Lesson 3: "C" for Connection and Community: Healing, Hope and Humor Free Course

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Cancer can mess with your mind, my friend, and send you into a doom spiral.

What if you had some ways to reset your mind set so your mind has more of a new car smell rather than thinking that stinking like dirty socks left in the bottom of the hamper for a few weeks. Want to learn more? Listen on my friend, listen on.

Speaker B: 00:00:35

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: 00:01:06

Hello my friend and welcome to Cancer and Comedy. This is the show where we look to offer healing through hope and and humor. My name is Dr.

Brad Miller and in August of: 2022

And I also though decided I had to do something about it or else I knew I was going to dissolve into depression and my mind was going to go to some dark, bad, grim places. So I decided to take some action. And what that resulted in is what you're listening here to today, the cancer and comedy show.

And also what we're going to be talking about here today, which is the HHH free course which is teaching about H for healing, then H for hope and an H for humor healing. Then that process through connecting those three things, healing and hope and humor.

And we have a five day course that we're teaching here for free right here.

The the preview version is right here on the what you're gonna be listening to here today and then we'll have other versions of this on our website@cancerandcomedy.com on on day one we talked about the Acts plus plan which is the process we're working through here.

A five day process, the ACTS plan, which is understanding why you want to do this and what is the purpose of such a process as healing through hope and humor. Then on day two, I invite you to go back and listen to these episodes. We talked about taking action, massive action and a change of attitude.

And day today is day three of the course and the title of today's lesson here on the free course. The free preview course is based on the letter C in the word acts and the C stands for connect and care.

And connect and care has to do with a dynamic duo, a healing duo of connecting with a Higher power or God and friends. And so that's what we're talking about here today. In this word acts, the C is is to connect that cool connection with God and to others.

So we're talking about God and friendship. So what is friendship? I heard somebody say that true friendship is walking into a person's house and your wifi connects automatically.

Well, that's kind of what we're talking about here. We're going to have some fun with this.

We're going to tell some funny stories and we're going to have some humor, some dad humor, dad jokes, that kind of stuff. But we're going to use it all in the connection to how stories of hope can also bring put a smile on our face.

This is something that we all need to make a connection to. I love great quotes. Albert Einstein said this. The more I study science, the more I believe in God.

And the writer Radhati Swami said the only way to deal with life's challenges is by surrendering to a higher power.

I believe that higher power comes in two forms, a spiritual nature with God or whatever you understand as your higher power and also connecting with how that is manifested in people, your friends and relationships that you've had. I love the classic song. I'm an old classic rock dj, James Taylor. Anybody else here like James Taylor? The song you've Got a friend. What a great song.

I know it's 50 something years old now, but it still speaks to me. Every time I hear I did the lyrics, you just call out my name and you know, wherever I am, I'll be there and be there to see you again.

So we're going to talk today about connecting with God, connecting with also with other people as a form of healing and developing our process of navigating the cancer journey. So that's part of what we're doing you also some of the other things we're doing here today is I'll have a funny story.

You might call it a bad joke or an antidote. Antidote. Then we'll have that going on. I also will have a faith break segment.

I'm a pastor and so I like to share a moment of faith, a little biblical passage, a little teaching lesson about how I believe faith. And that's really the big theme of our whole lesson here today is crucial to the healing process.

Speaker C: 00:06:01

And we'll also have our lifter upper.

Speaker A: 00:06:03

Story which is a call in where one of our listeners has called in and left a message about how some aspects of the story, a person or something has happened in their life that lifted them up during their journey through cancer or some other bad disease. We didn't want you to know.

,: 2023

It's Alive Comedy show with comedian Rick Roberts, who is a cancer survivor in his own right, a professional comedian travels the country and it will be on live stream on Facebook and YouTube. That's going to be November 4th, 7:00pm Eastern time.

If you're in the Indianapolis area, come check it out in purchase in person, but all of us can check it out and this will be a part of the grand opening of the cancer and comedy show and you can check that out@cancerandcomedy.com events. Well, let's move on to the next part of our process, our coursework.

We're talking today about the letter C in the word acts, connecting with a higher power and with other people.

Speaker D: 00:07:30

Foreign.

Speaker A: 00:07:36

Welcome back. My friend Dr. Brad Miller here with our free course, the HHH course, which is healing with hope and humor.

This is the preview of what you're going to find at our website, which is which is cancerandcomedy.com free. We're on day three of this free free course about healing through hope and humor. Day three.

On day one we introduce you to the Axe plan, the Acts plan and talked about the connection between the between your physical health and your mental health and humor and hope and the importance of a process. And that was day one and day two we talked about the letter A which stands for action and for adjustment in attitude.

And now we're ready for day three of the course which is the letter C in the word acts. And so that stands for the C stands for connect and care, the dynamic duo of God and friends.

Today we're talking about connecting with our spiritual realm, our God given realm and with our emotional realm with our friends and how that's a part of the healing process.

Now I want to share with you that I am a retired pastor and I have spent many years dealing with people in the spiritual realm in terms of visiting people in the hospitals and so on and at their end of their life. And I see just a huge difference between people who had a life of faith moving forward and those who didn't.

And I know that those who had a life of faith and has some connection to a higher power really had joy in their life even to the very end. And those that also extended to their relationships, the positive relationships they had with family and friends and others.

And, and those who would have maybe a little bit, you know, didn't have so many friends. They were lonely. Loneliness is prevalent. So we're talking about here about kind of engaging with the spiritual realm.

Now maybe not everyone is going to be interested in hearing about this, but I consider this a big part of what we're about. And in fact, every episode of Cancer and Comedy has what I call the faith it or break it segment, which I talk about.

You know, having a life of faith is really a really huge part of the healing and wholeness process. If you don't have it, it's going to break you.

So let's get into our content here today about how engaging in spiritual and religious practices are a part of the process of providing comfort and strength and a sense of connection. And what this cancer is a challenging thing to go through. And you can't, I don't believe you can cope with it on your own very well.

And that means if you can't cope with it on your own very well, the alternative is to connect. And I believe you connect with God or a higher power and with other people. And you can do. Yeah. And you can improve. Then you can practice that.

So let me offer you five things, five practices, five tips that you can use to enhance your connection to God and to other people. And I would just want to share, share with you. I believe there's a transfer.

I come to you from a Judeo Christian background, and that's certainly where I'm coming from. But I do believe they are transferable principles, whatever your religious background or no religious background.

I think they apply because I believe all people are at heart, spiritual people and emotional people that need to be connected to other people. Let's get into these practices. Number one is prayer. Prayer is having a conversation with God.

It or having a conversation with the one we know is a higher power. This is can be communal prayers with other people. It can be personal. It can be quiet, it can be intimate. It can be all kinds of things.

It could be seeking guidance in your life. It could be seeking comfort. Cancer is an uncertain time. It certainly can bring us some peace if we do that.

Let me invite you to pray in whatever form that means to you.

And we're going to talk more in further episodes in some of our segments on faith that are breaking about ways that you can do this and get a little deeper spiritual process. So prayer number two is meditation. Now a lot of people think prayer, meditation Are more or less the same thing.

And there certainly is overlapping aspects of these. But basically, prayer is conversational. Okay? Meditation is listening more than anything else. Meditation is be quiet and let.

Quieting your mind, quieting your breathing, your soul. There's breathing practices involved with this, and it's really a focusing on the moment. A lot of people call it centering yourself.

It's looking for a sense of inner peace and spiritual connection. Listening, breathing. Some people use yoga practices here.

I just want to encourage you to have some times in your life, hopefully every day, especially if you're on a cancer journey, just to be quiet. That means turning off the tv, turning off the phone, not getting on the computer, you know, just doing those things.

Ask other people in your life to give you some quiet time, having some quiet moments. It could be just a couple minutes or it could be longer than that, you know, 15, 30 minutes, whatever it is. If you have that quiet time.

And you might even focus, if you focus on anything, focus on your breath or your breathing, it can do that. You can be helpful with that. It's kind of emptying the mind. So let me encourage you to have that practice in your life.

So number one is prayer, number two is meditation, and number three is reflection. Now these, all three of these sound a little bit similar in some regards.

Prayer, talking with God, talking to the greater one, Listening and meditation, being more of a listening and kind of emptying of ourselves. But mindful reflection has to do with spending time thinking about the deeper meaning of life.

You know, what is this illness, this cancer teaching me, and what ways can I heal in my life that may or may not be physically? Can I heal my relationships? Can I heal my thinking? What is going on in my life? What can I do better? What can I do this?

What are insights that I'm gaining?

This is about mindful reflection, is about learning from the experience, not being dissolved, kind of given up about, you know, no, you know, you don't have to check your brain at the door. If you got cancer, you can do this. You can do this. So I just invite you then to have mindful reflection.

A lot of people will take some time to pray and to meditate and then maybe read a devotional guide or something like this and reflect on it or a piece of scripture, that type of thing. So mindful reflection. So we talked about prayer and meditation, mindful reflection. The fourth one is again related.

Here is reading sacred text, reading the Bible if you're a Christian or a Jewish or Jew or the Torah if you're the first five books of the Bible, you know, for certain folks, for certain folks to really focus in on the Torah. There's other sacred texts that other religious groups use.

For some people it may be poetry, it may be something else to read or to reflect or to see a YouTube video about it, or to hear a meditation of something sacred on a, on a podcast. There's all ways that you can consume sacred writing, whether it be ancient or present day.

See the idea here, this, this, this practice has to do with study, basically reading, consuming, watching something, studying and reflecting.

And sometimes out of your own religious tradition, Judeo, Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, whatever it would be, you know, integrate those practices into your reading. But you know what's in these practices? Wisdom. And that's a huge thing to have play in your, in your life.

And I, that's one of the great things that I get out of these practices here.

t of the bible. It's Proverbs: 17:22

It goes, A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. To me that was the contrast between cheerfulness, having a good attitude and the crushed spirit means you're in depression and demise.

I didn't want that. So that's those, those things, those things there number. So reading sacred text number five is attending worship experiences.

Now this, for some people this means different things. It may mean a church service or Jewish synagogue service.

It may be just a gathering of friends in a, in a, in somebody's living room where you talk and discuss scripture or you have some time of worship and singing other things. It can be done virtually as well. And I encourage you to do all those things. The idea here is to develop community. That's what this is about.

To have a community of like minded believers and to experience this communal community spirituality. So that's what I want to encourage you. There's five things that you can do to, to have this connection between God and other people.

And this, in this regard, I encourage you to do just that. Let me give you a bonus one here about really focusing in on the relationship with other people. And I call this one the reconnecting one.

Reconnecting with friends and family.

Sometimes there's something about the opportunity that cancer gives us to reconnect with friends or family that we may not have, you know, Taken advantage of at another time.

The kind of the crisis of the moment allows us to do that so it can strengthen your relationship with your family members by you spend more quality time together, reminiscing, creating new memories, celebrating the holidays well, and you can do that with family and friends, and I encourage you to do that.

Everything we're talking about here, friends, is about how you can do these various things to help you to cope with the situation that you find yourself in. Coping with cancer through healing with stories of hope and humor.

The hope has to do with looking forward to something greater than where you're at, and the humor has to do with your attitude and seeing things, you know, like we talked about from the proverbs, a cheerful heart. One of the things that you can do in this whole process, develop your own cancer coping credo.

A credo is a statement of belief, and that's what I really want you to work on during our course time together. And that is a statement of what you believe that's going to guide you how you navigate the whole cancer process.

And this is going to be a written statement. And at the end of our coursework, after our five days, I'm going to share you with you my own personal cancer credo.

And I'd like you to stay tuned and listen to that. But those whole process is going to be about writing that. So for today's homework, it's very simple.

Really decide on at least one of these practices that you want to step up on, maybe meditation or maybe prayer or maybe attending a worship service, and do something that you've not been doing recently. For instance, if it's meditation, maybe you want to, you know, turn off the phone and turn off the computer and turn off everything.

Just be quiet for five minutes. What is it that you can do right now that's going to help you connect? You know, as we said, the dynamic dual connect with God and others.

That's our homework for the day, and we look forward to working on our credo as we go along. And I hope that you'll join me on our next our next lesson, which is going to be T and the letter axe. T for thinking. Thanks.

And we'll see you again next time here on the HHH healing through hope and humor free course.

Speaker D: 00:20:43

Well, now it's time for something really fun. It's time for our cancer comedy segment, Dr. Brad's Bad Joke of the day.

Speaker A: 00:20:54

This is a story that's going to make you think twice about ever going camping with somebody like me. You see, I went Camping in the north woods of Minnesota. And we were doing what's called Flat Water Lake.

Canoeing, canoeing on these big lakes up there.

And we would portage, which is carry your canoes across the areas between the lakes and we would camp and when there and the people, the, the, the outfitters had said, be careful, bears are out there, you got to put your food in a sling and put it up in the trees to keep the bears from getting it. And I didn't pay much attention to that. I said, there's no bears out here. Until one night, about the third night out, heard some grunt.

Middle of the night heard some grunting and sniffing and snorting outside the, outside the tent. And I stuck my head out the tent and I'll be dog gone if there wasn't this giant bear there, this giant ferocious looking grizzly bear.

And it saw me stick my head out of the tent and I think he thought, oh, here's dinner.

And so I took off running like crazy and there's, and took off running through the woods and I'm just going as fast as I could and I'm not very fast, I'm not a very fast runner.

And I can hear this bear behind me, it's grunting and growling, it's coming after me and I'm just thinking, I started praying, dear Lord, please make this a religious bear. If this is a religious bear, I'll be okay. Please God, make this a religious bear.

And wouldn't you know it, not too long before that I saw a bit of a low hanging branch and I'm not much of a climber but I pulled my, I grabbed that low hanging branch of a tree.

I was going to pull myself up and get up in the tree just out of the reach of the bear and I looked down and said, oh Lord, please let this be a religious bear.

And I looked down and the bear had its full head, its paws folded together and bear was saying, dear Lord, I thank you for this incredible food, this incredible meal that you've prepared for me.

Speaker D: 00:23:08

But now it's time to shift gears a bit for Dr. Brad's faith it or Break it segment.

Speaker A: 00:23:15

Faith it or Break It. On this episode of Faith it or Break it. I want to tell you about a couple of buds of mine, Jim and Harry.

Jim and Harry were good buds in their own right and they went to the church I was pastor of because their wives made them go to the church.

Speaker C: 00:23:33

Jim worked in a factory.

Speaker A: 00:23:35

Harry was the local judge in that county and was had a highly responsible position. So One was in a, you know, highly visible position, and the other guy worked in the factory. But they were good buddies.

Speaker C: 00:23:48

Their wives made him come to church and they.

Speaker A: 00:23:50

But they enjoyed one another. And I had good time with him as well, until their wives spoke to me a little bit about them getting them baptized into the faith.

And so I said to Jim, hey, Jim, have you talked to Harry about being baptized? And I said to Harry, harry, have you talked to Jim about being baptized?

And they talked to each other because they were both reluctant to do it, but they said they would do it together. And they were baptized together on Easter Sunday. And it was really cool that they came into the faith.

That friendship is cool, that friendship with each other and with God. But Harry, not too long after that, he got cancer. He got liver cancer.

And this is one of those tragic situations where by the time he was diagnosed with liver cancer, he was about eight weeks before he passed away. But he took that eight weeks of time and he made connections and made amends, in some cases amends.

But made a connection with all kinds of people to make things right with them. And this guy was a judge in the community.

And so he had, you know, legal lawyers and people he'd put in jail who made amends with him, with friends and neighbors and church folks and myself included. He had a moment.

He made a set of appointments in his hospital room and you would come to see him and he would have something in depth to say in a conversation to have with you. And it was a good thing, a good thing. But I also often wonder, and we talked about it sometimes.

Wasn't it cool that he was able to be baptized in the faith with God and then share his expression with his buddy Jim with other people? That was a good thing. The connection between God and with other people was what made this really special.

In the Bible, in John 15, it says, I no longer call you servants because servant does not know his master's business. I instead I've called you friends for everything that I have learned from my father, I've made known to you in the faith that'll break it world.

This means that we often get to know God through other people. And so that is essential to healing and to wholeness and to. To thriving no matter what our situation is. I do know this to the very end.

Harry thrived to the very end. And he was a blessing to many people, in particular his buddy Jim.

It was a good thing to see this connection between God people, the connection the faith it in God or the break it and not having that faith it or break it.

Speaker C: 00:26:33

It's time now for our lifter upper listener segment here on cancer and comedy. If you'd like to be a part of this segment, it's really easy to do. You just call in with your encouraging story about your cancer journey.

You do so@voicemail.cancerandcomedy.com you never know, we might have you on an upcoming episode.

Speaker A: 00:26:57

Of cancer and comedy.

Speaker C: 00:27:00

Our lifter upper today is Howard. Howard had stage four cancer not once, but twice and 26 years apart. Here's his story.

Speaker E: 00:27:14

Sure.

So I think that we all kind of understand this and you as a pastor I'm sure talked to, have preached about this in your past about darkness and light. We all have it. We all have it within us and we all walk in darkness and we all walk in light and we can choose to do both.

And so for me, I've had, you know, lots of little speed bumps in my life. Everyone does. So I give a motivational talk called a look in the mirror. And we look in the mirror and say, what do we see?

And a lot of people don't like what they see. They're living in that darkness. And if you live in that darkness too long, bad things can happen.

You can be more troubled, you can be more depressed, you can turn to alcohol and drugs, you can turn to be abusive. You cannot talk to your kids, you can lose your job. There's lots of bad things can happen when you stay in the darkness a little too long.

And many people coming out of COVID loneliness and depression, they're real and they're happening and we have to help people move from there and be able to use and share their own light. So what I have to do is get back up again. And we all get knocked down in life and in business and in family and in health.

And the key is to get back up again.

And some of that key is on you to build that mental toughness, that, that resilience, that ability and energy to get yourself back up and get out of bed each day and be excited for that day. The other part is letting others in to help lift you up.

And so I think those are really important things to know that in your time of need and we all have them to be able to know where to find that help, ask for that help and receive that help to lift you up. And I've had so many people in the, you know, with two stage four cancer diagnosis very differently, 26 years apart.

Speaker C: 00:29:11

You can hear more of the story of the incredible Howard Brown in an upcoming episode of Cancer and Comedy where he tells more about having stage four cancer twice, 26 years apart, and how you can still be a light in other people's lives. I want to hear your story, though, I really do.

So please call in to our voicemail line voicemail.cancerandcomedy.com and share your encouraging story about your cancer journey. We'll look forward to hearing from you soon and perhaps you'll be on an episode of Cancer Comedy.

Hey my friend, it is about time for us to close the curtain on this episode, this preview episode of the Cancer and Comedy Show. It has been so good for us.

Speaker A: 00:30:05

To be together, hasn't it?

Speaker C: 00:30:07

And you can look forward us 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.

,: 2023

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.

Speaker A: 00:31:42

You want to check him out, he's.

Speaker C: 00:31:43

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.

Speaker A: 00:32:09

To support cancer research. So don't miss it.

Speaker C: 00:32:15

That's for more information about this and get all the details. Here's where you want to go. So write this down. Cancer and Comedy.com/events. Cancer and Comedy.com/Events.

,: 2023

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 cancerod comedy.com follow and that's how you can follow or subscribe to the show. 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 comedy show, you do just that. You help us to help others.

To turn the grim into a grin, you go to cancerandcomedy.com 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.

Speaker A: 00:34:16

There's no excuses.

Speaker C: 00:34:17

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 is good medicine.

Speaker B: 00:34:53

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.