"If you can get through chemotherapy and find your heart, maybe you can find quality of life and healing."

Joseph Roberts How did your own personal healing start?
Michael Mahaffey Twenty years ago I was diagnosed with leukemia and told I had thirty to forty-five days to live. That was the most profound thing anybody’s ever said in my whole life. I was very in control of my life. Suddenly I got a quick dose of “I have no control.” It’s a deadly disease. There’s no way through it. It was a real eye-opener to say the least - dealing with all the challenges that I had to cope with when I started trying to come alive and to, in fact, renew.
J.R. What got you to the point where you became sick?
M.M. I think the message I was sending my body was that I was in charge of my own world. I could just do whatever I wanted. I was a very selfish person and I think the cells of my body got tired of it. They didn’t like hearing that song any more.
J.R. What healing methods did you use?
M.M. Immediately after the diagnosis I exhausted quite a bit of money trying to prove them wrong. Finally I made up my mind I didn’t want to die and did conventional medicine. I did massive amounts of chemotherapy and blood transfusions with the specific plan in mind of just getting into remission so I could buy myself time.
I was fortunate and blessed. I got into remission. I was also in Alcoholics Anonymous at the time. There’s a part in the Big Book that says absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by chance. So I thought, something good must be going to come out of this. I began at that point, dealing with everything that in my mind stood between me and God. I’ve been on that same path ever since.
I was made in the image of God, am a part of God, but I’ve taken in a lot of baggage in my mind to convince me otherwise. So I just started dealing right there and I’ve been working there ever since and still am, with others as well as myself. It never stops.
J.R. How does the treatment program at Cedar Springs work?
M.M. We put people on a detox program, where we’ll teach them how to prepare raw foods, how to detoxify their bodies and deal with their livers and kidneys and spleens. Between those sessions we’ll provide them with classes on being their word or taking responsibility for the way they communicate with the six billion cells in their bodies. How do they bring their mind and bodies into alignment and create a rhythm? How do they create the optimum situation for renewal? We work with about fifteen to twenty people in a group setting. Then anyone who wants a more intimate setting can request it.
J.R. Do you have staff other than you and your wife?
M.M. There are two women with a lot of experience in raw food. We’ve got
two massage therapists who will be alternating. There’s a colonic therapist and a naturopath who does live blood cell analysis. And we have Cheri Calborn, “The Juice Lady,” who travels all over the world speaking about raw food and juicing. That’s six full-time staff, including Nan and me, as well as part-time staff.
J.R. So, you work with the best organic food, juicing, cleansing and detoxifying, but how do you work with people’s hearts and minds?
M.M. We use Socratic Dialogue, which is a questioning process. When I was diagnosed, a friend of mine who was an MD came to my house and said, “I don’t know that anyone can help you, but I’m going to try to help you the best way I can. I’m going to ask you a few questions: what do you know about cancer?” I gave him an answer. And he asked me the same question again and I gave him another answer.
This went on for four or five minutes until I finally was tired of answering the question. He said his suspicion was that I had not answered the question, that my answers came from my head and not from my heart. So he asked me again.
I almost got angry and dismissed him, but I thought about it and I remember saying very clearly, “God, can you help me come from my heart here.” I heard the question again, I started feeling nauseated, I felt my muscles weaken and I collapsed on the ground, because I knew that cancer killed and I didn’t want to die. It was the “I don’t want to die” part I didn’t want to answer, because I was afraid that if I put that energy out I’d manifest it.
He looked at me and said, “Now, forget cancer for a moment. Somewhere deep in your heart you are on a death path. Is that fair?” I said, “Absolutely. I’ve never really contributed to life, but there’s a part of me that wants to. I just don’t know how. I don’t know how to be in the world in my heart.” He said, “Then that’s your path. If you can get through chemotherapy and find your heart, maybe you can find quality of life and healing.”
I tell people who come here to make a note of everything that bothers them, or that they don’t like, because that’s the door in. Deal with all those pieces, all those little issues. Trust that absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by chance. God is just as anxious to come alive in you as you are for God to come alive. It’s a two-way relationship.
J.R. The strength of your relationship with your wife creates a context for this healing centre to manifest.
M.M. One of the things you get at Cedar Springs is the power of that relationship. I don’t mean that egotistically. You get the power of two people who really let go of outcomes when we work. I have to be clear that it’s not only me doing the work. I have a partner, and I have to trust that she may see or hear something I don’t. It’s the same relationship I have with God, which is to trust that every breathing moment God is right there in my life working it out with me. What I find in working with my partner, someone I love dearly, is in those moments of doubt when my mind gets clouded with all the things I know and am supposed to say, my partner is there and has a way of bringing it into balance. That’s what a relationship is supposed to be about that, so I am really blessed.

For more information call Cedar Springs Renewal Center at 360-826-3599 or visit www.cedarsprings.org.