Limbo was brought up in our last meeting. We all have experienced this at some point in our lives, and cancer can exacerbate the intensity of limbo. The feelings of limbo between appointments can seem vast and overwhelming. We can linger in limbo as we wait for lab results or to hear back from our doctors. There is a listlessness that comes with this feeling. I certainly felt that limbo before I started facilitating our group.
Cancer has this way of forcing us to face what we need, becoming our own health care advocates at times, while allowing ourselves to be taken care of by others. Individually, we have learned about various forms of self-care to cope with different sources of stress in our lives. Today, we will explore these various forms of self-care and learn about a deeper form of self-care, self-nurturing.
“…expressive writing has downstream effects not only for those who have endured very negative experiences, such as trauma but for almost anyone.” DiMenichi et al., 2019. The farther away in time I get from my diagnosis and surgeries, the less I identify as a cancer patient, and increasingly I can see myself as a cancer survivor. […]
Vulnerability as a coping tool I made it through yesterday, and here I am ready to face today. Key learnings: I will take care of myself; I will not neglect myself. I can make healthy choices. I will find struggle and I have the mindset to move through a spectrum of emotions; feeling, reckoning, rumbling […]