“Someone once gave me a box of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.”  Mary Oliver

A big part of my story is the choice to stay in the world of cancer …a choice I didn’t make lightly because I knew it meant that I would stay in the treatment rooms and have to face the politics of health care, be constantly reminded of  the collateral damage  of cancer as well as  be reminded of my own fears. And, honestly, I still needed and wanted an authentic and contemplative way to discover and process my own experience. I kept noticing that, when given an opportunity, people wanted and needed to tell their stories. Some had never been given the space to relate what had happened for them. Time after time I noticed that no one was really listening …

Counseling that addresses adjustment or coping mechanisms is concerned with reducing stress and accepting, sometimes resigning oneself, to situations and solutions. It is useful in that the focus is often on concrete tools or tips that offer relief and repair. This layer of treatment speaks to what can be done. It involves actions that, hopefully, will result in change. This layer is about doing.

“So many of the people whom I see have learned to treat themselves as objects — and, at that, objects to which they only have mild attachment.  They hurry past their inner experiencing in an effort to report fully and accurately on these objects, and they regard my attention to the subjective as quaint, kindly, and impractical.”   James F.T.Bugental, PhD

Cancer changes us … but whatever has been altered doesn’t seem particularly clear the moment you receive that diagnosis. Authentic transformation shows itself over time when we pay attention give attention, and allow awareness to emerge. The essence of contemplative work is to be met where you are, not where you think you should be or where others think you should be.  To meet yourself at the edges of your own known world requires letting go into the unknown territories of you inner world. You have to trust your capacity for growth and “hang in.” You allow yourself to discover the untold story within you.  This layer is about being …

Being met, being deeply listened to while we tell our stories is healing in and  of itself. Through the simple act of telling, of being witnessed while we paint the pictures of our experience, we find a certain relief, a freedom is releasing all that we have held and carried within ourselves.

Excerpt from my book Surviving the Storm: Finding Your Way Through the Wreckage of Cancer