In a recent Community News Blog we met our new guest blogger Amy, who struggled with her emotions after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Amy has since used this experience to write a blog to help others manage their mental health through cancer and is keen to share some of the resources which helped her. If you missed the first part of the blog, ‘Meet Amy – Finding a way to move towards acceptance and peace’, you can find it by clicking here.
Amy told us about a time when she felt that cancer brought a lot of uncomfortable emotions to the surface. She says, “I was tempting to stuff them back down and pretend I was OK. Maybe I did this a little bit on the surface. Sometimes you don’t feel comfortable sharing your darkest thoughts. Maybe you feel a need to protect your loved ones. But I felt a strong internal need to be honest with myself…”
“I was scared. I felt grief. I felt panic. I was afraid. I was angry. I also felt shame.”
“I was scared. I felt grief. I felt panic. I was afraid. I was angry. I also felt shame. Shame is a difficult emotion. There was quite a lot of emotion for me wrapped up in my fitness, my health, my body, my fertility, my plans for a family.”
Amy explains how at times these feelings were overwhelming and she wasn’t sure if there was a way through. “Maybe I just had to suffer. But there was another voice in my head, a voice that was calm. When I experienced despair it asked me, ‘Has despair taught you anything before? Have you ever got to the end of despair and found answers?’ It was easy to answer ‘no’…”
“…I wanted to feel peaceful, accepting, loving…”
“Despair, panic, worrying, the need to control, to survive, to win, to succeed - all felt horrible… eventually I realised this wasn’t the path I wanted to take. I wanted to feel peaceful, accepting, loving.”
“I began searching for information on accepting difficult circumstances and came across Stoic Philosophy.”
“I began searching for information on accepting difficult circumstances and came across Stoic Philosophy. The 3 key Stoic philosophers are Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. They were Philosophers from Ancient Greece and Rome, writing more than 2,000 years ago.”
“Stoic Philosophy was a revelation to me. It still helps me now.”
“Stoic Philosophy gave me a path to follow out of the darkness. The Stoics showed me I had a choice. They told me there were some things in my control and some things out of my control. They told me it was how I was looking at the situation that was causing suffering, not the situation I found myself in. They encouraged me to put my focus on what I could control - my values, my beliefs, my thoughts, my actions, rather than trying to change what was happening or pretend I was OK. Stoic Philosophy was a revelation to me. It still helps me now.”
Here are some of Amy’s favourite quotes:
“Do not hope that every situation goes your way, but hope that you can go with every situation.”
“It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of death or pain.”
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
“Think not this is misfortune, but to bear this worthily is good fortune.”
Amy suggests that if you feel like you would benefit from having greater power, choice and emotional freedom, it may be worth finding out more about Stoic Philosophy and has some tips to help you get started:
Amy’s tips
Have you heard of stoic philosophy before and has this helped you? Do you have your own experience of managing your emotions when affected by cancer? If you’d like to share with the Community, please comment below, or you can email the Community team at community@macmillan.org.uk
