Holistic Healing Tools to Survive Cancer: A Mindfulness Life Center's Julie Lemerond shows us how mindfulness can be extremely valuable.

The National Cancer Institute states that 38.5 percent of all people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, which translates to more than one in three. Early detection, coupled with modern medical advances in treatment, is responsible for people living longer and stronger after a diagnosis. However, there is more to healing than what is found in the doctor’s office.

Being diagnosed with cancer is one of those life events that forces us to look at our mortality, as well as reflect on the quality of our life. It is often the reason that people seek out healing practices to guide them upon the journey back to wellness, or at least as a way to deal with the illness. Meditation is an extremely valuable tool to be used at any point in a cancer journey. Here are some ways in which meditation and other healing practices can assist not just in the healing of illness, but also in the prevention of it:

Just taking the time and space to sit with ourselves, meditate and simply “be” is extremely empowering, by allowing whatever is there to just simply be there—whether it is pain, hopelessness, reflection—with a sense of accepting and understanding flowing through us. When we get still and acknowledge everything that we are thinking and feeling, it gives us space to move forward with decisions and actions from a more centered and grounded state. We learn how to respond, rather than react; and the value of that, no matter what is going on in our life, is priceless.

In the midst of turbulence and disturbance, meditation teaches us to release our judgment about what is happening—physically, mentally and emotionally—in our lives. It makes us slow down and look at life through a different lens, realizing that giving and receiving love to others is the most important part of life, not the material items we are often so attached to. Meditation allows us the time to tune in to our true source, while tuning out everything outside of us. It’s quite amazing how powerful just the simple act of sitting and being still can be.

Alternative healings can take many forms, and sound healing is quickly gaining popularity at yoga studios and meditation centers throughout the Valley as a healing practice. The use of gongs, crystal bowls, Tibetan bowls, tuning forks and more all have the power to harness physical changes within our bodies.

Julie Lemerond is the general manager of A Mindfulness Center, in Scottsdale, which offers meditation, gentle yoga and sound healing classes. For more information, call 480-207-6016 or visit AMindfulnessLifeCenter.com.