It is a deeply loving act to love yourself opening and wholly, regardless of your challenges in life. Loving yourself is not selfish or egocentric, it is your responsibility. To value, appreciate and love yourself is the beginning of who you are and how you live.
No one is without struggles, personal disasters, dramas or some kind of suffering. I liked and adopted the Buddhist saying of 'pain is inevitable, suffering is optional'. I decided not to create suffering. I decided to love myself more after my diagnosis, and love myself more during treatment, and love myself more when that had all finished. I continue to find new ways to love and respect myself and am now in my fifth year of post diagnosis.
I rejected words of 'fight, war, battle' and did not entertain those mindsets. I adopted 'love, nurturing, respect, valuing, appreciating' as my mindset and remained in a state of positive acceptance and love. After all, if the worst happened and I was going to die, I wanted to die in a state of love and acceptance. So I had to create that state and live it, while I was alive, everyday. This mindset helped me a great deal and continues to do so. There is no sorrow or regret, but there is 'great globs' of gratitude and appreciation. I am here, still.
I have now had the pleasure of enjoying my 2 grandchildren and have another on the way, which is yet another joy. I have achieved a great deal in the last 5 years, including university study and work. Living is more than surviving. There is a lot more. Some people say that 'the diagnosis' changed their life forever and I agree; it changed my life for the better. I stopped, re-evaluated, and adjusted my mindset and my actions towards myself and others.
Living a satisfying, loving and respectful life, brings immense joy. My life is now happier and I am grateful for being alive and also grateful for the loving life I have created. If you want to take the advice from a 'survivor' the best thing you could do is to create some deep love and acceptance for yourself and learn ways to love yourself and others more than you previously thought possible. This is a great opportunity, don't waste it with suffering, choose love instead, and the journey will be more pleasurable (in spite of the pain or setbacks).
I do not suggest that people do not suffer, because clearly they do, but you can assist yourself and others by adopting a loving positive mindset, right up to the end, whenever that might be, possibly decades later. Considering that death is inevitable at some stage in our life cycle, wouldn't it be better to live in a state of love and nurturance as the main focus of your life experience, as much as you can manage to create for yourself? The benefits and opportunities are limitless! You may as well enjoy yourself, you're here anyway! What else is there to do!
So that vignette is straight from the heart. I firmly believe that it is possible to find positives in what would usually be perceived as a negative experience e.g. diagnosis of breast cancer. It is all about the journey, not the destination. It is about your mindset. Some research shows, (I have been told and read but can not produce the reference right now) that a positive mindset is beneficial to survival. I agree and add that a 'loving' mindset increases the happiness levels as well as survival rates and happiness is very important. The positive psychology movement will attest to that. My business name, The Movement for Improvement, was created out of some mindsets that I learned during my cancer experience and I 'live by' the statement that you can move your mind to make improvements to your life, whatever improvements you might like to make.
--Jane
