Relief – Frantic Shanti

Showing Self-Mercy

^{(Title image: Photo by Melanie Stander on Unsplash)}

My oncologist keeps telling me that I’m too hard on myself.

This has been something he’s repeated for the nine years that I’ve known him. He says this when I express my frustration with not being as strong or resilient as I used to be. When I complain that I can’t lift as much weight and get injured more easily.

“Relax,” he tells me. But I have a desperate drive that pushes me, as if I’m fearful of stopping or even just slowing down. As if I’m going to sink if I rest for a while.

It’s not just my workouts in which I feel this. It’s also apparent in my professional life which, I admit, did not head down the path that I was expecting it to, and cancer didn’t help. Now, at a time in my life when I’m supposed to be winding down and enjoying a retirement coming in the not-so-distant future…no, I tell myself there’s still so much more to do to get myself to a point where I can finally rest.

Yes, this would be me. No excuses.
(Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash)

Well, I needed to get that off my chest. As you can image, this kind of mentality has some downsides.

I was reminded of that when, last week, I was again invited to present during an event in which I’ve participated for the past two years. It’s one that I spend about four months practicing for.

The first time in 2024 I was mildly anxious but everything went very well. I couldn’t wait to do it again in 2025.

But last year was really tough for me. I was grieving the death of my father, dealing with weird migraine auras, working on a professional certification that I felt insufficiently prepared for and trying to juggle some major financial changes in my life. I didn’t have the same amount of time to prepare and, consumed by self-doubt, I allowed anxiety to creep in.

No, wait. That’s a lie.

Anxiety didn’t “creep in”, it hit me like a tidal wave. Preparing for an event that should have been amazingly positive and allowed me to showcase my expertise instead kept me up at night. It made me miserable. I obsessed over preparations and couldn’t wait for it to be over.

My presentation came and went well enough. But the experience left me feeling wounded.

Like I said, 2025 was a difficult year with major changes in my life. It stayed difficult up until the last days of December, when I finally had a chance to decompress and enjoy where I was in the present moment.

But when I recently received the invite to once again participate in this year’s event, I felt a familiar undercurrent of panic and despair. And that elicited shame.

First, I tried not to think about it. But that didn’t work well and my anxiety grew. I really wished that I could find an excuse to skip this year but I couldn’t turn it down—that would be “giving up” which would have left me defeated.

Or would it have?

Cutting myself some slack after a lifetime of beating myself up feels like the way I expect these kittens feel.
(Photo by Chirag Bhardwaj on Unsplash)

I have spent so much of my life doing things “for my own good”. When it comes to exercise, that is a very good thing indeed. But what about when doing something genuinely results in anxiety and dread? I had a long track record of pushing through those situations. Over and over again, I would barrel headlong into them, figuring that the more I did things like this, the more comfortable I would get with them. Although it didn’t always work like that. Sometimes, all it did was allow anxiety around it to build even more, painted with self-criticism for feeling that way.

But what if, instead of beating myself up, I took a breath and showed myself some grace? Just this once?

I poked at the possibility of declining the opportunity to present this year, just to test out how I would feel about it. And it immediately felt like a relief. All that anxiety fell away and I saw all the other things I could spend my time doing that I would otherwise put off because practicing required so much mental energy. I made the decision to listen to what my brain and body were yelling at me.

“For Pete’s sake…!“

This wasn’t a cop-out. This was giving my worn-out self a little love. I need more of that.

Even When There’s Nothing to be Grateful for…There’s Something to be Grateful for

(Title image: Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash)

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up in the United States this week, I wanted to offer you a funny little story to think about when you feel there’s little to be grateful for.

Although I work from home a lot these days, I had gone in to the office a few days ago to get some things done onsite. It was a hectic day and I ended up leaving later than I expect, and as I walked to the busstop, I was carrying more items than usual, including an umbrella for the sun, a large zippered bag for my water bottle and food I hadn’t had time to eat and held my cell phone connected to a charger in one hand. I was loaded up!

Luckily my purse is backpack-style so I didn’t need to carry it in my hands. And my office keys were on my ID badge, which hung around my neck.

All packed up and ready to go, right?
(Photo by Alexandra Tran on Unsplash)

On the way to the bus, I was preoccupied with things that I still needed to do and concerns about issues at home.

The bus arrived, I got on and put my belongings on the floor at my feet, burying myself in a game on my phone.

NOTHING seemed out of the ordinary, save for someone who sat down beside me and seemed to press against me a bit. But, hey, it’s the bus and there were a lot of people on so it isn’t a completely comfortable ride. That’s okay.

Besides, the guy moved to another seat as people got off on their stops.

By the time we got to my stop, I prepared to get off by collecting my items. And my heart missed a beat: my purse was not there.

I did a double-take. I looked all around my seat. Nope, no purse.

My head started to swim because it seemed obvious that someone had taken it. I rushed over to the driver and told him that I thought my purse had been stolen. He listen to my story, called the dispatch and marked the security video, explaining that I should fill out a police report and let them know the time and bus number…

My mind was a blur as I tried to remember everything that I had in my purse.
(Photo by Nick Noel on Unsplash)

I dutifully wrote down his instructions but I was already thinking of the hours of work that getting my cards cancelled, obtaining a new drivers license, getting new car, apartment and mailbox keys, and everything else would require.

“And now THIS on top of everything else!” I thought to myself as I got off the bus and walked home, feeling dejected and spent.

Before calling the police department I decided to call my co-worker to check my office in case I’d somehow left my purse there.

But I knew that was hopeless. There is no way that I would have walked out of the office without putting on my backpack purse, no way that I would have not felt it on my back as I stood waiting for the bus and absolutely no way that I would not have noticed that it wasn’t there when I put all my belongings by my feet on the bus.

I was wrong.

My co-worker told me that it was on the floor under my desk.

Behold the power of mindlessness! I have no idea how I could have missed all those cues that alert me to presence or absence of my purse, especially when it’s the most important item that I carry. But I did.

Gratitude hides out in the unlikeliest of places.
(Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash)

However, that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is, suddenly I did not need to call the police department, cancel my credit and debit cards, stand in line to get a new driver’s license, sit and recall everything that I had in my purse and wallet and anything else that I would have spent hours doing.

And I felt a tidal wave of gratitude wash over me, one that would have not experienced if I hadn’t spent the last 20 minutes convinced that someone had stolen one of my most important belongings.

That gratitude came out of nowhere. And it made me think.

If I could muster such a powerful feeling of thankfulness when I realized that something bad that I was sure happened actually hadn’t happened, maybe I could find a way to generate that same feeling without needing to experience the sense of doom beforehand?

In other words, I can be thankful for all the bad things that don’t happen even if there aren’t great things going on at the time.

So this Thanksgiving, my wish for you is to be able to experience sincere gratitude without having to lose your wallet and then find it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From a Safe Distance

It’s hard to believe that six years ago I was a week and a half away from my final chemo infusion, in the thick of being a cancer patient with no idea of what tomorrow would bring.

Cancer survivorship used to be a whole lotta “looking over your shoulder” for the next thing to hit.

I also thought that I’d live the rest of my life, however much or little of it there was left, in fear, always looking over my shoulder to see if cancer was close behind. In fact, after my active treatment was over, I expected that my anxiety would increase because I imagined that whatever had triggered my tumor growth would again be unleashed and ready to attack my again.

And when I had to stop aromatase inhibitors early due to side effects, I envisioned even more terror because I wouldn’t have the medication’s protection anymore.

None of this suggested that I would have a very pleasant future. Either I would get cancer again…or I’d be consumed by worry over getting cancer again.

Reality turned out to be quite different.

The more (1) I practiced being present, coupled with the (2) increasing distance between my last dose and today, the easier it has become. Now, that might sound like a no-brainer, but it was news to me.

And I don’t know exactly when I turned the corner on my fear but it was probably after the worst letrozole side effects ceased and I was able to reflect on and accept that cancer happened and now I was moving past it.

It took years to get to that point, but it would have probably come sooner if I hadn’t convinced myself that I’d never get there.

And how are things different now? I don’t think of cancer every minute of every day. And when I do think about it, it doesn’t seem as daunting.

I realized this after meeting a cancer survivor who works at a store that I frequent. She revealed that she’d just received her three-year “all-clear”. The relief on her face was unmistakable.

And it struck me that I used to have that incredible sense of gratitude too. And I still kind of do for a short bit, but it fades quickly as I turn my focus to the rest of my daily responsibilities.

Yes, I am still seeing my oncologist twice a year, having annual 3D mammograms AND the occasional MRI, so it’s less likely that something’s going to sneak up on me. But the concern is no longer as all-encompassing because it doesn’t feel as likely.

Of course, I could be kidding myself. Even after six-plus years I know that every set of scan results is a door to either “no evidence of disease (NED)” or “we’ll get you in to see the oncologist ASAP”. So far I keep going through the NED door…and it keeps opening onto a bright day.

In the midst of taking things for granted, it’s nice to stop and think about that.

I Didn’t Expect THAT: Surgical Glue

This was one of the nicest surprises that I received throughout all of treatment.

Growing up, I always associated surgery with umpteen stitches that required removal. Then again, I also associated cancer with certain death. Luckily, neither one is a definite anymore. Since I’d never needed major surgery before, I had no idea that surgical glue is a thing. And what a thing it is! It would have probably been different if I’d had a mastectomy, but with a simple lumpectomy to remove a not-so-big tumor…all the stitches were dissolvable and internal.

Armpit_glue — A view of my armpit after my surgery. The top scar is lymph node excision, the bottom is lumpectomy. The shiny stuff is glue. Yay, no bandages needed and no stitches to remove!

On the outside, there was glue. It was plastic-y, kind of like if someone had taken nail polish and drawn a stripe across the incision, only it was more pliable. As my incisions healed, the glue flaked off. There were no dressings to change, no bandages necessary at all. Not having external stitches was a beautiful gift from my surgeon.

If you’ve read my other posts, you’ll know that psychologically I didn’t handle the concept of cancer well. It took me on an anxiety-fueled roller-coaster ride, as I went from a healthy, active woman to a cancer patient. I have a stubborn expectation of normality in my life, and over the years I’ve put a lot of work into maintaining it. Cancer blew that to shreds. And in a funny way, that little strip of glue brought a bit of “normal” back to me.

Sometimes, it’s the little things…