Archives for category: Mindfulness

The Birds

July 10, 2014 //

I remember when I was starting grad school in my 20’s. One of my classmates was from the sunny city of Miami. I noticed that although she was actually younger than me, she had crow’s feet, those wrinkles people get around the corners of their eyes. I figured that since she already had them, I would get them fairly soon. But I didn’t.

The first wrinkles I noticed were above my left eyebrow. I can lift my left eyebrow above my right, just like Spock on Star Trek. I did it A LOT as a teen and a young adult. My younger brother and I laughed about it a lot. It was something I did when I was being silly and having fun.

Wrinkles are signs of aging. The first time I looked at myself and thought, “I’m not young anymore” was in my late 30’s. I was looking at the backs of my hands. They weren’t as smooth as they used to be. In other respects I still looked young. I’ve done a lot of work with my hands over the years. Writing, gardening, knitting, cooking, and caressing loved ones. My wedding and anniversary rings are on my hands.

When I was putting on make up this morning I saw them. I have crow’s feet that don’t go away when I stop smiling.

I’ve done a lot of smiling in my life. And I’ve squinted at the sun when I was in the mountains, the tropical rain forests, and kayaking on the sea. I spend a lot of time outdoors, which makes me happy. I spend a lot of time with people who make me happy.

The lines I have, by and large, are not remnants of the bumps in the road of life, the wrinkles we have to smooth out. My wrinkles are from the best bits. They show the happy and productive moments that I have enjoyed. If I am lucky, they will continue to broaden and deepen, I hope.

When I was young my face was smooth. Now the lines tell a story, one that is meaningful and full.

Life lines is what they are.

Warning: Smiling can cause life lines! (Also, I told you that my husband puts his camera close to my face.)

Tags aging, Family, Happiness, love, Mental Health, mindfulness

Categories Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

Mind me!!!!!!

July 9, 2014 //

One of the gifts of mindfulness has been perceiving sensations have gone unnoticed if I did not regularly force myself to slow down and notice. Those are its gentle gifts. The tiny intricate flowers. The refreshing morning breezes. The lovely and varied bird calls. The delicious and subtle flavors of carefully prepared meals.

It is easy to be mindful when life is slow. The hard part is slowing down.

Some situations demand that I be mindful. They are not gentle at all.

Almost every morning between 4 am and 6 am, both of our kittens jump on top of me in bed and demand my affection. They do this only to me as their designated fur-free mom.

About one second after they land on me, they are already purring. It is anticipatory purring. Basie touches my nose with his nose, REPEATEDLY. Then he starts licking my eyelids. I start petting him for about a half a minute, at which time he starts biting my hands and the rings on my fingers. Then I put my arms under the covers because biting turns into playful scratching and what I call “rabbit footing”, which is when cats grab you with their front claws and start scratching you furiously with their back claws. Rabbits do this when they are picked up by the scruff of their necks, at least ours did when I was a kid, and they were not pets.

Basie continues to try to bite me through the covers and if he is being really persistent, he crawls under the covers. Meanwhile, Leeloo is feeling left out. She is the gentler of the two but she is very affectionate. If my hands are under the covers, she climbs right under my neck on my clavicle. If I don’t start petting her right away, she will try to move EVEN higher. She also likes to groom me affectionately by licking the insides of my ears.

It is hard to be mindful of the gift of affection when I am busy doing something else, in this case SLEEPING. At these times, it can actually be annoying. But the kitties charm me nonetheless. They have tiny brains and I cannot ascribe negative intentions to their behavior. They are just babies and adorable ones, at that. I kick Basie off of the bed when he won’t stop being rough. I keep their little kitty nails trimmed. Their nails are less needle like and they are learning not to bite so hard.

Right after the kitties decided to leave the bed and run around the house, John turned over, put his around me, and nuzzled into the side of my neck. He will sleep like that for a long time. I was trying to go back to sleep. I typically have a hard time falling asleep with a lot of weight on me and I get overheated easily, too. Consequently, I usually say, “Get your arm off of me, please.” (I know I am very romantic. It is a miracle that the man still makes attempts at spooning after all of these years.)

Today, I thought, “It’s really nice that John is being so sweet to me. I’m going to try to enjoy this.” So I did and had a lovely snuggle for several minutes. Then I was really hot and asked him to move, which he did.

My usual response is to anticipate that there is going to be a problem and “nip it in the bud”. I realize that I miss a lot of affection that way. Why not instead be mindful and enjoy the part that is enjoyable instead of working so hard to avoid a minor discomfort?

There are times I need to slow down my thoughts. I need to be mindful of thoughts like, “Oh, how sweet” and not race right to “Oh, John’s arm is so heavy!”

I’ve been REALLY busy lately. Summers can get that way fast because I do a lot of driving to get my daughter to daily summer activities. At her age, she typically has to be somewhere in the middle of my work day. It’s a lot of shifting gears for me and cramming my work into small bursts. It also means extending my work day so that there’s a hole in the middle for transportation. She is now able to navigate public transportation but has trouble with making connections if there is a transfer. Further, the buses run only occasionally during mid-day. She can’t always take the bus and we don’t really like the idea of her wandering around for hours so I try to drive her as much as I can manage. Today there are three places that she needs to be, all in different parts of town. It’s a paperwork day for me and I am doing it at different coffee shops around town while I wait for her.

Needless to say, we’ve been spending a lot of time in the car together. My teen daughter doesn’t talk to me as much as she did when she was younger but when she does, it’s usually while I am driving her some where, often in heavy traffic.

I love talking to her but I must say that sometimes it takes a great deal of concentration I don’t have because there are subjects about which I know little that she loves to talk about. And she loves to ask questions about them, too. For example:

The Girl: “Mom, what is your favorite episode of Dr. Who with the 10th doctor?”
Me (crossing several lanes of traffic on a Friday during rush hour): “I’m sorry, honey. I’m trying to concentrate on driving. These conversations often make me feel like my head is going to explode.”

It may be that my mind is not up to the detailed nerd girl conversations while driving in Seattle traffic. I have to concentrate a lot to drive. I have a poor sense of direction and I am easily distracted. I am intimidated by aggressive drivers.

Maybe I will try a little harder today to be engaged with my daughter while we are in the car and see what happens. I don’t get a lot of opportunities to talk to her. She knows that I would like to talk more frequently and I think it is confusing to her that when she tries, I am sometimes not receptive.

It may be too hard to do but I will try it. The fact that it could get too hard is not a good enough reason to try.

Sometimes opportunity knocks softly. At other times, it licks you on the eye.

Often the kitties just love/bother each other.

Tags Family, Marriage, mindfulness, Parenting

Categories Family, Marriage, Mindfulness

Just an in-between

July 4, 2014 //

I was quite an awkward 11 and 12 year-old, as many girls are during those ages. I was and I still am very close to my mom and I remember talking to her about that stage of not being a young child but not quite being a teenager. Mom had suitable song lyrics for this and sometimes responded by singing, “Too young for boys, too old for toys, I’m just an in-between.”

“In between” is a phrase that has been popping into my mind frequently. I feel like an “in-between” as a cancer patient.

Actually, when I really think about it, I’ve felt like an “in-between” during this whole process and I see my friends going through the same thing. I remember in the early days of breast cancer I was shuttled back and forth between assessment and treatment. And even some of the treatment, that is surgery, was also used for assessment. There are blurry lines. It is a systematic process but there are many data gathering and decision points.

Other than my tamoxifen and Lupron shots, I am not in active cancer treatment. My oncology appointments are more spread out. I don’t even see my surgeon any more, I just see the nurse practitioner in the surgery office who works with “survivors”, the ultimate “in-between” status. Actually, there’s another in-between because if I am to need to have a breast cancer surgeon again, I need to see someone else. Dr. Wonderful not only “broke up” with me for being too healthy, he also retired from clinical practice, just last week. He is remaining at my cancer center doing research and in a leadership position regarding improving patient care. At least I can still send him a Christmas card later this year. He will not have moved back home yet. (He is Canadian, from Toronto, and I’ve always figured that he and his wife will move back to be with their sons and grandchildren.)

My current “in-between” balancing act is juggling my responsibilities. Okay, this is not a new balancing act as I have done it throughout my entire experience with cancer. However, as my energy is increasing, I have been able to work more. During 2013 my income, after deducting my expenses, was 50% of what it was pre-cancer. 2014 will not be a year like 2011 but it will be a much better year. I can see myself getting out of debt. My husband and I celebrate our 25th wedding anniversaries along with our 50th birthdays in 2015. We would like to take a trip to Turkey along with our daughter, to celebrate. We have a lot of saving to do if we are going to be able to take that trip. I certainly can’t contribute to that kind of expense without getting out of debt.

I am feeling the tug of responsibility to my friends, especially my friends in the breast cancer community. I know that I am not as available for communications as I once was. Some of my friends I know only through online conversations. I don’t like to distinguish them from IRL (in real life) friends because all of my friends are real life friends. Great distances as well as time differences can make communication difficult, though. And further, I confess that I am less likely to ask, “how are you” to friends who are having emotionally and physically difficult times. I don’t like to ask that question unless I am prepared to respond with the kind of time someone needs if the answer is not, “I’m fine, thank you. And you?” I am frequently pulled away to other responsibilities at home and at work. I don’t want to do a half-assed job of supporting my friends. I’ve had too many times in my life when a friend has asked “How are you?” during a hard spot in my life and my eyes tear up with the anticipation that I will be able to share my burdon with someone only to find out that the friend really does not have the time or mental energy just right then to tend to me.

I am also worried about losing my connection with the breast cancer community. I write frequently, but when I am really busy, I have fewer ideas. I don’t want my ideas to dry up and then the social connections to dry up as well.

Most of all, I am worried about losing my connection to the opportunity (not “gift”, mind you) breast cancer and my emotional recovery have given me to truly cherish life. I want to be connected to and mindful of the full richness of life.

I suspect I will work my way through this. I also suspect that I will not run out of things to communicate, even if not through blogging. And as far as blogging goes, I think I still have much to write here on this page. But I also want to respect and take note of the anxiety and fatigue I’ve been feeling lately. The anxiety is of the “lurking in the shadows” variety and not the spinning top anxiety I get when I go into overdrive.

Maybe the “new normal” that is talked about is actually a radical acceptance that life is always in-between.

Tags Breast Cancer, breast cancer survivorship, Family, Friends, life transition, Marriage, mindfulness, work/life balance

Categories Breast cancer, Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

Let me do the work

July 3, 2014 //

I was a young mother of a toddler and it was my birthday. My husband handed me an envelope. It was a gift certificate for Fauntleroy Massage.

I had never gotten a full body massage before. I didn’t even know what the types of massage were. I talked to some friends at work. I remember that Wendy ran down the modalities for me, Swedish, deep tissue, Shiatsu, and the last, Lomi Lomi, which she described as “good but kind of woo woo because it’s spiritual rather than just therapeutic.”

I was not very “woo woo” at the time. I was a scientist.

I called Fauntleroy Massage and was greeted, “Aloha, this is Jann.” I spoke with Jann, who was and still is a practitioner of Lomi Lomi. Yes, I was a scientist but I was also feeling the need to get my life more in balance and expose myself to different beliefs. So I made an appointment.

“You lie there and let me do all of the work. I will take care of you,” said Jann at the beginning of that first massage and many that were to come, at least a couple of hundred of them with Jann over the past 13 years.

I remember having to concentrate on not doing work.

Not doing work is a lot of work. I wanted to bend my leg instead of letting her bend it for me, for example. It took some time to get used to but once I did, it opened up opportunities for different kinds of work, the work of timing my breathing with the tense and release of massage strokes to help unclench muscles. In this way, massage is both meditative and mechanical.

Massage can also be like a dance. Jann is extremely intuitive and strong. She massages with her eyes closed. It is a meditative practice for her, as well. She massages with her whole body. She is conscious of the way she stands, uses her legs, and when her hands aren’t strong enough, she uses her elbows to massage. And I only know this because she’s told me. Jann coordinates her breathing with her exertion and when I am really in tune with her, I do, too. It is a very special experience, which also contributes to a better massage.

All of my messages have been relaxing and they knocked out the chronic pain issues I had for 12 years prior to having my first massage. But not all of my massages are great. The great ones are when I surrender to the massage.

As I mentioned, I have had an increase in energy and stamina. I am extremely happy about this. I have also done a lot of entertaining and taking care of other people. I have not let go of my self care and I have also let my husband take care of me. But I felt guilty about it. His work has been particularly stressful and further, during the summer, he drives Zoe everywhere.

Today I woke up in a fog. I have been tired for a number of days. I took today off for the holidays. I didn’t have to do anything. So I did nothing.

Sometimes doing nothing is nice. But sometimes doing nothing doesn’t do anything to fill me up. Because the nothing is really mindless stuff rather than mindful stillness.

This afternoon, I drug my tired butt to a massage. I was thinking, “I am too tired to go to a massage.” Really. That’s how brain dead I was feeling. I was having to summon the motivation to drive a half mile to Jann’s office and get a MASSAGE.

It happened about half way through the massage. I surrendered. And it filled me up.

Tags letting go, mindfulness, self care

Categories Mindfulness

Entitlement

June 30, 2014 //

Feeling “entitled” is considered a “bad” thing typically. Sometimes, I feel entitled.

I feel entitled to expecting commitments to be kept. I’m not talking about big things, people. I’m talking about when people promise to do the dishes.

And with my teen daughter, I always PREFER to be treated with respect. But I don’t always feel entitled to respect. I am a child/adolescent psychologist, after all. I know what teens can be like.

And I don’t mean that most of the time, I just let things go. Teens are still to be held accountable for their behavior, despite the fact that the disrespect can be normative. Just because it’s normal doesn’t mean that they just get to do whatever they want to do.

Feeling “entitled” is a whole different ballgame. As a parent, I rarely feel entitled. But every once in awhile I do.

My teen daughter recently returned from a camp for which I paid. She LOVED it. I was so glad that she LOVED it.

But she has been internally rolling her eyes for the last few days. She’s been rude in the way that “good kids” can be.

Today I told her, “Please speak to me more respectfully.”

She explained that her manner of speaking was the way that she addresses her peers.

Without getting into the whole, “I am not your peer, I am your mother” debate, I responded, “That may be but when you see your friends, you hug them and look happy to see them. You don’t do that with with me so it’s not the same.”

I heard a couple of rounds of, “I love you Mom, very much” until she left for her evening activities.

I try really hard not to use guilt to motivate my child. But sometimes she needs feedback. She needs to know that I have feelings.

The vast majority of the time, she is able to get her brain out of her “peer cave” and into a more complicated world, the world in which both adults and children have feelings, that can be hurt.

Tags Family, mindfulness, Parenting, teaching empathy

Categories Family, Mindfulness, Parenting

Entertainment Weekly

June 29, 2014 //

Today is Sunday. It is half past noon. There’s bluegrass playing on the radio and my husband is in the kitchen doing dishes. The kittens are wrestling happily on the floor. It’s a pleasant scene. I am completely exhausted.

John and I used to have frequent dinner parties. We entertained a lot. It is one of the things we had to give up for awhile after my cancer diagnosis.

In time, I was energetic enough to host family gatherings, first our daughter’s 15th birthday and later, Thanksgiving. Then we had a party for John’s co-workers.

This morning I realized that I have cooked a major meal every weekend for the past three weekends. First was Father’s Day, then hosting our friends Kurt, Linda, and their kids. Last night our friend, Robin and her son’s Michael and Nate visited from North Carolina. Robin is our daughter’s godmother. Michael, who is almost 22 years old, is our god son. We haven’t seen them in about 8 years. The visit was a big deal.

No wonder I’m exhausted! It was not so long ago that I was having trouble having enough stamina to track conversations with people. It was even less long ago that I was needed 12 hours of sleep per night.

I am pretty mindful of my stamina and energy levels. I honor my need for sleep better than most. But I still overdo it and today I need extra rest.

I was thinking that I need to be mindful of these things because I am more limited than I was in the past. However, after seeing a series of old photos of myself over the years taken in the past 15 years, I am starting to wonder. When I compare them to recent photos I realize that I currently look a lot less tired and that I actually look healthier than I did in my 30’s and early 40’s.

I have some things to think about. I don’t want to go back to the years when I pushed myself to work harder at the sacrifice of my own self-care.

At this point, it’s not so much that I CAN’T do what I used to be able to do.

It’s that I WON’T do it.

Tags life balance, mindfulness, self care

Categories Breast cancer, Mindfulness

What’s wrong with this picture?

June 27, 2014 //

My daughter is away at camp this week. John and I decided to go out for a nice dinner last Wednesday. I just happened to have a salon appointment scheduled that day so I knew I was going to have “special occasion” hair. I chose a dress out of my closet that was inappropriate for work but appropriate for a date with my husband. We had a lovely time. I recently bought him a new camera so he was taking photos of me. A LOT of photos. He said it was because, “You look so pretty.” Yes, he is very sweet and he is the only person I would let put a camera two inches from my face in order to take close-ups.

This is one of the best photos.

Photo by Elizabeth’s hubby. 2014.

When I first saw it I thought, “That’s a nice photo of me. I look really happy, relaxed, and in love.” And those things are all true.

Then I noticed that I still had hair dye on my forehead near my hairline but I thought, “Who’s going to notice?”

Then I saw my crooked cleavage. I thought, “Oh!” I said to John, “My cleavage is off center!” He said, “Pfff, you look great.”

Now I’ve known about this asymmetry for a long time now. But this was the first time that I’d seen the unevenness in a photo of myself out in public. I had been wearing a low cut dress, displaying décolletage in all its cattywampus splendor.

Then I realized something. I didn’t really care all that much.

I am happy.

My husband loves me.

I’m still in the picture.

There’s nothing wrong with this picture.

Tags Body image, Breast Cancer, breast reconstruction, mindfulness

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness

Parts to whole

June 22, 2014 //

Ross McElwee is a documentary film maker originally from North Carolina, the state that is the top grower of tobacco in the U.S. In his 2003 film, Bright Leaves, he explores the industry, especially its impact on his family, who still live in the state. In one scene, he films an examination carried out by his brother, Tom, a physician, on one of his patients, a middle aged woman.

The dropping of her examination gown reveals an enormous black tumor that has replaced where the woman’s breast tissue used to be. It has been there, growing for a VERY long time. This is the first time she has gone to a physician about it. Tom asks her questions with a gentle professional tone that belies his obvious incredulity and alarm. His patient calmly answers the question while the audience feels the horror of, “Oh my God, she has REALLY bad cancer and she’s acting like she has a hangnail!”

After this horrific moment, McElwee zooms in onto just the tumor. No one being filmed is talking. And then he keeps the tumor in view for a very long time; it seemed like several minutes but it probably was not nearly that long.

The disgust and horror abated and I was able to look at the tumor, I mean REALLY look at it. By getting a close up view, it became an abstract and almost sculptural object. I looked at the color, the shape, and the texture. When the scene was over, I thought about it for a great while and obviously, I still think of it today. The horror I felt initially was real. And the tumor, up close, removed from its emotional associations, was also real. And then I integrated both of these experiences into my understanding of this woman, her physician, and her cancer.

There are upsetting aspects of life that keep us noticing our feelings about them. And we can get stuck on the fear. I know this very well being a naturally anxious person. It is easy for me to start fixing a problem that I assume is real because I feel anxious. The real problem may be that I have gotten myself overly stressed and that I need to slow down, think about something else, exercise, talk to someone, write, or something else that calms me.

I started my mindfulness practice two years ago to gain more balance and calm in my life. It has helped me enormously in this respect. I am learning to observe my life in small pieces but much more thoroughly. And in observing little pieces at a time, I find it much more tolerable. It is easier for me to move past the fear, anger, and sadness of the painful aspects of my life. It has helped me understand my experience of cancer, bit by bit, and has contributed dramatically to my emotional recovery.

Since mindfulness is an approach to experiencing life, it can be done at any or all times of the day. Mindfulness meditation is a more discrete practice. I did it several months as a resting meditation, twice per day, using a meditation timer. Then I noticed I was having the experience when walking, especially when I am in the woods, looking at flowers, or at the beach. Although I still do resting meditation, I more frequently do active meditation while on my walks.

When I first started meditating, I could see the benefit but frankly, I thought I was doing it wrong or cheating in some way because my brain was full of jumping monkeys. I was often thinking about other things, in rapid succession. My mind is typically active, but in the stress of cancer and for many months to come, it was kind of ridiculous. I knew that in mindfulness, I was just supposed to notice my distraction and this would typically redirect my thoughts. In other words, I wasn’t doing it “wrong”. Although I still had a little doubt in myself, it was relaxing to meditate and I was committed to my healthier life style so I persisted.
Over time, I have found that mindfulness has gently seeped into the rest of my life. It is not something that I have to schedule though it is a byproduct of other activities that I do on a regular basis such as see my psychologist or more frequently, writing this blog.

I find that mindfulness is more about “what to do” than “what not to do” To a person who has struggled with anxiety, guilt, and depression, I find this to be a very liberating approach. My main goal in practicing mindfulness was to reduce the distress in my life and build my emotional resilience.

It has done just that. It has also increased my experiences of joy, bliss, and contentment. In other words, mindfulness has not only helped me feel “less bad”, it has also helped me feel “more good.”

I have rediscovered myself as a physically active person. Most recently, I have rediscovered my visual talents. I typically think of myself as being very verbal, a talker, a person who thinks in words rather than images. And this is true. I will not deny this. If I were to do so, there would be a line up of friends and family who would remind me of my chatterbox ways.

But I am also a visual person. I excelled at mathematics. I used to be able to read music with a startling array of notes on the page, 32nd notes, 64th notes. I could play really really fast and I needed to be able to visually process that information as well as use the other parts of my brain, which translated the notes into motor movements as I touched the keys of my flute, supported my breath, made the quick changes to my facial muscles needed to produce different sounds.

Most importantly, I love visual arts. I have yet learned how to draw or paint but I am an artistic person. I am good with color. I am good at arranging physical spaces. I have an artistically decorated home and office. I love to make things with my hands. And as I’ve mentioned recently, I have recently resumed taking photos.

I take my camera with me on my walks. I used to take photos with my smartphone. I enjoyed it so much that I bought a “real” camera last April. Little did I realize when I bought that camera that I was adding another layer to my mindfulness practice.

My camera is not expensive but it is surprisingly good. In particular, the macro lens has allowed me to get up close to things and see them in a different way. I started taking photos of leaves and flowers up close. And then I got even closer.

When I get really close, the blooms become abstract and almost sculptural. It is like entering a new visual world. I am not an expert at either mindfulness or photography, but combining these practices has deepened my joy in life. I am noticing patterns, some interesting, some beautiful, everywhere. I am seeing the familiar in a different way.

Kurt Koffka long ago said, “The whole is other than the sum of its parts.” I believe this to be true. But I do find that in looking at parts, lots of them, bit by bit, by examining them in detail, I am not only seeing more of the whole but I am feeling more whole.

Rose

Poppy

Allium

Hibiscus

Passionflower

Tags Breast Cancer, mindfulness, mindfulness meditation, nature photography

Categories Breast cancer, Flora and Fauna, Mindfulness, Uncategorized

I am not that

June 15, 2014 //

I took a good number of art history classes while I was a student at the University of Washington. One of the classes, Asian Art, was taught by Glen Webb, a man originally from Kansas, if memory serves. Dr. Webb was an excellent instructor. He was interesting and knowledgeable. He was also daring and adventurous. I remember his describing the amazing Buddha sculptures carved into cliffs in Afghanistan. Even in the 80’s they were already being destroyed by Afghani soldiers. He gently lamented, “I had wonderful slides of them but I dropped them down a crevasse.”

Glen Webb was also the second person I’ve encountered in my life who comported himself with balance, an incredible calm, and peacefulness. (The first was Archbishop Emeritus of Seattle, Raymond Hunthausen.) Glen Webb was also a Zen Buddhist monk. He had followers in Japan.

I could be a ball of anxiety in those days, and for many years to follow. I thought to myself, “I want that. I want what he has.”

So I listened to how he described Buddhism. One of the things he taught us was the axiom, “I am that.” If we are all part of everyone else then there is no self. In other words, “I am that.”

No self? Hmm. “I don’t want that. I am not that. I am me”

Connection threatens identity. Identity threatens connection.

An experience like breast cancer can send us back to adolescence, which is a major period of identity development. “I that this but not that. I am not what you tell me that I am.”

“I am not cancer.” “I am not pink ribbons.” “I am not a survivor.” “I am not a warrior.”

If you ask me who I am, I will tell you, “Elizabeth MacKenzie.” (And if you have a pencil in your hand, I will note that it is “M-a-c” and that the ‘K’ is uppercase.

But if I really think about it, my name says very little about who I am. My name is not my identity. My name merely identifies me.

That doesn’t mean that my name is not important because it is important to me.

I am cancer, it is a part of my life whether it ever returns or not.

I am a cancer survivor if I think of it as a process rather than an end point. I am a cancer survivor until I die, whether I die from cancer or not.

I am a psychologist until I die.

I am a mother until I die.

I am a wife until I die.

I am a friend until I die.

I am that but I am not just that.

I am so many things.

And so are you.

Tags Breast Cancer, identity, mindfulness, Zen Buddhism

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Mindfulness

The Hiding Place

June 10, 2014 //

“Mom, do want to see the present I got Dad for Fathers’ Day?”

Seeing that she is headed to the front door of the house, I reply, “Yes, but where is it?”

“I hid it behind the blackberry bush. I want it to be a surprise!”

“You mean the blackberry bushes a couple of blocks from here?”

“No, the blackberry bushes right over here!”

We walked a couple of blocks (I was right about the location) and there it was, a blackberry bush along a neighbor’s retaining wall that spills over onto the side walk. My daughter reached behind it and pulled out my husband’s gift, wrapped in a beach towel. I convinced her to take it home in case it rains in the next few days.

The gift was also not very well hidden. My daughter is not good at hiding, whether it be things, her emotions, or her thoughts. She is not good at being sneaky even when she tries, her emotions are easy to read, and her thoughts if perhaps not shared immediately, come out eventually.

In some ways, this is incredibly refreshing and endearing. For her life to be out in the open to others and to herself. In this way, I think she takes after me. However, I learned the hard way in life that it is important to be able to trust someone before sharing private information. I made a lot of mistakes.

I grew up thinking that not sharing was hiding. Over time, I learned to respect my own need for privacy. I learned to set better limits with people and to better determine who is trustworthy and who has not yet earned my trust. Sometimes setting a limit means something as simple as not answering a question and changing the subject. People I don’t trust with my most vulnerable thoughts and feelings are also ones who are very likely to be offended if I say, “That’s private. I don’t want to talk about it.”

People used to ask, “Why do you have just one child?” Now these folks were close friends or family. They were people I’d JUST MET. As I’ve written in the past, I made evasive jokes or changed the subject. If someone says something rude to me, I don’t respond, “You hurt my feelings” unless I want to maintain or develop a close relationship with that person.

So with all I’ve learned about privacy and trust, how did I end up writing a very self-disclosing blog? One of the main reasons I started this blog was to process a very stressful and traumatic experience in a healthy way. As a psychologist I know that we can get stuck if we don’t integrate painful experiences into the rest of our lives. This is a balancing act. It means that I can neither hide from my cancer nor hide from the rest of my life.

At this present moment, I can’t think of another way I’d rather live. And if I do, you know I’ll probably end up writing about it here.

Tags Breast Cancer, coping with breast cancer, privacy, self-disclosure, trust

Categories Mindfulness