The big scan is today at 2PM Pacific.
And then -- insh'Allah -- NED PARTY!
Hello, Family!
Just a short note to let y’all know that I go in for my next CT scan — insh’Allah, the clear scan that sings “No Evidence of Disease” — Tuesday, March 29, at 2pm Pacific.
This week, my reflections center around a shift in my attitude toward this scan. Over the last month or so, I’ve caught myself worrying at times, hustling to do more to achieve the desired result, and asking the world out there to help me will this long-desired remission.
Lately, though, I find myself softening, accepting, and trusting more. I’ve been opening up to the idea that I am more likely to attract my desired outcome if I’m already in a place of joy, health, and good feelings — so I’ve been working to cultivate those in my daily life and believing that the rest will fall into place in universal flow.
In the remainder of this post, I’ll reflect more deeply on this evolution, and I’ll unpack the concept of “insh’Allah,” which has become one of my favorites in the global lexicon. I’ll also honor the non-linearity of life and healing, and celebrate the entire road that has led to this golden moment.
As always, thank you to my beautiful squad of support for all the ongoing care in the form of well-wishes and words of affirmation, social shares and donations to my crowdfunding campaign. I receive all the goodness with love and appreciation!
Look out for an announcement of my scan results later this week — and if you’re in the North Bay, look out for an invitation to the NED Party that will be going down here next weekend, hopefully the first of many celebrations to mark this new season of health and recovery! The fire pit is ready, and Satya and I just set up some new straw bale seating. It will be a joy to see your flame-illumined faces.
(…And for my non-local homies? Maybe we get a little online fiesta together one of these days? Virtual NEDfest? NEDx? Is this something that would interest folks?)
Please read on for more : ) Sending you lots of love!
We GOT this!
Trading “Scanxiety” for Joy
...Scanisfaction?
...Scanimation?
…Scantentment?
In my last post, my call for prayers and good vibes may have come off as a bit needy. In truth, while I welcome those willing to contribute positive intention toward this project, I also know that I’ve already got this!
I’m learning to let this feeling of belief, trust, and underlying contentment and happiness reign in my heart and mind. When I drive down for this scan, I’ll do it with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.
I’ll lean in here and go a layer deeper without worrying about being dismissed as woo.
The truth is, I believe in this manifestation stuff. I believe that our thoughts, words and actions have consequences. I believe we are part of a greater whole here, and that the Universe around us is constantly communicating with us — both giving information to us and receiving information from us. And I believe that, to the extent that the world around us responds to us, it responds more to our feelings than our thoughts.
As Wayne Dyer writes, “You do not attract what you want. You attract what you are.”
This is a powerful reminder. It can be tempting to focus on the object of our desire (be it financial prosperity, a romantic partner, a shiny new bicycle… or a clean CT scan), when we’d be much better-served finding a way to rest in the emotion of how it will feel once this desire is met — feeling wealthy, feeling loved, feeling healthy, feeling gratitude for the bike we already have (or just appreciating our legs and taking them out for a walk).
Even the word “want,” etymologically speaking, means “to lack” — from the Old Norse vanr(“wanting, deficient”) and Old English wanian (“to diminish”), all from the Proto-Indo-Eurpoean root *eue, meaning “to leave, abandon, give out” — the same root that gives us the words wane, wan, waste, vanish, vain, vacant and void.
To want something is a losing proposition. It implies lack, emptiness. Much better to desire something (de-sire meaning “of the father” or “god-given”). And better still to give thanks for already having and being that which we desire.
I don’t wan’t health, or a clean CT scan. I AM health. My nodes ARE clear. And I already FEEL the joy and release of knowing that all we’ve done this year has brought about such tremendous healing and complete wellness. May it be so.
Strike up the music. The NED Party has already begun!
In the past, I went into these scans with varying degrees of dread. Fellow cancer dancers out there speak often of the feeling of “scanxiety” in the time leading up to exams like this (and especially in the time between having the scan and seeing the result on MyChart).
This week, however — while some brief instances of scanxiety may be inevitable — I am treating my upcoming trip to Marin General like a celebratory moment.
It’s Picture Day!
I’ll dress in my finery and glide through the Great Cosmic Donut, trusting that what it shows will be the very joy and health I’ve been cultivating all along.
And if at any time scanxiety tries to find a way in, I’ll banish it by dipping into my bottomless well of trust, gratitude, and joy.
It’s kind of like in meditation: we may have powerful drive and desires and dreams we are manifesting — but once the intention is set, the time eventually comes to release it, surrender to the Universe, and get in the flow of the present moment.
I’ve set my intention of a No Evidence of Disease Scan loud and clear, and I’ve taken inspired action and done my best to support the realization of that goal.
All that’s left now is to show up and allow my insides to be photographed in all their joyous, beauteous, healthily functioning (and clinically unremarkable) glory.
Insh’allah.
I’ve been fortunate to enjoy the privilege of traveling the world (22 countries on 5 continents, and counting!) and living overseas. And every culture I’ve come into contact with, bar none, has powerful teachings to share with the rest of the global family.
Hawaii teaches us Aloha — the loving vibrations that can infuse our every interaction. Costa Rica teaches us Pura Vida — pure life, embracing experience and saying yes to what is healthy and simple and good. From Peru and other cultures in South America, we learn to honor Pachamama, the mother spirit of planet earth that cares for us and which it is our duty to protect. These are but a few of the many worldview-changing gems I’ve been gifted out there.
Then there’s insh’Allah.
Many years ago, in what sometimes feels like another life, I had an opportunity to travel to Egypt for several days to visit a friend and explore another sacred slice of planet earth. And it was there I came across (and integrated full-scale into my own vocabulary) the concept of insh’Allah — literally, if it be the will of Allah.
I love language — not only my native English (one of my two majors in college), but all the other languages out there, different ways of speaking which represent different ways of seeing the world.
While my friends and I enjoyed a camping trip with a Bedouin trekker in the moonlike landscape of the Western Desert, I spent most of my time in Egypt staying with my friend Brooks in the country’s cosmopolitain capital of Cairo.
There, I befriended an Egyptian man named Mohamed (shout out Mohamed!). We would link arms and walk the city. In Egyptian culture, it is commonplace for male friends to link arms and hold hands in a way that might seem strange in the homophobic milieu to which we Americans are accustomed. It brought about a great feeling of brotherhood, kinship, solidarity.
The faith of my Egyptian brethren struck me. Calls to prayer could be heard issuing from mosque loudspeakers five times a day, including at dawn, as Muslims around the city dropped everything to reorient around the Most High by praying, a reminder to reconnect with that which unifies all.
It was not just Muslims. Cairo is a vibrant melting pot of all faiths — particularly the Islam, Judaism, and Coptic Christianity that have such deep roots and powerful holy sites in this place that has been a meeting point of different cultures for millennia.
Of course, Islam is the religion of most of the wonderful people I met in Egypt. And a phrase I heard perhaps more than any other (including at the end of virtually every future-based statement spoken by my friend Mohamed) was insh'Allah.
I’ll see you tomorrow.insh’Allah.
We leave at 10 am. Insh’Allah.
It’s going to be so much fun.
Insh’Allah.
Along with the ever-useful yallah — meaning “let’s go!” — insh’Allah is one of the top Arabic phrases that has stuck with me since that trip, all the way back in 2006.
I especially appreciate the humility that insh’Allah conveys.
I am a man who likes to speak what I desire. As I mentioned, I have an abiding belief that our thoughts and words create our reality, and I’ve written extensively on the power of the “language of healing” to support wellness — speaking our desired condition into existence and referencing trauma in the past tense.
Insh’allah helps me consciously create my reality while staying humble and maintaining deference to the will of the Universe.
For example, I call for a healthy and clear CT scan by saying that it is already so. I give thanks for all the healing support I’ve received and every step on the path of ongoing transformation into my best self. And I celebrate remission, wellbeing, longevity...
Insh’Allah.
I recognize that nothing is promised. I recognize that, as Gotama Buddha put it, "death comes to all, and often without warning." I recognize that even with a clean bill of health today, there are always plane crashes and lightning bolts and an implicitly unknown future of continued scans and blood tests in the great tomorrow.
They don’t say you’re “cured” until five years after your first clean scan. And even so, we all face inherent risk just by living. Every time we get on the road, we take our life into our hands.
And with all this risk, all this unknown future, I say with certainty that I am well. And insh’Allah, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to continue celebrating this wellness and employing it in the service of truth, light and love.
“Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years,” writes Marcus Aurelius. “Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”
This is a potent reminder that, for each of us, a corporeal end is inevitable (and its timing is unknown). What we have is this moment. And right now is a golden opportunity to shine our authentic light, help others, and truly live.
Non-Linear Function
I conclude this dispatch with an acknowledgement that healing, life and the Universe are not linear. A loved one reminded me of this recently as I expressed my intention of realizing a clean scan this week.
I’ve shared this image several times, showing the trajectory of size-reduction in the lymph node we’ve been watching since chemo ended in August. There are points respresenting size over time, and you can plot a line along those points… but just because you can see a line, it does not mean things are linear.
The universe has a way of moving in spirals and waves, and as my father taught me, unexpected change is to be expected. Success in life rests in one’s ability to flow with these crises and opportunities that emerge seemingly out of nowhere.
Perhaps Bruce Lee’s most famous philosophical quote has a similar message:
"Be Water, My Friend. Empty your mind.
Be formless, shapeless, like water.
You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle.
You put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow or it can crash.
Be water, my friend."
I enter this week’s scan with a clear intention. And my intentions for other aspects of my life are clarifying as well. But I am not attached to the outcome. I pray to be an instrument of peace and goodness. I pray to be a great dad and a kind and helpful warrior for our planet and people. And the rest, I release.
Insh’Allah.
Thy will be done.
I am in the process of blossoming here with you.
Whatever unexpected shifts may happen as the great mystery of life ever unfolds before us, may we have the fluidity to move with them.
May we have confidence and certainty even in the unknown and uncertain — and may we be guided, even through darkness, by our inner light.
Yours in Love,
Nils
