Learning Point:ALL GOOD TIMES ARE NOT IN THE PAST.
We have looked at our personal life with our unique, one-of-a-kind background and individual childhood memories (Posts 8 and 9). Now we stress that happy memories are not just in the past. They are available to us in the here and now. Sometimes when we are first diagnosed with cancer, things in the world around us take on new value. Common, everything things become awesome. One of the things cancer does is wake us up, startle us, open our eyes to blessings we may have taken for granted. The exercises in Posts 4 and 5 help us become more aware, more focused on the Positive. We looked each day for something that surprises us and something that inspires us.
As I write this Post it is May in Virginia. Nature explodes in beauty--wild flowers cover the hill and, in structured gardens, roses and stately boxwoods shout "order" as well as beauty. The Super Moon is in the sky this week and everything is bathed in the scintillating light of its own perfection. I am reminded of a favorite quote from Iris Murdock: "People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us."
But this beauty may become too intense. I once had a woman in my class who was overwhelmed by the miracles of Spring. Her daughter had died just before she herself received her diagnosis of cancer. While the rest of the class were revived and energized by the beauties of Nature, she resented Spring that year. Why was everything so lovely while she was in such pain? The pressure to have a positive attitude was too much for her. She needed a time of hibernation for her soul to find peace in solitude.
This may be true for you. Listen to your own body. In time this woman came out of her dark place with a stronger appreciation and joy in living than ever before. She began to view the world from the perspective of the miraculous. A new perspective is a gift cancer can bring us, if we allow it.
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