I heard this from a ‘cancer-friend’ (someone with cancer or a cancer survivor whom you meet whilst you have cancer versus someone you knew before or after who also had cancer). It wasn’t hers, but she passed it on to me from her friend who had cancer. Who actually died from cancer.
It steadied me then and guided me through my cancer-journey. It guides and steadies me now.
I will take more from cancer than cancer takes from me.
I was listening to the Being Well podcast with Rick and Forrest Hanson (as I’m pretty much doing every week), and they were discussing the topic of finding the good in the bad.
That is pretty much the essence behind “I will take more from cancer than cancer takes from me.” It’s not about positive thinking. Or looking on the bright side. Or pretending the hard isn’t hard.
It’s about finding the good and the learning and the healing in the bad and even in the awful.
Early in my cancer-journey, a healing practitioner actually asked me why I thought I had gotten ill. She didn’t mean my “BRCA2 diagnosis” why, or even my “enhanced hormones through infertility” why. She meant my, “what unresolved trauma caused me to get sick?” why.
I stopped seeing her immediately.
Whilst it may be true that some of my trauma history “caused” my cancer, or at least made me more susceptible to it, what good did it do me to blame myself for not healing enough to avoid cancer? It is true that stress and cortisol residues from childhood traumas, and especially Complex Trauma, can make one more susceptible to inflammatory illnesses such as cancer or auto-immune illnesses, but again, what good did it do me to blame myself for not healing enough to stay healthy?
“I will take more from cancer than cancer takes from me” is different. It is empowering. It is promising myself that I will learn whatever I can from the experience. Whatever my body, mind, soul, and spirit want me to learn.
It allows me to find the good in the absolutely horrific, very-shitty bad.
I have changed since my cancer diagnosis. It did take so much from me, but I have taken more.
Whilst I was already slowing my driven, perfectionistic-self down, I have slowed even more. And I will continue to go slow, or at least to go fast and driven only by choice, not by habit. Not by engrained trauma-coping mindsets and behaviors. As someone who didn’t even realize I was going fast and hard, as someone whose brother once nicknamed, ‘the little engine that will no matter what,’ that is a huge, huge change.
Whilst I was already deep into building a love affair with myself, I am way way way way way further down that path. Dare I write out-loud here, I currently adore myself. Sure, there are ways I could be different. There are ways I want to learn and grow and shift even more. But I adore myself. As someone who couldn’t find words for the depths of self-loathing and self-revulsion that were carved into them, that is a huge, huge change.
Whilst I was already learning to have wants and needs and anger and all those ungodly, sinful, Cain-like (as it was referred to in my cult), selfish behaviors and attitudes, I am standing with and for myself (to again quote Rick Hanson) even more. Even more. Even more. As someone who was literally taught to ‘live for the sake of others’ and who had to not have wants and needs in order to be safe, who, in fact, had to meet YOUR wants and needs in order to be safe, that is a huge, huge change.
I will take more from cancer than cancer takes from me.
Cancer made me very aware that I don’t know how long I have here on this earth. It made me even more aware of how precious each day is and how much I have to delight in and be thankful for. It made me even more aware of how much I want to live and grow and love and give and share whatever I can that may be even the littlest inkling of help and soothing to even one person. It made me even more determined to care for and love myself First, Most, and Always and to Love With All My Heart.
And to do it whilst slowing down, adoring myself, and being with and for myself.
I have taken more from cancer than that damn f—-g cancer took from me.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, and please share this post with others if it resonates with you!
Don’t worry. The photo is from my last chemo, in 2022.