The HOPE course is going well. It’s more time consuming than I realised but it’s having benefits already. I am beginning to feel at long last that I can finally sort out the jumble of mixed emotions that are constantly going around in my head.
Last week we learnt about positivity. We were told that it’s Ok to have some negative emotions as you can’t be positive all the time. However the emotions need to have a healthy balance, we need a higher proportion of the positive ones.
With this in mind I have made some important changes. Firstly I am not watching the news on TV or reading newspapers any more. They have an unhealthy bias towards bad things that happen and I always end up feeling gloomy afterwards. I feel much more cheerful for taking this step.
Secondly the course has made me realise that I am getting no benefit whatsoever from being an active member of the local hospital patients’ group. I thought it would be nice to meet some new people and I thought I would benefit from knowing I was helping others. However when I wrote down the emotions that it brings I found that every single one of them was negative. So I have decided to leave and as soon as I made the decision I felt as if an enormous burden has been lifted from me.
Lastly a few people have suggested to me recently that I should spend less time with cancer patients and more time with people who haven’t been affected by cancer. I have given this some thought and I’ve decided that it’s not important whether someone has had cancer or not. What is important are the emotions a person makes me feel.
For example I often chat to a neighbour who is a cancer survivor. We have an agreement to talk about other subjects than cancer, but I find whenever I see her I’m automatically reminded about cancer. I must admit that because of this I’ve often kept conversations brief in the past. However when I thought about it I don’t actually feel anything negative, just gratitude that she and I are both recovering well. So I’ve been spending more time in her company and it’s been an enjoyable experience . In contrast to that I have been analyzing my relationship with another neighbour. She campaigns for a cause which I don’t agree with at all, and on reflection all she does is make me feel irritated and annoyed. So I’m going to talk to her less from now on.
Big changes already! And that was just week one. Hopefully the next five weeks will prove to be equally beneficial.
