Revivre! Guy Corneau (2010)

Newsletter 2010

Revivre!

Guy Corneau

Montreal, Les Éditions de l’Homme, 2010, 307 pp.

(In French) (Quotes have been translated by reviewer.)

About twenty years ago Guy Corneau faced his mortality during a serious bout of colitis; now he is back with his latest book, Revivre, which recounts his recent three-year journey through Stage Four lymphoma which struck his lungs, spleen and stomach. Miraculously he survived this latest encounter. He has written this book to help those who are struggling with devastating illnesses, to provide a beacon of hope and even inspiration.

While favouring energy work and meditation, Corneau insists that only a holistic approach using all the treatment modes available will bring an individual through such an ordeal. He presents to us colleagues who practice various methods ranging from meditative techniques and imagination exercises to the use of wheat germ and hyperbaric tanks. He brings to our attention such Québecois luminaries as Pierre Lessard, a spiritual teacher and medium, whose help, Corneau believes, brought him back from the abyss. Yet he insists that no one has the magic powers to heal an individual. The work is essentially about self-healing.

After the initial shock and depression from his diagnosis wore off, Corneau was determined to approach his illness as a meaningful message he must heed. Why, he asks, did he need cancer in his life?

Illness is an invitation to abandon the role of the victim who has been dealt a serious blow by fate and accept the role of a person who creates his/her life in collaboration with the different dimensions of his universe both inner and outer. (p. 16)

In the early days of this illness he complained that he was “too busy to be sick!” While in Europe on a very successful tour of his previous book, Le Meilleur de Soi, colleagues pointed out how sick he seemed. When he returned to Montreal, he was so terrified that he waited months to find out the exact diagnosis. When he learned that it was Stage Four lymphoma, he was devastated. He spent much time with his two sisters, both survivors in their own right, and many friends who were able to ease the pain, terror and loneliness. He strongly advises those in similar circumstances not to isolate themselves. Expert help can also be of great benefit.

Before the chemotherapy began, Corneau enlisted the help of psychotherapist and author Marie-Lise Labonté and used imagination exercises to engage the afflicted organs. He would listen to the message that the cells in his body, both healthy and malignant, offered. He examined the particular nature of each organ to discover what they were telling him. He learned that his body was seriously cut off from his spiritual side.

He tried homeopathy; he changed his diet; he spent much time in nature. He also had to learn lessons in humility. After he lost his hair and went to the hospital for breast exams, he also discovered anonymity.

He recalls that within his first year of training at the Institute in Zürich in the 1970’s, he fell very ill with an autoimmune disease. His analyst Alfred Ziegler told him, rather dramatically, that this was his most sane part!

There are plenty of rich dreams in his account. The first one is surely Dionysian: A rock star is being killed and devoured by a band of adolescent punks. The identity is obvious! He decides to take the dream’s wisdom as an obligation! Corneau regards this illness as a critical message from his Self. He would begin to radically change his life.

Other meaningful dreams provide hope that all is not lost. He rescues a child from being drowned; and a detached heart that continues to beat thirty years after being disconnected from any machinery is both telling and hopeful.

Corneau traces a genetic predisposition to cancer in both sides of his family. He also cites Daniel Servan-Schreiber who indicts western culture with its high stress, excessive sugar consumption and bad food, all of which can precipitate illness.

Cancer also has its psychological components. We build up defences to ward off our pains and fears. We repress our sexuality at a high price. Ultimately, “we make a thousand cuts to our creative impulses, our ability to express ourselves freely.”

He regrets that he abandoned his creative talents when he decided to become an analyst. He had been very keen on theatre, music and film. He believes that giving up his creativity was largely responsible for making him sick!

In the 1970’s Carl Simonton found that people suffering from cancer were more likely to recover if they took a positive attitude to their healing. Those of his subjects who imagined “warrior” cells defeating diseased cells had a higher rate of recovery. In a survey of alternative medicines the Mayo Clinic found that “directed imaging” was the second most effective method after acupuncture.

Deepak Chopra’s work uses a holistic approach which incorporates body, mind and spirit. Corneau calls this the “subtle nourishment of the body.” In another vein it can be called “reprogramming of the cells.”

For Corneau the practice of “imagining reality” was a visceral experience. It was less a technique than an attitude of presence, allowing him to “savour the moment.” During this process he found a joy that exploded from his core and possessed his body with light. Light became the active principle that guided his life from that time forward. “We are made of pure creative energy and everything proceeds from love.” He found that the “taste for life was the very best medicine.”

“Before the cancer I felt like I had so little time to do so many things; now it seems like I have so much time to do so few things.” (p. 221) The disease brought him face-to-face with the struggle between “our old habits and the best of us that wants to live.”

Just as he was beginning to recover, his soul mate, Yanna, fell victim to breast cancer, only a year into their intense relationship. Barely into her forties—and the mother of two adolescent daughters—Yanna refused any traditional treatments. Within a year she had become gravely ill.

Corneau tracks her obstinacy to an unresolved grief. She had lost her younger sister in a car accident when Yanna was seven and her sister was only six. Yanna was confined to a hospital at the time and it was likely that she subsequently associated hospitals with her sister’s death. Although a successful photographer, she had developed a “false self;” she could serve everyone else but could not enjoy the fruits of her labours. She could not forgive herself. And she could not avail herself of the procedures that might have saved her life.

Nevertheless, Corneau became a tireless and compassionate companion and discovered unconditional love for the first time in his life. He learned how to accompany someone through such an ordeal by not making any demands or having any expectations. Such dedication produced an “intensity of living each moment.” And there were also moments of great clarity.

In the end, Corneau acknowledges that although his healing may have come from special approaches and remarkable people, from much inner work, and from living with a sense of joy, it also came down to grace. And it is gratitude that fills the pages of this book.

Revivre is the testament of a man who has faced death more than once and has survived to tell the tale. This book is infused with light, hope, and love. Reading it we witness a rebirth. Such things are possible. Guy Corneau has been there.

—Murray Shugar