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Meet David Elliott author of You Don’t Have To Die When Your Doctor Says: A practical guide to living with grace and joy in the face of a terminal prognosis
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Norm Goldman


Reviewer & Author Interviewer, Norm Goldman. Norm is the Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com.

He has been reviewing books for the past twenty years after retiring from the legal profession.

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By Norm Goldman
Published on July 16, 2009
 

Author: David Elliott
ISBN: 978-0473-15016-7
Publisher: Primary Press

Norm Goldman, Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com Interviews David Elliott Author Of You Don’t Have To Die When Your Doctor Says: A practical guide to living with grace and joy in the face of a terminal prognosis

 

Click Here To Purchase You Don't have To Die When Your Doctor Says: A practical guide to living with grace and joy in the face of a terminal prognosis.

Author: David Elliott
ISBN: 978-0473-15016-7
Publisher: Primary Press

Today, Norm Goldman Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is honored to have as our guest, David Elliott author of You Don’t Have To Die When Your Doctor Says: A practical guide to living with grace and joy in the face of a terminal prognosis

David lives in a self-built house in the bush in New Zealand.  In January of 2008 at the age of forty-five, Elliott was diagnosed with brain cancer or in medical terms, glioma multiforme blastoma grade four. According to David's bio, in 2001 he became a licensed Avatar master and began delivering the Avatar course in New Zealand and Australia; coaching participants to become self-aware and realizing themselves as the source of their life and conditions.

Good day David and thanks for participating in our interview.

Norm:

First of all David, I noticed your book You Don’t Have To Die When Your Doctor Says: A practical guide to living with grace and joy in the face of a terminal prognosis (…and who doesn’t have a terminal prognosis?) has an update dated March 9th, 2009. How are now feeling and what is the latest update?

David:

I am in good health and cancer free. However I did have a seizure a couple of weeks ago. This is not uncommon for people who have had brain cancer and surgery but was unpleasant and disappointing nevertheless. It had been 18 months since the initial seizure that heralded the whole cancer experience so I though I was going to be seizure free. 

I hadn’t been taking any anti-seizure meds and had even started driving again. So now I am back to walking or relying of friends to go anywhere. The seizure gave Stephanie (my wife) and me a fright as we naturally thought that it could have been caused by tumor re-growth but a CAT scan revealed no evidence and I am going for an MRI in a couple of weeks and feel confident that that will be clear also.

Norm:

What is a Master Avatar and how has this helped you cope with your cancer?

David:

An Avatar® Master is someone who is trained and licensed to teach the Avatar Course. Avatar is a suite of tools for working in consciousness and living deliberately, it’s like the how-to manual for the software of the mind. Using the tools has helped me in many ways.

First of all when I was newly diagnosed I experienced a huge shock, I (of course) though this would never happen to me!  I felt depressed, hopeless, angry etc. I was fortunate in that I have a lot of close friends who have also done the course and they would come around to my house, every day, and coach me through exercises.

With their help I was able to move rapidly through my grief and start focusing my attention on believing in a positive outcome.  Being given a ‘terminal’ prognosis can really grab one’s attention and it can be hard to think that survival is possible.  Using the Avatar tools I realized that I can choose what I believe and that I didn’t have to take on the expectation that the cancer would kill me just because of a medical prediction.

As I progressed through my treatment I continually used the tools (exercises) and went on Avatar courses to explore and reveal my unconscious beliefs and feelings about my cancer and health. I discovered old and forgotten negative intentions that could have contributed to my body manifesting cancer. For example, in my twenties I was rather depressed; I felt trapped in my life, didn’t have much self respect and smoked pot.

At this time I would compulsively imagine that a tragedy would free me from this situation.  Discovering this very negative intention (which was still lurking in my mind) , appreciating it as my creation and withdrawing my fixed attention form it, has, I feel, allowed me to prevent it having any negative influence on my life from now on.

Norm:

Living in the bush in New Zealand must create some kind of a problem concerning your treatments etc. How have you been able to cope with this as well as transcend all other problems related to your cancer?

David:

The main difficulty has been transport; as I mentioned above I am not legally able to drive as a seizure behind the wheel could be very messy.  Hamilton hospital, where I had 30 days of radiotherapy, is a 2 ½ hour drive away. I would stay there for the week, just coming home on weekends.  I stayed at a ‘cancer lodge’ free of charge. It was provided by a local service organization the ‘Lions’ and I enjoyed spending the time with other cancer patients.

We would all get our daily ‘zap’ and spend the rest of the day sharing stories and keeping each other inspired.  Becoming dependant on others has been a very difficult lesson for me. I have always shied away from asking for, and accepting help. Receiving so much help and love from others, and learning to feel truly grateful for it, has been the most heart-opening gift of my cancer experience.

Norm:

How would you define the "will to live"?

David:

My definition of the ‘will to live’ is a bit of a moving target at the moment as I become more aware of my own process and learn from others. There is an instinctual will to live that comes hard-wired with the body. All life possesses this level of will and I believe that we experience disease if this basic built-in intention becomes overpower.  life-style choices (smoking, excessive drinking, poor diet, not enough exercise, etc)  continued stress or strong negative belief patterns can be causal factors in overpowering out body’s natural tendency to remain alive

As conscious beings we also have a mental ‘will to live’ that we can bring into awareness and deliberately empower; we can put our attention on compelling reasons to live and become inspired to take deliberate action that assists our body in creating health.

Caroline Myss, an author I greatly admire, talks about the will to heal. She says that we all claim to have a will to live as an automatic reaction, (“Of course I want to live!”) but many of us have a less than fulsome commitment to healing. Healing usually requires a change of behaviors, beliefs or self-definitions and many of us want to live but won’t do what it takes to heal.  An example would be someone who wants to survive cancer but won’t give up cigarettes or a stressful job.

Norm:

It has been often reported in the media and even with medical studies that the threat of death renews our appreciation of the importance of life, love, friends, and all there is to enjoy in life. From your own experience, why would you believe this phenomenon?

David:

I would believe this phenomenon because I experienced it. Reassessing one’s life is almost impossible to avoid if death is looming. It would take a tremendous feat or denial to not do this after receiving a serious cancer diagnosis!

I have been thinking a bit about cancer cures and what it would mean if one was developed that was so effective that having cancer became as life-threatening as getting a cold, i.e. “I had to have a couple of days off work last week as I had a bout of brain cancer”.

Would this be a good thing?  Yes, in countless ways it would. If you think of all the suffering that cancer causes, especially for parents of children with cancer, then naturally we all want a cure. I would put my hand up real quick if I had a re-occurrence and there was a sure-fire cure.

However, I also think that if we just took the cure without reassessing our lives then something precious would be lost. Many of us (and I include myself) live our lives in a state of semi-unawareness; we are lost in a modern dream of working- buying things- and growing old, that doesn’t much inspire or nurture our spiritual growth. Sometimes it takes a real shock to wake us up. Cancer brings suffering into people’s lives, but that suffering can be a wake-up-call and a doorway to self-awareness, personal growth and a more loving and purposeful life.

If we cure cancer without also addressing the spiritual and personal development vacuum of our current society then, possibly, some other form of suffering will take its place. After all, we will all die of something!

Norm:

How did you decide you were ready to write the book? What kind of research did you do to write this book?  What are your hopes for this book?

David:

I wrote the book because I had to; I needed to clarify for myself what I believed and how my belief could influence my experience.

I didn’t set out to do any formal research as the book is mainly inspired by my experience with the cancer diagnosis and my understanding of the power of belief that I have gained through delivering the Avatar course.

During the time of my illness many people brought me books, some of them were inspiring and helpful, especially: Love, Medicine and Miracles by Bernie Siegel M.D, Faith and the Placebo Effect by Lolette Kuby and Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can by Caroline Myss. 

I used quotes and examples from these books, and quite a few others, to add depth and a wider viewpoint to my writing. I also used the internet to access medical research pertaining to the placebo effect as the placebo, I feel, is the most significant indicator of the mind’s ability to create self-healing in the body.

My hope for the book is that it will add another voice to the growing awareness that we are not victims of our life situations and that we can take responsibility for creating healing, both physical, emotional and spiritual, no matter what situation we find ourselves in. I also sincerely wish that it will bring a sense of hope to cancer sufferers and inspire them to become a positive contributor to their healing journey.

One idea that is really exciting me at the moment is making the book available to cancer charities as a fund raiser. There is a huge demand for funds in the world of cancer research and cancer care and I am looking to make my book available at a very good price. I see it as a very beneficial 3-way win-win proposition; I sell books, cancer organizations create funds and readers can become aware how they can kick-start their self-healing abilities.

Norm:

Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?

David:

I learned that there are many others, writers, doctors, alternative healers etc, who believe as I do, that the mind casts a powerful influence over the body. I learned that many people survive ‘terminal’ cases of cancer and attribute their survival to many different causes or therapies or no cause at all. 

I think the most powerful realization I had was that the only way to make sense of all the conflicting viewpoints one experiences on the internet concerning cancer cures and experiences was that people could experience healing through any modality of treatment as long as they believed that they were doing the right thing, taking the right, ‘miracle’ cure etc.  Ultimately there is no ‘one truth’ about treatment or healing cancer; people have to find their own path, and believing in their own decisions is an essential ingredient of success.

Norm:

Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?

 David:

My feed-back had been uniformly positive and inspiring. It’s very heartening to know that my writings are making a positive effect on people’s lives. Many of my readers don’t have cancer, but most have some health challenge that they are dealing with and the book appears to be quite adaptable to whatever people are experiencing.

I have also had positive feed back from people in the medical professions, both traditional and alternative. Oncologist, Dr. Deborah Lindquist , found the book very helpful for her cancer patients and wrote this very nice comment.

"This is the best book I have ever seen for cancer patients, caregivers, and caring professionals.  It gives simple, yet evocative questions to help align lives and health.  I am ordering 10 for my clinic library.  All my best to David for this amazing work.” 

I know of a few readers who are currently battling with cancer and I try to keep connected with them as they progress, though it’s not always easy as many are too inwardly focused with surviving to be writing to me.

 Some of these readers have, sadly, died from their cancer. From the communications I did get I know that they found the viewpoints expressed in the book a source of inspiration and a I am gladdened that I was of some use to them. One lady, Bernice, who died of  liver cancer, was a New Zealander living in Italy. Her sister, who bought the book and posted it over to Italy, shared with me that Bernice was translating sections into Italian to share with her fellow oncology patients.

Norm:

How can our readers find out more about you and your book?

 David:

More information, links and inspiring articles are available on my website www.survivecancer.info

Norm:

What is next for David Elliott and is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?

David:

I feel I will be traveling this road for some time; promoting the book, building awareness and connecting with people to inspire them in any way I can to experience healing. Where this road will take me, I am not sure, but, when it’s not feeling totally scary, it’s pretty exciting!

 
Thanks once again and I wish you all the best of health. I am looking forward to reading a follow up of you book.

Thanks Norm.

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Click Here To Purchase You Don't have To Die When Your Doctor Says: A practical guide to living with grace and joy in the face of a terminal prognosis.

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