In Chinese medicine, it is believed that every thought, every emotion has a physical effect on the body. In the West, we lead largely unhealthy life styles with poor diet, high stress and too little physical exercise and so we create within our bodies a toxic environment where diseases like cancer can flourish. All it then takes is some kind of emotional trauma - be it a huge shock or accident, sudden bereavement or relationship break up to trigger the onset of a disease.

"That is my firm belief" says Martin, "and certainly true in my case. I had Testicular Cancer at the age of 17 and Prostate Cancer at the age of 53. With a distance  of 37 years between the two there  can be no physical connection  but it seemed to me that having cancer twice in the reproductive area of the body had to be connected in some way".

Discovering what that connection was was key to Martin's healing journey. " In both cases, there were similar events in my life two years prior to diagnosis which were both traumatic and emotionally devastating for me." he says, " I learned about Chinese medicine and how our negative emotions can block the energy flow within our bodies and allow diseases to develop. I discovered how we keep these emotions buried deep within our subconscious mind and physical body. I knew that in order to allow myself to heal, I had to free myself of all the toxic emotions that I was holding onto. In my conscious mind, I knew that it was these emotional traumas that were the connection and what was most certainly the trigger for both cancers.

In his new book, 'The Gift In Me', Martin tells his story from his early childhood experiences when his belief systems were created and how this conditioning affected his attitudes and behavior in adult life that contributed to the way in which he unconsciously behaved and interacted in his relationships and daily life and ultimately how it affected his health. He graphically and openly describes his first encounter with Testicular Cancer  and how when diagnosed with Prostate Cancer many years later he came to embark on an holistic path to heal himself through mind, body and spiritual therapies instead of potentially devastating conventional treatments.

"I read several books on self healing and realized that they were all written by women" he declares. "There was nothing written by a man specifically for men. I wondered why this was, because Prostate Cancer is almost just as prevalent in men as Breast Cancer is in women. My healing program involved many aspects including a diet of only raw living foods, Wheatgrass and green vegetable juices, various whole food supplements, a regime of breathing and physical exercise, meditations and creative visualization techniques. These were all designed to detox my mind as well as my body and to boost my immune system and allow it to do the work that it was designed for."

"Getting in touch with my emotions," he continues,  "and letting go of all that negativity was crucial to my healing process and I have been lucky enough to have been able to do so but for many men that is a very difficult thing to do. Most men do not have the same ability to get in touch with their emotions and express them in the same way that most women do. As men, we tend to keep our emotions suppressed because we fear it would be interpreted as weakness to reveal our feelings and insecurities. This was my primary motivation for writing this book, to set an example to men that it can be done because in truth, for men to express themselves in this way takes great courage and is a real strength, not a weakness." 

Martin took full control of his own healing and tells not only of his healing journey but of a spiritual one too that began many years before his diagnosis which he believes prepared him and gave him the tools for when he needed them.

"When I look back now," he went on, " I would say that I have definitely been guided. There is a saying, 'people come into your life for a reason or a season or a life time' and that is how it happened for me. In 2002,  I had an unusual and fated meeting in Germany with Suzanna Marcus, a spiritual teacher and holistic therapist who had had her own dance with cancer and went on to heal herself after surgery through eating raw food and by detoxing her mind and body in much the same way, confounding her doctors. It was because of this meeting that I knew there was another way but now I believe that she was 'sent' to me then to help prepare me for this.

A few years later I met someone else who introduced me to a series of three unique personal development courses run by the little known Outlook Training Organization. These turned out to be life changing for me on a grand scale and gave me the tools and self belief that I have needed because to take this path requires an incredible amount of positive attitude, commitment, will power and dedication. There is no way that I could have achieved this without having had completed the Outlook program and I have devoted an entire chapter in the book to this experience because I learned so much about myself and gave me an awareness about how we exist and function on a subconscious level without recognizing whether or not we are being effective in our thoughts and actions. Becoming aware of our self and of our values and emotions is so key to our health and happiness. " 

These are just a couple of examples of how this journey unfolded for Martin and he reveals more in the book. 'The Gift In Me' is not only an inspiring story but also a guide for anyone who is looking to follow an holistic path of self healing. He tells of his sojourns to The Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida and of his dramatic decision to give up everything and move to Thailand to complete his healing. The final section of the book is a step by step guide to the program that Martin follows and explains in detail about the diet, nutrition, the Pyscho-Neuro-Immunology techniques, meditations and exercise regimes and how they all come together.  This book is for anyone but a must-read for men, especially men with Prostate Cancer.

"If by telling my story I can inspire just one man to look deep inside and take responsibility for his own health and well being, then this will have been all worthwhile."

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