Grateful Seeing

Cancer research shows many survivors discover that their cancer journeys give them gratitude for the little things they once took for granted.  Like the smell of freshly mowed grass, summer rain, or the unconditional love of pets.  Gratitude is not just a feeling, but also a choice that becomes a life orientation that has been called “grateful seeing”, or seeing life through a lens of what is working.  Feelings of gratitude, appreciation and other positive emotions better synchronize the heart and brain creating a body-wide efficiency generating emotional balance, and increasing mental clarity and brain function.  Grateful seeing looks at the blessing, learnings, mercies, and protections that are ever present in our lives.  Gratitude turns what we have into enough!  Initiate a grateful seeing practice this weekend.

Openheartedness & Gratitude

How does gratitude fit into a cancer journey that turns lives upside down filling the future with uncertainty and stress?  She was tired; you could see it in her eyes, posture, and feel it in her voice.  For the first half-hour we didn’t talk, but at some point she said, “I’m Beth, been coming here for 12 years, lost my husband 5 years ago to colon cancer, and now it’s trying to get me”.  I told her I was a prostate guy, she smiled and said, “slow going huh?”. 

As we talked I learned that she lived down the street from her oldest son and family, and there was nothing better than grandkids love.  As we shared stories about our grandkids I could feel her voice change and see the joy lift her tired eyes.  She so missed her husband’s presence in her cancer journey, but was so grateful for her grandkids love that had healed her heart.  Gratitude leads to openheartedness and life fullness.  Start your gratitude journal today!

Dreams of the Heart

The summer before I started graduate school at UNT I lived in Corpus Christi, Texas.  Ten years had passed since I’d learned to surf on the beach at Port Aransas, but the dream was still there.  Living in Corpus, which is just 40 miles from Port Aransas was like a dream come true.  My day job was selling advertising for a local newspaper, but somehow I managed to surf most days.   

Why surfing?  On bad nights in the Army when the silence of waiting was deafening, I’d dream of surfing, being one with the waves, and myself.  It was really a lazy summer, filled with too much sun and surf.  However, it was the summer I learned how important it is to “start with the dreams of your heart”.  Einstein called our heart dreams sacred gifts.  Gifts that many had never learned to listen to, thus never learning to surf and be one with the universe and themselves.  Listen to your heart today.                  

Still Spaces

A front row seat at Ovations put me four-feet from the base player in Jose-Miguel Yamal jazz band Sunday night.  The stage lights played off his guitar the color of sunset as he plucked and popped the strings with his fingers and thumb.  The music was a blend of jazz and Latin rhythms, soaked my tired soul, and brought tears as I celebrated living. 

My oncologist told me last week he’d hoped for eleven months with my current oral chemo, but it wasn’t really working.  We’d wait one more month, but it was probably time to try another drug.  We all have bad days.  Days we feel like we need to cram as much as we can into each hour, but I’ve learned cramming life leaves no time to be alive.  It’s through the spaces we leave ourselves that we breathe in life and experience full living.  Today, practice leaving space for full living.  

Slipping Away

It was easy to get caught up in his eyes for it was almost as if he spoke through them, even though the words came softly out of his mouth.  They had a grayish color with an undertone of sunrise yellow, surrounded by small-etched wisdom wrinkles revealing years of living.  We’d started with cancer waiting room small talk, but if you’ve been on a cancer journey long you quickly move to those things in life that really matter.  He talked about his daughter and grandkids and their love for him, and worry about his pain and the quickly approaching end of his journey.  Toward the end of our conversation, he paused, then smiled and talked about his dreams of just slipping away.

I blinked hard to try to hold back my tears, but they quietly streamed down my face.  As I wiped at my tears, a nurse called my name and with his eyes, I heard him say, “Thanks for listening, bless you”.  This morning I woke with the Simon & Garfunkel tune Slip Sliding Away, playing in my head, thought about his eyes, and wondered if this morning he’d slipped away ….  “Slip slidin’ away / Slip slidin’ away / You know the nearer your destination / The more you’re slip slidin’ away”.

Happiness in a Storm

The front desk was backed up and the check in line was getting longer, as I watched him slowly move inch by inch with his wife by his side.  He was big, wore scuffed up cowboy boots, a work shirt, and a dirty ball cap.  When I came out from the diagnostic lab I went up to his chair, “You shine those boots for your appointment?” he smiled.  They were from North East Louisiana, and he had been coming to MD Anderson for 5 years with kidney cancer.  He and his wife talked about the heavy rain they had driven through to get to Houston and through the high water crossing with cattle standing in water up to their shoulders.  They talked about the towns where they had taken short breaks from the storm, getting a little rest so they could start driving again. 

The more we talked I realized he could have been talking about life and our dance with life’s challenges and despairs.  Being fully human is feeling our mortality, but saying YES to our aliveness, which feeds our resilience and gets us back on the road even in high water.  Years ago, I had dinner with Dr. Wendy Harpham, author of Happiness in a Storm, who teaches survivors, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain.” 

Doubts and Regrets

The night my mother died, I played handball instead of making my nightly visit to the hospital.  My dad frantically tried to reach me, but it wasn’t till I got out of the shower and picked up the phone that I realized I’d chosen the wrong night for handball.  When I returned from my Army tour, I had much to let go before I could start a new life, and like most returning soldiers really didn’t know where to start.  In a weird way, I had doubts about walking around without my flak vest, 45 pistol, M16, and dog tags. 

Today is a cancer care day, starting with lab work followed up by a visit with my oncologist this afternoon.  My cancer journey has changed the way I respond to the doubts and regrets that rise up.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a long way to go, but I’ve learned not to let doubts and regrets overwhelm my life energy.  It’s focusing on the “now” that provides a grace opening up my heart and sustaining my life energy.  

Getting Better at Having Cancer Together

We are getting better at having cancer.  After my diagnosis in 2007 followed by surgery, radiation treatments, and years of hormone therapy and other drug concoctions, we had learned as a couple most of the basic “live with cancer” skills.  In 2013, MaryBeth was diagnosed with breast cancer and we began down a similar path of surgeries, radiation, and a mix of drug therapies, but the “live with cancer” skill set had changed. 

At times, we both can be challenged by low energy, which leads to household slip-ups, and forgetfulness.  Cancer can be distracting when our mind chatter is too loud, and makes really listening to the most important person in our life hard.  Worse, it’s almost impossible to put fear into words that you know the other person does not what to hear.  The good news, we are starting to learn the new set of “live with cancer” skills.  We’ve come up with a whole new set of rituals that we share when we are together strengthening our commitment to each other.  We are getting better at having cancer together because of our love.   

Aliveness

The summer before college, I worked at Camp Union on Otter Lake in Greenfield, New Hampshire.  Much of the summer, I served as a hiking counselor leading small groups of kids through the beauty of the White Mountain trails.  I’d left home worried about my mom’s cancer, and distressed by the many young men my age dying in Vietnam.  It was a summer for deep introspection, and too many tears.  The poems I wrote that summer followed my feelings and were dark, but the kids and the beauty of my surroundings kept bringing me back to believing in my “aliveness”.  This past Saturday, as I paddled back to our pier surrounded by the beauty left by hard rains, I stopped and took in a deep breath of my aliveness, a gift from a summer long ago.  Today, take a moment to experience your aliveness! 

Building Engaged Resilience

I’d started with a quote from Nepo’s new book, Endless Practice, and how life is not about arriving, but growing and engaging in being human.  With a mix of stories and the work of Bennett, Everly, Seligman, and Fredrickson, the talk followed a path from adaptation, resilience, thriving, to flourishing. I ended with, “What will you do different tomorrow to engage your resilience?”  Susan drove me back to the Detroit-Metro airport and by 5:15pm, the small twin-engine regional jet was in the air.

 

Clouds covered the whole trip back, and as we started our decent into a rainy Houston, the turbulence increased.  Martha (92 years old) was sitting in the aisle seat, and headed for her great granddaughters high school graduation.  As the bumps got worse, I could feel her body lean towards me, as she was desperate to see out the window.  I gently took her closest hand, and just held it.  She took a deep breath and her calmness was almost immediate.  When we landed, she silently mouthed, “thank you”.  Today, engage in being human and grow.

Engaged Resilience

In preparation for my keynote to the MI Wellness Council, I’ve been reviewing the work of George Everly from Johns Hopkins who studied the resilient characteristics of Navy Seals, law enforcement officers, and children of the Great Depression.  These were all people who had coped with unfathomable challenging circumstances, and yet somehow came out the other side with their spirits and integrity intact.  Everly’s research found seven characteristics of highly resilient people:

• ·       Ability to think calmly under stress
• ·       Act decisively, once a decision is reached
• ·       Tenacity is essential
• ·       Connectedness and support which may be the single most powerful predictors
• ·       Doing what’s right or integrity ensures connections to others
• ·       Self-discipline and self-control
• ·       And, the final core characteristic, and upon which the other six rest is optimism and positive thinking. 

If you are like me, you started considering your personal strengths against these characteristics.  Right?  The good news, Seligman in his HBR article, Building Resilience (2011), tells us we learn to be resilient through life experience, and training that addresses these characteristics.  I can’t wait to start teaching some cancer survivorship classes around these characteristics.  Do you have some ideas for these classes you are willing to share?  Let’s talk!

Words Can Change Your Brain

Standing on our pier, watching the changing reflection of the clouds and trees, reminded me how much my self-talk affects how I feel about myself, and the world around me.  When diagnosed as a stage III cancer survivor my self-talk and view of me changed, but not profoundly.  This past year when my cancer moved to metastatic I instantly changed my life view and decided I would be a cancer “thriver”, not just a cancer survivor.  The key to this change has been my self-talk.  In the book, Words Can Change Your Brain, the authors describe how a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.  My daily wellness practices are core to my efforts to be a cancer thriver, but I’ve learned my resiliency is built one word at a time.

MD Anderson Caregiver Week

Monday, I taught a beading workshop to start the week of activities offered to caregivers and family members of patients to celebrate Caregiver Week.   Caregivers play a critical role in our health and long-term care systems, but the American Psychological Association reports the physical, psychological, and financial stressors they experience are significant.  When compared to non-caregivers, caregivers report increased physical ailments, higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression.  Many report inadequate time for sleep, self-care, and other health related activities that leads to lower levels of well-being and life satisfaction. 

I told my class on Monday, “You can’t be a loving caregiver, unless you take care of yourself.” They made simple wooden bead bracelets of different color combinations as reminders of how important it is for them to stay anchored in positive self-care practices.  I watched a caregiver make a bracelet first for her husband a cancer survivor, who sat reading a newspaper.  When she finished the bracelet and put it on his wrist, he gave her a kiss with watery eyes, and then sat with her at the beading table and helped her make a bracelet for herself.  As they started to leave, he came back and said to me, “Thanks, I hadn’t realized how much she’d lost herself in my care.  When we finished her bracelet I saw and felt her old smile come back.” 

Take care of yourself today!

Touched by an Angels Wisdom

Precious
Never let you forgot his, specialness
He always had something to say
And if you didn’t listen, he’d just get louder

But there was a wisdom side
Of Precious,
I could feel it in his snuggle
Hear it in his purr

“Tell me
What will you do today,
With this one  
precious day”

__________________________________________
Thanks Precious

Sprint for Life 2015 – Moments of Coming Alive

The 18th Sprint for Life 5K Run/Walk was this past Saturday. Why is it important? In 2015, 22,000 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and about 15,000 will die, making ovarian cancer the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancers. There is no screening or early detection test available, so only 25% of ovarian tumors are detected before they have progressed to an advanced stage. My pre-race job is the adult leader of a group of high school volunteers who put up all the banners. At race time I am at the start and finish line serving as the MC. Every year as I provide pre-race information I have to work past my initial tears as I yell out, “this event is about you and defeating ovarian cancer”! About the time, I get control of my tears the Star Spangle Banner is sung, and I can’t stop crying as I feel the emotion of the moment. Nipo tells us these moments of great openness are doorways to living more wholeheartedly, moments of authenticity and coming alive.

Where have all the Flowers Gone

Today, as I rode my bicycle over Brays Bayou Bridge I stopped to watch the almost full moon sink past the tree line into the bayou, and slowly wash away my tears.  I had waken to the soft sounds of “Where Have all the Flowers Gone”, a long forgotten song playing deep inside, and memories of standing by the Vietnam Memorial Wall, as its verses brought back memories and tears.  I had an amazing visit with my good friend Len yesterday, who always raises questions opening doors deep inside of me, growing my understanding of my humanity.  Where I’ve been, experiences I’ve shared, choices I’ve made, and how as Desmond Tutu so eloquently said, “My humanity it bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”  I hope you have a Len in your life!