Working With Our Emotions – Introduction
Disclaimer: The tips and thoughts in this blog are shared from my personal experience. If your emotions are affecting your ability to function in daily life, please ask for professional help – hospitals and the NHS (UK) offer therapy, counselling and other mental health services. Check with your health provider.
This blog is for everyone and for those of you, who’ve been newly diagnosed with cancer, those of you living with cancer, those of you in remission, for your loved ones and carers and those of you who are in bereavement, mourning the loss of someone you loved dearly. I write from my own experience, and naturally some of what I say may resonate with you and some of it may not.
I had already started crying in the hospital when I was told I had stage 3 bowel cancer, and the thing I remember doing, was drinking tea out of a Styrofoam cup and eating ginger biscuits, the packeted kind you get in hotel rooms and hospital waiting areas, next to those tea making machines with the little plastic milk sachets, sweeteners and wooden coffee stirrers. I kept sipping my tea in between the tears and the sobs I was trying to hold back, as I was told I would possibly need open stomach surgery and be away from work for at least six months. I remember a Macmillan nurse said, she’d call me in the morning and handed me two of her cards. My mind went to many places and at the same time I was painfully in the room with my beating heart.
When I drove home it was dark, the rain was lashing against the windscreen and all the traffic lights, red to orange to green melted and blurred.
When I got home, I called my mother. I asked her if she’d received my text. She said, “No”. I said, “It’s not good. It’s cancer”. My mother paused for an instant and then said, “Oh darling, oh darling”. She said it brought back all the feelings when she was told the news that her father, my grandpa Eric, had had a stroke. I was exhausted in the way that emotional shock wears you out. My mother sounded exhausted. I went to bed with this new knowledge and told myself that tomorrow was a new day and that I’d face it somehow.
Let me tell you straight away, cancer is a Life-Shaker, a Turn-One’s-World-Upside-Downer, a Life-Threatener, a Life-Changer and tragically sometimes a Life-Destroyer. Cancer comes unexpectedly and arrives messily, and it shakes everything up inside us. It sweeps us off our planned paths and demands that we pay attention to the Now. Is it any wonder then that we are going to feel overwhelmed by not only our feelings, but by the new world we now find ourselves in? The world of hospital appointments, medical language, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, syringes, surgery, blood, wounds and scars, the devastation that cancer brings to our loved ones, the aborted dreams we might have had, the damage it does to our bodies? Cancer does not pick and choose, it does not wait, it is not polite, cancer does not follow the rules of etiquette, it is not civilised.
It’s only natural we’re going to go through a whole range of complex feelings – though in our own unique ways and according to our individual circumstances – and I’m here to say we must not be hard on ourselves for feeling all of the emotions. Our emotions are what make us human and they exist within us to help us to survive – yes even the most ‘difficult’, ‘wild’, ‘impolite’ ones – those emotions we’re often taught to believe are ‘unacceptable.’
There were also many days when I was going through cancer, when I felt total joy, hope and gratitude for my life and for myself and for all those kind people who were helping me.
I think sometimes in the media, cancer can be over-simplified – that it’s a ‘monster ‘we need to ‘fight’ against, then we’ll ‘win’ and ‘hurrah, we’ll be able to get back to living our lives just as we had before.’ Sorry, but cancer isn’t like that. It’s ‘nuanced’ as my Macmillan nurse said, when she called me the next day. It’s unpredictable, it’s terrifying, educational, a wake-up call, confronting, horrible, revealing, sorrow inducing, violent, character building, transformative – and when faced with our own demise, can make us come through stronger, and more connected to our own selves as well as to others and the world around us. Cancer has certainly softened my heart, forced me to slow down, and appreciate the small things in life, the people in my life, to appreciate my own vulnerability and myself. To some degree, cancer has taken the edges off my fear and anxiety.
My healing journey – emotional healing as well as bodily healing – is still continuing. It’s a work-in-progress that evolves and adapts and teaches me along the way.
During my treatments, I wanted to stay positive and be fully involved in the medical procedures I went through. But it’s not possible to be ‘positive’ and ‘strong’ the whole time. I think sometimes, because cancer is such a frightening illness, and the thought of getting it, is very frightening, people want to reassure us that “You’ve got this!” “You can beat this”, “Be positive” and I confess I’ve said those things to fellow cancer sufferers myself. When people say these things, they’re coming from a well-intentioned compassionate place. But often I believe, we’re conditioned to wear a ‘strong’ face so other people don’t have to witness those messier, awkward, uncomfortable, vulnerable feelings, perhaps because it reminds them of their own vulnerability? So many times, when we cry, we’ll try to hold back the tears and the sobs, as I did when drinking tea from the Styrofoam cup in the hospital, or say “I’m sorry” for crying. Other times emotions such as rage, anger, grief, and fear are referred to as ‘negative’ as if to say we should not be feeling them or we need to force ourselves to be ‘bright and happy’ or ‘strong, positive, a fighter’ – acceptable to others.
I believe that rather than knocking ourselves for feeling anger, grief, fear, guilt, even jealousy – (I was sometimes jealous of those with smooth scar free tummies and perhaps if I’m completely honest I still am! – more about The Beauty of Scars in another blog) – we need to have unconditional compassion for ourselves, whatever we’re going through emotionally.
Whilst, we don’t want to be totally consumed by these emotions to the point where we can’t function, it’s equally important to give those feelings the space and constructive expression they need. We can ‘vent’ and give ‘voice’ to these feelings in non-destructive ways. We can talk to a counsellor or close friend, we can write them down, we can ‘talk’ to our emotions. Hospitals will also provide counselling and therapy services.
I really recommend talking with our feelings, having a conversation with our bodies, the physical and emotional pain we have in our bodies. I talk with my body, my aches, my pains, my sorrows, my disappointments, my fears and anxieties daily! When I was diagnosed, I even talked to my tumour!
Let’s take a look at the Big Four – what I call the ‘Uncomfortable Emotions’ and I’ll share with you my experiences of going through them and the ways I’ve discovered working with those feelings in creative ways. Again, remember this is from my own experience, and some of what I say may resonate with you, some of it may not!
