Before you can heal, you have to get real with yourself about what’s wrong.
Seventeen years later, my life is still affected by the experience of cancer. This may not be true for a small portion of people diagnosed, those who are fortunate enough to recover quickly with little medical intervention, but in my experience as a survivor, caregiver/spouse, psychotherapist and yoga therapist who has worked with cancer survivors professionally, most people face an intense reckoning with themselves and with everything they know to be true.
First of all, your body has revealed its essential vulnerability. I was a vegetarian, yoga practitioner, meditator and therapist. And if I say I was shocked by my diagnosis, that would be a huge understatement. Honestly, I didn’t even know what cancer was. It was that far off my radar. I had to Google “what is cancer” to find out it’s rogue cells trying to make you sick, getting together to form tumors.
In my case, my brain was immediately hijacked and I was in a state of fight/flight. Having a 2 month old baby and being a first time mother made me even less emotionally stable with hormones surging and sleep deprivation already in play, along with my heightened terror of leaving my baby without her mother.
One year later, I was finished with active treatment that had included chemotherapy, a clinical trial, surgery and radiation.
And a new phase of emotional recovery was going to be necessary.
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Joy Boots for Cancer Survivors
Encouragement, companionship, community and support for cancer survivors.
