Take a deep breath

It feels so good to take a deep breath, take a few. Let the air in through your nose and travel through your body, let it fill you up and exhale --- let it go.

I just started back to yoga; I had been away from it since my mom died twelve years ago. I used to be faithful. Every Tuesday at noon for over ten years with the yogi Judith Light (isn’t that a lovely name?).  My dear friend ---a sister of the heart- … went with me. And then when mom died I looked at her sedentary lifestyle and started running.  Running feels so good---and yet it is as different from yoga as can be.

So I’m back after a long time, and it feels delicious. I love grounding my feet to the Earth, thinking purposely of the placement of each part of my body and focusing on my breath. A function that is so truly automatic. We forget how core it is to life.

No matter where you are in your process with your illness, just diagnosed, or knee deep in it with surgery and treatment---or now living as a survivor---- remember to take a deep breath-

You are alive.

You are here.

You are strong.

You are beautiful.

YOU CAN DO THIS!!!

How do you practice being present?  Being grounded?  Being centered?

Look up!

Life passes so quickly.  So much to do.  So many meetings, appointments, responsibilities, chores...you know exactly what I mean.  Sometimes I forget to be present, to be aware to go more gently in my day.  

I was out out walking Max(my darling golden doodle puppy) today.  We were on our regular route.   Several blocks down, hang a right, another right and walk along with bike path named the Green Way.  Today, I happened to look up.   I saw this magnificent, old tree.  I'm sure if was over 100 years old   Huge trunk that split into three large offshoots.  Majestic.  I had to stop, relish in the sturdiness of it, the grounding of it, the leaves backlit by the sun.  

What kind of rush have I been in before on this walk?   Where was my focus?  How could I miss this beautiful site in my own sphere?    

Nite to self, "LOOK UP!"   See the beauty.  Remember life is happening all around us, we just need to see it. What do you see when you look up? 

Swimming in the Rain

Healing time, we all need it. A place to BE, to relax, to rejuvenate, turn the mind OFF. Four years ago, after I finished radiation, I needed a place to go and let myself settle after CANCER. My husband found a small place in Jamaica, The Jamaica Inn.  A little slice of heaven, a place where there are two TV’s and not much to do. The staff welcomes you home and it’s as if the rest of the world floats away. That’s how it feels.

 We’ve been three times now. We missed last year because of my sister’s stroke. Such a hard year – So much grief, loss, unknowing. Coming back here this year feels like returning to our life – a life where we can be happy to be alive – to take joy in our minds and bodies.

Our last day – it poured buckets. It started while we were on the beach, a torrential downpour. We were still having lunch under our palapas.  We had a decision to make – wait it out on the beach, go in to our room…. or what? What else?

A Venezuelan family ran for the water – laughing, squealing with joy – we made a choice to run, now, fast into the water. Five of us out there now, not hunkered down in the shelter – laughing swirling, putting our faces up to the rain. It was delicious – juicy – perfect. All these beautiful drops perfectly peppering the sea. 

My last swim – I floated looking at the sky – happy to be whole and alive, I made snow angel movements in the water, I prayed, I was grateful.

Choices – What can you do about the rain? It comes with or without our consent. It comes when we don’t want it to during our beautiful lives –

So what we choose to do with the rain is what matters most. 

Catch and Release

I don't fish, don't want to fish, don't think I would enjoy fishing, and yet I work up this morning with this phrase in my head.  I started thinking about it, what would it mean to catch and release.  It struck me that it's a polarity.  Something you have to hold both poles of.  I'd imagine these fisherman enjoy the solitude, the planning, the right flies, and yet with all of this, they don't want or kill or do harm.  So they catch and release.

Barry Johnson, who wrote Polarity Management, frames a polarity as a problem that will not be solved because you have to hold both things.  They need each other.  I was at a party this weekend and a friend who is a lung cancer survivor asked me about how I live life post-cancer.  How do I handle the anxiety of the next mammogram, breast cancer exam, MRI.  I thought a lot about this.  It's a polarity, one where I have to be aware and another where I have to be free from fear.

Aware.  I have to keep up appointments-- oncologist, radiologist, surgeon. Maintain my health, take my medications, do my monthly breast checks.  I can't be ignorant to the fact that I have had CANCER, the big C, and yet I have to be free from the fear, the worry, the knowing it might come back. I have to live my life, enjoy my health, accept that I have the tools to handle it if it comes back.  I know that I have the strength and courage, the support system, doctor's who can get me through it - no matter the outcome. So aware and free.

Other polarities in my life right now have to do with a sister who is now disabled. Of course these polarities probably also exist for those facing major diseases, impairments, injuries. The polarities are:

• Control and openness
• Detached and involved
• Firm and loving

Very hard polarities to manage. They can not be solved. How much do you step in when judgment has been impaired? How much do you let go and know mistakes will be made? How firm are you about rights and wrongs and when do you need to be loving and compassionate? When is it time to detach and when is your involvement necessary?

Maybe you have an elderly parent right now or even a teenager. These polarities are part of our lives, sick or healthy, we can not SOLVE them - how scary is that? So we must manage them, know the warning signs of when they've tipped too far on one side or the other.  Trust we are capable to deal and cope.

What polarities are you facing right now? How do you hold both?

My New Friend, Patience

“Where have you been for eight months?” I’m sure some of you may be asking….actually, I’ve been wondering the answer to that question myself!

My oldest sister had a massive right brain stroke at the end of May.  A horrible, terrible stroke-I thought cancer sucked (don’t get me wrong- it does), but her stroke has given me a new perspective on my health.

Eight months ago, the thought of my calendar, schedule, work, to-do list, and throw in my daughter’s wedding In September filled my busy life. SO much to do in so little time…and then this.

The last I heard from Becky was on Saturday night, May 21st. A picture was sent on our family ‘What’s App.’ She had been sailing that day- such a glorious, happy, sun-filled picture. She was in her element…and then nothing. Radio silence.  Calling and texting her- nothing. We began to worry by the end of Sunday night. By Monday morning, my other sister and I were very concerned.  I called a friend of hers who found another friend to go look at her house. Becky was there and had been on the floor for almost 2 days.

What did we do? My other sister and I left our lives, ones that felt so full, busy, scheduled & committed and dumped everything for a month to go to California. (A crisis does this). It gives a completely different lens on life. What once seemed important was no longer the most important thing in life.

That month seems like a time out of place. A blur, surreal, indescribable in what was endured, accomplished and overcome. Who knew you could return a new Lexus to the dealer?…(that’s a story for another time…).

Many days I felt myself hovering over the situation, watching the pain and the exhaustion. Observing the dynamics- truly, you can’t take the coach consultant out of me- Side note; I even wrote a family orientation program for the acute rehab center she was in for two weeks- I couldn’t resist! They needed it so much, I couldn’t help myself.

Those days were littered with the tiniest of achievements. My sister feeling the sense of touch on her left leg and arm, turning her head to the left and finally swallowing and eating after 4 weeks.

Yes, my new friend patience. We’ve become very close.  Some days (like yesterday), Patience must have been out of town. I even had a good old fashioned scream out loud…It felt SO good- a release. Hopefully Patience heard wherever she trotted off to and will come back to hang out with soon. I need her now more than ever…

Too-da-loo 2016!

OK is that even how you spell too-da-loo?  Handwriting my blog doesn’t afford me the opportunity for spell check, so I can’t be sure.  Does anyone, besides me, even say too-da-loo anymore?  I guess I could’ve said goodbye, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu, but none of those had certain flair, a certain joie de vivre.  So too-da-loo 2016 it is!

Last day of the year, and much to look at.  First of all, I am only one day away from the end of my annual one-mile-a-day challenge. It starts Thanksgiving and goes until New Year’s Day.  My dear friend, colleague and cancer supporter, Tanya, got me going on this about three years ago.  When she proposed the idea, it seemed easy, run one mile a day over the holidays.  No big whoop.  For people who exercise ever day, maybe not.  For those of us who are 3-4 times a week people, it takes a real commitment.  The most amazing part of it is setting the goal and staying committed no matter what.  This year included freezing rain, night runs (which are so fun because I see all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood!), a fast walk in the airport terminal (I figure a mile any way you get it counts) and I’ve even slept in my workout clothes for an early morning run-true.  Point being, it’s not the mile it’s the goal.  Setting a fixed vision in the mind’s eye and finding how obstacles get pushed aside when you are determined to achieve it.  By New Year’s Day, I feel good about my self, healthy, and have a great boost to my spirit!

Visions, goals, dream are all so important.  They impact the part of our brain called the reticular activator.  It sorts for us, allows things to come in to hyper-focus.  The reticular activator opens your eyes to possibilities that enable you to reach your goal.  You will see fresh, creative ways to overcome, meet people out of the blue to support you, receive strange, little boosts that seem to guide, encourage, nudge you all on the right path to achieve your vision.  Awareness and focus on generating success is at the forefront of your brain!  Try it if you don’t believe me.  Google it if you are a skeptic.

In 2016 a couple of other incredible visions were realized…my daughter’s epic, perfect, gorgeous wedding, my business model transforming and my sister walking after months of physical therapy (post-stroke).  Becky is a role model of strength, tenacity, endurance and human spirit.  She told one of my nephews in the summer, said it OUT LOUD, “I WILL dance at Stephanie’s wedding!” and she did.  She danced and jiggled her heart out to four songs.  She can go up and down stairs now, she’s gotten some movement in her left shoulder and hand, and in 2017 she is starting more rigorous therapy at Walter Reed and Virginia Hospital Center.  She is setting new goals for her self.  I’ve seen how goals focus her, give her hope and renewed determination.

We all get crap handed to us in life, or maybe not crap, just stuff.  Stuff that changes us, our course, our relationships, our abilities---we can’t necessarily change the stuff; what we can affect is what we choose to do with the stuff.  What choices will we make to endure, overcome, succeed, and flourish in spite of the stuff?

This year I don’t have a resolution, I have TWO WORDS, keys to happiness-

SAVOR AND GRATEFUL

This is how I want to BE in 2017, each day to relish in what I have, what I am able to do, the love I can give and receive and know that each day has hidden moments, joys, shiny pennies, if only I look for them.

What are your two words for 2017?  How do you want to be in this new year of your life? What describes the way you want to walk, skip, saunter through your next 365 days?

Name it. Claim it. Own it. DO IT!

Twinkle Toes

Do you ever think of all the phrases that go with the word toe? Tip toe, twinkle toes, toe the line, whoops wrong tow, nails and toes (I so need a mani/pedi right now!)  Our feet are our foundation, the gift that carries us one step in front of the other.  One of those crazy things in our lives we often give not one thought to, unless we’ve danced all night in high heels, or stood all day doing something.  No, we take our feet for granted.

I started thinking about my feet in the last couple of months.  How in yoga in even the simplest of poses, your feet are anchored to the ground and are the core of mountain, tree, and warrior.  The root that extends up and through your body, out through your extended arms and hands.  Oh and lovely ballet, all five positions are about your feet.  Being purposeful as you slide from first, to second, inward, outward, inward again.  Beautiful.  I still have my toe shoes from high school.  They are up in some box in my attic.  Not sure why I still have them, but I love the idea and memory of being on stage, dancing to my heart’s content.

Toes, feet, toes.  Back to the blog.  Cancer and my feet have a new relationship now.  A painful one.  Tamoxifen had it’s own side effects and risks.  Night sweats and uterine cancer—that was a scare last year—it sucked.  Now Letrozole.  No uterine cancer risks and wait for it, drum roll, it has an impact on your joints and bones.  Yay!  One of my dear friends, another survivor gets pains in her arms and shoulders.  Me, you guessed it, my feet.  One of those dumb things I never appreciated until now.  Every morning my poor little size 8.5’s hurt.  I get up and walk carefully on them, holding the bannister as I go downstairs, because they HURT.  When I remember, I give them a good stretch back and forth before getting out of bed and that helps a bit.

So I talked to Dr. D, my oncologist and told her about my toes and feet.  I describe how it goes away after I walk around some, only to come back the next morning.  She said, “Can you live with it?”  Of course I can.

And so I do.  Life after cancer has lots of little reminders that encourage me to truly appreciate my health.  The fact I am cancer free in 2016. To really feel parts of my body I had taken for granted.  I am blessed.  My feet take me lots of places.  I walk, I run; I still do plié’s and releves every day.  I treasure one more gift in my life.

And yes, cancer does that.  What do you savor just a little bit more now?  Tell me.

Ladybug Ladybug

I am currently staying at an off site location in the countryside of Virginia.  I’m working with a client.  I'm used to traveling for work and schlepping my stuff on trains, planes and in automobiles, not anything too unusual.  The place where I am staying is an old manor house built in the early 1800’s, beautifully set, wonderful architecture and steeped in history.  There are only a few sleeping rooms in the house, 3 to be exact.  I am in one room; my colleague in another and then the last room is empty.  I could’ve had that room.  I declined.  Why you ask?  Well it’s said to be haunted. I’m not sure where I stand on the believer scale, but I decided to pass, better to get a good night’s sleep, then risk some interruptions. 

Instead in my room, I have another kind of visitor, not the supernatural kind, the kind of visitor very much alive, colorful and active.  Ladybugs!  Not just one or two for good luck.  Those, you can gently scoop up and shoo out the window.  NO, I have 40, 50 or more dancing their way across my mirror, floor, bathtub and vanity.  The ceiling in the bathroom is about 15 feet high—even if I want to, I couldn’t get rid of them.

What’s a girl to do?  Well, I’ve decided to coexist.  Those who fall over with their little legs frantically moving upside down, I hold out my hand, right them and let them on their way.  The others covering my mirror and vanity, I have conversations with them... “Hello ladies, please don’t get in to my tooth brush or my hair brush…please, that’s all I ask."  I think of them as some sort of good luck talisman, perhaps keeping the wondering ghost at bad (O God, don’t think I’m crazy!)

Where is this blog going?  So what could possible connect a ladybug infestation to cancer?  Here it is…

My life now is coexisting with cancer and the aftermath of cancer.  Yes, my cancer was evicted through surgery and radiation two years ago and yet I have to live with all the implication so that.  Multiple doctors, drugs, risks, scars, pain…. all constant companions in my life saying to me “you are a survivor and yet you are still at risk.”  Little, niggly things that crawl around in my daily life and psyche.

So how do I coexist? Ney, embrace life with cancer?  Reframe it baby! Talk in a different language.  Mold my head and heart around my body now.  It would do me know good to curse having a room with ladybugs, what would that serve?  No, better to see the luck they have brought me, the opportunity to see things differently.  I mean, I didn't get too much disturbance from the ghost, just a smidge.  Just sayin'.

How about you?  How do you coexist with your diagnosis?  Life after?

Before and After

There are moments in time that mark before and after. They divide what was and the new reality.  Losing parents is like that. I remember when I lost my mom, I felt untethered. The reality that I had no parents left settled in a bit like being an orphan....a scary and strange new place.

Getting married, getting divorced, accidents—these are all oddly these new placeholders in our lives. Cancer is a biggy. I remember the exact days, December 18th, December 20th, December 24th, January 17th. Mammogram, call back, biopsy, biopsy results, final news declaring cancer. They are forged in my mind.

My new reality: It’s been 2 years since this all began and still life after cancer is so different.

I am grateful at an elevated level; I don’t take as much for granted. I don’t drink coffee anymore (lost my taste for it- weird huh?) I have to mark I had cancer on all my medical forms. I take two drugs daily. I see lots of doctors now. Surgeon, radiologist, oncologist, gynecologist, internist. Ugh. My boob still hurts, the scars ache when it rains. Lots of reminders and yet it’s all good. I am ALIVE. I am a survivor. I have been blessed with knowing it can all change in a moment- yes or no.

What’s changed you?

What are your moments that divide time?

Entourage

Dictionary.com

noun

1.

a group of attendants or associates, as of a person of rank or importance:

The opera singer traveled with an entourage of 20 people.

2.

surroundings; environment:

a house with a charming entourage of trees and flowers.

3.

Architecture. the landscaping and other nearby environmental features shown on a rendering of a building.

I had an entourage.  I did indeed.  You need an entourage if you get cancer for lots of things.  Support, food (Ben and Jerry’s bless you), laughter, crying, encouragement and yes, even pink stuff. 

If you get cancer, or have a friend or family member who has it, a support system is critical.  As a coach, I work with people on a regular basis on managing stress.  One of the key elements of stress management is having a support system.  Having your peeps.  Maybe it’s one; maybe it’s 20 or 30.  It doesn’t matter; you need to get your ducks in a row.  Like Christmas Eve day when I was waiting on the results of the biopsy I had 4 days earlier.  Can you imagine how that would suck?  Christmas Eve day? When the Radiologist called, my husband, stepdaughter, stepson, sisters were all present.  I needed them.  The news was surreal, the biopsy didn’t validate it was cancer, but the Radiologist was 99% sure I had cancer.  I needed them to undergird me (my friend Sallie’s saying) to get through Christmas.  And they were there for me through it all.

Next up, surgery.  Excised biopsy to see if it really was cancer (you know it was sister!).  My niece and nephew went all the way to Georgetown to get me special Ben and Jerry’s from their store for when I woke up.  I’d love to blame gain my 10 lb. weight gain on them, but I can’t because all that deliciousness was medicinal.  Just like their love. 

The day I got the call, January 17, 2013 (I was in the kitchen oh by the way).  I wanted to crumble.  It was a Friday.  I had to fly to Huntsville on Monday for a week of work.  My cousins’ wife drove from Atlanta and met me at the airport as soon as I got through security.  My knees went weak.  I was safe.  I could do this.  I had my support system.  She stayed with me and kept me company at night.  The two of us lying in bed talking way longer than I should’ve been since I had to work the next day.

Next up, radiation.  Thirty-three glorious days of it.  Blessings come in all packages.  This is one.  One and one half miles to the hospital from my front door.  And that’s how the radiation walks began.  Who knew people would be signing up to join me?  Really?  Who wants to go to a hospital to hang out?  My radiation techs thought it was hysterical.  They always wanted to know who was coming in my entourage.  My sisters, husband, brother in law, friends, clients.  It was amazing.  We talked and walked, lamented cancer, discussed life and what was for dinner.  It didn’t matter; I had someone with me who cared.  Who wanted to be a part of the process.  They wanted to BE with me right there in the middle of it.  Does it get any better than that?

Who’s in your entourage?  How do they rally around you for whatever it is?  Let them know, they are IT.  Your very own entourage.