Breast cancer survivor Linda Griggs offers a wide variety of hands-on healing products for other survivors -- like an inner child notebook with markers for journaling and expressing emotions, a wooden box with instructions on how to create a healing shrine, a non-fiction account of her own cancer journey, and so much more. Griggs, who also teaches workshops and speaks out on cancer as a hero's quest, is now onto something new. She's stringing beads.

Think about this:

"After helping a young breast cancer survivor make a "power necklace" to help pump her up before chemo, I realized perhaps other survivors might benefit from having their own empowering necklaces," Griggs says.

Griggs has begun making necklaces from natural stones associated with chakras she believes are most relevant to survivors. The root chakra, for example is connected with survival, the sacral chakra with emotional balance, the solar plexus chakra with personal power, the heart chakra with giving and receiving love, and the throat chakra with free expression.

Each necklace -- there are earring sets too -- come with an explanation of the stones and chakras involved and each has its own unique name. There is the Amazon Warrior, the Wild Woman, and the Heart Light.

Think about a visit to Griggs' website when you have a moment. And bead all about the resources this one survivor has crafted for those wishing to transcend the depths of cancer.

When you are diagnosed with cancer you may experience an array of different emotions --fear, anxiety, depression, anger, worry and many others. Some cancer patients or survivors may feel alone or unable to talk to friends or family members about how they are really feeling.

Research has suggested that writing can help with the healing process after cancer. Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC) is hosting a networking meeting for women affected by breast cancer called Healing with words: Writing the Breast Cancer Experience.

Alysa Cummings, MLS, CPT, of Pink Ribbon Poetry, will explain how women affected by breast cancer can use writing to heal. Attendees will hear a presentation by members of Pink Ribbon Poetry. Following the presentation, attendees can choose to share in a poetry therapy group and learn about online resources for writing their stories.

The networking meeting will be held on April 26, 2007, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Cherry Hill Library in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. A light dinner and refreshments will be available after the networking event. To register for this free event, visit LBBC's website or call the office at 610-645-4567.

It does not matter what kind of cancer you have been diagnosed with, this therapy can work for anyone, you can take advantage of writing in a journal in your own home. It can help heal your mind on so many levels. Try it out. You will be pleasantly surprised at the release it can give you.

Just when cancer seems to squash all that is good in the world with its darkness and death, little rays of sunshine and little slices of hope somehow break through the devastation, leaving the world a little bit brighter.

Archive of a Breast Cancer Survivor -- a newly released book by breast cancer survivor Adriene Hughes -- is an account of one woman's triumph over a disease that changed her world. It is full of sunshine and hope, despite its emphasis on a disease that every year stops 200,000 women in their tracks, spiraling them in directions so foreign they are downright frightening.

Hughes uses journaling and photography to tell her story of diagnosis, surgery, reconstruction, chemotherapy, and survival. And while those affected by breast cancer will find this book truly empowering, anyone affected by any cancer will gain a healthy dose of inspiration from this poetic compilation of thoughts and images.

Hughes does not seek fame and fortune by publishing her work. All proceeds from the sale of her book will go to the American Cancer Society. She will receive no financial reward from her endeavor. What she will receive is the personal satisfaction that flows from helping others. For Hughes, this is all that really matters.

Almost five years later, the memory is still as vivid as if it were happening now as I tell you that while showering, I discovered a lump in my breast. My hand stopped, my breath caught, and my stomach clenched in terror. Instinctively, I knew I was in trouble. After mammogram, ultrasound, biopsy and the first of three surgeries, the diagnosis of breast cancer was not the most optimistic one. My lobular breast cancer had spread beyond the breast into lymph nodes -- and perhaps elsewhere not yet clearly detected.

I would spend the next four years peering over my shoulder, wondering if the shadow of death would visit me with another cancer diagnosis, and if so, where would it settle in this time. If I ate pizza topped with jalapenos for that extra kick of flavor and got a stomach ache, I wondered -- had cancer spread to my liver? If I spent a day met with seemingly endless frustrations and annoyances and got a headache -- had the cancer spread to my brain?

While there is nothing rational about these leaps to a cancer conclusion based on evidence suggesting I suffered from logically explainable modern life maladies that antacid or aspirin might easily cure, for the newly-diagnosed surviving breast cancer, it is not uncommon for the mind to immediately race to an impending cancer-based doom for every day aches and pains. I am here to tell you that for the first few years it will be quite normal to have totally unreasonable fears.

Not willing to subject myself to this screeching fingernails on the blackboard fear without finding something to muffle the sound, I began creating personal rituals that suggested hope and affirmed life. With each one I was stating the value of my life and staking my claim to my future. For each woman, the personal rituals will be different. Here are a few I created that might give you some ideas for your own:

Survivor Crop, hosted by Ever After Scrapbooks, is an annual 24 hour scrapbooking marathon to raise money for breast cancer.

Now in its fifth year, participants come together to scrapbook, attend classes, play games, hold a raffle, enjoy catered breakfast and dinner, receive a Survivor T-shirt and scrapbooking freebies.

Breast cancer survivors attending will be telling their stories and the organizers promise a few scrapbooking surprises during the event.

In the last four years this event has raised over $116,000 dollars for the San Diego Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the National MS Foundation, and each year the event gets bigger. The first one was held in a tent in the parking lot of the Ever After Scrapbooks store. This year's event will be held indoors in a much larger area on October 21st and 22nd. Each year, an Ultimate Survivor is chosen. For more information, visit the Ever After Scrapbooks website and the Survivor Crop blog.

Caregivers are quiet heroes, helping and caring without asking for anything in return. Caregivers step in when there is a need and they bring with them a sense of hope and comfort during the challenges facing a loved one diagnosed with cancer. In the selflessness of love, they sometimes forget to take time to care for themselves. To avoid caregiver depression, frustration, resentment, illness and burnout, here are six ways a cancer caregiver can care for themselves while caring for someone else:

Take a daily walk. Exercise is a great stress reducer. Taking the time to stroll through the neighborhood or local park is like a deep calming breath for the body and emotions. If you are a jogger, go jogging. The point is to get away for a moment, get the body moving, and enjoy a change of scenery as you go.

Keep a journal. Daily journaling is a way to outwardly express your thoughts and emotions and can act as a relief value for emotions that are building up inside. It can also give you a better perspective. Sometimes we need to see what we are thinking and feeling to sort it all out.

Pursue personal interests. If you have a hobby or activity -- like writing poetry, photography, crafts, painting, knitting, reading, gardening, or listening to music, that has always been fun and brought you a sense of joy and contentment -- make time each day for your personal pleasurable pursuits.

Maintain friendships. We need our connection to others for the enjoyment of company and for comfort and support. Make regular weekly dates with friends and meet for coffee. Join a book club or start a book club. If there is a caregiver support group in your area, or a support group for families affected by cancer, consider joining.

Learn ways to relax. Try breathing exercises and muscle relaxation exercises. Schedule a massage. Take a weekly yoga or tai chi class. Cannot get away? Pop in a yoga or tai chi video and follow along.

Make your health a priority. Eat well-balanced meals, get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids. Find inspirational quotes that lift your spirits and display them where you can read them each day. Remember to laugh each day. Hug and be hugged.

To offer the very best care for your loved one, you must take care of yourself too. It's not selfish, it's wise.

If you are a caregiver that has found unique fun ways to take a moment to take care of yourself while taking care of someone you love, please share your ideas with other caregivers in the comment area following this post. If you are a reader with fun tips or ideas on ways a caregiver can take care of themselves while caring for someone else, please share in the comment area. We are all in this together, and we will get through the challenges and struggles of cancer much better with each other's support and encouragement.

Stuffing your emotions, or keeping it all inside, has led more than one person down the path to trouble. At some point, if you do not express your thoughts and feelings, especially the negative ones, you stay emotionally frozen in time. It's kind of like physically clubbing yourself over the head repeatedly day after day. Of course, we cannot go around randomly screaming at people or speaking before we give ourselves time to think. There are effective ways to open up and share that will lead you to better health and help you to maintain a good relationship with family members and friends at the same time. Journaling is good, as is talk therapy or belonging to a support group.

The point is, until expressed, you are stuck with whatever you are feeling. With the passage of time, you might not even be aware of the emotions you are carrying around inside affecting you and your health, as they tend to pile up and become obscured from view.

Adelaide University psycho-neuro-immunology researcher Vikki Knott understands the benefit of letting it all out emotionally, and that sharing and releasing distressful emotions can help a cancer survivor survive cancer longer. Knott will be conducting research in emotion-focused treatments to improve cancer survivorship by charting the physical changes to the immune system before and after talk therapy sessions.

According to Knott, "It's about the link between the mind and the body and how your mind state can affect the disease state in the body." The researchers will be examining three techniques -- journaling, meditation and hypnosis. Previous research has already proven that breast cancer survivors who belong to a support group tend to live longer than their more isolated and disconnected counterparts.

Some people detail their journeys with cancer through journaling -- like me -- and some use other mediums to express their emotions about this life-threatening disease.

Marilyn Whitney uses watercolors to sum up her experiences. As she underwent all sorts of procedures for breast cancer, two thoughts kept crossing her mind. One thought was the tendency to flee and the other was that there must be some way to help others by describing her procedures.

So after each hospital session, Marilyn would go home and craft a watercolor of what she had just seen and experienced. Then she would add a poem so the viewer would fully understand the message she was trying to convey.

One of the first recommendations I received after my cancer diagnosis was this -- write everything down. I was told to write down dates and times of appointments, results of tests, names and doses of medications, all procedures and protocols, every question that popped into my mind, and the general gist of what doctors and assistants and nurses and technicians told me.

Because the stuff that comes with a cancer diagnosis is overwhelming and confusing and disorienting -- and writing it all down can help manage the chaos of it all.