Copyright 2001, Colin C. Tipping

Time Heals - Fast or Slow
Some might argue that the Seattle study illustrates the
slowness of the forgiveness process and shows that
forgiveness would offer a rather ineffective method for
curing a disease such as cancer. In many cases, it
took people decades to discover they had forgiven.
The important distinction to make, however, is that the
study did not distinguish between Radical Forgiveness
and traditional forgiveness. What it described was
definitely the latter. I would be willing to wager that, if
the subject group had been divided into two — one
group with insight into Radical Forgiveness and the
other left basically to use traditional forgiveness, the
group with the additional insight would have reached
the serenity state infinitely more quickly than the other
group.
I am not claiming that Radical Forgiveness always oc-
curs instantaneously either — though I have to say I have
seen it happen instantaneously many times now. Nei-
ther can it be claimed as a definitive 
cure
for cancer.
However, it certainly should be an integral part of any
treatment protocol. Sometimes people delay medical
treatment to see if Radical Forgiveness creates enough
of an effect to make such drastic intervention unneces-
sary. That would be unthinkable with traditional forgive-
ness.
Mary’s Story
My friend Mary, a co-facilitator at many of my retreats,
denied for months that something was terribly wrong
with her health. When she could not ignore the obvi-
ous any longer, she went to a doctor who told her she
had stage three colon cancer. They wanted to operate
immediately. She asked them for 30 days, and they
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reluctantly agreed. She went to a little cabin in the
mountains and stayed there for a week, meditating and
working on forgiving all the people in her life, including
herself, using Radical Forgiveness. She fasted, prayed,
cried, and literally went through 
the dark night of the
soul
. She came back home and worked with several
practitioners to cleanse her body and strengthen her
immune system.
At the end of the 30-day period, the surgery was per-
formed. Afterwards, the doctor wanted to know what
she had done, for the cancer had all but disappeared
and instead of the radical surgery they had said would
be necessary, removal of the cancer required only mi-
nor intervention.
Buying Time
In cases where the disease is so advanced or aggres-
sive as to require immediate medical intervention, sur-
gery, chemotherapy or radiation buys time. In that
sense, such treatment becomes not only helpful but, at
times, necessary.
Remember, there is no cure for cancer. Consequently,
no matter what the medical treatment, the doctors have
an unspoken expectation that a recurrence is almost a
forgone conclusion and just a question of time. I prefer
to look at the treatment, assuming the patient survives
it, as a way to buy the time to do the Radical Forgive-
ness work that could actually prevent any recurrence.