Cancer teaches me things.

Cancer teaches me things. That’s the entire premise of The Purposed Sailor. It’s the underpinning of every story and blog and concept and challenge I share. It’s an anchor point for me to stay connected to my humanity, to remain present, to embrace change, to esteem others, to live conscious, participatory, and on purpose, and to make my lived experiences matter. 

Intrinsically present, in every crevice of this, is grief. Therefore, if cancer teaches me things, grief does, too. 

Now, grief has a bad rap. It has a connotation. We’re conditioned to run, that it’s better to distract and divert rather than feel, that it doesn’t need a seat at the table. That if we choose to grieve, we choose to be negative and melancholy and stuck. Grief is rarely given a proper respect, too easy to misunderstand and misrepresent and misinterpret and disregard. But I’m here to challenge that. As the true BothAnd girl that I am, yes – good and joy and gratitude and all things positive can teach us much. AND so can grief. 

Grief isn’t only death loss, massive as that is, it is in non-death loss, also, and as such, it is one of the few things that is universally human….everyone will grieve something at some point in their lifetime. And what does a universally experienced circumstance do? It creates connection. And what can connection do? Oh. So. Much. (Kindness, grace, understanding, empathy, relationship, love, respect, honor, empowerment…for others and for self. And this is the short list!)

Turns out, prosperity/positivity/perfection are relative terms and are hardly universally experienced, meaning their definitions are vastly different and often qualified by factors not collective and comparable. So, those things don’t always offer connection (and in my lived experience, are the things that actually drive disconnection). 

I’m likely saying things you already know. And if you haven’t thought of it this way, I welcome you to consider its implications in your life. But why have I started off 2024 talking about this? Because if I have learned one thing in cancer, it is this: Grief has so much to teach us if only we’d let it. 

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Grief teaches me things.

I woke up one day early this month and a word popped in my mind: Notice. This is the conversation my head had with itself:

> “Notice.” 

>> “What is it to notice?” 

>>> “You know, notice… to pay attention. Attune to. Observe. Regard. Care.”

>>>> “Ah. So, to notice is to love.”

By noticing within myself, I am showing love towards myself. By noticing others, I am showing love for and to them. By noticing, I am regarding the present moment as important, and therefore whatever is present matters, and since I (and/or them) is in the present, I (and/or them) matters. By noticing, I am honoring existence and what my existence, and the existence of others, can teach me. 

Which brings me back to where I started. Cancer teaches me the significance of grief. Grief teaches me the significance of noticing. Noticing teaches me the significance inherent in existing. And so, an idea came to mind. If I center on “noticing” what would change in me? If noticing is a way of loving others and myself, let me live that out. If I want to live on purpose, let me live through noticing. 

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NOTICE

When I think of the word and when I think of how I’m learning to apply it in my life, these are the thoughts and ideas that come to my mind:

How will you notice?
What is there to be noticed? In yourself? In others?
What can you learn from what you’re noticing?
What stops you in your tracks? Is there an image? A sense? A thought?
What do you notice that is good? That is real? That is painful?
What questions do you notice come to your mind?
When you notice a feeling, what do you do? 
Are there themes you’re picking up on because you’re paying attention?
Look for or listen for nuance. What do you notice?
How will noticing deepen your understanding of yourself and humanity?
How has noticing changed you?
How does my noticing show love?

I recognize that this kind of focus takes effort. It’s easy to live on the surface, in the fast and busy. “I don’t have time for this” is a comfortable place to exist. And I also recognize that to a certain degree, some may not have the capacity to notice because survival is all-consuming. 

But maybe there is still space, even if small, to not only do, but also to be. I am definitely not suggesting that every second of every minute of every day of every week (you get where I’m going with this) is to be on high alert to that which is to be noticed. That’s not human. I will suggest this, though: using the prompts above, where might one or two areas of you and your life be changed by noticing? Start with little moments. Practice a little at a time. How can you love yourself or someone else by noticing one new thing? 

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Thanks for reading 🤍🫶🏼

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