The last blog post I wrote made me think further about living well in the face of living with cancer, and transitioning into feeling positive intuitively.
I was thinking that living with cancer is amongst other things a time of living with both reflections and actions. Looking backwards can be a little dangerous and frustrating, because that old question “what if” can’t be answered. I think everyone with, or affected by cancer, asks themselves that a lot, especially initially, but there’s a point when ”what now” becomes much more relevant.
What now is living in the moment, we can’t undo what’s been done but we can affect what happens next, by the actions we take and the choices we make. If we appreciate things as they are right now and what we are doing, in the moment, we don’t need to look backwards to what can’t be changed or further ahead to what we can’t predict.
What now is about about making a shift from a back foot to a front foot perspective. I don’t suggest any of this is particularly easy given what can be very difficult circumstances, physically and emotionally, but there’s a start point, which is about accepting things as they are and then considering what you can do. The old adage “Life is what you make it” really is very true, because even in trying times we have the option to decide what to do, and if the event is in our control we can do it, and if it’s not in our control we can decide how we respond to it.
I think we can find encouragement from the ownership of our circumstances, and how we approach our lives in response, and it can be quite refreshing to shift our focus towards doing what we want to do and not feel confined. Never being glib or dismissive of our situation of course.
Ultimately it’s a mindset challenge, but it is possible to gain a sense of liberation, and with it a sense of satisfaction, when you decide to take the lead and address the opportunities that you want to.
