Tag: Writing

What Do I Want, Really?

(Title image: Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash)

A few days before Christmas I was listening to a radio interview with a therapist who was discussing the conflicted feelings that many people might have around the end-of-year holidays.

According to social media and advertisements and whatnot, we’re supposed to feel jolly and festive and full of holiday spirit. But that’s not necessarily the case. Not only can this time of the year feel oppressive with numerous responsibilities (gift buying, preparing elaborate meals, dealing with visitors), the expectations for what this season should look like don’t often match the reality of our actual experiences.

The ho-ho-holidays are not always as jolly as we expect them to be.
(Photo by Al Elmes on Unsplash)

So the therapist was saying that he has is clients ask themselves a couple of questions. The first question is something along the lines of “what kind of a holiday do I want to have?” This is often the holiday that we feel we should be having, the commercialized holiday where every decoration shines brightly, every meal is delicious and every gift is exactly what the recipient truly wanted.

But the second question is “what kind of a holiday do I want to have, really?” This query cuts to the quick—what matters the most to me?

The two questions may have very different answers.

I believe that these are excellent questions to ask. They allow us to step back and truly consider what this time of the year means to us once we remove the bright lights and flashy wrapping paper.

How does the future look?
(Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash)

We can apply that same perspective to our expectations as we head into the New Year. Perhaps it’s time to forgo the usual canned list of resolutions, shake off the voices in our heads and ask the “really?” question.

This is the question that releases the perfectionist pressures that we’ve been carrying with us and instead encourages introspection. It allows us to be honest with ourselves. Sometimes what we really want is not the new car or the promotion; sometimes it’s a sense of peace or stability.

If this seems too vague, then try imagining that it’s now December of 2026 and you’re looking back on the year. How would you like to be able to describe the twelve months you experienced? How do you want to feel? And consider what needs to happen in order for you to feel that way? Are there changes you need to make?

The more clearly you can envision this, the easier it can be to create a path to head there. Take time to feel into this. Write it down and then refer to your notes on a weekly basis.

The year 2026 is just around the corner. What do you want it to be like…really?

Putting Pen to Paper for the Ultimate Mental Vacation

When I wrote my last post — a visualization and body scan for helping calm yourself and prepare for sleep — I knew I would enjoy immersing myself in describing a space that felt safe to me.

But what I didn’t expect was the effect that the actual process of writing the visualization would have on me.

As I continued describing the “healing bath” scene, searching for reference pictures and letting my imagination create a restful place, I realized that I myself was feeling more and more relaxed — breathing slower and experiencing a sense of placid grounding.

This got me thinking.

Beautiful journals may be appealing to some. But making use of technology in searching for images and recording your words provides you with the most flexibility for documenting ideas and bringing in visual aids…without risking writer’s cramp.

While there is no doubt that listening to a guided meditation can be very soothing, sitting down and writing one yourself takes you to another level. This is an exercise in finding what the most salient relaxing cues are for you personally.

Immersing yourself in locating photographs of environments that you consider your ideal for a retreat getaway helps you isolate those elements that exemplify what relaxation and grounding mean to you. I highly recommend sites like Pinterest for this; if you’re not interested creating an account there, just start out with Google image searches and see where they lead.

And when you start writing, turning your focus towards describing the scene that you’re imagining means that you are truly “in it” in your mind. As you write about sights, smells, sounds, textures and other sensations, and hold them in your imagination, you sink deeper into them than you might even in a meditation where someone else is describing the surroundings to you.

It’s your writing and therefore everything you select is your choice, suited to your tastes. There’s no need to use complicated language, simply tune in to your mind’s eye and write what you see. Because this is for you alone, there’s no requirement that it be a complete representation of your safe space and no need to judge the quality of your mental picture. There only has to be enough imagery there to trigger the wonderful feeling of peace and calm that you have when you’re there. However, the more descriptive you can be, the better you can lock in the imagery.

Not a scribe? An oral description of your special place can be just as immersive as writing it out. And if you feel so inclined, recording it for yourself can help you preserve the images to return to at a later time.

Finally, each one of us has different experiences with putting words on a page. If you feel that being required to write out your thoughts will be frustrating, then find a quiet space where you have privacy, close your eyes and audibly describe your safe space, perhaps even record it. Imagine that you’re moving through it and explain to yourself what’s there and how it makes you feel.

Whether you choose to write or speak, the reason this can be such a powerful tool is because you focus on something that feels so relaxing. This may turn out to be the ultimate grounding meditation for you.

Give it a try and see where it takes you.

What’s All This, Then?

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”

Orson Welles
director, actor and producer

Honestly, this blog is supposed to be funny, but sometimes it’s hard to get there.

I am a cancer survivor. You cannot imagine how good it feels to write that. This blog was established to help me document my journey, process my experiences and, ultimately, inch away from thinking of myself as a cancer patient and towards being a mindful, peaceful and accepting (that’s a tough one!) creature on this Earth. Be warned, some of my posts are self-indulgent and unnecessarily wordy; I have much respect for anyone willing to slog through them.

Right now, this blog is anonymous: I need to stumble through my feelings, complain when I feel like it and be blunt when necessary — and I need a safe space to do it without fear of judgmental glances. While my goal is to keep this light-hearted, I realize that I have the pleasure of being a survivor and chuckling about my cancer experience; there are many who are not granted that opportunity. Writing this blog is a privilege.

Cancer sucks. It’s an indiscriminate spectre that has haunted the lives of practically everyone at some point, whether relatives, friends or ourselves. For me, cancer cannot pass into faded memory quickly enough, but at the same time, I am infernally curious about the disease and how it has changed me.

So here are my facts:

In early 2017, I was diagnosed with triple-positive (estrogen+, progesterone+ and HER2+) breast cancer. The lump was 1.6cm in diameter, removed at the end of March, along with three sentinel lymph nodes that were revealed to be unaffected. Chemotherapy (Taxotere & carboplatin) started a month later and lasted the entire summer, 6 hefty courses, one every three weeks; adjuvant therapy (Herceptin, a monoclonal antibody) also started at this time, but went for 17 courses, ending in April 2018. Daily radiation treatment lasted six weeks through autumn of 2017. A 3-D mammogram in February 2018 showed nothing, in a good way. That marked my first year without the tumor.

I wish I’d been able to write in 2017, but my head wasn’t there. I was not processing, I was existing and enduring. After my final Herceptin infusion, my port was removed and I turned around to see what had happened. It took several months of writing before I tossed out my first post in September 2018, privately at first, and then, “Hello, world!”

It’s going to be a bumpy, unpolished ride. Bear with me.