Helena Trent

In Darkness Born the Light - My Journey From Mutation To Transformation

Tai Chi Week

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It has been 5 days of my usual after chemo “down days”. Like last time, I managed my nausea well enough that I didn’t throw up. Guardian Angel Oreo was watchful, but didn’t watch over me with concerned cat eyes. 🙂 I took it easy this time and allowed myself to rest as much as my body wants. I can’t say the side effects passed any quicker, but I certainly felt better going through it.

Tomorrow, I am going to tai chi week in Orangeville. This is a special week for me. I was diagnosed about this time last year. Orangeville was having a tai chi week as usual except the group heard about my illness and made me the “volunteer project” of the week. They chanted for me, made me a card and sent me a picture of the group. It brighten my world through those dark days. Allison Feeling wrote me a song titled “lungs“. The lyrics made me cry. I made it through a desolate winter.

Cancer seems to be such a senseless disease (so is every disease). Looking back on my year’s journey though, it has been a year of miracles one after another. I can’t help but in awe of life’s creation. Given who I was and where I was in life, if there was another way for life to show me the true wonders of life, it would have. This is the quickest way to transformation.

I used to go to tai chi weeks 4-6 times a year. I was lucky enough to have a business that allowed me to travel and pursued my personal interests, so I did. What was I chasing after life with such a fervent for? Eternal peace? Enlightenment? I used to be proud of my ability to endure. I endured long hours of practice in the name of achievement. I endured long hours of work in the name of work ethics. I endured arduous relationships in the name of acceptance. Cancer took all that away in one fell swoop. It took me almost a year to realize the point of life is not enduring life, the point of life is enjoying life so I can love life. I enjoy my tai chi practice so much better when I did it in small increments with care. I enjoy my work so much better when I don’t have the pressure to produce. I can accept people unconditionally when I let the relationships go or be as they are.

It took me all year to realize the spiritual journey is not a journey of the mind where I work to attain a certain mental state. The spiritual journey is a journey of the physical body. It started when I took my first breath and it will end when I take my last. On this spiritual journey, it is about learning to be sensitive enough to honor our physical needs. Why else are we in this physical body? When I had perfect health and a perfect body, I didn’t understand that. I couldn’t understand that.

I was super independent from a very young age. I lived away from my parents since I was 12-years-old. I learned to be tough, tried to handle everything on my own. Life has to orchestrate something as big as cancer to make sure I couldn’t carry it alone. I had to learn to open up and receive from the world. Life is meant to be lived with love and support of the world. You’ve all shown me that in the past year.

I know my journey is not over yet. For as long as cancer is still here, I still have something to learn, something to deepen in my practice of living. This time around, instead of tossing happiness into the future and chase after it, I am going to enjoy every moment as it comes. I will live in peace in my cancer cocoon knowing life will push me out of this when I am transformed and ready to fly. Until then, I relax (放鬆), open to life, and breath.

Here is to a whole new tai chi week of practice being sensitive and honoring my physical body.

If you are reading this and you were at the same tai chi week last year, please come give me a hug. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you are not able to be there, please accept a digital hug. 🙂 Love you all!

Cat Days

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It’s no secret that I love cats. I have said many times I want to come back as my cat in my next life. I didn’t say I want to come back as a cat, just any cat. I said I will come back as MY cat. I know… that’s impossible, how could I be me and my cat at the same time? Then, the other day I woke up with this bright idea. Why wait until the next life, I am going to be MY cat NOW.

I love cats not only for their beauty and grace, but above all for their independent spirit. They don’t live to please people. They live for their own curiosity and enjoyment of life. If they want love and attention, they ask for love and attention. If they want to be left alone, you can’t get to them no matter what you try. They live their lives unapologetically true to themselves. Therefore they are loved for who they are the way they are. They live a life of curiosity. When something interests them, they are totally engaged in the moment. When nothing interests them, they conserve their energy by taking a nap. They eat what they like to eat. They don’t eat out of fear. I have never met a cat that would eat their food because it’s good for them! I can’t tell you how much healthy cat food was wasted because they simply refuse to eat it. I once bought them raw cat food. Nope. I made them salmon skin. Nope. They never said to themselves Helena put a lot of research into this and went out of her way to get it, so we should eat it to make her feel better. Oh, nooooo, not eating that because it’s disgusting. lol! They also stop eating when they are full. They never felt greedy, the need to clean their bowl because they love their food so much or there might be other cats going hungry in the wild. Simply not their problem.

In contrast to my cats, I have lived such a “responsible” life… eating the right kind of food, exercised right, made sure everything and everyone’s needs are taken cared of. Not that it was such a bad thing except it left very little time and space for me to explore “me being me.” What if I don’t know have a preconceived notion of who I am and how I should behave? What if I am just a cat? How would I live? What would I be curious about in life? What would captivate my interest and wonder? What would I like to eat without all the expert advise telling me what I should eat?

Death has been waiting on my doorstep for a year. It was about this time last year that I was diagnosed. Death almost had me convinced life is full of pain and suffering, it wasn’t worth living so I should just go with him. Thank God for all your love and support along with medical treatments both conventional and alternative, I have stayed away from death.

On my anniversary with cancer, I changed my mind about death. I will not stay away from death out of fear. Fear is boring. Fear’s one and only message is “no”. In order to live a life worth living, we actually have to say “yes” to life. I have decided to take death on a date! “Wawa” (my childhood nickname, means baby in Chinese because I am the baby in the family) the cat in me is going to show death such a good time that even death wants to live! 😉 If there comes a time that life is so boring that I might as well die… is that why people use the term “bore me to death”??? Well, not this cat and not on my watch! We are going to have some awesome Wawa the Cat Adventures!!! Cats have 9 lives. I think I used one already last October, but no worries, this cat has 8 more!

A new year, new adventures awaits! This cat is open to suggestions and invitations. What’s the most fun you’ve ever had?

Relax (放鬆)

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The word we hear the most often in our tai chi practice is “relax”. People that had the opportunity to learn from our late founder, Master Moy, would say one word they heard the most often, over and over again was 放鬆 (fong-song), 放鬆 (fong-song), 放鬆 (fong-song). Yes, 放鬆 is translated as relax, but it has a little different connotation in Chinese. When we say relax in English, I think of escaping or completely letting go… like sitting on the beach with an umbrella drink or being a couch potato in front of TV. In Chinese or at least in our tai chi practice, that kind of relax is not the point. 放 means “let” or “allow” 鬆 means “loosen” or “open”. It means loosening up inner resistance, allowing internal opening to take place so energy can flow. It’s an open and alert state without tension… like a cat. I live with 3 living little masters, I should know. 🙂 They teach without words. They teach as living embodiment.

relax

What does that have to do with my healing you might ask? Cancer has taken me to the edge of death to show me how to relax (放鬆) into life.

If it wasn’t for over a decade of tai chi practice prior to me getting sick, I would not have survived this far and certainly would not have lived this well. Tai chi practice is not about attaining perfect health or perfect peace of mind so we could have a get out of jail free card untouched by life. Quite the contrary, my practice gave me a way to experience life in peace and equanimity not because life is going my way, but because I am going life’s way.

If it helps you to understand this foreign concept and you would like to have some foreign characters to go with it as a reminder, click here.