When I wrote my last blog I had just completed ten radiation treatments and two chemos. The day after I finished radiation I was on a plane to South America with my daughter, Gabi. Gabi was the lead Spanish speaking facilitator in an IOL training in the jungles of Peru. She is a gifted teacher. We trained over 60 teachers in a week. I arrived in Peru wearing a heavy back brace. The cancer had spread to my spine and caused compression fractures up and down my spine. However, I experienced so many miracles on the trip as I danced with the beautiful Peruvian people in the jungle village, and hiked the majestic Machu Picchu, Peru’s high altitude jewel and archeological treasure.
Then we were off to Ecuador to visit all the places Gabi had served as a missionary. That was a whole new adventure with our shower literally blowing up, fights with a rooster and chicken who had stolen my pants left outside to dry, a turned over bus on the steep narrow mountain roads that turns every curve into an adrenal pumping adventure as you pray that your vehicle doesn’t tumble over the cliff and silently express gratitude for motion sickness medication. After traveling all day by bus to finally reach our destination near midnight only to discover our hotel reservation had been canceled, dragging our luggage with us daily as we kept changing hotels, and the list goes on. However, the beautiful Ecuadorian people made up for any of the crazy antics we experienced. I fell in love with both Peru and Ecuador…the people are so humble, friendly, and funny. The best comment of the trip was when I was told: “You look like a Latin, just don’t open your mouth to speak and act like you are deaf.” That was their polite way of saying, your Spanish is horrible. 
Before I write more I want to put a disclaimer here. I have family members that have fought the battle of chemical induced anxiety and depression. For them happiness is not a matter of choice. No amount of prayer, service, or positive thinking can bring them out of their depression. It’s not something you can just shake off. It is as much an illness and disease as diabetes. It requires medical intervention and medication. It is a disease that needs to be de-stigmatized. To downplay the trials that those suffering from mental illness go through would be insensitive, offensive and cruel. After suffering from anxiety induced by chemo, I have more empathy and compassion for those who suffer from mental illness. So please, those suffering from some form of mental illness please know that this blog is not meant to belittle your challenges and suggest that all you have to do is choose to be happy. I admire and respect you, for I believe mental illness is one of the hardest challenges to live with. I know there is hope and you can get better and enjoy life.
After we arrived home I resumed chemo. The last three chemo treatments have been pretty brutal. Often people refer to those fighting cancer as warriors. However, during the past two months when I was so nauseated I could not eat I didn’t feel like a warrior. When my throat was so swollen I could not swallow my pills, I didn’t feel like a warrior. When the nerve pain seemed almost unbearable and lasted for days and weeks I didn’t fear like a warrior. When I did not have the strength to talk to my husband, family and friends, I did not feel like a warrior. When I lay in my bed for days watching rerun after rerun of “Seventh Heaven” and “The Gilmore Girls” I did not feel like a warrior. When a chemo induced anxiety and night sweats kicked in and I could no longer sleep at night, I didn’t feel like a warrior. When I passed out on the bathroom floor, I did not feel like a warrior. And in those moments when I began to feel self-pity and wanted to give up I did not feel like a warrior.
Then a couple of weeks ago I woke up one morning to heavy rainfall. It instantly reminded me of my blog “Life isn’t about waiting for the storms to pass put learning to Dance in the rain”. So I mustered all the strength I had to get dressed and go for a car ride. As the rain poured down, I suddenly felt an inner cleansing. I turned on my happy music and decided to drive up the canyon. I grew up on a mountain. My backyard was Mt. Olympus and whenever I was struggling with a problem or discouraged I would hike up my mountain to be alone, meditate, pray and just commune with nature.
As I drove to the top of the canyon road I came to a mountain lake reservoir surrounded by pine covered mountain peaks and breathtaking vistas. As I got out of my car and sat down next to the lake, I remember a feeling of spiritual warmth envelope me, a happy feeling returned, as things started to fall back into perspective in my head. The mists of clouds that covered the mountain began to lift and the sun appeared through the clouds as the rain stopped. I began to cry for the first time since I had my cancer diagnosis two years ago. They were not tears of grief but tears of joy.
That day my perspective changed. As a child I remember getting helium balloons, and after parading it around outside I would carry it carefully to my room and tie it to a chair. I was intrigued by watching it bounce back and forth in front of my heat vent. In the days to follow it would slowly drop lower to the ground until it was lying on the ground deflated and shriveled up.
How true this analogy is like our perspective in life. When we are in a state of gratitude and praise our heart is lightened, we are happy, buoyant, joyous, strong and free of earthly worries. When we are filled with despair, worry and hopeless we like the balloon become deflated, heavy, shriveled up, and bounce along the ground. How do we get the helium back in our balloon? It comes down to a change in perspective. The best helium for a human spirit is a large dose of gratitude. As we do so we become lightened in mood and spirit and we rise up again to face another day. Up high our world looks less scary, we can see the way through, and we are able to break free of the places where we are stuck.
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| Winnie |
My granddaughter’s nickname is “Winnie” like Winnie the Pooh. She is full of positivity and exudes happiness. People of all ages are drawn to her. Who doesn’t love Pooh bear?
When my middle daughter, Jess, was little I nicknamed her “Tigger”. She was full of enthusiasm, energy and literally bounced through life…it seemed nothing could destroy her joy. We called her our “grateful child.” She was grateful for everything. She even would thank me for grounding her. She seemed to find joy in any circumstance.
So on one end of the spectrum we have Tigger, bouncing through life on his tail on the other end we have Eeyore the whiny, pessimistic, negative donkey. In life we have two choices, we can choose joy and gratitude and look up or we can choose ingratitude, self-pity and look down.
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| Jessi |
So after that day in the mountains I knew I had to choose. I chose joy and my future once again looked bright. Even though I struggled and continue to struggle with the many side effects of chemo I had a new perspective. The Lord was teaching me that the greatest miracles are often what takes place within us.
I’m going to take a chance and be really vulnerable here. As I was working so hard to choose joy, recently I had the same dream three nights in a row. After the third night in a row it got my attention. In the dream I’m surrounded by bowling balls then suddenly I find myself alone in high school frantically looking for my locker. I can’t find it anywhere and I begin to panic. Then I discover it in a corner isolated from all the other lockers. My locker is dingy, small and beaten up unlike all the larger, nice, new lockers where all the popular kids hang out. In the dream I long for a new locker and to get rid of all the bowling balls that are weighing me down and causing me pain in the dream.
My sister is a gifted therapist and I asked her to help me interpret this dream. She asked me how I felt when I was surrounded by the bowling balls and could not find my locker. Immediately the thought came to my mind, I feel heavy, weighed down, overwhelmed. Then she said; “how do you feel about the locker”? Instantly the emotions came up of feeling frustrated, alone, isolated, sad, different from others but I longed to be normal again and be with the other kids laughing and going places. I longed for a new shiny locker not this old dingy one hidden in the corner. Then my sister said “It sounds like an excellent and powerful description of what you are going through with your cancer. There is a part of you that needs to acknowledge and process how hard this is for you. After all “buried feelings never die.”
I’m a first class stuffer of negative emotions. My dream and my sister taught me that it’s important to give myself permission to acknowledge my pain, heartache, sorrow and not to bury it within. I am learning there is a difference between acknowledging and accepting those feelings and then letting them go versus dwelling on them.
The thing that worked for me to let go was prayer. I spent some quiet time alone and just let it all out. I was surprised by all that came out as I was completely honest with my Father in Heaven. I expressed feelings emerging within of frustration, sorrow, pain, hurt, lonliness, disappointment, grief, weariness, helplessness, fears, hopes, broken dreams. I didn’t hold anything back. As I felt the feelings come forward, the tears flowed. I visualized a big black hairy ball that I began filling with all these negative emotions. I wanted to get rid of it. I visualized giving it to my Savior. As I handed it to him suddenly this black ugly ball was huge…the size of an exercise ball you sit on. It was heavy and I ended up rolling it to Him. I visualized Him effortlessly picking it up and slowly dissolving it until it was gone.
If I continue to stuff or dwell on those feelings they become toxic to me and turn negative and eventually they will find a way to surface whether it’s through dreams, illness or it begins to affect my attitude, and beliefs. However, it requires work on my part to acknowledge and let go and then fill my mind with thoughts of gratitude, praise, and faith. Kahlil Gibran said: “Joy and sorrow are inseparable…together they come and when one sits alone with you…remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
Even though recently I felt my burden was heavy and hard to bear and all I wanted to do is eat Captain Crunch cereal straight out of the box, which feels like razer blades cutting up the roof of your mouth, submitting cheerfully and feeling grateful was not on my to do list. The only thing that keeps you down and stuck are your thoughts. Being positive doesn’t necessarily come naturally for me, I have to make the decision daily. As Mother Theresa said: “To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.” I have had to train my mind to see the good, express gratitude, smile, choose positive thoughts and to trust in God. As a result my burdens have become light. I have felt a renewed strength and joy. My helium balloon is light and buoyant once again. Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said: “You will never go higher than your thinking.”
Elizabeth Smart who endured nine months of daily rape and abuse at the hands of her kidnapper is an example of the power of choice. She said: “We all have trials. We all have ups and downs. But we are the masters of our fate. I could have allowed myself to be handicapped by what happened to me. But I decided early on I had only one life and I wasn’t going to waste it.” (Smart and Stewart, My Story)
Everyone at some point in their lives will feel the rain pour down upon them. But we each have the power to choose our own attitude and learn to dance in the rain. I can say with a sure personal knowledge that trials are for our own good if we have patience and choose to trust in God. He wants to show us that he can make us more than we ever dreamed we could be as we let go of the fear and simply trust Him. So although I still have some tough days I have chosen to control what is in my power, to feel gratitude, to submit cheerfully with His help, to choose joy, and then I take the rest and lay it at His feet.
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| Dancing in Peru |
My compassion for others has increased and my relationship with my Savior has deepened. The greatest miracles are intangible. CHOOSE JOY TODAY…after all it is helium for the heart!!!
