The Sixth Step Embrace Your New Life After Cancer Treatment

The Sixth Step Embrace Your New Life

It is perhaps difficult to imagine any benefit coming from the experience of cancer. With the frightening diagnosis, the myriad of treatment decisions, and the need to manage all the negative side effects, how could cancer ever be a force for good?

Table of Contents

Hundreds of thousands of survivors tell of the real and lasting changes that come directly from their cancer journey.
A whole new and better chapter of life has opened before them. I wish this for you, too.

Read And Learn More: Cancer Essential Things To Do A Road Map For All Cancer Patients Treatment Diagnosis

Understand the Message of Illness

When you “reframed” cancer, you began to see illness as more of a challenge than a threat. Now it is time to take this exercise one step further.

The challenge in illness can be found in its message to change. In a real sense, the challenge and message of cancer is a call, an opportunity, for personal growth. In this reframing of cancer lies the seed of true healing and lasting well-being.
Could cancer be a message signaling you to make changes in your life? We’ve already suggested several changes on the physical level—diet, exercise, and lifestyle issues. Might there be more? Many survivors view cancer as a call for personal transformation.
The changes go beyond physical health habits to changes in attitude and self-image.
The wise patient uses the experience of cancer as a turning point, a time to replace ineffective and limited ways of coping by substituting healthier, more effective methods of nurturing relationships, developing vocations, and pursuing spiritual growth.
However, as soon as I suggest this position, people cry, “On some level, you’re suggesting I subconsciously gave myself cancer” Not so We may have participated, but we did not purposely set out to give ourselves a serious illness.
Don’t read blame, self-sabotage, or guilt into the message of illness. Instead, realize the changes are potential points of power. Understand that if we have participated in our illness, even subconsciously, then we can participate in our wellness.
Many patients who sincerely explore the message of illness often discover a link between their physical, emotional, and even spiritual states of well-being and the onset of their illness.
More importantly, a large number of the survivors whom I have interviewed can trace the beginning of their healing to their decision to change these beliefs and behaviors.
They were able to examine the hidden message in illness and choose a response that changed their lives.

I believe that all of us have a personal responsibility to respond to cancer in this manner. Such a response is in your personal power. Start by asking yourself the following questions:

What high-stress events or changes happened in the year or two prior to diagnosisf Become keenly aware of uncontrollable misfortunes. Death of a spouse or child, loss of a job, and financial setbacks are obvious candidates.
Also include internal stresses, such as disappointments, major life adjustments, and ongoing conflict in important personal relationships. Most survivors can identify one or more major stresses in their lives prior to the onset of cancer.
What was my emotional response to these circumstances Did you process your grief over the loss, express your emotions, and finalK adopt a hopeful stance, or did you sink into a chronic depressed state? This is a measure of your participation.
Don’t read blame here. Participation simply refers to however responding to the circumstances that may have triggered the stress.
Might you have put others’ needs before your own? Did you give yourself permission to mourn the loss or did you determine you were going to be invincible and show no emotions? Did you permit yourself to seek the support of others during these stresses? How effective was your emotional self-care? Many survivors gain significant insight from a close examination of these questions.
How might my reactions to stress and loss be changed? Are there alternative ways of responding? Could these toxic circumstances and relationships be removed from your life? If not, how can you balance them, honoring your own emotional needs first?
Give yourself permission to define your true needs. This is highly important wellness work.
It is perfectly acceptable to find constructive and uplifting ways to meet these needs, regardless of what others may say or think. Give yourself that permission. Understand the message cancer has for you.

An Essential Thing to Do

Conduct a thorough and unflinching personal inventory.

In your Wellness and Recovery Journal, complete this exercise:

Live Now

Many people with a diagnosis of cancer needlessly pollute their lives by living in the past or in the future. Instead, I suggest our goal should be to live well with the only time we do have—this very precious present moment.

How many times have you heard yourself say, “If only I hadn’t done such and such?” “If only I hadn’t smoked.” “If only I’d taken better care of myself.” “If only …” “If only …” “If only …” We mire ourselves in the regrets of the past and miss the moment we have been given.
At other times we get caught in the fear of the future. “What if the cancer spreads?” “What if the chemo fails?” “What if.. “What if…” “What if…” Here we miss the present moment because we are consumed with what may happen in the future.
The answer: present-moment living. Live now. Live today. Live this hour. All of our regrets about the past, no matter how sincere, won’t change history.
All our worries about the future won’t add even another minute to our lives. On the contrary, both fears and worries diminish our current moments.
Wellness and happiness are not completely dependent on your body’s physical condition. High-level wellness is possible even with a disability.
Appreciate the fact that, even with cancer, you have life, here, now. Living each moment fully is the master secret to well-being.

Wellness has everything to do with the quality of our time; it’s about this moment. Don’t put off living a full life until you are physically “better.” Now is the time This is your moment

“I was consumed with worry,” said Brenda Barnes, a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patient, “not just over my cancer, but about my entire life. My parents were divorced and I worried about my mother’s emotional health.
My dad traveled a lot and I worried about his airplanes crashing. What about my student loans that still hung over my head, unpaid for several years? Why couldn’t I maintain a relationship with a man? Was I just an intractable failure in life? And then my illness, on top of it all.”
Corwin Johnson was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of fifty-six. “It (the cancer diagnosis) came two years after my injection molding business failed. All I could think of in those two years was what I should have done differently.
If only I had not put so much emphasis on the new product line. Why didn’t I see the downturn in the economy? Why did I extend so much credit to our number one customer?
I should have announced shorter work weeks or layoffs much sooner. Why didn’t I listen to the banker? How am I ever going to get out of debt? If only the family didn’t have to suffer. Life is so unfair, I’m ruined.”
Brenda and Corwin have a similar problem. Both are absolutely contaminating their present moments. Brenda’s worries about the future assure her of enjoying little peace in this moment.
Corwin’s life is consumed by thoughts of self-judgment that imprison him in the past. Neither is living in the “now.” Yet their only chance to capture true wellness is found in the now.

What is required is a shift in thinking from what Corwin might have done in the past or what may happen to Brenda in the future, to what each can do right here, right now. What about you? Might similar shifts be required?

Our potential for knowing wellness depends on our ability to understand that the past does not equal the future. Living in the now frees us from an internal bondage that keeps us from following the wellness path.
The past is over. Regrets, remorse, and recrimination cannot touch us unless we allow them to remain in our lives.
The future cannot harm us unless we create a future based on perceptions of fear, anger, and guilt. The only time that contains the power to change our lives is the present moment.
Just because you have cancer now does not predict, with certainty, that you will have it next year. Understand that truth. You have power in this moment that can change your life. Exercise that power—now

An Essential Thing to Do

Each day, relinquish any thoughts or judgments that hold you to the past. Give up any fears that keep you from creating a healthy future.

Pick one activity this day, this moment, that brings you pleasure, contentment, and happiness.
Do it Know that the supply of these moments is limitless, there for the taking if you will only choose to do so. Here, in the present moment, you will find your wellness.

Take Time to Play

How much time have you allowed yourself to play in the last week? If you answered “None,” you are a member of a very large club. That’s unfortunate. Living well requires play.

It’s a common phenomenon. Many adults react negatively to the idea that we need to play. In fact, millions of people believe that grown-ups should not play. Somehow we think that playing is not the mature thing to do.
Challenge this thinking. From this moment forward, I want you to understand that play is an important part of your “work” of wellness
The need to honor our playful nature is very strong. Most of us just repress it. Don’t. Give yourself permission to play, actually scheduling play time in your daily calendar if you must.
I did. We must then treat that time carefully, assigning it the same importance and priority as other areas of life, such as work and family.
Sometimes we get fooled into thinking we are playing when we really are not. Eli Goldman, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, was also a member of a barbershop quartet. He thought his singing was play.
Then Eli began to look at his “play” more closely. He soon realized his singing wasn’t as much play as it was competition, a pressure to win contests, a pressure he did not need. Eli dropped out of the quartet and substituted kite making, in which the competition was strictly self-imposed. What a valuable lesson
Analyze your own life. Have you noticed that you’re never too tired to play? In fact, if you think you’re tired, perhaps that is just the signal that you need more play. Play builds energy reserves; it is a major contributor to wellness.

God didn’t create us just to work, work, and work. We were created for joy. So create some joy in your life.

Consider this list of ten noncompetitive play activities:

Stroll on the beach.
Fly a kite.
Swim.
Ride a bike.
Draw a picture.
Write a poem.
Skip around the yard.
Sing.
Listen to music.
Take the scenic route.

An Essential Thing to Do

Make your own playlist and record it in your Wellness and Recovery Journal. Now, I want you to stop reading. Put aside this book, right now, and go play for thirty minutes. Go Have some fun. Do it We’ll continue our wellness work later.

Laugh for Healing Power

Norman Cousins made many contributions to our understanding of the mind’s role in mobilizing the body’s healing processes.
But none is so vividly remembered as his emphasis on laughter. In his 1981 book, Anatomy of an Illness, Cousins called laughter “internal jogging.”
Since that time, science has confirmed that even something as simple as a laugh or a smile carries with it a positive biochemical response.

The message is clear: Lighten up It will directly enhance your well-being. Just notice how relaxed you feel after laughing at a good story or watching a funny movie. It’s wonderful

Jack Abrams is a New York investment banker, successful, and wealthy, the owner of a beautiful home in Westchester County, and the recipient of a metastatic prostate cancer diagnosis. “I thought, my God, I’m going to die.
Cancer was the most godawful threat I had ever faced.” Jack received radiation treatment at a Manhattan medical center where he met Delmar, an older gentleman who always had a humorous story to share.
Delmar had successfully completed the same treatment for prostate cancer some seven years earlier. Now he volunteers three days a week at the hospital. “My job,” said Delmar, “is court jester”
For most of us, seriousness is seen as an important virtue. “Gravitas” we call it. We tend to think that laughing or giggling is childish behavior and certainly not appropriate for adults. Jack used to subscribe to this thinking.
“After all,” he remarked, “investment banking is serious business. You have to be serious to be taken seriously.”
BaloneyI observe way too many cancer patients going through life with this fearful, beaten, and downtrodden seriousness surrounding them.
There is nothing inconsistent about being an adult and including laughter in your life. There is nothing wrong with being ill and pursuing a lighthearted approach to wellness. This is not some demented form of personal denial.
Instead, it can be the opportunity to let the hidden child in you come out once in a while. Get in touch with that exuberant, vibrant part of yourself. Enjoy playing with your own children or grandchildren. Laugh at yourself and your seriousness.
Jack reflected, “Delmar taught me a lot about living. When I stopped being so serious, I started to get well.”

An Essential Thing to Do

Go ahead. Rent that comedy DVD. Watch your favorite sitcom. Go to the local comedy club or a silly movie. Laugh Let those positive biochemicals loose. It’s healing.

Evaluate Your Relationships

Our relationships. We constantly interact with other people—a husband or wife, a friend or a lover, a child, a relative, a boss, a coworker, or an employee; the list of our relationships is endless.
At times, our lives seem to center entirely on relationships. How we get along with the significant people in our lives seems to determine, to a large extent, the quality of life we have.
Furthermore, the absence of relationships can cause much disharmony and deep dissatisfaction. Like it or not, relationships are central to our experience of life and even our experience of illness.
Cancer survivors invest time and energy in two-way relationships that nurture them. Survivors put relationships that are toxic “on hold.”
Patricia shared in a support group meeting what this meant to her. “I had to move out. It was difficult, particularly leaving my two children.
But I knew it was what I needed at that time. And I stayed away for nearly three months.”
Patricia married while in college. She went to work to support her husband and his education.
Patricia was expecting her first child before her husband graduated from dental school. She never earned her degree, something her husband seemed to hold over her.
“He was always criticizing me,” Patricia said. “And I would yell back, trying to defend myself from attack.

I’d bring up times when he disappointed me. And he would counter with a litany of my shortcomings. It became a vicious cycle. So I got out of there.”

Was a marriage gone askew partly responsible for Patricia’s cervical cancer? I believe so. Toxic stress lowers our resistance.
Sadly, Patricia’s search for love led to an extramarital affair. The guilt became overwhelming, leading to clinical depression.
Patricia came to believe the breach in her marriage was linked to her physical problems. After beginning her cancer treatment program, she finally began to look at the relationship with her husband.
Credit Patricia for wanting the relationship to work. With the help of a marriage counselor, she was able to better understand her part in the ongoing battles.
Patricia recognized her reactions and began to select other more measured responses to her husband’s remarks.
Today, Patricia and her husband are working on improving their relationship, and Patricia is cancer-free.
Here’s a key insight you can use to your tremendous benefit. Our relationships with others often reflect the relationship we have with ourselves.
Do you experience conflict with a coworker? Look within to understand the inner conflict you may carry.
Does a child seem self-willed and impossible? Look within. Do you carry a belief that kids are willful and impossible?

Your self-perceptions are exceedingly powerful. They dramatically impact your relationships.

And spiritually, even though we may have some changes of perception to make, it’s the set of the heart that matters.
If our hearts are in the right place—on the path of love, joy, and peace—our spiritual well-being is assured. All this takes is an internal search of our motives.
This internal search is our only real point of influence. When we evaluate relationships, the central task is to look within, discovering the truth: the only way to change another is to change ourselves first.
Be an encourager in all your relationships. Know that whatever you send out will always come back to you.
Change and improve your relationships by sending out the love, joy, and peace that will help you heal. Truly, this is your point of power.
Do healed relationships always equate with healed bodies? I believe the two go together, but I can cite only anecdotal evidence.
When we stop punishing ourselves and others for things that happened in the past, we are then free to move on to a life of wellness, a state of mind and spirit that often supports vast and rapid physical improvement.

An Essential Thing to Do

Conduct an inventory of the ten most important relationships in your life. Number a page in your Wellness and Recovery Journal from 1 through 10 and record the people’s names. Did you realize these were the ten most important people in your life?
Highlight any relationships that need to be put on hold. Are there any that need improvement? Indicate those. What is one thing you could change that would improve each relationship?
Come back to this list often. Keep it current. Declare any “relationship war” to be over
Declare that you now live in joy and peace. Appreciate how important this work is to your achievement of wellness.

Get Beyond “Why?”

It’s the inevitable question cancer patients ask: “Why did this happen to me?”
The trouble with the “why?” question is that we seldom like the answers we are given. We fight them, not wanting to accept.
Some think cancer is a lifestyle issue: “He smoked.” That may be true for some but does not stand up to scrutiny for all cancer patients or even all smokers.

Others say the “why?” is environmental: “We’ve polluted the planet. We’re all getting sick.” That may explain some cases, but why is it that other people exposed to the same carcinogens remain perfectly healthy?

Religion tries to answer the “Why me?” question. I’ve been told by well-meaning clergy that God was using cancer to punish my sins, to correct me for my eternal profit, to draw me closer to God, and to help me and my family members learn submission.
When we ask “why?” we are often looking for someone or something to blame. “Why?” is another way of saying we are helpless and the situation is beyond our control.
Some people blame others, some blame circumstances, some blame parents, some blame doctors, some blame the environment, and some blame God
Affixing blame does not help. It only creates helpless victims, something I trust by now you believe you are not.
The road to personal wellness starts when we stop asking “why?” and begin to consider the question, “Toward what end?” or “For what purpose?” Put another way, “How can I make this experience benefit myself, others, and the world?”
Literally, thousands of the cancer survivors I have interviewed and surveyed speak of “God not being done with me quite yet.”

Could that be the case with you? Instead of asking, “Why me?” let’s ask, “How can this illness best be used?” Then quiet yourself and listen. Let this idea settle deep in your spirit. It’s the essence of getting beyond the “why?” of cancer.

An Essential Thing to Do

In your Wellness and Recovery Journal, start a new page with the heading “How can I make my experience of cancer beneficial?” Describe, in writing, how you believe cancer can help you and others. Continually add to this list as your insights deepen.

Practice Self-Discipline

Living a life based on maximizing your well-being requires living with values and behaviors that may be radically different from the ones you had before your illness. Some days, the work of wellness may not be the easiest or most convenient to practice.

On a cold and rainy morning, it might be easier to stay in bed and forget the exercise. And instead of preparing a high-nutrition lunch, it might seem simpler to use the drive-through window of the nearest fast-food restaurant.
Our intention to move toward wellness may seem strong, but too often our practices may not reflect that intent.
I encourage you to see yourself as self-disciplined. Wellness self-discipline includes thought and deed, intent and practice.
This principle is equally valid whether you are facing a just-baked batch of chocolate chip cookies, a dark cold morning of exercise, or an unforgivable person. Gentle, wholesome self-discipline is at the core of making wellness real in your life.
The issue is not whether we can choose wellness. It’s whether we see ourselves choosing wellness. Remember, “The me I see is the me I’ll be.”
The practice of seeing yourself as self-disciplined leads to two very powerful life qualities: self-respect and freedom.
When your walk matches your talk, when intent and action are one, you have a consistency in your life that is unshakable.
You are grounded in a principle-oriented life experience, firm in the knowledge that all you are doing physically, emotionally, and spiritually is in your best interest.

Just for a moment, envision yourself as happily self-disciplined. Inner strength and self-respect flow from this position.

The discipline to actually act on what is important to you leads to personal freedom; you are no longer bound by the traps of obsession, compulsion, and self-pity.
This is a personal power at the highest level, a strong and quiet inner assurance that is one of the rewards of the wellness journey.
When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is pull on my sweats and running shoes. No excuses. I discipline myself to exercise.
Diet was a wellness discipline that challenged me. I loved sweets, especially pastries. Today, I simply do not allow myself to indulge. I deserve better nutrition. Discipline.
Meditation—When do I have time to fit this into a busy schedule? Yet I do, twice each day. Discipline. My times of meditation result in a clearer perspective on the day, a perspective that I refuse to live without.
The same is true for developing a purpose/play balance, nurturing my relationships, and honoring my spiritual needs.
Each important area of my life requires consistent disciplined practice in order for me to know its potential. I see you doing something very similar. It starts with seeing yourself as self-disciplined and actually doing the work of wellness.
“But that’s no fun,” protested Manuel Morales, a big, burly mechanical engineer with kidney cancer.
He was attending one of our workshops in San Antonio. “You’re right,” I responded “It’s better than fun. It’s freedom—freedom from all that hurts The US.
Self-discipline. The issue becomes which habits we will choose in our lives. Choose a positive addiction. Decide to discipline yourself to choose the habits of wellness. The result is self-respect and freedom.

An Essential Thing to Do

Match your walk with your talk, your actions with your best intentions. Choose one area—perhaps diet or exercise—and make that your focus today. For example, pick one day and excel at maximizing your nutrition.
Then choose another area for focus for the next day. And another the next. Feel your self-respect skyrocket. Congratulate yourself. Bask in the personal power and freedom this discipline brings to you.

Choose Your Emotional Style

What is your dominant style of expressing emotion? Is it suppression, where you constantly restrain yourself from venting real feelings; or overreaction, where you are too exuberant or fly into an inappropriate rage; or denial, where you tend to push feelings out of your consciousness?

If you have read this book to this point, you now know that emotions have a central role in wellness.
Two emotional styles concern me most: fear that is denied and hostility that is either suppressed or overexpressed. Our goal here is to become skilled observers of our emotional reactions and learn the ability to choose appropriate responses.
You have the right to feel any emotion. Any and every emotion you feel is perfectly acceptable.
We’re human; we feel. In a real sense, we are emotionally driven creatures. One moment we’re angry, the next moment we’re down. We’re happy and we laugh.
The next moment we’re fearful of some loss. I’ve observed that people tend to repeatedly experience four basic emotions: mad, sad, glad, and engaged— anger, depression, happiness, and fear. All of them are acceptable.
To experience an emotion, and recognize that any emotion is acceptable, is one level of understanding. But the healthful processing of those emotions is quite another. It’s here we typically find trouble.
You have tremendous power over your emotions. It’s the power of choice. Health-enhancing emotional processing is summarized by the phrases review, release, and renew.

Review the emotion. The most damaging mistake we make in emotional expression is to attach too high a priority on either burying or venting the feeling. Instead, start by observing the emotion. Review it.

Understand it. That’s half the challenge. Then release the emotion. Get rid of the anger, the sadness, the fear. It’s perfectly acceptable to feel the way you feel. It’s your emotion and you own it.
But then release it in a nonhostile way, without being coy, subtle, or vague. Think or say, “I’m upset but it’s only my emotions. It’s over and done. Life goes on.” Release.
Then renew. Think and say, “I can choose my emotions. My emotions do not choose me.” You replace it.
Consciously, cognitively, you choose a more productive, more loving, more spiritual emotional response.
This process is very powerful. For example, my personal emotional challenge is effectively processing anger, one of the most highly charged emotions. My anger is generally short-lived, a negative emotion over a single event. When I’m functioning at my best, I’ll review it.
“There’s my anger. I recognize it. It’s starting to boil my water.”

Then I’ll release it: “Anger. Go away. I become upset when you’re around.” I express it, without malice. I release it.

The trouble comes when I don’t renew when I fail to consciously replace that anger with love, or at least compassion. When I allow anger to continue to control my responses, I am plagued by chronic anger that wears a mask.
It appears to be anger but it is actually unresolved hostility—toxic emotions and feelings to which I cling. It’s like walking through a field that is filled with landmines. The slightest nudge and an explosion erupt.
One of the demands of living well is to no longer cling to negative emotions. We cling to coping styles of denial, suppression, and overreaction. Not until we review, release, and honestly renew can we become masters of our emotions.
You also have this power. Renewal is actually very simple. For me, it comes when I focus my attention on what actually provoked me.
If I will just reflect on the event, I will often discover that I perceived the provoker—be it a person, event, or condition— with fear. I was the one who was fearful that my person, property, or pride was under attack.
This is a profound discovery of the highest importance, one that affects us on even 7 levels of our lives. It’s fear we are dealing with, actually our perception of fear, something that is under our control.
Now we can review and release that fear, and verbalize it. “This diagnosis scares me” Or, “Doctor, I reject that prognosis.”
Then, and only then, can we transcend emotionally. We renew; we consciously choose a more powerful and productive emotion. “I choose to be hopeful—anyway.”
That’s why it is so important that we become keenly aware of our emotional style. Simply observing the situations that trigger our emotions allows us to rethink our perception that we are under siege.
Instead of perceiving fear, we can now understand the situation in the light of love, or at least compassion. This is a new and miraculous emotional response, one that immediately begins to dissolve resentments and helps immensely in our healing.
Make it your priority to become a keen observer of your own emotions. Review, release, and renew. It is the secret to emotional well-being.

An Essential Thing to Do

Become an objective observer over the next week. When an upsetting event occurs, record the event in your Wellness and Recovery Journal.
Then record your emotional response based on one of three categories: denial—“I denied that there was any problem”; suppression—“I suppressed my emotions when I really wanted to tell them off”; or overreaction—“I went crazy and overreacted, way out of proportion to the whole event.”

Then practice the three Rs: review, release, and renew. You’ll become a skilled observer of your own emotional stance toward life. Reactions and emotions that were once automatic will now come under your control. Through it all, you will achieve new levels of well-being.

The Sixth Step Embrace Your New Life After Cancer Treatment