The most important thing about illness is that a person not give up when they get a diagnosis from a doctor. So often people do!

One medical doctor's opinion is that people need to take care of treating the illness and then start examining what the learning is in the illness. So, physicians are starting to say some of the same things we've been saying all along in NLP. Do the medical interventions, but if you don't examine the cause of the illness, you're just putting band aids on top. It may pop up in some way later on in your life.

We have some guesses about that - in terms of cancer in particular. Research shows that cancer often occurs in people who are in internal conflict - and it is usually a self/other conflict. That is about, "Do I meet other people's needs at my own expense?" People often meet other people's needs at their own expense. Take the case of a young lady years ago. She was 30 years old and had a strange cancer in her neck so that she couldn't hold her head up. She had to wear a neck brace. She had three little kids and she was helping to support her husband, who was in school.

Her mother asked an NLP Practitioner to talk to her. When asked, "What's important to you?" her responses were enlightening. She said, "My church. Doing my church work and doing what it takes to get me exaltation." "What else," asked the Practitioner. "Children. Taking care of my kids' needs." Less important than that was her husband and making sure she was a good wife and supporting his needs. The Practitioner then asked, "And where are you in all this?"

At this point the elicitation of her hierarchy of criteria, she looked down and said, "Oh, well - there's no time for me." Using a little sleight of mouth, the Practitioner said, "Don't you realize that if you don't take care of yourself, you can't meet any of those other needs?" She had her church work at the top of her needs, and she herself was virtually non-existent.

So a prevalent behavior found in people who have cancer is self- neglect, as in this example. The cancer goes on growing and the immune system doesn't even notice. The person has neglected themselves and the body doesn't know how to respond.

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Of course, cancer is not always the result of an internal conflict or of putting others' needs before our own. Sometimes, taking care of others is the most important thing in the world. The point is that putting ourselves first is not an act of "selfishness", it's an act of love. I can't take care of others, at least not for long, unless I take care of myself first.