How a breast cancer survivor who studied TCM and healing opened her own wellness resort to ‘repay the chances I had been given’
- Traditional Chinese medicine and energy work helped Marina Efraimoglou beat breast cancer, after visualisations had helped her overcome non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- She travelled the world to study alternative healing and seek out spiritual healers. Now at her Euphoria Retreat she shares the lessons she learned
When Marina Efraimoglou was a newlywed high-flying banker in her twenties with a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, it seemed the world was her oyster. That was until she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the blood, aged 29.
“I went to New York for a biopsy and they gave me a not-very-positive prognosis of a 20 to 25 per cent survival rate,” she says, on a call from her native Greece.
She underwent a clinical trial of chemotherapy at her doctors’ suggestion and after five months was in remission.
She attributes her recovery in part to the healing power of love she received from her husband, family and friends. She also credits the strength of her own visualisations.
“I was constantly visualising the cancer leaving my body, even while I was vomiting from the chemo,” she says. “Everyone was saying, ‘How can you not be angry that you could die so young?’ But I felt there was a reason this was happening to me, there was knowledge to gain from this experience,” she says.
“Although it was a difficult period, with fear and a lot of pain, there was a sense of love and union, and I connected with my own deep love of life. I kept thinking, ‘I really, really want to live.’”