CONQUER
We all probably have an early memory of a parent or family member admonishing us to be responsible for our actions. But what about our reactions? And what does that even mean? I’m not talking physically here, our reactions to people’s comments or provocations, but our reactions to the events of our lives. And not just the happy times. No, even more important, and more telling, are our reactions to the worst events of our lives, the most challenging times we encounter.
When my surgeon said those three little words, "You have cancer", I think my reaction was pretty typical. Shock, confusion, disbelief, terror, and it's probably one of only 2 or 3 times in my life when my jaw has genuinely dropped open of its own accord. Our reactions in those first few moments to the great challenges and traumas of our life are pretty much out of our control. A wave of emotion hits, and that may take us into autopilot, into numbness, into an explosion of anger; it's unpredictable and unprecedented and understandable.
Moving into the days and weeks after diagnosis weren't much better. I vacillated between pushing it down so I could push forward and being paralyzed with the difficult decisions, the storm of unrelenting emotions, the unknowns of it all and the impossibility
to know. Sometimes I was in that ridiculously weird place where you speak really loudly and laugh too much and plaster a super big smile on your face that you can't seem to get rid of but can't seem to figure out what it's doing there. That too was a place of unpredictable, unprecedented, but understandable reactions.
There is no one right way to get through cancer or any of the massive challenges of our lives. We're all just feeling for the right path, stumbling and seeking and steeling our way through it. But I have found that there is one thing that can serve in helping us get to the other side of this insane journey with more strength, more sense of self, and more determination to live the life we dream of better than anything else. And that's making the conscious decision to react to this mountain that's been dropped so unceremoniously in front of us by pulling from the climb and from the mountain itself every ounce of learning, growth, and self discovery that we can.
It's something that slowly found me, this positive side to my cancer journey. And when I first saw it, it wasn't a majestic reveal of all that was possible; it was a faint glimmer of gratitude first, and that was all. But it was just enough light to let me shed just enough dark; I felt a touch of the bitterness and the anger ebb away for a moment. And that lessened my load just enough to take on a little bit more light and a little bit less dark. And on and on and on this goes, a little more light and a little less dark, and I hope it never stops. Choosing the fork in the path that led towards the sun changed the way that I reacted to cancer, and that subsequently changed me and my life in the best possible ways. The Anishinaabe have one final ethic from their code that I think is just so beautifully applicable to the cancer journey:
"Make conscious decisions as to who you will be and how you will react."
Allowing your cancer experience to help inform who you grow to be instead of stopping your life and your growth in their tracks is the best EFF YOU you can give to cancer. By consciously choosing to react with positive forward movement into your life after the hardest parts of the storm, you are telling cancer that
it. didn't. beat. you; you are reclaiming your life and arriving firmly and unapologetically into the new you. It won't be easy some days, and other days it will be downright impossible, and that's okay too. The path is never straight and results are never instant. But choosing to strike out on that path anyway is so incredibly courageous, and it will be so worth it for the days when the joy flows and the gratitude swells and you are just so damn proud of who you have become because of the way that you chose to show up and conquer that mountain.
Happy Healing
