Why me OR why not me?
Why me? OR Why not me? That is the question.
The morning before I received my breast cancer diagnosis, I was listening to a podcast episode of Belinda Anderson’s, Beyond the Surface.
She was interviewing Dr. Robin Tim So who is an Acupuncturist and Stage 4 Lung Cancer survivor in remission.
When addressing his diagnosis, Dr. So asked himself 2 key questions.
Do you believe you will live or die?
Are you able to identify or accept what you have done to bring the disease to you?
The first one was easy for me to answer.
Yes. I believe I will live.
The second one took a little more thought, but now I can easily accept that my behaviour throughout my life could bring this disease to me.
When I speak about this with friends, they struggle to hear me say that I deserve this.
It is a confronting thing to hear, especially when I believe it.
I have always said I will end up with skin cancer and will deserve it, because I spent my teen years in the sun, without sunscreen. Whilst my habits of vitamin D soaking are these days protected, managed and still loved, if I got skin cancer, I would deserve it based on my behaviour. I own that.
Am I deserving of this breast cancer fight I’m undertaking, maybe not. But my actions in life to date, may make me more deserving than others. I can see that.
If you look hard enough, everything in life will cause cancer.
When you do the research it’s not hard to find studies that show alcohol consumption is linked with breast cancer. I definitely have abused my body consuming that and had a lot of fun doing it over the years. I could blame Australian culture, family history or being locked down in a pandemic for that. But I won’t.
Poor diet and eating to excess are linked to cancer. I have done that in my life too, although I did think I had paid for that already. Along with working hard to recover and change those habits in the past 7 years.
In reflecting on why I am able to accept this so readily, I have concluded acceptance is a practice and it requires ownership. In order to be the open person I choose to be, I own my behaviour, my choices, history, flaws and positive qualities. I don’t blame others. I don’t use family history. I accept full responsibility for my actions. They are mine.
I work on loving myself fully as an active practice because what has happened, has happened and there have been many lessons learned along the way.
This has opened my soul up to loving and owning all of me. Past, present and future.
History can’t be changed but it can be learned from. I accept my life to date, am open to anything happening in the future and believe I will live.
I am living. Despite the disease and fight I am in, I am taking each day as it comes, practicing gratitude, finding the good and remain in awe of the wonders of nature.
We are still going on adventures and making memories as a family. It is slower paced and smaller adventures, but we are living. I’m conscious of ensuring our children get to live their lives as normal as possible, whilst we fight this together.
I could sit and ask “why me?”
But all the work I have done on, and for me in the past few years, leads me to asking “why not me?”
Why not me to fight this disease?
Why not me, to shine a light on the benefits of a positive mindset and practicing gratitude to get through difficult times?
Why not me, to show my children the importance of strength of character and resilience when faced with adversity?
Why not me, to shine a light on what people go through when fighting breast cancer?
Why not me? I’m up for it.
