagery is used to improve quality of life, and it is also proven that NK cells' cytotoxicity and overall immunity also increase. It reduces Chemotherapy side effects like nausea, depression, Pain and Anxiety. It improves tolerance to the prescribed treatment regime, improves bio-functions, and supplements the fight against cancer.

Inner healing power

What cures us is our inner healing power; the rest of them support it. What is important is how we can activate the inner healing power so that it can work on cancer and eliminate it.

Chemotherapy is one of the valuable modalities; the other one will also activate the inner healing power, for example- Guided Imagery.

We have two parts of our brain, i.e., the left brain and the right brain. The left brain is all logic, but the right brain is intuition. It works with images, and lots of magic can happen with it. For example- I am dreaming, and someone came and knocked on my door in my dream. My body does not know the difference between someone knocking on the door or knocking on the dream. It reacts because it is the image you can see; the mind instructs the body, and the body reacts. Using images, we can get some control over the autonomous nervous system, which controls the white blood cells, Anxiety level, etc.

Imagery is the oldest form on earth that is used for cure. When stressed during our modern lifestyle, the body thinks we are in a fight or flight situation, suppressing immunity. So the advantage of meditating even for five minutes a day is that it improves our immunity indirectly. Meditation need not be complicated; we must close our eyes, breathe in and out. Breathe in from the abdomen and breath out from the mouth. While breathing in, there is something called nana mudra, and we have to be in this mudra to calm down. Meditation is done to bring ourselves into a state of calmness; in this state, our immunity is not suppressed and helps fight against cancer. Every person has an inner advisor who knows precisely how we can speed up our cure. The Guided Imagery works on the principle of inner advisor and having a conversation with our inner advisor, where we bring up our inner things. For example- some people feel their bottled emotions are the reason for their cancer. This is not the case for every person, but some people feel like that.

Visualization

During visualization, we visualize our cure and healing. Visualization is more like a play. For example, visualizing that Chemotherapy is your friend, and it's going to help. When we embrace the treatment, then the effectiveness of the treatment is more than its side effects.

Belief system

There are three kinds of beliefs, i.e., negative, positive, and healthy.

A negative belief is thinking you won't be able to take the treatment.

Positive belief is there is no problem, and you can take it, and there will be no issues.

Healthy belief is that you will take the treat, and there might be issues, but you will figure out how to manage it.

Whenever we have any belief, we have to put our belief through five questions-

• Does this belief help me to protect my life and health?
• Does it help me to achieve my short-term and long-term goals?
• Does it help me resolve or avoid the most undesirable conflict with us or others?
• Does it help me to feel the way I want to feel?
• Is this belief based on fact?

Herbs have side effects too.

Herbs have side effects based on our constitution, so we always go through VPK analysis. The first thing we need to do before we take any herbs is to understand our constitution. Secondly, the medications that we are taking. We have to be very careful what herbs we are giving and at what time; we cannot interfere with allopathic treatment and neglect the effects ofChemotherapybecause chemo is trying to kill the cells, and if you interfere, eventually, the person will be at a loss. So we have to be a little bit careful.

What difference has your cancer journey as a caregiver brought forth in your life?

I understood what I could speak and could not; at least, I understood the mode of communication and its do's and don'ts. I realized that giving advice is very easy, but it isn't easy to implement. Ensure that we don't treat them as patients; if they can do certain things, we should encourage them because that will also give them confidence. I learned that I need to be very careful about who I let them speak, what I speak and what I give them. The best thing I did for my mother was to give her time.

How do you overcome fears and negative thoughts and connect yourself more to your inner self?

There are rituals for a reason; it gives us discipline. When you keep doing that, you come into a frame of mind. Similarly, we have to follow a ritual to eliminate negative emotions and thoughts. A simple ritual is to write negative and healthy emotions on paper.

Resentment

Based on the information I read, especially among women, resentment could be one of the significant causes of cancer because women have creative energy. When the negative emotions are bottled up and create helplessness, that negative energy becomes negative creativity, and that's why the reproductive organs get cancer. It is from a mind-body connect perspective. It was essential to get into the process of detoxifying ourselves mentally. Anger is one shot; it comes and goes, and the damage is the fight or flight response, but that's the end, whereas resentment is replaying the anger thousands of times.

With visualization or guided imagery, we can sweep away the resentment. Visualization is bringing the whole situation into perspective, which causes the resentment (it can be the person or the event) and figuring out how we make the person come out of the resentment. We say forgive, but forgiveness is difficult. If we find that this is the cause of resentment, we need to cut the cord between them for the resentment to go away.

Integrative oncology

There are various complementary modalities, but they are only complementary and cannot be replaced. Integrative oncology is the way to go to address this complex issue. We must address it holistically, using all the tools, science, spirituality, diet, and herbs. We need to suggest more and more people for prevention and reduce our Stress by doing simple meditation.