The other day my stepdaughter was driving me to radiation therapy. We don’t see each other as often as we would like but I truly do enjoy spending time with her. Our relationship did not come about easily. I met her Dad when she was in her teens and as with many teens, she was still figuring out who she was. Although she never said it directly, I am well aware that she wasn’t paricularly thrilled about my relationship with her Dad. We limped along like his for a few years but slowly we came to like each other and then love each other as family. She had some difficult years as a teenager as so many do but has become an adult with strong values, indeed strong opinions and an incredibly strong love of learning. She is a good mom who loves her daughter and works hard to be a good role model.
One of the things I like about spending time with her is the terrific conversations we have. We talk about just about everything. We were having a long text conversation several weeks ago and I mentioned how much I like talking with her. She said, “me too, cause you know things that I don’t know and I learn from you”. I don’t know if I told her at that time that I feel the same way about her – she teaches me about things that I would never know otherwise. I am telling you all this because it leads to the conversation we were having on the way to the cancer centre. She was asking me about chemo and radiation; how it works, what do they do, what are the side effects I am having, how am I feeling about all of these things? She asked specifically whether or not the effects of chemo have worn off or are wearing off now. I told her that I am learning that it will take some time and I have been forewarned that it could take months, even as long as a year for some of them to disappear. After thinking about this for a minute, she said, “Well, that makes sense because it’s just like any other detox, isn’t it?”. Maybe this is how others have thought of it but it was the expression itself that hit home for me. She was exactly right! It is detox – the poison they’ve been pumping into you has to work its way out of your system like any other drugs that people take and then have to get rid of it. It was an “aha moment” for me.
This got me thinking about how I’ve been handling my ‘detox’ thing. I realized that I have totally forgotten that I have tools to help me work through this. I think that I got so caught up in the symptoms, feelings, pains that I forgot to get going and help myself. I am aware that I have talked some about my ‘inner shine’ on several pages in my writings but I would like to share how it has been helpful in my cancer journey. After all, when I started writing here, I said that cancer wasn’t going to take my shine and it’s time I remembered that.
I have been good about using all my tools and my shine to get through treatments and procedures all through this journey. It has been most helpful to tap into my shine as they are trying to poke and prod at my body, in holding my breath while laying in weird positions in the radiation room or sitting nervously as I await results in doctors’ waiting rooms. What I haven’t been good at is remembering to use all these same tools when I get home and have to deal with after effects, side effects and the symptoms and pains that come with each treatment.
So let me tell you what I do as I go through each of these procedures and what I intend to again start doing now that I’m home dealing with all that might not go away for a long while yet.
I remind myself that we all have shine inside us. This is the shine that we are born with – we are born all shiny and new. We don’t lose this shine, it just gets covered up. It gets covered up by experiences throughout our life. It might be harsh words, bullying, violence, pain. They cover our shine until we can hardly remember that it is still there. For me, I picture a large diamond that sits right in the middle of my chest, radiating shine throughout my body.
I then imagine it to be whatever colour I might want it to be that day. Sometimes I do this at bedtime and I picture it as pink as it is such a calming colour. Sometimes I picture it as green as it is the colour of regrowth and I sometimes interpret that as healing. Sometimes I picture it as a prism like colour, showing all colours when I need even more encouragement.
I then tap on the spot where I picture the diamond. Tapping right into the middle of your chest is rejuvenating in and of itself as you are tapping on the thymus gland. Tapping on the thymus gland stimulates your immune system and elevates energy and vibration level.
While I tap, I say, “I’ve got shine”. I sometimes just repeat this phrase five or six times as I tap sometimes I use phrases that work for what is happening at the moment. For example, I say, “ I can do this”, “ I can get through this”, “I’m strong”, “let it go”, whatever works at that moment. For aches and pains, I just tell myself this will pass and keep going until it subsides. I tap until all the darkness covering my shine crumbles and disappears so I can again feel the strength of my shine.
While I am doing this I picure the diamond radiating shine throughout my entire body. I picture the colour filling my body, radiating through my torso, my head, my limbs. It is very empowering, I must say.
For those you skeptics, who can easily scoff at this picture, I say, “try it”. If it works and makes you feel at all better, that’s a win on all counts. If it doesn’t, what do you have to lose?
If you are around other people, you don’t even have to actually tap, just imagine it and picture it in your head. It still works.
So I say again, CANCER CAN’T TAKE MY SHINE!
