Healing with love and laughter
WHEN Ros Ben-Moshe received a diagnosis of bowel cancer six years ago, little could have prepared her for the intense journey that would follow.
WHEN Ros Ben-Moshe received a diagnosis of bowel cancer six years ago, little could have prepared her for the intense journey that would follow.
With a solid commitment to optimism, Ben-Moshe began to keep a journal as a means of coping, documenting her feelings and experiences. The series of journal entries would eventuate into her book Laughing at Cancer: How to Heal with Love, Laughter and Mindfulness, which she launched this week at Spiritgrow.
Describing it as a “memoir … and healing guide for anyone with a significant health issue – and not specifically bowel cancer,” Ben-Moshe told The AJN, it also explores how illness is spoken about and viewed, while examining the power of positivity and mindful healing techniques.
But practically speaking, how does one actually “laugh through cancer” after undergoing major surgery that would result in the removal of 30 centimetres of bowel, and an ileostomy to follow?
“The journal just encouraged me to always seek out the positive,” shared Ben-Moshe.
“For me, as soon as the diagnosis came, I started to put pen to paper. What I realised was not only was it a way of trying to make sense of this shock, it was very much a way for me to take control over my feelings and thought process.”
The wife and mother to two young boys was a lecturer in health promotion and public health, when her life ground to a halt.
She described the fear that she had initially felt, and the subsequent frustration experienced with the physical limitations of the healing time of her body.
“I realised that you can’t feel two opposing emotions at the same time. Very simply I could get out of that negative space by focusing on doing an inner smile meditation or certainly when I had healed enough, laughing … or focusing on things like conscious gratitude,” recalled Ben-Moshe.
Each night, on the cusp of sleep, she would force herself to recount positive moments from the day. She would also practice intentional laughter, essentially “laughing out the anxiety”, explaining that the “body can’t differentiate between self-initiated laughter or real laughter. It is the act of laughing, or even just smiling, which releases endorphins, the body’s natural drug which is “30 times stronger than morphine”, revealed Ben-Moshe.
REBECCA DAVIS
Ben-Moshe’s book is available at a wide selection of bookshops and at www.laughingatcancer.com. She will be hosting two upcoming lectures at Spiritgrow. For more information, call (03) 9509 7211.
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