Losing Me, Becoming Me

Developing a vision of a lived and embodied spirituality based on experience of people with cancer

William Yang

• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781035819171
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

This book explores the human search for meaning when people are confronted with a life-threatening illness such as cancer. Losing Me, Becoming Me delves into the relationship between body and mind in this challenging context. It argues for a compassionate and courageous stance towards ourselves as embodied beings. Despite its dire predicament, our body cries out to be acknowledged, taken care of, and accepted as-it-is. Living with cancer involves a profound journey into an existential crisis such as the 'dark night', and yet which also brings unexpected moments of inner light. This book argues that 'spirituality' is ultimately about facing the reality of our physicality and mortality. It is when we face this reality that we can discover the mystery lying at the very heart of human existence. The crisis of a cancer diagnosis for many people means having to reconnect with the body in a wholly different way. Losing Me, Becoming Me describes a form of body work that helps to rediscover our body at a deeper level. It is rooted in Chinese Qi Gong practice and the Christian tradition of Hesychasm. It describes an approach to an embodied spirituality which may be of interest to professionals working in cancer care, patients, carers, and cancer survivors. Dr William Yang and Ton Staps have been working with cancer patients for many years. In this book they map a journey which often involves losing and rediscovering the self. Losing Me, Becoming Me is a book which argues for a compassionate, empathic, and tender stance towards the reality that we are embodied beings. – Toine van den Hoogen, Emeritus Professor in Theology at Radboud University, Nijmegen the Netherlands. "William Yang and Ton Staps show how the loss of health because of cancer can lead to a profound transformation, which is grounded in the body. I have drawn on their thinking and approaches over many years in my work as a psychologist and pastoral care worker. In Losing Me, Becoming Me the authors offer a fascinating and challenging perspective on the journey through cancer." – Peter Zandvliet, Psychologist and Pastoral Care Worker.

Table of contents

• Losing Me, Becoming Me
• About the Author
• Copyright Information ©
• Acknowledgement
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part One Dealing with a Life-Threatening Disease as an Embodied Spirituality
• Chapter One The Beginning of the Journey
• Chapter Two Dramatic Changes in the Experience of the Body, Sense of Reality and Self
• Chapter Three The Body as an Instrument, The Body as a Space of Experience
• Chapter Four Moments of Transition and Experience of Transcendence
• Part Two: Three Perspectives of Existential Phenomenology, Qi Gong and Hesychasm
• Chapter Five Looking at Patients’ Experiences Through Existential Phenomenology
• Chapter Six The Perspective of Qi Gong
• Chapter Seven The Perspective of Hesychasm
• Part Three: Towards a Vision of a Lived and Embodied Spirituality
• Chapter Eight Experiences of the Patients Viewed from the Perspectives of Existential Phenomenology, Qi Gong and Hesychasm
• Chapter Nine Centring and Trans-Centring: A-Body Oriented Vision of Lived Spirituality
• Our Vision Visualised in the Icon of the Transfiguration
• Relevance of this Research to the Fields of Cancer Care and Christian Spirituality
• Appendix Psycho-Energetic Bodywork
• Bibliography