Have you ever watched a water-skier? Or maybe you’ve experienced it yourself. Picture it for a moment or pull up one of your memories — You know…

…the days where the water is like glass and you simply just feel like you’re floating with no effort whatsoever.

…or the days where the water is slightly choppier and you have to navigate a few bumps along the way.

…or the days where the water is super tough to glide through because of the busy-ness of the lake and everyone else’s waves makes your experience more difficult.

…what about the days that it took you to learn the skills required to manage each of those conditions, the falling and getting back up over and over again, and the practice-to-perfection so that you could manage each condition better and enjoy the ride more with each next ‘hit it.’

…or what about the fact that you can’t water ski without the pull of the boat or the skill of the driver or the right equipment or even the quality of the teacher (acknowledging the fact that the quickest way to learn is to have someone with you in the water, steadying you as you wait for the boat to pull, reminding you of the techniques as they hold you steady).

Now picture the views once you’re up out of the deep, settled in with the right tension on the rope and the right pressure of the skis on the surface? How does the scenery change as you’re maneuvering through the water? What do you notice when you’ve traveled the same route ‘round and ‘round—what’s different? What’s new? . . . . 

I think we all tend to live gliding on the surface. Moving fast through life, noticing the scenery quickly pass us by because we’re either exhilaratingly uninhibited or because we are focused on holding on just so in order for us to stay out of the deep. But what if we considered the slow down? You know, when the skier lets go of the rope, speed still causing them to skim the surface at first but as they gradually slow down, they begin to gracefully sink back into the deep? 

What if we did that more? What if we let go of the rope that pulls us along the surface? What if we allow ourselves to slowly sink into the deep and take in what is around us when we stop? What if we chose to let go anywhere along the route instead of at the dock?

“What if we allow ourselves to slowly sink into the deep and take in what is around us when we stop?”

@ambernichole

What if?

Cancer has offered this lesson for me, time and time again through diagnosis, treatment, reconstruction and now in survivorship but I have to choose the mindful practice of this slow-down-and-stop every day. The scenery I get to see, albeit often very hard, is rich and powerfully amazing. I’d encourage you to mindfully choose the slow-down-and-stop, too, taking in the richness of your own personal scenery.

*Post 895

Atmosphere Change :: 9/16/17 :: Post 16

Today was such an interesting day. I woke up, still emotional, but not to the intensity that I have been these past many days and it was also even brief in comparison. Similarly, was the nausea… still there and awful to start but the intensity wore off earlier than the days before and I ended up being able to enjoy food normally…. Almost. But I’ll take it. I’ll take the little wins where and when I can get them.

And for a majority of the day I felt normal…almost good….and did some pretty normal things. I even helped straighten up a bit around the house. It dawned on me mid-day that throughout the day, the emotions didn’t come (which I found interesting). I was certainly processing what was being experienced and I was noting along the way what I was feeling, but I wasn’t feeling sad. I walked up and down the stairs several times. I had a small latte. I sat and ate breakfast with Chris in the kitchen just like we had a hundred Saturdays before surgery. We talked small talk. We enjoyed looking at our girls’ school pictures. We discussed the schedule for the week. We did life…..we did a lot of life today. He went to Home Depot and did some yard work and I hung out on the deck and stood out in the sun while he worked in the yard. I talked on the phone with a friend. I talked with each of my girls about their weeks. I had lunch in the kitchen. We had my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and 2 of their 3 kids over for hanging out and dinner, in the kitchen, and family time (which was soul-filling for each.one.of.us). I chatted with my counselor friend who brought us dinner. ………life. 

And it felt good. 

And yet in the midst of this doing-life-in-a way-that-felt-so-like-yesterday I found myself noting new perspectives. New understandings. New insights. Because remember, nothing looks or feels or is experienced the same because I am not the same, I am not the me of yesterday. I am the me of today. For example:

Intentionality. It’s tattooed on my foot. It is a word that I live by. I love this word. I love what it stands for and the direction in which it gives my life, my relationships, my work, my love, my spirit. But today….intentionality took on a whole new meaning. I was doing the most menial of tasks. A task I do so often that it has become mundane and thoughtless. And yet because of my surgery restrictions, I had to do that task differently. I had to do it with such purpose, methodically, thoughtfully, deliberately. I had to pause for a moment while doing it to make sure I was calculatedly following the rules of my doctors. I had to experience mindfulness as I was producing the movements of this task. I was having to use my whole person to do this every-day-thoughtless task. And in that moment, ‘oh. THIS is intentionality.’ THIS is living out that word in a most tangible and memory-searing kind of way. This IS how I want to live. And to that……..this IS how I want to walk this awful, dreadful, beautiful mess of this chapter of my life. Transformative.
Another example:

Empathy. It will never look the same to me. It will never feel like it did yesterday. I thought I knew empathy….I mean come on, I work in crisis intervention. I’ve taught empathy and crisis work for 4+ years. I’ve skillfully practiced it with clients for 7+ years. Empathy at its basic meaning is: “Use your story, don’t tell it.” And I do this. Well. But it’s different now. This effing cancer chapter will have purpose. It will mean something. It will matter. It will not be wasted. These truths I know. But yesterday I thought, “Okay, if I have to walk this, then it’s because I’ll be able to walk this with someone else in the future when I can look back and know the journey.” Sure, there is a truth to this, but not like I thought. I think I’m thinking something quite different today. My experience with this isn’t so that I can prescribe for someone else (friend, family or client) how to walk the journey. My desperate need to find purpose in this does not mean that I get to then share my experience later with someone going through it. That expectation I must give up. (Unless they ask, of course…or unless God has called upon me to share a testimony of sorts). Rather, this experience is for me to be transformed. And then IN THAT, I can sit with someone. In the depths. In the real and the raw. In the silence while they cry and no words have to be said. In the loss. In the gain. In the agonizing pain. In the joy that is so oddly woven in with sorrow. I can encourage authenticity in their whole person however THEY walk THEIR bridge…chapter…journey…whatever you want to call it. Our stories are our identities. Our identities are molded and formed through the experiences that write our stories. Sitting with someone, present with myself in my story and present with them in theirs….that is empathy. Letting those sacred moments absorb into being – both theirs and mine – that is empathy. And it feels vastly different today even though I’ve said all of these words for years before. Transformative.
One more example:

Presence. One of my favorite people talks about choosing to be in life “present, participatory and intentionally,” and never have I walked this more real than now. Today, I shed a few tears this morning, had a really pretty normal day, and the complete puddle-on-the-floor-sobbing came at 7 this evening. I was desperate to get out of clothes…oh how uncomfortable I was in my own skin. The waves of crashing emotion came as I realized how normal I had lived life today and yet how much physical exhaustion and pain I was in and how sad that made me. How painful these drain holes in the sides of my body are. How itchy my skin is where I can’t even feel so scratching it does nothing. Maddening. Crazy-making. How my left arm is hurting so badly that I can’t even set it down next to me without it feeling like its being singed by a flame. Then I looked for a moment on Instagram and a dear friend posted something so meaningful that I sobbed harder and couldn’t believe that *I* am the one people are fighting for and how loved I am. And then my sweet 9-year-old walked in, handed me my favorite stuffed animal of hers, sat at my feet and rubbed them, and just sat there. While I cried my eyes out. My littlest brave little. Just sat with me. (and by the way, the stuffed floppy eared dog with a winter hat on its head that she gave me is now under my left arm and providing the most comfort I’ve had since I got home from surgery). Presence – being in the midst of all that this is and whatever this is and however it comes about. Whether at 7am or 7pm or whatever in between…crying or laughing or walking with the cloud of cancer above me or having the sun shine through as if it doesn’t exist…being and let be means something different today than even it did yesterday. And I am choosing to intentionally participate in the presence of what this is. And it’s beautiful and it’s ugly and I am so uncertain of the path ahead.

5. And then 5. And then 5 More. :: 9/16/18 :: Post 367

Gonna be a hard week. Really really gonna have to practice living 5 minutes at a time…… We’re all displaced and out of our comfort zone. Chris has a business trip. Big unknowns lie ahead with house stuff….what we desperately want is so close yet so far away. Girls have crazy sports schedules. I have yet another major surgery in the midst of it all. 

5 minutes. 

And then the next 5. 

And then 5 more. 

Albert. Tattoos. And Magic Round 6 :: 9/16/19 :: Post 731

Last night, I went to Rising Tide Tattoo in Boulder to see Albert. He finished my tattoo. 

Here is the ‘thank you’ I wrote to him on the back of a framed picture that I gave him:

There are few words… and this is such a small token.

The gift you have given me goes beyond a tattoo. Goes beyond the monetary value of the ink and the supplies. And while I know those things are highly valuable, the gift you have given me speaks directly to my heart and my soul. It is your creativity. Your ability to take my story and put it into an eternal picture. Your ability to capture the depth of all that cancer has taught me to live out. Your ability to personalize why I survived. It is also your time. I know time is precious and your sharing so much of yours with me has been deeply appreciated. Thank you. 

It is also the fact that you chose to do all of this for a stranger who messaged you through Instagram, seemingly randomly (although we both know ‘random’ isn’t a thing) and you chose to invest a part of your story with mine. 

There are few words to truly string together to describe my gratitude for this act of generosity and kindness. I hope that you know that my “Thank You” holds a depth that simply cannot be grasped with words. I hope that when you see this picture hanging up in your space, you remember that your soul matters to me and every time I think of my cancer story, all that I have learned, all that I am choosing to live out and every time I look down to see what cancer has left behind, I will see this incredible gift.

Thank you.