Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Cancer Gave Me What Years of Therapy Couldn't - E-186

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Here's something nobody tells you about a cancer diagnosis: it might be the most clarifying moment of your entire life. Studies show that up to 70% of cancer survivors report what psychologists call post-traumatic growth — not just surviving, but becoming. Today we're going somewhere most podcasts are too afraid to go. We're asking whether a terminal diagnosis could actually be a spiritual breakthrough — a forced consciousness shift that delivers the radical authenticity and flow state you've spent your whole life chasing. Buckle in. This one's going to change the way you see everything.   Follow Dr. JC Doornick and the Makes Sense Academy:► Makes Sense Substack - https://drjcdoornick.substack.com ► Instagram: / drjcdoornick ► Substack: / drjcdoornick ►Facebook:  / makessensepodcast ►YouTube:  / drjcdoornick     MAKES SENSE PODCAST Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast. This podcast explores topics that expand human consciousness and enhance performance. On the Makes Sense Podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is subjective and an acquired taste. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast.   SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW & SHARE our new podcast. FOLLOW Podcast: You will find a "Follow" button in the top right. This will enable the podcast software to alert you when a new episode launches each week. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1WHfKWDDReMtrGFz4kkZs9?si=003780ca147c4aec Podcast Affiliates: Kwik Learning: Many people ask me where I get all these topics, which I've been covering for almost 15 years. I have learned to read nearly four times faster and retain information 10 times better with Kwik Learning. Learn how to learn and earn with Jim Kwik. Get his program at a special discount here: https://jimkwik.com/dragon OUR SPONSORS: Operly - Take Back Control of your Work Day and Get Rid of All Your AI Apps - Welcome to the new world of Time Freedom and Unlimited Scaling and Success with Operly -  https://go.getoperly.ai/video?ref=jean-claude-claude-d-2a95 Blue Blinds Bakery - Hand Crafted with all-natural ingredients - www.blueblindsbakery.com     0:00 - Teaser 0:39 - Intro 1:31 - Great Morning 4:01 - Cancer Gave Me What Years of Therapy Couldn't 4:34 - America's Favorite Couple 8:24 - The Unsuspecting Teacher 9:55 - Stop Trying 10:53 - Don't wait for your situation to force your hand. 13:04 - What happens when the illusion of tomorrow suddenly disappears 13:24 - The Prison Of Trying 20:45 - Napoleon Hill 21:22 - Blue Blinds Bakery Sponsor 22:47 - The Compression of Mortality 26:19 - Denial 30:00 - Recovery Programs 32:36 - Cancer Didn't Give Me Gratitude 36:02 - Director of the Feature Film 37:49 - Closing   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For the very first time in my life, I have stopped trying to grow as a person. And one of the reasons why I noticed that I stopped trying is because I finally find myself becoming I am now. And I don't know if you can resonate with that. I've always been a fan. One of my first mentors was a big advocate of affirmations. And I found myself doing affirmations to become. But then one day, I realized that I was.

I already was. And that's what I find myself in the last two weeks. I am. I am all those things that I used to try to become. Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you? That your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleepwalking mode and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here.

Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that role as the shock caller and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that you look at things, that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up, let's rise up, and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Hmm. Makes sense. Great morning humans, great morning world. This is your friendly neighborhood dragon, Dr. J.C. Dornick. And welcome to another edition of the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast.

And welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Don't you find that everybody's kind of waking up a little bit? I think something wonderful is happening. Today, we have an interesting episode. And for those of you that don't know, I recently, just over two weeks ago, receive this diagnosis of cancer. And for those of you that have reached out and asked, what's the deal with it and stuff, we have not decided on the next step, you know, whether it's going to be treatment and then surgery or then surgery and then treatment.

But once again, as I say very often in a lot of my content, those are things that are out of my control. And I only focus on the things that are in my control. And right now, what's in my control is being here with you right now today. So I've gotten very, very, very, very good. This is the essence of the work that I do in my sense. How to rewire your mind and transform your life. The interface response system is just about turning things around, which is about changing the way that we look at things, so the things that we look at change. But also, it's about reclaiming control. I'm actually a big fan of being a control freak. I know we're taught not to be control freaks, but in the sense of discerning the difference between the things that we control and the things that we

don't. Big hug and empathy as a cancer survivor. Look at that. Well, I mean, anybody that's alive with cancer is a cancer survivor, but I know what you mean. That's awesome, Eduardo. Reach out to me. Tell me your story. I'd love to hear it. I'm going through this process right now. It's not like every episode of my podcast is going to be about cancer, but it's just such an interesting opportunity, because that's the way I look at it, and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. It's an interesting opportunity for me to experience life from a different perspective and share that with you because even if you don't have the diagnosis of cancer, you might one day, right? You might go through some sort of challenge like that, which you can now train and prepare for, which I've been doing for so long. But you might be going through your own version of that.

You know, you might be going through the death of a loved one or a divorce or some sort of tragedy with your career or something like that. So you can use the cancer diagnosis synonymously with any of that stuff, right, as we go through today. But today is called Cancer Gave Me What Years of Therapy Couldn't. And my wife, who's a therapist, asked me if that was rage bait for her, and it's not. I'm a big fan of therapy. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, is I'm sitting here in a state of gratitude for my cancer diagnosis, and I'm going to let you know why.

But cancer gave me what years of therapy couldn't. The diagnosis that didn't break me, but did break my illusion of the way that a lot of things work in the world. Keep an eye out, but, you know, the universe is so strange and in all ways beautiful, you know, even when it throws knuckle balls at you. But as fate would have it, out of like thousands of entries, my wife and I, who have this amazing love story,

for those of you that have never heard it, You can go listen to that podcast episode. I think it's called my dream daughter story. Today, at 1 p.m. Eastern, for those listening live, we open voting because we have been chosen to be contestants, I think out of like 80 people. They're competing for variety magazines, America's favorite couple. And you guys know that we need some financial assistance to pay for our, you know, probably $200,000 worth of bills. And the grand prize, ironically, is $20,000. So you can vote for free.

You know, there's certain days where there's like double voting and there's a charity involved in it. And for those of you that decide to like donate money, tax deductible, you get double voting days and stuff like that. So we hope that you'll support us because our story is amazing and it'll be inspiring and it's got a new heartbeat to it right now. But that opens, voting opens up at 1 p.m. East. and if everybody just clicks on that thing and does it, you can vote every day. You know, it's one of those things. But I hope that you guys will support us. I realize that when I talk lately, I need to be very careful about how I say things.

You know, when you decide to be optimistic and change the way you look at something that is very, very different than the way society looks at it, you have to be careful. Because if somebody is planted themselves as a victim, that's a decision. that they made. And I'm not saying that's a good or a bad decision, but if you're this person that says, oh, that's not the way I see it. I see it like, you know, the sound of music. And I see it as an opportunity and things like that, the way I'm looking at things. You can really piss them off. So I have to be very careful. And I just want everybody to know that, you know, I'm in this space where I've put in a lot of work. I've been through a lot of shit. And I'm in this space where I know

that I have a choice of how I look at things. There's a lot of things I don't have a choice. You know, I very often talk to you guys about how noise and adversity does not need our permission to show up in our lives. But it does require our participation in the negative side of it in order for it to stay. So I have learned, and I teach in my book Interface Response System, how to reclaim control and change the way I look at things, right? But I have to be careful because a lot of the way.

of people have not gotten to that place nor want to be that place. You know, there's a lot of value in being a victim. Anytime that I've played the role of a victim in life, if I really look back at it now through this new set of lenses that are not really lenses, but this new evolved version of myself, I can see that I was using my victim status to get out of something, like a hall pass, you know, get out of responsibility for life and things like that. but I sit here today in front of you taking full radical responsibility, not only for my life, but for my role as a father, for my role as a husband, for my role as a podcaster, a friend, a coach, a mentor, and a fellow human, I stand for the human race, and nothing's changed. That's what's funny about these diagnosis. The reason why I have to be careful about what I say is if you only hear the headline about me saying how cancer gave me, what years of therapy, couldn't, you're probably going to completely

miss the point. And that's why I've decided to make this into an episode. Eduardo, cancer marked the beginning of my spiritual journey. Yeah, look at that. It's like, I refer to cancer and things like that, because I've done a lot of plant medicine in the Amazon jungle. And, you know, they say that plant medicine, which is very, very difficult, I would even say that it's way more difficult than dealing with cancer because it's, you know, you have to face like really hard things. It's like a teacher. They say the plant medicine is a teacher. Like Eduardo said that it's like an unsuspecting teacher. I'm learning so much from it and therefore there's one of the things that I can grab onto and be grateful. But cancer may have given me something that

decades of personal growth and development and hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapy and meditation. I meditate twice a day, and I'm a huge fan of meditation, and all the self-improvement and all the books that I've read, cancer has given me what those things never could. Now, I've gotten a lot from those things, but what I'm telling you here today is this thing that society has deemed a tragedy has given me blessings even bigger and more than those things. And that's not because cancer is good. You'll see that today, one of my messages is, you know, hopefully you don't have to get cancer to do this, right? Or you don't have to go through some sort of tragedy to do it, but it's kind of like the way humans are, right? But it's not because cancer is good, not because

suffering has to be required. Suffering doesn't have to be part of the ingredients, right? It's more so because for the very first time in my life, 54, I'm about to be 55, for the very first time in my life, I have stopped trying to grow as a person. And one of the reasons why I noticed that I stopped trying is because I finally find myself becoming. I am now. And I don't know if you can resonate with that. I've always been a fan. One of my first mentors was a big advocate of affirmations. And I found myself doing affirmations to become. But then one day I realized that I was. I already was. And that's what I find myself in the last two weeks. I am. I am all those things that I used to try to become. And I don't know if you can resonate with that. And my message here today

is you don't have to get cancer to do this. You know, hopefully hearing somebody like me talk about this stuff would help. So today I want to explain what I mean by all that because I don't think that you need to get cancer or have some sort of tragedy to experience what I'm experiencing. And I think some of you might already be doing that. I think you just have to stop waiting for life to force your hand. Why do we spend so much time waiting, procrastinating, waiting for life to force our hand? Think about that. You're hearing this from somebody that has been practicing self-development, personal growth, meditating, doing all this work for years, almost 20 years. But I feel totally different right now than I did during those 20 years. Because I still took life,

more for granted back then than I do now. So I've spent years and years through this podcast, but also just as a curious human, interviewing neuroscientists, psychologists, monks, best-selling authors. You guys have seen all these extraordinary people on my show. And peak performers fascinated with anybody that is a peak performer. And one question has quietly followed me through every one of those conversations. And it was this.

How do we actually become who we were meant to become? Because you could be living an extraordinary life, but still struggling maybe with this idea of who am I supposed to be? Why am I here? Who am I supposed to become? What's my calling? What's my destiny? Because I'll tell you something, that's a great thing to become at ease with. Because once you do, the whole concept of mortality escapes you. It doesn't bother you anymore. I have to be careful about how I talk about that because society, when you get cancer, just assumes you're going to die. Nobody else is going to die, but you're going to die. That's not something my family wants to hear.

But I want you to know that I'm not afraid of dying, more so now than ever. What I've always been afraid of is not living, enjoying this moment where life is actually happening. So how do we actually become who we were meant to become? So ironically, I don't think I found an answer from any of those conversations or from a book. I actually found the answer by getting a CT scan. Isn't that interesting? Now, you might have your own version of a CT scan in life. right? But today's episode is not about cancer, although that seems to be a big theme. It's more about

consciousness, authenticity, and it's about what happens when tomorrow suddenly disappears. What happens when tomorrow, the idea of assuming that tomorrow will show up disappears? And what's left is only today. Only today remains. So I want to share with you something that I call the prison of trying. So I've been a professional, and I know a lot of you guys out there are, if you've been involved in personal growth. I've been a professional doer and trier in life, trying to meditate more consistently, trying to become more authentic and be more present, trying to surrender and stop caring, detach from the outcome, trying to trust, to flow, and even to pause, trying to, trying to do. Can you hear how exhausting that sounds? If you

you're like me, and we're always trying to do things to get or to have or to be. So every single self-help book teaches us to improve ourselves in certain ways and there's strategies and tactics. But hidden inside that pursuit is the assumption that we're currently broken in some way. Why do we spend so much time trying to improve ourselves? It's because there's some sort of a hidden, quiet assumption that there's something wrong with us, that we're broken. I don't think that's true. I think that you might not be aware of how extraordinary you are, but I don't think you're actually broken.

I think you're perfect and just for some reason not acknowledging it. So I even caught myself doing interface response system work, which is all about like not doing that. Perceive, pause, process, proceed. Instead of becoming like some sort of a way of. living, it occasionally became some sort of a project to be perfect. A lot of people would look at that and say, wow, that's a lot of work to allow yourself to contemplate and dispute your thoughts and feelings or what somebody else says and say, hmm, and all of that stuff. It could be exhausting,

but I've caught myself now that I can see it. My vision is even clearer now. Seeking perfection. And perfection is just kind of like fear wearing expensive clothes. So I took note that even trying to be authentic, think about this. If you're out there trying to be authentic, it's still trying to become somebody else. I don't know if you can see that. But even the act of me trying to live authentically and be authentically is in a sense me trying to become somebody else other than who I am. Now, I catch myself.

So authenticity isn't created, my friends. it's uncovered. And if anybody has anything to say about that, feel free to chime in. Authenticity is not created. It's uncovered. So I still remember that doctor from the CT scan who had never met before, walking in the room to tell me with complete calm energy, as if there was no big deal that I had stage four cancer.

Like, boom, any questions? And then he left. And after that initial shock and brief freak out, which is the normal knee-jerk visceral knee-jerk reaction, I remember how I responded. And it was kind of like a near-death experience. I don't know if you guys have ever been in that situation. I've been in that situation, you know, through plant medicine,

but also in like car accidents where I thought I was going to die or a rough plane ride or something like that. I remember after my initial freak out, I got really silent and still. And amidst all that kind of, catastrophizing, like we all do when we receive bad news or tragic news, which is a perception, I remembered something. And it happened in that moment. And this is one of the things that can be there for you, all of you, at any time. I remembered something. I get to choose the way that I look at this. We forget that. We forget that we get to choose. And I was talking to a group yesterday

and the negative viewpoint and perspective of something like cancer or whatever is very powerful. It carries a lot of voltage. That's why it's very persuasive. But if you allow yourself to pause and ask a question, like I say, what else might be true here? In that pause, in that space, you'll give yourself a chance to look at the other perspective and make a conscious choice. And in that moment, after the doctor left and I got. silent and I reminded myself that I get to choose. I'm trying to explain to you why I have this

perspective and attitude about my cancer and why I'm up for the task. I look at it as an opportunity and a blessing in some ways that I get to work through this and grow through this. Something disappeared in that moment where I got silent and it wasn't fear because there's nothing wrong with being afraid. Fear is a very useful tool. But what disappeared was the noise. Suddenly the things that I thought matter in life? Didn't. What are some of the things that you think matter that don't? In your day, look at your schedule ahead of you today. Think about the things that matter most, and then look at the things that you catch yourself thinking matter today, but don't. I started to realize that this idea and this fear that I was going to die, like that the cancer was my new identity, that I was at some

sort of a disadvantage, all those things disappeared. I mean, I could be aware of them, but they disappeared. And remember, you can do this in your life. This is what my book is about, but this is what this idea is about. So the things that actually mattered, actually mattered. What are the things that matter most to you? But the things that actually mattered became impossible to ignore. They rushed in and they bullied out all the bullshit and they go, this is what matters most and you still have it and you might even have more of it as a result of what's going on right now. And I became fearless, unfuck-wit-wit-able, unshakable. No effort, by the way, no affirmations required, no vision boards, all great things. But all those things were not required.

I became just clarity, complete laser-focused clarity on the present moment and gratitude for the things that I have and not the things that I want or don't have or lost. And that clarity helped me create the affirmation that I read every morning. That clarity helped me create an affirmation that I read every morning. That basically reminds me that I am not my diagnosis. And you don't have to have cancer to have a diagnosis. You all have a diagnosis. But are you your diagnosis? What you think about yourself or what somebody told you about yourself. I am not my diagnosis. I am the host. I am the terrain and my cancer is just simply a weed that is growing in that terrain. I am an observer of that battlefield, but I'm not a participant. So I started to create this affirmation that I read every morning.

Now, why do I do that? Because I still get scared every now and then. I still catastrophize. I'm a human being with 95% of what's going on in my head doing it on its own. But I'm reminding myself. I'm reminding myself. and I hang out with a lot of people like some of you that are on this right now are listening to this, watching this recording, and I stay in the pocket. So I got something from Napoleon Hill, and I think Napoleon Hill is just wonderful, and he says it best. Here's what Napoleon Hill says. It's about understanding that your inner world inside, your inner world is sacred and untouchable

when you adopt this approach. So your inner world becomes untouchable when you, you adopt this approach. And stress decreases, clarity increases, and life's challenges become mere puzzles to solve rather than battles to fight. Isn't that cool? So that's kind of like this big, big distinction, you know? Hey, I just want to take a quick break here. We don't have sponsors on this show that we don't really, really value. And I value this sponsor probably more now than ever as well. And I just want to just share with you this company called Blue Blinds Bakery. And you can go to blueblindsbacery.com. And I get my greens bars from them. I get granola. I get this delicious

musli cereal. What I love about Blue Blind's Bakery, and I've been using this for over 10 years, by the way, way, way, way before they became a sponsor. But what I love about Blue Blind's Bakery is that every single thing is handmade, first of all, and completely natural, made from natural organic ingredients. You might not give a shit about that, but there's another thing about this blessing of my diagnosis. I really give a shit about natural stuff now, right? And I think you would too. Anyway, check out blueblindsbacery.com. I love their greens bars. If you eat one of those greens bars, I've been eating one of those every morning with a cup of coffee for 10 years. That's how much I love them.

I put them in the freezer. And I love their granola. They have this granola called ginger turmeric. Oh my God, it's amazing. So please support our sponsor. Check out blueblindsbacery.com. I want to talk about compression now. It's super, super fascinating to look at mortality.

And I speak a lot about this. One of my favorite authors that talks about mortality is Pema Kodron. I believe she's no longer with us. but Pemacodron talks about dying well. Think about that for a second. What does it mean to die well? It means, first of all, except the fact that we're all terminal. I don't have any less chance of surviving this day than you do,

with this diagnosis and stuff. But what is your relationship with mortality? And is it a tool? So I'm fascinated with mortality, but when mortality enters the room, and that's what happens when you get a diagnosis, You can't avoid that. You're like, I'm going to die.

But when mortality enters the room, life compresses. And what happens when life compresses is the insignificant things in life evaporate. Here's the value of that part of it. The insignificant things in life, when life compresses, evaporate, and the essential things become super, super obvious. I kind of alluded to this before. Not because your values have changed, by the way, but because distractions have died.

Distractions mean nothing. They have no oxygen to breathe. And it's very strange to say this. And this is me being careful the way I speak. Very strange to say this. And it's not something that my wife likes to hear, but the level of present time gratitude that I have, which I'm very grateful for, more now than ever,

has kind of a weird impact on my relationship with mortality as well. I'm not afraid of it at all. I'm completely accepting of it. And that's a very big move for a human to make. I am in no rush to achieve it. That's not what I'm saying. But the level of gratitude that I feel in my life at this moment is, I guess I would say, in fact, enough to consider that my life has been lived well.

Mission accomplished. And what that does is that makes me appreciate every extra day that I get. I wish I thought like that to this level before I was diagnosed. But you can. So I wish that a lot of the things that I felt to this level. And I don't, you know what? I don't know if you can, but I hope you can before. So you see, folks, I'm acutely aware that my mind as well as yours is our greatest asset.

And no external force can take that away. unless we grant it permission. And I can tell you something, when you're the sick guy, or you're the struggling girl, or, you know, the victim in life, a lot of external forces come to your area. I want to prove my point, if you get into like a car accident, God forbid,

or you go through some sort of a tragedy or somebody's sick in your life, you could even use me for this. Just go to your social media and post, you know, asking for prayers for my friend that is sick or, you know, my friend that was in a car accident and all that. Just watch all of the attention that comes to tragedy and suffering. So there's a lot of external forces that come, and no external force can take away your mindset unless we grant it permission. So some might say that

the way that I'm living right now and the way that I've, I've had people say this to me, the way that I'm looking at life, some people say that. that I'm living in denial. I'm living in denial of a reality. Anytime somebody says, how are you doing? I go, fantastic, never better. How are you doing? And then they always say,

and everybody's praying for me. I'm praying for you the same. Why should I get more prayers than anyone else? Am I at a disadvantage compared to other people? Do other people know that they have tomorrow more than I know? So I appreciate the prayers, because I know it's a natural thing for us to do. but this person that said that I was living in denial and they were kind of looking for a response.

You know what my response was to that? Nothing. I was indifferent to it. Nothing because what society thinks of me in connection with what has been deemed normal in life because of my diagnosis. And remember, you don't have to have cancer to have a diagnosis of some sort. But what society has deemed normal, because that's what's coming out when they say, say I'm living in denial, that no longer means anything to me, what society deems I should do or I should feel or I should think. It no longer means anything to me. So that conversation about

denial is probably better suited for somebody else who gives a damn about what society thinks about them. Make sense? So I find myself now living my life with a hundred percent unapologetic authenticity. Without trying, by the way. Unapologetically, living my life authentically. And it's not because, like I'm working on it, it's because the masks that I have worn in the past simply don't apply or fit anymore. And I came up with this analogy that imagine like we're all, the whole world was invited to a masquerade party, you know, we're wearing these masks. And at some point of the party, everyone was instructed to take their masks off. What would happen in that moment that we took our masks off

is that they would no longer matter. Society would say masks are silly. And I almost feel like I'm in that scenario and for whatever reason I try to put my mask back on, that's where I'm sitting right now and you could be too. It no longer fits. The mask that I've worn predominantly from my life no longer fits if I try to put it on.

It's like a bizarre paradox that's going on right now. And I think my message here today and my hope is that the way that I'm processing this, and don't get me wrong, I have my moments, I get frightened. But just like I did before, I used to get scared about money. I used to get scared about abandonment and have anxiety. I used to get anxiety about public speaking. So I just have this new thing that I get scared of, just like before, okay? I find myself effortlessly living right now, effortlessly, almost like flow, the science of flow, effortlessly living the way that I have been desperately trying to live prior to this diagnosis.

So when somebody asked me, how could you look at cancer as an opportunity and a blessing, it's because of how I feel right now after it. I've been working so hard to live authentically and feel the way I feel right now effortlessly as a result of it. So for that, I'm grateful. It's like I learned how to hack flow, like Stephen Kotler says. So I find myself thinking about my friends who suffer from alcoholism. It's an interesting transition.

Many of my friends that suffer from alcoholism find their ultimate freedom through the amazing work of this magic. 12-step program. You know, a lot of them have, I've gone to a lot of AA meetings to support friends. And I think the 12-step program is fantastic. The only problem with it is you have to be an alcoholic to get access to it. So we've got to work on that. So my friends, you know, they hit rock bottom so profound that it causes and it forces like an uprising of their soul in this setting.

It's kind of like a different form of near-death removal of their ego, people that hit rock bottom with alcoholism. This is what they've explained to me. I've never been a drinker. So through that process of hitting that rock bottom, that's what gains them access to the 12-step program and a level of spiritual awesomeness and clarity that normal people that are facing their own demons don't get access to. They may never experience the work of the 12-step program, just like a lot of people may never experience what I'm feeling right now. because they didn't get a cancer diagnosis. But here's the question that I ask.

Do we need to become alcoholics to gain the treasure and access of the 12-step program? Do we need to go bankrupt to discover an abundant mindset? Do we need to get divorced to discover true love? Do we need to get diagnosed with cancer to discover our true authentic self? Or could we take this podcast episode, and I hope you guys will share it around. Could we borrow some wisdom from it without needing the catastrophe? This is what I hope that I can transfer to my children.

And P.S. My guess is that most of you have already been presented with your catastrophe. I would say there's very few people live here now or listening to this recorded podcast or YouTube video that haven't already been offered your cancer. version of it, your catastrophe. But did you use it to your advantage? Or did you just like to overcome it and move past it? Maybe suffering isn't the teacher. Maybe suffering simply removes the noise. That's what I think cancer did for me. It removed the noise so that the teacher that we've always

carried inside of us can finally be heard. So in this state of gratitude, I want to say that it's not cancer that gave me my gratitude, right? Cancer didn't manufacture my gratitude. But what it did, I believe, my persuasion is that it removed the illusion that tomorrow was guaranteed. So we're back at that. I mean, I had a mortality mentality, and I always kind of like tried to live in the present moment. I mean, I did everything for the most part, right. But I still kind of assumed that tomorrow was there. But what a cancer diagnosis does, if you're a cancer diagnosis does, you use it appropriately to your advantage is it removes the illusion that tomorrow was guaranteed. Gratitude, therefore, rushes in because reality finally sinks in.

And society looks at cancer as the ultimate tragedy. That's why everybody goes, I'm so sorry. So sorry. Imagine if you had anything happened to you that would prompt everybody that you know to reach out to you, say, I'm so sorry. You know what happens to your brain when everybody apologizes for you? Which, well-intentioned, and I'm so appreciative of it, you start to think that you have a problem. Isn't that interesting? So society looks at this cancer thing, which a lot of people get as this ultimate tragedy, like a villain that we need to all fear. And if we look at the body like I have been as the

physical terrain, the cancer is really, this is from my affirmation, it's only really considered a weed. And the reason why we don't like weeds is weeds kind of mess up our chances for planting new seeds. But could it also be a gift? Could a tragedy in the eyes of society be a gift? A package that, yes, is wrapped in some pretty terrifying shit-covered paper as most highly valuable gifts in life seem to be, but a gift nonetheless. For me, this diagnosis has not been a breakdown. For me, it's been a breakthrough. It's been a breakthrough to the next level of consciousness, growth, and freedom. And could I be faking that? Sure. I mean, could I have just talked myself into believing that? 100%. But what have you talked yourself into believing? Because you get to choose.

Right? You get to choose. And if somebody thinks that I'm living in denial, I go, well, how would you like me to look at this? Just be fucking scared and live in fear and stress and spend my time on this planet like that? Not interested. So it's moved me into a position of absolute command. I'm in absolute command with clarity and extreme gratitude. And it's stripped away the default operating system that has been telling me, what I should do and the what ifs and all of that stuff. And all that's left behind is what is. I have unwrapped the present moment. I've unwrapped it. And I'm just so grateful. And do I get scared? Will I worry?

Will I have my moments of dark despair? Of course I will. Just like you. I'm human. And my brain does what it chooses to do, you know, flashing those ideas on the, on the movie screen of life without my permission. However, as the dominant force, and that's a choice,

and shock caller and director of this feature film, I get to decide what makes the final cut. I'm the fucking director. I can see it. I can see the offerings, but I decide what makes the final cut. This movie that I'm manifesting, this movie is about life,

freedom, and living it fully around the people and things that matter most. This production, which has costs and constraints, this production only has enough space and time for so many ideas. So most of them that are generated by my programmed conditioned mind will not make the cut. Make sense? So what's your movie about?

Now that you realize you're the director, what is your movie about? Do any scenes or actors need to be cut to interpret your movie correctly? Or will I be confused what your movie is about if I watch it right now? Make some budget cuts in your movie, maybe, without having to have a diagnosis. Maybe we don't have to wait for the weed to infest the soil and demand change. Maybe we don't have to wait for this, for those of you that don't have any weeds right now in this sense. Maybe the authenticity and life purpose that we're all trying to find is already there.

Like Stephen Presfield says, flowing in a river beneath all of us, just waiting for us to stop unconsciously damning the river and start letting it flow along in a state of simple being the way things ought to be. In closing, think about it. The way I see it, we're not human tryings. We're not human doings. From what I understand, we're all called human beings. No?

That's it for today. To support the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast, be sure to subscribe, like, and share, as well as follow the Make Sense substack for free daily quotes, live streams, and blogs. And remember, learning without action is just another form of distraction. If something hit home and you learn something today, give it away.

That's the only way it's going to stay. See you next time. Hmm, makes sense.