What would you do if your doctor told you that you had cancer and gave you just a few months to live? Add to that, you’re a single mom, you have no insurance, and are raising three young children. I guess none of us would really have that much insight into our psyche unless we had actually heard the words ourselves and had to experience it. At least I know that I wouldn’t. I guess at first, I might just hear words and probably feel a little overwhelmed. But as time would pass, and the realities of the prognosis would start to sink in while the illness was getting progressively worse, I guess I could go either of two ways: I could believe what the doctor said and think that I would die in a few months. OR NOT.

Vianna Stibal did NOT believe what the doctor told her. She did believe that she had cancer, but what she did not accept was that she was going to die of cancer. And not because she was a woman with unwavering faith or an uber positive attitude or even that she was delusional. As she says, it was simply because she had no insurance and she had children to raise. And because of this powerful belief and self-less intention, she not only set out to survive cancer, but to completely rid it from her body.

By the time she was diagnosed, the cancer was already in its extreme stages and the cancer-inflicted leg was inches shorter than the healthy one. It’s said that bone cancer is one of the fastest and most painful cancers to have to endure. And then later, she was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. At the time she was working as a security guard at a powerplant and studying full time to start a Naturopathic Practice. She tried everything, heavy metal detoxes, sitting in saunas for hours everyday, spiritual and energetic healings, colon cleanses, supplements, herbs, you name it, she tried it. She did tons of research on her own all the while knowing that she was going to overcome this. Meanwhile, she was working with sick clients helping them get well. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, doctors believe in order to help a patient heal, they must believe that they are sick themselves. While Vianna was putting her body through an intense healing regimen, and helping heal others, she discovered and created a healing modality that was so simple that anyone could do it. She simply found herself asking God (or who she believed as being the supreme “higher self” or “source”) to take her into a journey into her body to find and heal the illness. It’s called Theta Healing and the core of the work is removing not just physical illnesses, but by replacing the negative belief system that created the illness with powerful positive core beliefs. We see this in all teachings of Caroline Myss, Louise Hay, Deepak Chopra, “The Secret” and so many others. It’s like feeding and nurturing a seed and bearing the fruit of that seed. Just as you cannot get an apple from planting an orange seed, you cannot bear a fruit of hatred or fear when you plant the seed of unconditional love. Your belief systems inform your actions, behaviors and attitudes.

I’m sure we’ve all heard of so many different stories from people who have survived cancer and other chronic illness. Some with drugs and medical procedures. Others with alternative medicine and/or energetic and spiritual healing. Some of these we would call modern day miracles. Others, the power of will. But the consistency that we see in the survivors and from the witnesses who have observed them, most believed that they would not die. Which is different than just living in denial and believing they could not die, this couldn’t be happening to them. Vianna acknowledged she had cancer and believed that as her reality and then took action from there. In some modalities, before any of these chosen methods can work, it’s believed that the person must be in a state where they see themselves already healed, and every thought process, every action, every behavior was a manifestation of that goal. Some Native Indians do not believe that we are “sick”. Their perspective is that we are “getting well”.

Vianna’s story is her own. She did not accept the doctor’s story that limited her opportunity and potential to create her own reality, her future, her health. Perhaps in helping others manifest health for themselves made her that much more capable of doing it for herself. At least that’s what she believed. And that is all that matters.