Living Every Day with Joy

In coping with everyday changes that sometimes include continuous medical issues, this may seem like a huge challenge in keeping joy in your heart and life.  But it is essential to healing and keeping yourself on a healing track.  It is not something that comes naturally to all of us.  And some may have had the knack for laughing and being upbeat, but you may feel as if you have lost much of that right now. But there are ways to work on it and keep your heart, mind, body and spirit on a positive path:

1.  Look in the mirror each morning and tell yourself out loud how much you love YOU.  It may seem awkward, silly, and totally out of your realm.  But let yourself know how important, strong, courageous you are and how much you love yourself for all those things and more. Truly look at yourself and how beautiful you are.

2.  Journal on anything that comes up for you.  Do it free style with no structure to your writing. Find a comforting place to write for 15 minutes and then put it away.  Let out everything you need to and share the things that keep coming up with a family member, close friend, counselor, etc.  Remember, your support team is one that you build along the way.  Choose those who will lift you up by what you share.

3.  Visualization- If you are not a writer, then sit in a peaceful place with no distractions and close your eyes.  Now imagine having a pad of paper and a pen and write down one of your fears.  Finish it and in your mind crumble it up.  With that paper, toss it into my flowing river and let it drift away.  Continue to do this with another fear, anger, etc and toss that as well. Make this your intention that eventually that feeling will truly be released from you and float away.

4.  Be Grateful- Not an easy task again when trying to cope with so much.  But find 3 things that are happening in your life right now that you are blessed with and deeply cherish those. Gratefulness carries over to others and can empower those in your life that are supporting you as well.

5.  Feel God within - Whatever your religion or spiritual choice may be, embrace it.  Know that this higher power has plans for you and will guide you in all the right ways that are to be. Connect in whatever ways feel positive for your heart, mind, body and spirit. Let this be your endearing and cherished highest power to see you through your blessings and your healing.

6.  Be kind to yourself- You have survived and are meant to be here!  Let kindness seep into every cell and flow in your heart always.

As if a vacuum had not only sucked the breath out of my body, but also the life out of my heart, a diagnosis  of cancer left me feeling as if I was the only person standing on the earth that day.  This was my diagnosis.  This was my illness. This was my life.  What was I going to do with all of this that was truly just mine?

And although it felt this way, I came to learn that it really is something that so many of us unfortunately share in one way or another.  So please know that you are not alone.

We are not meant to deal with these issues on our own, and as I continue to deal with this for the past 2 1/2 years, I know how important it is to bring in others to help us.  These issues are too big and too much for our souls to make so many decisions and try to take care of our daily life in addition to our medical focus.

Building your own personal support "team" is going to bring you not only love and further hope, but will truly benefit your healing. And the sooner you can establish support, the easier it will be for you to focus on the main issue: getting well again.

So think about what is it that you need for healing:  support; physical help that might include mobility, transportation aid; emotional health; dietary needs (someone to cook for you, friends taking turns to bring dinner every night, etc), someone to stay the night(s) with you (anxiety and fears can take over at the quietest times...I will address this soon) and anything else you may want right now.
Don't limit yourself.  People want to help.  It just takes asking on your part.

1. Of course first and most important is to establish your team of support with family members, friends, church/temple members and/or anyone else who you personally feel will help you with what you might need at this time.  These needs will also change over time and you may want to include others on your "team" later on that were not involved initially in helping you.

2. Check into classes and support groups at your local hospital. There are wonderful programs in many of the cancer centers of hospitals and I have had the opportunity to be in meditation, yoga and health classes in several areas I have lived in.

3. Ask in the Oncology Department of your center/hospital what counseling options there are for you. Meeting with a counselor who deals with only cancer patients was a tremendous help for me knowing that she had a much greater understanding of this than the general population of counselors.

4.  Contact your local Cancer Support Community (CSC) center (they are nationwide and formerly called The Gilda Radner Club).  These are non-profit organizations that hold extensive classes, support groups, presentations, etc for you, your families, and your friends (including support groups for children with parents dealing with cancer in many of the centers). My daughter was compassionately carried through some of our hardest days with CSC's family support group.  And I attended a fun loving weekly journaling class that has become a part of who I am today.

5.  Let those in your church/clubs/other activities know what you are experiencing at this time.  This dis-ease affects so many every day and there may be connections with others that you never knew about before this.

And if any one reading would like to add to this list, that would be wonderful!

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With gratitude and hope,
Colleen

"It is no coincidence that four of the six letters in health are "heal"~ Ed Northstrum