New Moon INSIGHT
INSIGHT On Allowing
Over the past couple of months, I received hundreds of questions about how I healed from stage four cancer so fast.
In my professional life, I work as an INSIGHT Facilitator. I spend most of my days in a state of meditative awareness and reflective listening, creating feedback loops that help folks gain clarity, perspective, and self-understanding.
One key to INSIGHT as a practice is learning to track challenging feelings as they arise and engage with them in a positive way.
A helpful first step in tracking the quality of how we do this is the art of allowing. This essential behavior reduces the forces of resistance and contraction we might feel in our more challenging moments and allows us space to deepen our understanding of what is coming up for us.
This recognition creates the foundation for gaining insight into what is causing the feelings in the first place. If we go one step further and give ourselves the time and space to experience them as a meditative practice, we will find that the wisdom and knowledge our emotions hold begin to emerge.
Over the past decade, I’ve invited hundreds of INSIGHT practitioners into the practice of allowing as a first step. This past year, it was my turn to put a re-up on the practice and turn the INSIGHT lens back on myself.
The immediate feeling I felt upon first hearing the diagnosis was fear. Fear, followed by disbelief and then outright denial.
Not this.
Not now.
Not me.
No way.
But the reality was I had cancer. It was a simple matter of fact, and I had to find a way to accept it and deal with it. But at the time, acceptance was too big of a leap, and I needed a baby step.
As I applied the INSIGHT principles of practice to my situation, it became evident that I would benefit most from first allowing my fear in. If I could feel what I was afraid of instead of blocking it out and pressing on, I could better understand the fear and leverage the power undergirding it for my healing.
I spent the next six months doing just that.
Rather than trying to sidestep, anesthetize, or turn away from the discomfort of being with all the fears I was feeling, I allowed them to come in. Again. And again. And again.
The practice of allowing enabled me to connect more authentically to the reality of those feelings. It fostered a cohesive environment of feeling, receiving, and listening between the many parts of myself responding to my situation.
Yes, I was a functional and highly intuitive 51-year-old adult researching every way, shape, and form to heal cancer, yet I was also a terrified 8-year-old boy holding a life-long fear tightly to my chest.
Those two parts of myself needed to connect, and the first step in my healing was allowing myself to feel the fear in that child's heart truly. That subtle and conscious engagement built a bridge between these two aspects of my psyche and enabled me to effectively offer myself the love, affection, and nurturing I so deeply needed.
This level of connection in my psyche would also foster coherency in my brain, nervous system, and heart, accelerating my healing. Maintaining this coherent state was the cornerstone of what was a multifaceted approach that included equal parts Eastern and Western medicine.
Ten months after the diagnosis, I was cancer-free.
INSIGHT New Moon Intention
In the wake of the new moon, the invitation is to practice the art of allowing.
Pay attention to your feelings as they arise. As you feel them, bring a second attention to whether or not you are resisting, avoiding, or denying what is coming up.
If you notice any of those patterns, use your breathing and your awareness to practice allowing what is to be.
It's a subtle shift, and it will often be noticeably uncomfortable. But you are creating a more honest, open, and fertile environment for you to understand where you truly are.
If you want to go one step further, find a quiet place to sit down and journal for 10 or 15 minutes about your experience of allowing.
How does allowing clarify your perspective?
How does allowing evolve your emotional intelligence?
How does allowing enhance your understanding?
A Set of Tools
INSIGHT is a practice founded on the premise that self-knowledge and self-understanding are key to enabling us to engage more effectively and meaningfully with ourselves, our families, our work relationships, and our communities.
It is a tool to make meaning, shift perspective, awaken intuition, and ignite creative thinking and problem-solving.
It’s a privilege that this is my life’s work, and I look forward to continuing to refine and shape it over my lifetime. It’s a joy to be back with you and the community, offering these New and Full Moon intentions and reflections.
This fall, we will open the doors to INSIGHT with a team of collaborative INSIGHT Facilitators. If this unique way of looking within to flourish and expand back outward calls to you, your can inquire here to book a Mentorship Connection Call.
I hope this new moon writing serves you well.
With love,
Kevin