Profound Healing: The Power of Acceptance on the Path to Wellness [Paperback]

Cheryl Canfield (Author), Joseph Chilton Pearce (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 28, 2003

A woman faced with advanced cancer shares the story of how preparing to die led her to experience a profound healing on all levels--physical, emotional, and spiritual.

• Explores the practical and spiritual aspects of confronting a life challenge 
as a springboard for spiritual growth.

• Includes accounts of dreams, exercises, and visualizations that inspire profound healing.

• Outlines 12 self-help practices of wellness--emotional clearing, meditations, and lifestyle changes--through the living example of a cancer survivor.

• By the co-compiler of the spiritual classic Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words.

At the age of 41 Cheryl Canfield was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer. Going against warnings from doctors, she rejected proposed surgeries that would involve removing her uterus, cervix, lymph nodes, and surrounding nerves. Instead, she decided to accept death and focused her energy on attempting to die well. In the process, she cured herself.

Profound Healing is Canfield's down-to-earth account of her journey as she inadvertently experiences a modern-day miracle, and her subsequent reflections on physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual healing. More than a biography, Canfield's story contains exercises, dreams, visualizations, and experiences--from encounters with the modern mystic Peace Pilgrim to her own acceptance of cancer--that assisted her healing process. Others can use her hard-earned insights as a source of hope, inspiration, and practical advice. Relevant to anyone seeking personal growth and life wisdom, Profound Healing is not merely about dying or living. It is about discovering one's life and living it fully while here. 

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is an absolute pleasure to read-rich in wisdom and expression."
( Caroline Myss, author of Sacred Contracts )

"A sensitive, clear description of guidelines for dealing with a catastrophic illness from someone who has been there . . . that can help the reader cross the bridge of forgiveness and spiritual transformation."
( Caroline Myss, author of Sacred Contracts )

"The book is an instructive source of hope."
(Research News & Opportunity, July 2003 )

"A sensitive, clear description of guidelines for dealing with a catastrophic illness from someone who has been there . . . that can help the reader cross the bridge of forgiveness and spiritual transformation."
(Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., author of Love Is Letting Go of Fear )

"Profound Healing is about discovering one's life and living it fully."
(The Messenger, July/August 2003
)

" . . . an example of the courage and determination so often necessary for getting well."
(Alternative Medicine, Jul/Aug 2003
)

". . . [an] inspiring tale that will engage you from beginning to end."
(Susan Dobra, Magical Blend, July 2003
)

"Profound Healing is a deeply satisfying book, whether one is facing a health crisis or not."
(Irene Alleger, Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Feb-March 2004 )

“I was deeply touched. There is profound wisdom here.”
(DR. WAYNE DYER, author of 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace
)

"In her attempt to learn to die well, the author found herself, five years later, free of disease....just reading the book (and I suggest you do so more than once) is likely to infuse you with renewed faith and serenity and boost your immune system in the process."
(L. Balukian, Progressive Health, Volume VIII, No. 2 )

From the Back Cover

At the age of 41 Cheryl Canfield was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer. Going against warnings from doctors, she rejected proposed surgeries that would involve removing her uterus, cervix, lymph nodes, and surrounding nerves. Instead, she decided to accept death and focused her energy on attempting to die well. In the process, she cured herself.
Profound Healing is Canfield’s down-to-earth account of her journey as she inadvertently experiences a modern-day miracle, and her subsequent reflections on physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual healing. Her story is intertwined with the exercises, dreams, visualizations, and experiences that assisted her healing process--from her encounters with the modern mystic Peace Pilgrim to her own acceptance of cancer. Canfield summarizes her healing techniques--emotional clearing, meditations, and lifestyle changes--into twelve self-help practices of wellness so others may use her hard-earned insights as a source of hope, inspiration, and practical advice. Relevant to anyone seeking personal growth and life wisdom, Profound Healing is not merely about dying or living; it is about discovering one’s life and living it fully.
CHERYL CANFIELD is a wellness counselor who lectures nationally on topics of profound healing and steps toward inner peace. She is the editor of Peace Pilgrim’s Wisdom and co-compiler of Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words. She lives in northern California.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Healing Arts Press (January 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892810971
• ISBN-13: 978-0892810970
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,039,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars inspiring journey of a wise and gentle soul, April 18, 2003

By 

Ellen Etc. (Northern California, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Profound Healing: The Power of Acceptance on the Path to Wellness (Paperback)

The last time I used a highlighter on a book, it was around 1988, I was writing a college paper on Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse," and I needed to mark recurring themes. In reading "Profound Healing" 15 years later, I finally reached for a highlighter again, because I knew that a) I would be keeping this book for a long time, and b) after I finished gobbling up the "plot," I would want to return to important passages and remind myself of exercises and references. So even if you're like me and using a highlighter on a book is a form of heresy, keep one handy when you're reading "Profound Healing." (I showed the book to my older sister, another book lover like myself, and she pretended to grow faint and need smelling salts when she saw the highlighting!)

This book tells the inspiring story of the author, whom I have met, and her journey from cancer, to an acceptance of and preparation for death, to physical healing. In Part One, she tells of discovering that she had advanced cervical cancer and how she decided to treat it (and NOT with the radical surgery recommended by her doctors). She refers to earlier spiritual training, but fear not! in Part Two she tells that story and introduces us to her spiritual teacher and her own inner (and outer) journeys. Part Three is the post-cancer adjustment period, and Part Four outlines the 12 Steps she identifies for the healing process.

Canfield writes, "Profound healing is not a cessation of physical symptoms, but an expanded awareness of our spiritual nature." She does not "blame the victim" or offer miracle cures for relieving symptoms, but rather points us to a deeper, more numinous realm. Having met Cheryl in person, I can attest that she is an unassuming and humble person and is not caught up in trying to convince people of anything their own intuition doesn't corroborate.

I am a skeptic. I haven't experienced the mystical things Canfield and other spiritual writers say they have experienced. But I don't discount their experiences. Who knows, maybe I'm the woman with her eyes closed who just hasn't seen the sunrise yet -- it doesn't mean that sunrises aren't "real." Fortunately for the skeptics among us, Canfield does not ask us to believe what she believes. She just presents her experience. Take what you can from it and find your own blessings.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars well worth reading, June 4, 2004

By 

believer in magic and miracles (Brownfield, ME USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Profound Healing: The Power of Acceptance on the Path to Wellness (Paperback)

This book is profound. I bought it because I had read of Peace Pilgram and gotten a book that Cheryl Canfield had done of this incredible woman. Thus I found this book indirectly. Hesitated to get it.
Am so pleased I did. Full of messages. It is like an onion. What touches me may not be what touches you, but I am sure that you will be touched. Well written. I am savoring it...reading it slowly (that is right I have not finished it yet), but I am sending copies to friends that will benefit from it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On my third reading of this special book, August 2, 2007

By 

Pathfinder (California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Profound Healing: The Power of Acceptance on the Path to Wellness (Paperback)

This is a special book, full of wisdom. I met with the author, Cheryl Canfield, just last month - June 2007. She looks radiant!