Rest and Resources

Rest

Rest can be so under valued in our culture, but it’s crucial for both emotional and physical healing.

Look for opportunities to seek a place of rest in your everyday life, a concept from The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach us about Living Fully.

http://www.kellyinselmann.com/meditations/an-invitation-to-seek-a-place-of-rest/

and Krista Tippett’s On Being Podcast where she interviews Katherine May about wintering.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/katherine-may-how-wintering-replenishes/id150892556?i=1000544477183

Resources

1. Cutting edge research on survivorship if you have been treated for breast cancer in the past 5 years, are over 21 years of age, live in the U.S., and use a smartphone (you may be eligible to participate).
Contact my colleague, Ashley Hennegan, PhD, RN, FAAN, here.

2. Rakefet Laviolette, LPC Associate, is offering a new Group for Caregivers. Details can be found here.

3. Moving Beyond Cancer Coalition Classes : https://www.mbccollaborative.org/classes-seminars 

Classes on healthy survivorship, movement and more,

When Cancer Dominates Your Life

For the second time over the last 16 years, I recently had the sensation as I was going about my daily life: “I feel like I have my life back.”

The first time was a few years after finishing active treatment for stage 3 breast cancer.  It had taken me several years to feel that I could return to what felt like normalcy, where I had choices on how to focus my attention and could trust in the future.

Again, things have shifted a lot for me personally and it feels like all of a sudden!

Many of you know that my husband of almost 30 years was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer 5 years ago.  After grueling treatments which included months in the hospital during the pandemic (for cancer reasons, not covid), he has reached a place of relative stability.

By stability, I mean we are still living between 3 month scans but he’s on a break from treatment for 9 months now. Gotta love these breaks from treatment where you start to feel your energy come back! And then he surprised me by going back to work after being retired for almost 2 years.

It happened after I had spent a month away over the summer.

My daughter Alima, who is 16 now, and I spent a month in Spain this summer visiting relatives. She attended a 10 day camp and I spent 7 blissful days by myself on the island off Menorca.  Read about how free I felt in Menorca: http://www.kellyinselmann.com/blog/what-makes-you-feel-free/

This fall, my daughter is in 10th grade at Westlake High School and works part time, while my husband was recruited back to his field and is enjoying himself.

And here I am asking myself a question I have asked before: “How do you connect with your identity after cancer has dominated your life for years?”

I feel a bit distracted as I turn back towards the work I love, with people who seek to make meaning of their lives, increase their vitality, and heal emotional wounds.

I’m grateful to the JoyBoots Inner Circle Group for keeping me devoted to our work together. They have continued meeting for 4 years through hell and high water, since initially meeting in yoga classes and my online course, Healing Well: Reconnect with Your Life after Cancer.

Together we have celebrated the life milestone of one member selling her house and building her dream cottage out in the country with her best friends. We have celebrated times of stability in treatment and good family news.

We have supported each other through recurrences and even through the heartbreaking passing of a beloved member, Jane.  In group, we ask each other: “What do you think Jane would say to that?” And the answer is always something irreverent, brutally honest, and empowering. Her spirit and wisdom live on in us.

In the past few months, I have grieved the losses of a dear friend and a of a dear client, both age 41, both irreplaceable and  leaving behind 2 children and heartbroken families.

I continue to grieve the losses of all these friends.

Sometimes people wonder how I work with people who are facing cancer. I admit, I have to pay attention to my own self care and make sure I’m exercising, and socializing and now…traveling!

But for me, it’s not a burden to meet with JoyBooters, it’s an honor and it’s often super fun.  Being with people who recognize the fragility of life, who love deeply and care so much for their loved ones, makes my life more vivid. I am reminded that time is shorter than we think, and each moment more beautiful.  For me, it’s an honor to have this deep level of connection.  It helps me make meaning of my own life.

Quite frankly, JoyBooters always end up inspiring me.

So, this fall, I have turned much more determinedly towards revamping my signature program which shares my 6 Steps for Emotional Recovery from the Trauma of Cancer. You can listen to this podcast interview I gave about my ideas. https://therapistuncensored.com/episodes/tu63-living-with-cancer-the-six-principles-of-emotional-healing-with-guest-kelly-inselmann/

In early 2024, the course will open for people who are newly diagnosed and for cancer survivors who have finished active treatment.  A version for people living with metastatic cancer and a caregiver version will come soon after.

As I work on the course, this question continues to guide me: “How do I connect to my identity after cancer has dominated my life?”  Does this resonate for you?

 

 

Real Healing Requires Community

“The reality is things may never be exactly the same. Be honest with yourself about what you are feeling and find community who allow you to show up just as you are” from the Healing Well Course.

This Wednesday on June 21, 2023 we have the last JoyBoots Yoga class of the summer. It’s been such a pleasure to reconnect with so many old friends and to meet new ones as well.

I will be away June 26-July 24, 2023.  After the summer break, that’s when you can count on our weekly class continuing…

JoyBoots Yoga is unique in that we address, experientially through our practices, some of the more challenging aspects of living with cancer or after treatment.  These are:

  • feeling gripped by fear (of recurrence, physical pain, our own mortality)
  • negative circular thinking that can’t be easily stopped
  • tension and stress you hold in your body
  • anger you pretend not to have (that comes out inadvertently)
  • desire to understand yourself and your precious path forward so you can make meaning of life
  • chance to deeply breathe and strengthen your relaxation response
  • feel more grounded and emotionally balanced

Being able to show up just as you are to find a seat for you at the table helps heal loneliness and isolation.

It’s hard to heal emotionally when you feel alone.

I’m excited to bring a variety of JoyBoots programs forward beginning the end of August.

My online therapeutic course, Healing Well: Reconnect to your Life After Cancer starts in September 2023 and will be available to take at your own pace.

By request, we will also have some In Person Workshop and Meet Up Opportunities beginning in the fall as well.

Please join the JoyBoots Community (free) or email me at kellyinselmanntherapy@gmail.com for more information or for an individual session.

Stay Cool this Summer!

What Gifts do Your Bring?

In her podcast Incurable Joy, my dear friend Joy Engel asked the question of us all: what unique gifts can you offer a friend?  And who are your “troops” that can be called in?

Take a listen to her story here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6vktnqYQ8zr8CX36SOMtDj?si=Or645RWIRTOo1BILT43xHA

Does it have to be an emergency for you to open up to connection or assistance from a friend, doctor, therapist or loved one?

When I was going through a year of active treatment for breast cancer, as a new mother with an infant, I had to learn to ask for help.  Not because I wanted to-I was much more comfortable being the helper.  I learned how to accept help because I was faced with no other choice.

Receiving help can feel so vulnerable. You may feel that it shows weakness or gives up control.  

But softening your attitude towards help and helpers opens space for deeper connection and realization of our shared humanity.

Check out this yogic exercise that helps you embody the feelings of giving and receiving help:

http://www.kellyinselmann.com/videos/on-asking-for-help/

 

An Invitation to Seek a Place of Rest

In The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, Frank Ostaseski, the co-founder of the Zen Hospice Center, shares what he has learned through his work with people facing grief and loss, s well as his own life experience and spiritual practice.

He distills a lot of wisdom into the Five Invitations. They are principles that show us how to wake up more fully to our lives and appreciate life’s preciousness.

I suspect many JoyBooters will relate and enjoy delving into his ideas and stories. In these days of societal stress and polarization, and for people facing the challenges of illness, recovery, or loss, one invitation stands out to me this week:

The invitation is to find a place of rest in the middle of things.

The place to rest might be physical or how you feel in the company of a love one. It may even be available to you in your own breath in which you let go with each exhale. If you don’t let go, you can’t fully take in your next breath or be fully present to the next moment.

Here are a few nuggets he teaches about the breath:

  • Breathing is a living process, constantly changing and moving in cycles- inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Each breath has a beginning, middle, and end. Every breath goes through a process of birth, growth, and death. Breathing is a microcosm of life itself.
  • While we might believe otherwise, there is nothing boring about being with the breath. When we open to the miracle of breath and sense directly the process of oxygenation, we appreciate how, through a creative collaboration with our blood, air reaches every cell of our bodies. 
  • The breath invites us to rest, restore, and be revitalized.

I invite you to practice letting your breath to breathe you. Click here to practice with me. Notice how the breath moves your body and the path it follows as it enters, nourishes, and leaves you. Each moment is totally new. Each breath is unique, purposeful, and essential to life….

Emotions are Part of Being Alive

People are so afraid of their anger.  They don’t want to feel it, aren’t sure how to express it and in my experience working with cancer survivors, they sure as hell don’t want others to know they have it.  

Someone else might feel uncomfortable. Or start lecturing them that having anger is the reason they got diagnosed with cancer.  As though anger were not a normal part of the human experience.

Let me tell you a little secret about anger, once you learn to feel it and express it in ways that are safe and healthy, you can clear out so much space inside. You get access to energy you didn’t know you had.

You may even end up making changes, setting limits or asserting yourself in important ways.

And…the space that’s created may end up being filled with a feeling of aliveness, connection to others, and even the joy and gratitude we are always hoping for.

 

Two Yogic Strategies for Cooling Off

It’s hot! And when you are hot you can feel irritable, uncomfortable in your body, and less tolerant than usual.  Cancer survivors often experience hot flashes from hormonal medication or from chemically (or surgically) induced menopause.

Statistics show that anger and violence are more common when the city heats up.  And heaven knows our news and social media are full of hurt, anger, division, and, literally, wildfires.

Last week In Austin, Texas, an iconic sign advertising cowboy boots spontaneously combusted. Hot enough for ya’?

So, how to keep your cool?

Here are 2 practices from the yogic traditions for cooling the body and mind:

1.Sitali Pranayama (Cooling Breath Exercise)

Roll your tongue like a taco or straw.  Breathe in through the circle the tongue makes, as though breathing through a straw. Exhale through your nose.  Let the breath become slow and deep.

Being able to roll your tongue is genetic.  Either you can do it or not.  I, for one, cannot.  If you can’t, simply inhale over the tongue, exhale through the nose.

On Saturday, I taught a workshop for Honoring Your Own Sacredness. We practiced Sitali Pranayama and one woman shared a profound experience with the breath. Her mind became completely quiet, and she was aware of nothing but the breath.  For a few moments, she couldn’t identify where the breath began and where it ended.  Absorbed in the practice and in the present moment, she had a glimpse of the whole, through focus on the part.  She had a felt sense of  her own prana (life force energy), the breath of life.

You can experiment with Sitali Pranayma here: https://www.3ho.org/meditation/sitali-pranayam/

2. Coconut Oil Self Massage – self massage is a simple, yet profound way to take the time to nourish your body through the skin.  Ayurvedic medicine (holistic healing system from India) teaches that coconut oil is cooling.  Set aside a few minutes for appreciating and gently massaging all the parts of your body with coconut oil, even the ones you try to ignore.  Breathe long and deep.  Listen to relaxing music.  And then take a lukewarm shower or bath.

Stabilize your own inner state with these deliberate practices and notice how it affects your day.

Anger

At the end of one of my Yoga and Talk Therapy Workshops for Cancer Survivors, Lydia spoke up in a worried voice:

“I am now realizing how angry I am. But I have a question: Where do I put it?!”

I loved her question because it contains two very important insights.

First, Lydia recognized the anger she has been holding in her body, mind, and heart. She is suffering with pain and feels irritable as she recovers from surgery, yet holds herself to impossibly high expectations to be gracious to others in every moment.

She is self critical about how long the healing is taking and about needing assistance from her family. She is angry about the diagnosis and how it has affected many areas of her life.

Second, she’s ready to work with her anger. While it’s not so easy as finding a trash bin, working with your anger is not as scary as it can seem. Turning your attention towards your anger instead of repressing it can be the beginning of your healing.

Repressed anger often makes you feel numb, so it’s hard to enjoy the good moments. Repressed anger also comes out sideways and out of proportion, triggered by seemingly meaningless events or interactions.

Better to own your anger, find safe places to feel and express it so you can get your vitality back!

Hurricane

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During a hurricane, the warning signs are there: the weather turns dark, the winds pick up, rains become frightening and torrential. You buckle down to survive.

The storm feels endless. Power goes out.

At the mercy of nature, you do what you can to be cautious, and you have the water, flashlight, candles, and snacks you need to get through. You are grateful for your friends and family and neighbors. Sometimes strangers show up to help at a crucial moment.

Maybe you get through relatively unscathed, except for the fear and worry about others.

But sometimes your house is barely standing or unrecognizable. It was far worse than expected.

People bring food, text messages of concern, drive you places, help you tear off the rotten wood and carry your belongings to the street for a while. There’s FEMA – not a great option, but better than nothing.

As time goes on, to others your struggle seems less urgent, and you hear from people less. They assume you are getting along better and of course they have their own lives.

The sky outside is blue and you can hear the birds chirp. Restaurants and stores are back open. The world is going on around you, even though you are still not finished rebuilding your house or your life. You are now on your own.

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This hurricane comparison came from Robyn who sent me a message after reading a piece I wrote on how your emotions must be allowed to emerge in order to heal.

She likened cancer recovery to the aftermath of a natural disaster:  “It’s like a hurricane hit your life and even though you should just be grateful you survived it, dealing with the aftermath of it all takes so much longer than the actual hurricane itself…”

It’s true. Cancer, like other chronic and critical illness, hits your body and your personal life like a hurricane. And like hurricane survivors, it’s important to know it is not unusual to struggle greatly as you pick up the pieces of your life. Others are also experiencing the shock, fear, dread, anger, loss, gratitude, and joyful moments as you.

Though you know it takes time to heal, there’s pressure to move on quickly and be cheerful, even as you are confronted with painful or upsetting side effects: joint or bone pain, pain from surgery, chemobrain, lack of mobility, job loss, relationship problems, fatigue, just to name a few.

Still, it takes time to come to terms with the reality of what you have gone through. You have to get to know your body again, rebuild it, and adapt to changes in how you see the world, your relationships, and priorities.

Sometimes the pressure comes from within. You want so badly for it to be over. You expect yourself to fit right back in to your old life and schedule and priorities when everything about you has shifted and needs space and time and support to heal and re-integrate.

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“I don’t want to have had cancer…” I sometimes hear from clients. The steps to recovery feel so overwhelming.

And yet, given no other option, you do move forward.

What helps manage feelings?

  • Reaching out instead of isolating.  Say what you feel. Let yourself cry and express anger.
  • Finding ways to move your body that feel safe and nurturing, even pleasurable to you: walking, swimming, yoga, dancing-all at your own pace. Check out Team Survivor activities in your community.
  • Attending support groups and getting therapy.
  • Asking your medical questions until you feel you understand.
  • Resting without guilt.
  • Writing about your pain and your feelings and your experience as though they were important. Because they are.
  • Long deep breathing.
  • Spending time with friends and family who are supportive. If they are draining to you, limit your time with them.
  • Being in nature.

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Reality is, things may never be exactly the same.  Be honest with yourself about what you are feeling and find community who allow you to show up just as you are.

 

Photos are from my sister’s neighborhood in Houston following Hurricane Harvey.

 

 

 

Embracing Life

Give yourself permission to enjoy life and choose activities that bring you pleasure and joy, even if outside your comfort zone. Cancer Survivors sometimes blame themselves when they feel fatigue or pain after doing activities that are important for their vitality. How can we both accept our vulnerabilities and be willing to embrace life?