Lesson 1: The A.C.T.S. Plan - Healing, Hope and Humor Free Course

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Cancer is no joke. But this free audio course is all about connecting cancer with healing through hope and humor. Just what is the deal about all that?

Want to find out more? Listen on my friend, listen on.

Speaker B: 00:00:30

Cancer got you down pretty grim, huh? How about a show that turns the grim into a grin? Way to go. You made it here to the Cancer and Comedy podcast.

The show to lift you up with hope and humor that heals. Now here's your Chief lifter, upper Dr. Brad Miller.

Speaker A: 00:01:02

Hello my friend and welcome to Cancer and comedy. I'm Dr. Brad Miller. A month after retiring after 43 years in ministry, I was flagged for cancer and I just had to laugh to keep from crying.

But I did know I had to do something about it. I had to take some action.

And the result was what you're hearing now, the cancer and comedy show and what we're talking about here today, the free preview course all about coping with cancer by focusing on healing through hope and humor. So the title of our podcast episode today is crafting healing through hope and humor. And one of the ways I like to put it is kind of UX for it. Acts.

You acts for it.

Because the acronym we're using in this whole series of five preview lessons at the pre of the free course about the HHH course or the healing through hope and humor is the ACTS plan. It's a five day free free course starts today. We're going to define what does act course is all about.

I'm going to give you a little preview right now before we get into the content of the course here in just a couple of minutes. The A is for action. The C is to connect with a higher power and to others the T and the word axis to think in a new way.

And the S is to serve others with love. Our goal here is for you to develop your own personal career cancer conquering credo.

That's a statement of the beliefs or the aims which can guide you to a healthy way of coping with. With cancer. Not everybody copes with cancer. Well, you know, things sometimes don't work out.

I heard about a, you know, a guy who didn't know what to do when his calculator stopped working. It seems that it just didn't add up anymore. That's just a little taste what you're going to get here with me as well.

A little dad humor and a little storytelling antidotes and that kind of stuff too.

But I believe in imparting a kind of a serious sober message and lightening up and brightening up a little bit with some humor and some great storytelling and learning from people who have gone before us. One of the great things I like to do Share Quotes Sometimes John F.

Kennedy said this the problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men and women who can dream of things that never were. We're talking about here about that's from John F.

Kennedy and they're talking here about the process here. That's our focus here today. The process of getting you from where you're at the gloom or the grim to a better place.

We like to call it going from the grim to the Grin. I'm also an old disc jockey.

One of the things I like to do is just listen to the lyrics of great classic rock songs and one that comes to my mind to hear the day is Tom Petty's song We Won't Back Down. Some of you know the lyrics. You know. No, I'll stand my ground. I won't be turned around.

I'll keep this world from dragging me down and I won't back down. We're going to be talking about here today on this episode of the Cancer and Comedy show that's the main focus.

We are also going to have other segments we're going to be talking about here today. I'm telling a humorous stories kind of. I'll be telling some bad jokes one time and some just some humorous stories today.

We'll also have a Faith Break segment. I'm a retired pastor and I like to interject a story about faith, faith and a biblical message and we're going to talk about that today.

And we're also going to have our lifter upper story which is where a listener like you has called in and lifted and gave us a great story of how something happened to them in the cancer journey that lifted them up and it's something you do not want to miss.

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People in Indianapolis area can check it out. We also will be live streamed and this will launch this will launch our show, the Cancer Comedy show to everybody in the world.

You can find out more about that about going to cancerandcomedy.com events. But right now let's get into the content of our free course about the ACTS plan.

The ACTS plan in order to connect cancer with healing through hope and humor. The process of achieving healing through hope and humor is something that you personally have to get involved with.

That's why we've entitled this first lesson in the healing through hope and humor humor course. We've entitled it Crafting healing through hope and Humor. That means there's a process here.

There has to be a knowledge then about what is the effectiveness and what is the outcome here of this coursework. So we're good. This lesson is about introducing you to the ACTS plan.

The ACTS plan and helping you understand the purpose and the process of creating your credo. Your cancer conquering credo, the Axe plan. We've broken up this process, this crafting into the acronym acts.

The A stands for action and attitude and the C stands for connecting with a higher power and with helpful people. The T is thinking for change and the S is serving with love and laughter.

Today we're talking about the connection of all those things because there's research that shows that there is a connection. I did want you to know that we're all of this. You can find all of this at our website, this course at our website cancerandcomedy.com free.

So that's where you this what we're sharing here is basically the preview version here on the show and you can find a little more fleshed out version along with some exercises and a work, some working questions to help you to flesh out your credo at that place. Let's say more about the credo at the end of this lesson.

But I want you to know that there is a purpose and there is a purpose to the madness of creating a course about connecting healing with hope and humor.

That's because humor has been shown both medically and psychologically and interpersonally to be effective in helping people to recover and to heal from dramatic diseases like cancer. Other things as well that there is a relationship and a correlation between and a connection between laughter, humor, healing, healing.

And you use this in coordination and with conventional medical means or other means that you have to at your disposal through mental health matters and so on. But studies have shown that laughter and humor are positive things to do. It's not going to hurt you. It's going to help you.

And that's what the point and purpose of the cancer and comedy show is all about. To point you towards the positive effects of laughter and humor in your life and the positive outlook of hope. So that's what we're here to do.

So let me share with you now a few of the actual correlations, the actual points that have been noted by people in the medical and scientific and mental health communities which are helpful. Here's a few. Number one is stress reduction. Stress reduction. Laughter is a known factor to release the stress hormones that are in your body.

Now I want you to think about this for a second.

If you laugh or sometimes if you cry, you release stuff and you just feel better after a good laugh or a good cry, that's because it is releasing these stress hormones like cortisol and lower stress levels positively impact the immune system. So that's a direct correlation with your physical, well, health and welfare.

And the potential here is that this is a factor in aiding the body's, the body's ability to fight cancer and other debilitating diseases your life. So it's not to be taken lightly. This isn't just to be. It is to be taken lightly in the sense you to you lighten up your emotional load.

But it's a serious factor in people.

In fact, there are medical and sociological and mental health professionals who more or less specialize in stress reduction through laughter and through humor. Humor. And so that's something that we take seriously. So number one thing for you to learn here today, stress reluctant stress reduction.

In terms of this connection, the number two thing is immune system boost.

We mentioned it a second ago, but research does suggest that laughter can enhance the immune function by increasing the production of immune cells and antibodies. There's been studies to this effect and that can be a strong defense against cancer and also help you to battle cancer.

So basically it's a good thing to laugh every day. It's a good thing to have a chuckle, to laugh out loud.

It's a good thing to laugh or to cry to release stuff in your life as among the many other things that you could do. It could just make you, you know, make you have a be happier because you've laughed at something.

And then also it has this impact on the immune system. So that's the second one. Number one is stress reduction. Number two, immune system boost. Number three is pain management.

It, it has been shown through studies that laughter triggers the release of endomorphins that is the body's natural painkiller.

This is a form that just might help cancer patients and others to manage pain associated with cancer and other chronic diseases, therefore having an impact on your overall well being. What do we sometimes say?

Make somebody laugh so they can forget something for A moment, be a distraction, this type of thing, that's one of the things that you fire off these various endomorphins, and that is a helpful thing to do. So the first one, stress reduction. The second one, immune system boost. Third is pain management. The fourth one is a positive outlook.

So if, when you engage in humor, it just makes you a naturally more pleasant person, let's face it, you've been around somebody who's a sourpuss, you know what I'm saying? There has been somebody who was a grouch all the time. They. They're not a whole lot of fun to be around, are they? They drag other people down.

If you have a positive outlook on life, and this is so important for patients in the recovery process, it just helps. And one of the ways you get a positive outlook on life is by looking for the humor in life.

And this has to do with a positive mindset because, you know, a. A rotten, stinking mindset can send you into a spiraling place that is not good.

But a positive mindset mindset can contribute to better treatments, for the adherence of treatments as being more effective. And also something that's very important here, resilience. If you can kind of laugh in the face of this grim situation, you could be resilient to.

The situation at hand is like we like at hand, as we like to say here at Cancer comedy, we like to be all about kind of changing the grim into a grin. So the first one is stress reduction. The second is immune system boost. Third is pain management. And positive outlook is the fourth one.

The fifth and fifth one, last one on our list here is social connection. This is sharing life together. And you know, when you share life together with your family and your friends, isn't it great when you laugh together?

I mean, really.

And I've seen, you know, in my career as a pastor, I've seen lots of people have laughter around a hospital bed and many times at a funeral talking about stories of the family. And that is supportive. You can also have support groups in your church or in your social circles.

And these connections are so powerful social connections that. So you sense that you belong to something greater than yourself. And then, and then people do step up and support you, and you support them.

And when you have this sense of community, it can combat feelings which often happen, of loneliness, of isolation, of being. I'm going through this thing on my own. You don't have to. You don't have to.

If you choose to change your attitude around in this whole process, then you can have this social connection which is like sharing a laugh with somebody. Hey, you laugh on your own. That's a good thing. When you share a laugh, it multiplies and that's a good thing.

So social connection, we talked about that. We talk about positive outlook, pain management, immune system boost and stress reduction. One here's a bonus point.

Coping, the coping mechanism of humor is, helps us just to deal with it. You know, we've heard that phrase and I've used it many times. I had to laugh to keep from crying.

Well, there's challenging situations in life and you know, we hear about things, but you know, dark humor and morbid humor and all that kind of stuff. That is true to be sure.

But I think there is certain humor that you hear that, that people who have cancer and other things have, that helps them just to deal with maybe a bad diagnosis or a bad treatment or treatment that's not going to be comfortable if they have a good attitude about that. I've seen this several times when people, young people have had, have lost their hair to cancer, in particular women.

But I've seen guys go through this too. It's kind of a drama thing at first and then they have some fun with it.

You know, they put ribbons or hats, things like this, headbands, and they do other things with it. And seeing the cohesion that comes when other people have shaved their head to be part of that, it's part of how you cope.

It helps us adapt to the situation at hand. And this is a psychological thing and there's been studies about this as well.

What we want you to do here on the hhh, the Healing through Hope and Humor course, is to begin the process of coping and develop a coping mechanism which is, which I call the cancer coping credo. This is your written statement, a statement of your beliefs about your particular situation. And so I want you to start asking your question.

What is the process that you want to go through, my friend, about navigating this whole cancer process? Because it's happening, it's happening to you or to your loved one or you probably wouldn't be here listening to my voice here today, today.

But idea here is to have a written down process. So the idea, your first step in this is to kind of the big why is why and what is your plan? What is your process to get through it?

At the end of our five days of this particular preview course of the hhh, the Healing through Hope and Humor course, I'm going to share with you my own personal cancer coping credo. And and we'll talk more about that in the. In the online version of this course, which is you can find at cancer and comedy.com free.

Okay, let's just recap for just a second here. We introduce you today to this whole process called the ACTS plan or process to help you develop your cancer coping credo.

And we talked about some of the psychological and medical and mental health aspects of developing a plan for you to deal with and to cope with cancer in your life. So we introduce you to the ACTS plan and the A is. We're going to. The next time around on our.

On our free preview course, we're going to tackle the first letter of this, the letter A, which stands for action. Well, now it's time for something really fun. It's time for our cancer and comedy segment, Dr. Brad's Bad Joke of the day.

Here's a story I think you're going to get a kick out of. This guy was taking a walk on a hazardous area. And along there was a place a trail went right along the mountainside. And he. Footing gave out.

The gravel underneath his foot gave out. He slipped right down the side of the mountain. They began to slide off the side of the mountain. It was basically a cliff.

He was going to go off there. And he reached out and he was able to scramble and grab a branch of a tree that was sticking out the side of the mountain.

And he was just barely hanging on there, hanging on just his fingertips. But this branch or this root was just kind of just, you know, very fragile. And it was a, you know, looked like it could give away any time.

And he thought maybe, just maybe there were some other hikers up on this trail up above him. And so, you know, he was yelling and screaming, hey, hey, is anybody up there? Is anybody up there? No answer. No answer.

He yelled again, hey, hey, is anybody up there? Please, please, please. If anybody's up there, I help, Help. I need your help. I'm gonna let go pretty soon here if I don't. If I don't get your help.

Is anybody up there? No answer. Just as he was about to lose all hope, and he was just. His grip was loosening, loosening. He said, one more time, is anybody up there?

And this big booming voice came out. This is the Lord your God. I am here. And the man said, oh, thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you.

And the voice above said, this is the Lord your God. If you want to be saved, let go. The man said, is there anybody else up there? But now it's time to Shift gears a bit for Dr.

Brad's faith it or Break it segment. On the Faith it or Break it segment. I want you to understand we say faith, it'll break it.

It's a belief that I really have that if you have faith that you can accomplish almost anything in some regard. If you don't have faith, it's going to break you.

And there's a couple stories in, in the Bible that I think emphasize this in a pretty clear and compelling way.

In Matthew chapter eight, there's a story about this Roman soldier called a centurion who had this servant who he really loved and cared for this servant and he was paralyzed and g. And he, and he said it send someone to Jesus said, Jesus, can you heal him?

And Jesus said that he, that Jesus didn't need to physically come to his house, but if he would just say the word, the man would be healed, his servant would be healed because he had faith in Jesus. And Jesus said, you know what incredible faith you have? I've not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

And in that moment the man was the servant of the centurion. The Roman soldier was healed.

There's another story about a guy named Jairus who was official, a government official of some sort, high ranking Jewish leader and he had a daughter. And then Mark chapter five, it talks about the story.

He was a synagogue leader and he was in great distress and he was begging Jesus to help it heal his his dying daughter. And Jesus agreed to go. And a large crowd came and a woman touched Jesus who had an. What's called an issue of blood.

She was bleeding and she just touched his garment and she was healed. And while that was going on, the messenger arrived from that Jairus daughter had died and to don't go to the house.

And Jesus reassured Jairus and said don't be afraid, just believe. And he went on to the house and they found the girl there and they said to the little girl, little girl, get up.

And the girl got up and began walking and everyone was amazed at what happened. This is a story about Jesus's power to be sure.

But it's also a story about how some unlikely people, Jairus, who was a high ranking official at the Centurion, who's a high ranking soldier, had belief in the midst of a situation where they were probably being peer pressure to not believe. In my own life, I've had those moments when I've had to believe.

I had one time when I was near death myself in the hospital with losing blood and I put myself in the hands of God and through an amazing healing story that happened on Easter Sunday, I didn't, you know, I was able to retain my blood in my body and to be released from the hospital, and that was a good thing. What we're talking about here is belief and faith and have a goal. Jairus had a goal to see Jesus and to bring him to his daughter.

The Centurion had the goal as well. And they believed that Jesus could do it. They set a goal. They had faith, they, that Jesus could do it no matter what. And they had a plan to follow.

And they sustained the process through the path. They sustained the process and they followed the pathway of Jesus.

In your life, in mine, we got this cancer thing going on and we got health problems.

And the idea is to believe that there's a pathway set for us and to have faith that something good will happen, because if it doesn't, then we might just be broken by our circumstances. So I want to encourage you to learn a lesson from guys like Jairus and like the guys at the Centurion to believe, to believe, believe to have faith.

Or otherwise you might break a cancer and comedy featured segment is our Lifter up series where a listener connects with cancer and comedy to offer us an uplifting story about their situation. Our guest today on the Lifter Upper series is Ray Edwards, who's coping with Parkinson's disease.

If you'd like to be a part of the Lifter Upper series, let us know and leave us a voicemail@voicemail.cancerandcomedy.com.

Speaker C: 00:26:47

And so the story of your life is not your life. It's just a story.

Now, I don't mean to downplay any painful thing you've been through, but I am asking you to consider, do you want to continue replaying that over and over in your head? Is that helping you? I think the answer is no. And I'm not, I'm. I'm not a positive thinking guy.

What I, what I would say, I, how I would classify myself is I'm a pragmatic optimist. That means I do not believe the best thing will always happen, but I believe we can always choose to make the best of what does happen.

Speaker A: 00:27:30

Thanks to Ray Edwards for being our guest on our Lifter Upper segment. Ray is the author of the book Read this or Die and he'll be a guest in an upcoming episode of Cancer and Comedy.

If you'd like to be on the Lifter Upper series, it's real simple.

You just leave us a voicemail at voicemail.cancerandcomedy.com and who knows, maybe before long you'll be featured on an episode of Cancer and Comedy. Hey my friend, it is about time for us to close, close the curtain on this episode, this preview episode of the Cancer and Comedy show.

It has been so good for us being together, hasn't it? And you can look forward as to us being together again next week. So make sure you connect up with us that way.

And don't forget, mark your calendars that the grand opening of the Cancer and Comedy show is coming up. Before you know it, it's a live as in live and in person Clean Comedy Cancer benefit show.

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Now, if you can't make it in person, the good news is that it's going to be live streamed on our cancer and comedy YouTube channel and on our Cancer and Comedy Facebook page. So you can check those out. We'll put links to that in our episode notes.

But here's why you want to be there either live and in person or live streaming. Our headliner is a hilarious clean comedian by the name of Rick Roberts. You want to look him up, you look up some of his videos.

He has performed on national television. He's performed all over the country to sold out venues and corporate events and all kinds of things. He is incredible.

You want to check him out, he's going to be with us. We'll have some other special guests with us and some other opportunities to have some fun at this clean comedy live event and live and in person.

But you want to check that out and be a part of the grand opening of the Clean Comedy Show.

You don't want to miss that and help us pass the word about that that we can raise some great funds and other things that we can do to support cancer research. So don't miss it. That's for more information about this and get all the details. Here's where you want to go. So Write this down.

Cancerandcomedy.com events cancerandcomedy.com events.

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If you really have benefited from what you've heard here today on the Cancer and Comedy show and the course that we've done and the other things we're working on have touched you your life, please follow us. Here's what you do. Cancer and comedy.com follow and that's how you can follow or subscribe to the show. It really, it really helps us.

It helps us to help you and so many cancer victims who are stuck in a grim place and they need a little grin in their life. They need something to cheer them up.

Because when you follow us, when you follow the cancer and comedy show and rate and review the cancer and comedy show, you do just that. You help us to help others.

To turn the grim into a grin, you go to cancer and comedy follow and that's where you'll find the direct links to follow on Apple podcasts For you iPhone people, there's also a link to Google podcasts for Android fanatics. And for you music people, there's a link to Spotify and ready and for video folks, there is a link to YouTube. There's no excuses.

Go to cancerandcomedy.com follow and you will find yourself there.

I can't say enough that this has been an incredible joy and delight to share some laughs and maybe a tear or two with you today here on the cancer and comedy show, my friend. We'll be back next week with another episode of cancer and Comedy. So listen on until next time. This is Dr.

Brad Miller reminding you that a cheerful heart heart is good medicine.

Speaker B: 00:33:05

Hey, thanks for joining us on the cancer and Comedy podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. Make sure you visit our website cancerandcomedy.com where you can follow the show and get our newsletter.

Like what you hear, then tell a friend about cancer and comedy, the show that lifts your spirits with hope and humor that heals. Until next time, keep turning the grim into a grin.