Can Journaling Help Heal After a Cancer Diagnosis?

July 31, 2025
Carla Deschamps

Writing helped me focus on gratitude and healing after my colon cancer diagnosis, transforming the act into a powerful recovery tool.

Have you ever asked yourself, “What am I passionate about?” For some people, it could be their love towards family. For others, it could be their profession and/or hobbies. Yet, when I was diagnosed with colon cancer five years ago, the passion that helped me evolve throughout this experience was my love for writing. For this reason, I began to script in a journal. In this blog, I would like to share my favorite writing piece that allowed me to stay grounded. By writing in my journal, I began to focus on all the things I was grateful for as well as what I wanted in my life, which was to stay healthy and strong.

To start off, journaling became an important technique that I utilized during my recovery. Since I can remember, journaling has been a part of me. It has allowed me to express my thoughts and feelings in a productive manner. Both Rhonda Byrne, who wrote The Secret, and Andrew Kap, who wrote The Last Law of Attraction Book You’ll Ever Need to Read: The Missing Key to Finally Tapping into the Universe and Manifesting Your Desires, played significant roles in how I journaled. Both books focused on how to manifest what you truly want in life. During my recovery, my focal point was my health.

A technique that Kap shared in his book was called The Story Scripting Method. This method consists of journaling as if you are already living what you truly desire. He encourages writing things into existence (in the present tense form) and feeling what it would be like if what you wanted were already here.

On April 18, 2020, I wrote my first story scripting method:

I am so thankful to be in such wonderful health. My cells are duplicating in vibrant, healing ways in order to protect and support my body. My immune system is getting stronger every day as I eat healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables. I am full of light, positive energy that allows me to see, hear, touch, taste, and feel everything around me. Thank you, Universe, for giving me perfect health. This gives me the opportunity to do all the things that bring me so much joy.

I love the fact that my body reacts in such luminous, radiant ways when I take my medication. I am so happy and grateful for my health because I get to engage with all the people I love and adore. I have the power to control my health, which is bright, full of energy, and vitality. I am blessed to have a strong heart, lungs, and an extraordinary digestive system. I can exercise every day as well as meditate in order to keep building a powerful, potent, vigorous mindset. Thank you, God, for allowing me to keep going every day. I am grateful for my eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hands, feet, heart, immune system, veins, lungs, cells, and ALL the body parts for helping me have my perfect health.

Thank you, Universe, for bringing into my life the most radiant, vibrant, positive healing energy a girl can ask for. I am blessed to have an abundance of health. Thank you for my healing scars and making me Cancer Free!! I am grateful for my second chance in life.

Indeed, this scripting was the essence of the power of self-love and gratitude. Without these two qualities, my recovery would not have been the same. I am extremely grateful for all the life lessons I have learned in the past five years. I have grown so much mentally, physically, and spiritually. I love the woman that I have become. Despite everything, I am blessed to be alive.

This piece reflects the author’s personal experience and perspective. For medical advice, please consult your health care provider.

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