The Soul of Success Vol. 3 • September 23, 2005

Welcome to The Soul of Success On-Line Community for Women!

Thank you for joining us for this issue of The Soul of Success e-newsletter on SELF-LOVE.

In this Newsletter:

• A Message from Founder Jennifer Read Hawthorne
• Feature Article: “The Power of Self-Love”
• Today’s Tip
• Q&A
• Next Issue: “The Power of Honesty”
• Contact Us

Message from Founder Jennifer Read Hawthorne

Self-love is one of the most powerful techniques I have ever discovered for making life better. In fact, research on self-esteem shows that how we feel about ourselves determines how we perform in every single area of life—as employees, parents, business owners, artists, and in all our relationships.

And the rule seems to be this: the more you like yourself, the better you perform in every area of your life. As Lucille Ball once said: You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.

But it wasn’t until I met Ginny Walden in Hawaii a couple of years ago that I learned that the power of self-love goes way beyond performance. Her story follows in the Feature Article below—along with how her story impacted my life.

Feature Article: The Power of Self-Love
by Jennifer Read Hawthorne

Several years ago, Ginny was diagnosed with Stage 3 advanced breast cancer—and what a shock! Ginny had always been in great shape. In fact, as a teenager, she almost qualified for the Olympics on America’s swim team. Only at the last minute did she and her coach discover that she was a long distance swimmer—she had been training for the wrong event!

But although she didn’t go to the Olympics, for the next thirty years she led a very active life. She swam regularly, eventually breaking five national Masters records! She coached swimming, spent lots of time in nature, ate well, and stayed in tip-top athletic condition.

When she was diagnosed with the cancer, she tackled her healing with the same zest for life she did everything else with. She embraced her surgery and chemotherapy treatments with the attitude that she would take a stand for her life, and tried all kinds of alternative healing therapies while undergoing the traditional ones, including acupuncture, meditation, even a macrobiotic diet.

Finally, her doctor recommended a risky new treatment called “stem cell rescue,” in which stem cells are extracted from bone marrow, frozen, and later put back into the body after high doses of chemotherapy have theoretically destroyed all cancer cells. She elected to do the treatment as an outpatient, believing she’d be more exposed to infection at the hospital.

The treatment was brutal. She lost 15 pounds in less than two weeks and, after the stem cells were reintroduced, she was just waiting for Day 10, when the stem cells are supposed to kick in and start rebuilding the immune system. But on Day 9, her white blood cell count was so low that she had to be admitted to the hospital. They posted a sign on her door that said “Neutropoenic,” which, loosely translated, meant that she could die if someone breathed on her.

That night, alone in her hospital room, Ginny stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself. She saw her bald head, the dark circles under her eyes, her emaciated frame. Friends had always said to her, “Ginny, you need to love yourself, unconditionally.” But never having experienced unconditional love, she didn’t really know what that felt like.

All of a sudden, looking at her wounded body, a deep feeling of compassion arose from deep within her belly, and she started to cry. She began to bathe her body with a hot washcloth, pressing it against her skin gently, like a mother would bathe an infant, saying “I love you” and “thank you” to her body. And then she went to bed, feeling very happy.

The next morning, after having her blood sample taken as usual, her doctor came in and picked up her chart. He threw up his hands and started yelling, and all the nurses on the ward came running to see what had happened. “Yesterday, her blood counts were 600. Today, they’re 7700! They’re normal!” Two days later, they were still normal, and they sent her home. And today, seven years later, Ginny is still cancer-free.

Now that’s the power of self-love! But there’s more. Ginny’s story went so deep into my heart and psyche that, when I got home from Hawaii, I wondered whether I might be able to do the same thing for a small basal cell carcinoma that had reappeared on the side of my nose. I had previously treated it with traditional chemotherapy and it had been cured—for one year. When it came back, I tried for another year to heal it with alternative therapies, hoping to get to the root cause of the cancer. But it was growing, and eventually I had made an appointment to have a biopsy when I got back from vacation.

But this particular morning, as I sat thinking of Ginny, I began to touch the side of my nose and “talk” to my body as Ginny had, thanking it and asking it what it needed from me. Within minutes the answer had come.

Ten days later I canceled my biopsy appointment; my cancer was gone.

Adapted from The Soul of Success: A Woman’s Guide to Authentic Power, Health Communications, Inc., copyright 2005 Jennifer Read Hawthorne.

Today’s Tip

So much of what we do today to “take care of ourselves,” has the same flavor of everything else we do in our adrenaline-driven society. For example, maybe you know someone who goes to the gym three times a week to work out, and refuses to let anything stop her even though she hates it. This is not self-love. This is the mind telling us that we’re doing something good for ourselves! Better to go the gym once a week when you can bring love to your body, nourishing it with your presence and awareness.

When you really love yourself, you express life from a place of confidence and comfort within yourself—and everything you do reflects that. If you really want to create a foundation for an exquisite life, see if you can find a way to say “I love you”—to yourself! It could be the start of a wonderful new relationship with the most important person in your life: YOU!

Q&A

Last issue’s question: Give an example of goal-setting that worked for you. What was the underlying intention?

Cynthia Pugliese, Director of Program Services at Occupational Educational Center, Inc. shares her story. Thanks, Cindy!

“Fifteen years ago I worked for a company with a vision of servicing disabled adults and empowering them to lead happier productive lives. Their vision meshed with my inner intention, but after five years it became clear that the vision of the company had shifted more towards the external than the internal. I left and opened my own company with another person who shared the same intention. We started out small and continue to be small by choice. Our intention has never been money driven, but rather people driven. Our intention, our vision, for ourselves and company, has flourished, making us a recognized successful competitor in the mental health industry of our state. We haven’t “sold our soul to the devil” like so many others in order to survive. We survive because we are seen as people with clear and honest intention to service our customers.”

Next issue: What ways have you found to say “I love you” to yourself?

Send your 100-word answer to: jennifer@jenniferhawthorne.com. I’ll share and discuss your answers in the next e-newsletter.

Next Issue: The Power of Honesty

Most of us think of ourselves as honest people. But how are you at being honest with yourself? In our outer-directed society, we are conditioned to say “yes” when we mean “no,” and often are so busy taking care of others that we don’t have a clue how we ourselves are feeling.

Join me in our next issue as I share the story of a high-powered business woman who thought she had everything with her career—until the events of 9/11 forced her to become painfully honest.

Contact Us

Your feedback is always greatly appreciated. Please e-mail us at info@jenniferhawthorne.com

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