Passport To Life

By Annie Pool

Annie believes that there's a ticking time bomb inside her. It's a powder keg of emotion that's just ready to explode. She has been desperately longing to turn the page after her incurable cancer diagnosis. But there's a painful story locked inside her; it's one that has been killing her for nearly thirty years. Until she diffuses this deadly bomb, she is ripe for cancer's second coming! "Passport To Life" is a deeply moving read that takes you on the adventure of a lifetime — to Italy, Ireland, facing a chronic disease, and beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Annie Pool
• Release date: Aug 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781773701479

Book preview

DISCLAIMER

This book contains discussions about health issues, in particular, cancer. It is not intended as, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. I am not a physician. If you should have questions about a medical problem, please refer to your medical physician or primary healthcare professional. In addition, please be advised that I cannot be held responsible for medical decisions that you make as a result of reading this book.

Please contact your physician before undertaking any of the recommendations I make.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my dear Mother. She passed away two weeks after I returned home after travelling to Southeast Asia for three months—the setting in which I wrote the first draft of this book. My Mother was an uncommonly gifted woman with a true artist’s heart. Her intense longing for her unfulfilled dreams served as the catalyst for me to take off in search of my own.

May her story live on forever through mine.

PASSPORT TO LIFE PROGRAMS IN IRELAND

Two dreams have been resurrected since I overcame incurable cancer.

One was the writing and publishing of this book.

The other was hosting a life-changing Writer’s Tour of Ireland.

Starting fall 2017, I will be offering my first PASSPORT TO LIFE PROGRAM in Ireland.

An unforgettable, life-changing 14 DAY experience for cancer survivors.

Tap into your wild, adventurous Inner Hero along the mythical, magical Wild Atlantic Way.

Rewrite your past pains and transform them into an epic tale of love, healing, and forgiveness.

Limited availability.

Please call or email me to reserve your spot now.

Email: [e-mail]

Phone: [phone]

I OFFER FREE CONSULTATIONS

What if you could transform your painful stories into a beautiful work of art?

Join me for a complimentary 40 minute Vision Quest Session.

You’ll experience an extraordinary breakthrough and will begin the process of rewriting your cellular story so your body can have a new blueprint.

Simply send me an email at: [e-mail].

Just type in Vision Quest Session in the subject line.

I will respond as soon as I can.

To have known the power of travel is to leave home a sinner and return a saint.

To access exclusive behind the scenes images from the Passport To Life story, please click here:

https://www.anniepool.com/secret-gallery

Password: PassportToLife

To Italy and Ireland

Thank you.

INTRODUCTION

What if the most powerful answer to cancer was staring you right in the face?

If you’re like most people, you may have been overlooking the obvious. The majority of people focus their attention on healing their physical bodies after receiving a cancer diagnosis. But they completely neglect the healing power of their minds.

Did you know that how you think directly affects your health?

There is more to healing from cancer than just addressing the physical aspects of the disease. According to Louise Hay in her book, You Can Heal Your Life, cancer is a not a disease of the cells. It’s really a disease of the mind. Hay attributes the probable cause of cancer to the suppression of a deep secret or even grief eating away at the self. This type of prolonged, debilitating stress affects the immune system, which in turn, makes the body more susceptible to illness. And without dealing with the root of the problem, she says, the issue just keeps returning.

This is a great tragedy — because when you solely focus on your body and overlook the importance of healing your mind, you do untold damage to yourself by continuing to harbor long-suppressed, toxic emotions in your body. These suppressed emotions of anger, resentment and/or hostility wreak havoc with your system.

If we neglect to address our deep seated emotions in the healing process, the world will continue to witness the global fallout from this disease as it exacts a huge toll on our bodies, our self-esteem, our relationships, our careers, our bank accounts and ultimately, our dreams.

Unfortunately, the problem is not getting any better.

With the number of new cases expected to rise by about 70% over the next 2 decades, there simply aren’t enough of the right resources to effectively cope with this overwhelming problem.

Compounding this is the fact that our game plan isn’t working. Many people see cancer as a battle that needs to be fought. We use strong, militaristic language to enlist people into getting healthy again by using words like ‘winning the war against cancer, beating cancer, fighting a battle with cancer, or kicking cancer’s ass.’ This kind of strategy does further damage to the cancer-susceptible individual by dividing those who survive cancer into a game of winners and losers. It is a mental strategy at best. But it’s a losing one.

In reality, it’s the fear of cancer that is causing more harm than anything else. This fear propels people to take immediate action out of a sense of urgency — but not the right kind of action. Ultimately, those who are diagnosed with cancer end up passively subjecting themselves to all manner of treatments and so-called cancer cures in the hopes of surviving their disease.

Sadly, the less focused you are in your healing process, the more anxiety this creates for you. Without any long-term planning, if your only objective is to get through your cancer treatments, you’ll end up in survival mode. Consequently, you will stuff your emotions instead of looking for healthy ways to express and release them. Suppressing your emotions takes a tremendous amount of effort. All these negative, anxious thoughts interrupt your ability to creatively solve your problems.

There is a better way to heal. It’s one that can affect a lasting change in your life. It has to do with the stories you tell. To truly heal — body, mind, and spirit — you must write a new story.

The big question is, what stories have you been telling yourself for years?

If you’re like me, you may have told yourself old, painful stories from prior programming, thoughts, and beliefs. You carry these old stories in your body and these keep you stuck in a perpetual, negative, emotional loop. All these stuck emotions from your past hold tremendous energy inside you. They create war with your future.

That’s the bad news.

Here is the good news.

The most effective way to heal from cancer (or any disease, for that matter) is to change your story. That’s exactly what I did when my oncologist diagnosed me with incurable cancer in 2013 while I was still in a daze in the surgical recovery room.

That was a life changing moment for me.

Then and there, I decided that enough was enough.

You see, for many years, I had been burying a painful secret. I knew this secret was the root of what caused my cancer in the first place.

In that moment, instead of caving into my fears, I decided to do something drastically different. I decided to tell myself a new, happy story about my life, and that I would somehow begin to heal the pain from my past. It turns out, I made a powerful shift. 

During those months of recovery, I imagined that I was traveling on a life changing trip to Italy and Ireland. I made myself believe this wonderful story by stepping into it each day with all the and emotion and physical detail I could muster up.

Guess what?

I found that I was able to tap into the joy and lightness of living again. That’s because I was telling myself a new story — about what my life would look like after cancer. That it would be full of wonderful adventures all around the world one day.

As it happened, my battle with cancer turned into a wonderful, healing adventure. And within less than 6 months, I was completely cancer FREE. 

I thought the worst was over. But for me the deep inner healing had just begun.

No one can prepare you for the emotional aftermath of the disease — that healing from the trauma of cancer was going to be even harder than healing from the physical damage.

For a time I felt like Humpty Dumpty who had fallen off the wall; the broken pieces of myself were scattered all over the place. I was limping along and had lost the same spring in my step I once had before.

Where can you go to talk about your depression, your sexual problems, or your body image changes now that you suddenly feel less than sexy after cancer? I have since discovered that there are many resources for helping people heal physically after they have cancer. But there are few resources for helping people heal from the emotional trauma.

It’s true that cancer changes everything about your life. Too many people still equate cancer with mortality. Cancer is a disease but it’s not a death sentence. Unless we change our mindset about how we approach this disease, we will continue to fight a losing battle.

What if it was possible to change your life for the better after cancer? What if your life could be more precious, with a more hopeful and fresh future? What if you could get to the root of your painful, old stories? What would that feel like for you?

You are so much more than just a body. Without healing your emotional pain from your past, you’ll just keep taking baby steps. And it will take you forever to get to the place you want to be.

You don’t have to suffer alone.

I learned how to write a new story after cancer — that I could take my pain, like a worthless piece of paper, and turn it into one amazing story - of love, forgiveness and healing. My life has truly never been the same.

I invite you to explore what can be possible for you.

Because true healing comes from within.

In Love & Light,

Annie Pool

March 2014

Two months after I clear an incurable cancer diagnosis.

CHAPTER 1

The Day I Called the Bomb Squad

It isn’t easy to be kind with all these demons in my mind. ~ Amanda Marshall - Let it Rain

I wonder how many phone calls the Bomb Squad in Calgary, Alberta gets in one year. For a city of its size and location, probably not a lot. And then again, I’ll bet they don’t receive many calls from someone like me; a former church girl turned business-woman, who is on her way to a women’s networking dinner.

"Hello 911? I’ve got A BOMB inside me. I NEED YOU TO COME RIGHT AWAY!"

Just think of it. A bomb scare in Calgary! Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall right now and hear what these men are saying to each other as they make their way over to rescue me? Do you think they’re asking themselves, Is this woman for real or is she just another nut job? I mean, what kind of woman ends up with a bomb inside her anyways? And how did it get there in the first place?

I know how, my brain wanted to scream. It was planted inside me by my ex-husband last year. It’s all part of his master mind plot to undo me. He bribed my surgeon to implant the bomb inside me last fall when she performed a radical hysterectomy to remove the cancerous tumor in my abdomen.

Within minutes of my call, the Bomb Squad arrives. Sitting next to my friend in her car, I notice that she is working hard to treat me like my sanity is still intact. I cautiously roll down the window and an icy blast of a mid-March below zero wind assaults us. People often tell me that I have a piercing gaze and in this moment I am looking at these men like I am ready to bore deep holes inside their heads. Much to my surprise, these nice-looking men stare back at me with great compassion. With heartfelt concern, they ask me, How can we help you, Ma’am?

The shooting pain in my belly is intensifying. Not ready to mess around, the fear inside is propelling me to blast them. CAN I TRUST YOU? I demand to know. HOW DO I KNOW I CAN TRUST YOU? Right now it really doesn’t matter how good-looking they are, in this moment I could really use a sign — some gentle smile from the heavens to reassure me that everything is going to be all right. But how am I going to hear angels speaking? It feels as if my mind and body have crossed over into another dimension—like I’ve suddenly descended into a black pit of hell.

HOW DO I KNOW I CAN TRUST YOU? I insist, this time even more forcefully. BECAUSE, IF YOU MESS WITH ME, I WILL FUCKING KICK YOUR ASSES!

Tsk. Tsk. Such shocking words coming from a polite-looking woman. Too bad I am not going to have any opportunity to act out my intentions. Suddenly, everything is happening so fast that it’s hard to tell if these men are here to help me or not. Moments later, the Calgary Paramedics Team arrives and, unnoticed by me, they swiftly but quietly replace the Bomb Squad.

Two paramedics approach my window and motion for me to leave my friend’s vehicle. A few meters away, a black van is idling in the empty parking lot. One man firmly leads me inside the van and another one straps me to one of the seats in the front. My friend follows close behind, making sure they will give me the attention I so badly require. Something about this doesn’t feel right. It’s as if the tables have been turned and this time the paramedics are calling all the shots. In the blink of an eye, I am now at their mercy.

After checking my vital signs and asking me a long list of questions to figure out my bomb story, one of them starts the van. Before I know it, all of us are driving at down the highway at a high speed. Thinking they are rushing me to the hospital to detonate the bomb inside my abdomen, I go along quietly. Instead we arrive at a place where, once inside, they have me put in a paper-thin gown and place me into a green rubber-walled room. How preposterous—they are actually afraid that a nice person like me is going to inflict harm on the innocent! (I wonder where they got that idea.) Nevertheless, it doesn’t take long before the light dawns and wakes me up to the realization that they have just locked me up like a prisoner in the psych ward. Crazy—all this time I believed they were going to help me—not hinder me like some sort of manic criminal!

For the next eight hours — what seems like an eternity — a steady stream of doctors and nurses grill me in the green room. They take copious notes, psycho-analyze me, and want to know all about the bomb. I do my best to tell them all the sordid details and inexplicable circumstances about my life with my ex-husband. How I think he’s been the mastermind behind this bomb that I thought was planted inside my abdomen. But from the plastic smiles on their faces, it is apparent they believe I have completely lost my mind. Who would even consider such a tale? My mind had pieced together a convoluted saga of a past reality with a man whom I’d slept beside for 24 years; a man who was the father of my children. If I am having such difficulty sorting out the difference between fact and fiction, surely these professionals find it incredulous to swallow such a story.

Without a doubt, I am convinced that there is something dangerous inside of me. I know that it’s a ticking time bomb, ready to explode. In my delirium, I imagine it to be a physical bomb, placed inside me via my ex-husband’s so-called ‘master plot to undo me.’ In reality, it is a self-created story from the early years of our marriage. For nearly thirty years, I was trying to sweep the sad saga of those events under the rug. However, this painful story is still eating my very soul. It was the root of the cause of my deadly cancerous bomb in the first place. Despite the fact that my oncologist has given me an ‘all-clear’ cancer diagnosis just two months earlier, it is likely that until I detonate this crazy story in my mind, I am ripe for cancer’s second coming.

Arriving at this place in my life did not happen overnight. It has been a lifetime of incremental surrendering to the demands of a man and the strict rules and expectations of a church. I thought I had no other choice but to succumb to living this kind of existence, as a woman under those circumstances.

Let me tell you how I came to this place in my life. This irrational story about an implanted bomb began in 2006—with an innocent trip to Italy.

CHAPTER 2

Spike and Chester

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost. ~ Dante

Wanna come to Italy with me? I’m going there for six weeks, my husband casually asks me one spring day in 2006, for a studies abroad course in Florence.

What do you mean you’re going to Italy for six weeks? I ask him in a demanding tone, trying not to sound too irritated. What about me? Don’t I get to have a say? The words leave my lips and immediately I shrink to insignificance.

My heart tightens. "Who does he think he is, telling me that he’s flying off to Florence without bothering to check with me first?" But why bother arguing with my husband? At times he can be like a dog with a bone — tugging and pulling in circles, debating his point for what seemed like hours. From one minute to the next, I can’t even remember what we’re arguing about in the first place. He seems to have an uncanny skill for making black seem like white and white seem like black. By the end of our arguments, I find myself thinking, "Of course your black was white. How silly of me. Why didn’t I see it before?" These arguments are so mentally exhausting, I often end up looking for ways to drop the subject — and apologize — just to end the torture.

During those 24 years of our marital union, I learned to suck up my pent up frustration and irritation and overlook his arbitrary decisions to spend money on things without consulting me. After all, he stepped up to be the breadwinner in the family. And now he’s a third-year university student en route to becoming a Professor of Theology. It’s his Divine Calling (or so he says). Restraining my scowl, I wonder, "What if the tables were turned; how would he react? What if I had a Divine Calling? Would he follow me around to the ends of the earth?"

Alas, my feelings are beside the point. Based on my beliefs, he is the man of the house and I am the lowly wife. We both know our roles, at least the ones the church taught us. Scripts and stories that were passed down to us from our parents since childhood have left a lasting impression on our marriage. We’ve both adopted these without question; without taking the time to carefully examine them first. On this day, I still play them out with perfect precision. Wives must be subject to their husbands in all things, we were told. God didn’t add any disclaimers to that verse. All things meant all things. A woman must always take the back seat to her man’s wishes and desires. This is the kind of woman I had strived to become.

Since these rules and regulations are delivered by the church with a threat of eternal damnation, I am determined to be happy with my lot in life. The rebellious rumblings inside of me point to the fact that at least I’m not like some of the women at church. These are the women who complain bitterly about their men at Ladies Bible study meetings. By the end of these meetings, they pour out their hearts in prayer. Please, God, they implore, Please give me the patience to put up with my husband. I don’t think I can take it any longer. It’s clear from the uncomfortable silence that no one in the church looks favorably upon this kind of behavior. No, it’s far better to keep hold your tongue. Don’t air your dirty laundry in public, I had been warned. And God forbid, don’t ever tell the pastor. To my credit, I must be pretty good at being a submissive wife. One day this became glaringly obvious when a lady from church told me she thought I was the most submissive woman she had ever met. The funny thing is, even to this day I’m not sure if her remark was meant to be an insult or a compliment.

My role as a woman is to be a good wife and a good mother and look after my family, making sure that everyone is well taken care of. My house is always clean and orderly, and my fridge is always well stocked. I implicitly know that if I have any gifts or talents, they must play a second fiddle to my role as a church-abiding housewife and mother. I can only dream about these gifts of mine and how I might pursue them as a hobby. Yet I know they can never be a main event. My family’s needs must always come before my own. To outsiders, they probably think I have it all. I’ve been doing my best to stay happily married to the same man for nearly 22 years. My husband is an excellent provider who sees to it that his family enjoys the good things in life. In fact, everything he touches seems to turn to gold. We have two wonderful, well-behaved kids, two nice cars in the garage, and a big, beautiful house on a hill. I have every reason to be happy — because everything looks so perfect.

It has to be. After all, that is my job and responsibility. I go through great pains each day to keep everything looking that way. Even though I have the freedom to fill my days doing nothing much at all, I make it my mission to see to it that my house looks perfect, my kids are perfect and my marriage is perfect. The truth is I love my family. Somehow I am compelled to believe that I must give them all of me. But then, who knows what will be left of me if I give it all away to everyone else? Is it possible that I could end up an empty shell of a woman with no energy and no love left to give to myself?

Approaching midlife, it’s apparent that soon my job taking care of my children will be almost done. In a few short years, we’ll pay off the mortgage and the kids will venture off to be on their own. Our daughter, Sarah, will be the first to leave home, with our son, Josh, following close on her heels. I shudder at the thought of being an empty-nester with nothing but my husband left behind in our home. Jealousy rears its ugly head as I watch my family going on big adventures. Everyone seems to have a life except for me.

Yet, on the hopeful side, I realize that we are among the fortunate few. My husband and I are financially solvent to enjoy early retirement — something few people in our age group get to enjoy. I visualize that we can soon relish and explore the big world out there. We have been playing out our roles so perfectly, however, that it feels like we are a boat that’s been hugging the shoreline for too long; in need of too many repairs before we can head out towards the vast horizon. Somehow, it’s much easier to remain beached on the shoreline where it’s safe and comfortable.

As my kids prepare for their great adventures, I can compare my current life to a beached shipwreck. It’s like I’m living the same day over a thousand times; each new day looks the same as the next one. There is a restlessness inside me; a feeling I can’t quite put a finger on. In our small world, my husband and I find it difficult to relax in our own home without paying heed to the trivial things that need to get done. Those blinds need to be replaced. That desk in the corner needs a new lamp. The walls need a fresh coat of paint. We seem to be driven by the relentless management and pursuit of stuff by the acquisition of material goods with pretentious labels. Our expensive stuff makes us feel admired,