My sweet cousin Deverika made my day when she posted on Facebook, “Happy Birthday Cousin! Thanks for always being a ray of protons on my newsfeed.” I love that, since I know protons are positively charged particles!  In proton therapy, positively charged particles are beamed into areas, displacing negative particles, the result being healthy tissue. We do that to people each day when we let them experience our happy attitude.  Our positivity influences them, dissipating their negativity, killing it off so to speak, the same as a ray of protons (a/k/a proton radiation) pulls negativity out of its orbit. This is called ionization and it changes characteristics of the atom, including damaging its ability to grow and multiply. Just so, our pleasant attitude to the people around us does the same thing, it stops their bummer attitude from growing and multiplying. I think of it as a beam of love, a ray of light I send out on heart energy. Someone having a bad day, a few kind words waiting in line to checkout can displace grumpiness or sadness, can stop it in its tracks, kill it off, replacing it with a happier, more hopeful attitude. So love beams are a form of proton therapy and we can do it anywhere we are.

This is How Proton Therapy works: All tissue cells are made up of molecules with atoms as their building blocks. In the center of every atom is the nucleus. Orbiting the nucleus of the atom are negatively charged electrons. When energized protons pass near orbiting electrons, the positive charge of the protons attracts the negatively charged electrons, pulling them out of their orbits. This is called ionization; it changes the characteristics of the atom and consequentially the character of the molecule within which the atom resides. Because of ionization, the radiation damages molecules within the cells, especially the DNA. Damaging the DNA destroys specific cell functions, particularly the ability to divide or proliferate.