Reincarnation is a much debated subject but this comes as close as anything I’ve seen to proving it.

When we think its hard to make change or get discouraged in trying, we can be inspired and reinvigorated and learn that there is always a way if we never give up. These two youth leaders, Kimmie Weeks of Youth Action International and Jennifer Corriero of Taking IT Global,  never gave up and the extraordinary results they produced are reminders of what can happen at any age when we say yes to the best urges in us and act on them. Please let me know what you think about this video.

by Pip Cornall

Pip Cornall is the author of Sustainable Masculinity and delivers a highly successful male violence prevention program. For the last three years, he has also worked closely with Grace Gawler and her cancer patients. Together, they write books and present workshops.

This article speaks to his experience and observations as a support professional in cancer work. He writes because he is terribly upset witnessing good people with cancer making bad decisions that have cost some their lives. His experience with Grace shows that clients who work closely with her have a much better chances of success.

Once upon a time I held very different views. In 1971 I owned a health food eatery in a small Australian surfing town. New to ‘health foods’ I proselytised everybody about the benefits of eating vegetarian. An avid Rodale junkie; in a few short years I became a ‘born again natural food fundamentalist.’ I soon sold my shop and bought a little plot of land in the mountains behind Byron Bay, to go ‘organic.’ I fervently believed in the power of nature to heal our bodies and I mistrusted western medicine. As much as I wanted to believe totally in the nature path, gradually evidence that came my way worked against it.

So I changed? Time is an amazing teacher—it mellows one like fine wine. With time I’ve seen that elements of the nature-health movement was about as fundamentalist as the western medicine I’d mistrusted. As an ‘older’ person you’ve been around a while—you’ve watched things against the backdrop of time—you see what works and what doesn’t. There is no substitute for time!

Three years ago my world changed requiring further adjustments to my ideology. I entered the cancer healing world. Assisting Grace Gawler with her cancer patients, I became privy to a fast growing trend. Many patients had put their faith in extreme diets widely promoted via books and the internet. I saw how they became lulled by nature-cure ideology while simultaneously their bodies were silently ravaged as the cancer spread. These diets included Gerson, vegan, raw and various combinations. They had become nature fundamentalists like me, ignoring contrary evidence and exceptions to the rule.

Because of my belief in nature I’d desperately wanted to see people curing themselves by following the natural path—but I haven’t—and it rocked my foundations like a force 7 earthquake. That was also Grace’s experience in decades of cancer work. In the mid seventies, at the tender age of 21, she’d become full time care giver for her boyfriend, later husband, Ian Gawler, after he lost his leg to bone cancer. Continue Reading »