What does CTMT mean? It means “Cancer Teaches Me Things”

“There has been nothing like cancer to teach me about the things that matter. Things mattered before, sure, but different things matter and things matter differently now because cancer changes me.” – @thepurposedsailor  

What are “the things”?? – It starts with HOW I pay attention. And then it’s what I pay attention to. What I keep. What I give up. Who I am. How I connect. In what ways do these things impact my understanding of myself and of others…of humanity? How do these things show up in my grief and my gratitude? How do they show up physically, emotionally, intellectually, socially, spiritually? What can I learn if only I pay attention. . . . . and cancer teaches me to pay attention.

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To DISCERN

A review from last month.

I asked some big questions at the end of last month leading into March… 

• When you sense something with any of your senses (including a ‘felt sense’), what do you do with that information?
• How might your discernment help you better understand yourself? A situation? Another person? Another person’s perspective? 
• To discern is to perceive but perception is largely subjective. Can you acknowledge that? Can you take care that your perceptions do not become projections? How might discernment help?
• Discerning is distinguishing which allows you to do you while honoring the autonomy of another. Are you able to discern for yourself rather than decide for someone else?

I’ll share with you some of what I discerned: 
⭐️ My people-pleasing tendencies still pop up internally in certain settings, but I have done a lot of learning, growing, and healing in this area so I’m hardly bound by this anymore. Oh, the freedom! 

⭐️ I more frequently catch when I am unkind to myself in my inner dialogues (and most of the unkind things I say to myself are fed by what I have absorbed from the opinions of others). Something I continue to learn and practice is being intentional about how I speak to myself. That said, I still really struggle (and may always struggle) with being kind to my body. Ugh. Cancer is cruel.

⭐️ When I notice anxiety, I’m learning to listen to what it’s alerting me to, rather than thinking that it’s all bad and needs to go away. So, before I practice regulation tools, I ponder what is making me feel that way and what the feeling needs me to know. Here is an example that ties together some of what I just shared: there was some anxiety heading into a family gathering recently…I noticed it and then discerned what it was telling me. Turns out, the anxiety was coming from old people-pleasing tendencies that I’m learning no longer serve me so as I regulated my nervous system, I reminded myself that the perceptions of others are a ‘them problem’ not mine. Letting go of the conditioned desire (more like ‘compulsion’) to have people accept, like, pick, approve of me is a somewhat arduous task, yes, but worth the effort. 

I’m constantly learning where the difference is between people-pleasing and being an intentionally thoughtful person. And the distinction is life changing. People-pleasing is mostly driven by a skewed view of self. When we receive information from another person about whether “they like me” or “they don’t like me,” we often forget that the information we receive is almost always a projection from their own skewed view of themselves. Therefore, it is rare….very rare….that that information is pure. And yet, we absorb it.

⭐️ I.Question.EVERYTHING. Yup. I haven’t always been this way, though. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve always questioned things, but I’ve not questioned everything. Case in point is what I just talked about with how I used to have a really annoying habit of absorbing what people’s opinions are of me without questioning said opinions. Thankfully I’m not there anymore… Anyway, yes, I used to not question everything and now I do. I question what I hear in the news. I question what social media influencers are saying. I question if they are even real or if it’s really good AI. I question what I hear and before repeating it, I ensure it’s something I actually align with. I question old ideals. I question new ones. I am constantly discerning that which I am taking in. 

⭐️ Lastly, I am learning to discern what gets my energy and what doesn’t. Cancer has this profound and persuasive way of teaching me what matters and what doesn’t. It’s not a nice way to learn this, not in the least, but it teaches me this all the same. So, above, when I talk about unlearning people-pleasing tendencies, it’s because people-pleasing takes precious energy that I no longer have, nor do I want to give it to that anyway. When I talk about the inner dialogues I have and learning kinder ways to be to myself, that is precious energy invested instead. When I talk about questioning everything, that is helping me learn where my energy has a high ROI or a low one. Some days I get it right, some not so much, but I will keep discerning where I allocate my capacity because long gone are the days of it being endless.

Now, on to what I will challenge for April.

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AMPLIFY

A challenge for next month.

I am so loving this word. To amplify is to make larger, greater, stronger; to expand and to extend. So… in light of what I’ve shared so far this year, what might it be like if we are so intentional to notice what happens, to discern from that what matters, and then to amplify those things to take up greater space in who we are? (Certainly towards health and away from harm whenever in our control.)

What implications this could mean if we were so mindful to do this! Especially when we have the onslaught of information and opinion and rhetoric pounding us from all sides. 

Consider – we have been so conditioned and have become so accustomed to everything internal becoming external. I grew up in a religious system that implied that the things I kept to myself weren’t ever really allowed to be my own… Our culture teaches us that secrecy is bad… I’ve experienced people as nosy, entitled to my interior world… The social media era shows us that people can make a literal living off of selling their inner most thoughts, feelings, opinions… 

So, we spend so much of our energy absorbing the external, but do we really take time and energy to develop our own internal selves? My guess is “no.” 

My challenge to us:

• What if we learn to NOTICE all of the externalized ‘content’ through a lens of more intentional internal DISCERNMENT to the goal of AMPLIFYING the things that make us healthy, unique, and inherently good. 

Just a thought. . . . .

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Thanks for reading. 💚🫶🏼

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If you’re new here, here’s some context: 

In January of this year (2024), I wrote about how cancer and grief teach me things. The Purposed Sailor is a place where I share my story and my learnings to make meaning from it all, to give it purpose… because grief, and that which is grieved, MATTERS. As a fellow griever, and as a grief counselor and grief coach, one of the main tenants of “grief care” is to make meaning of and find purpose for our grief. Not as a way to perpetuate melancholy but rather to live in the kindness of the BothAnd. May my journey maybe help you in yours because grief is the great connector. You’re not alone. This is what I wrote:

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, and to live conscious, participatory, and on purpose. 

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. Grief is rarely given a proper respect, too easy to misunderstand and misrepresent and misinterpret and so, to 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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