An odd, possibly slightly controversial, sentence to see written before you, right? I bet you blinked twice and repeated it to yourself again thinking you’d read it wrong the first time. Some may think I’ve gone stark raving mad, think I’m deluded. In fact, I imagine many of you would think that. And I wouldn’t blame you. ‘She’s delusional!’ I hear you say. ‘She’s bloody bonkers’ I see your lips mutter. No judgment please folks….hear me out if you will.
Have you ever wondered why you get so much shit landing in your lap? Why bad stuff happens to you? Why you feel like you’ve done wrong in a past life and life says: ‘here, have this crap to deal with and while you’re at it, dearest current life, whilst you’re here, add a shed load of shit shavings on top of that won’t you!’
Well, my life has been and continues to be pretty good if the truth be known. I have had my fair share of rubbish times though, domestic violence/physical and mental abuse inflicted on me, that leading to depression, loss of three friends in car accidents, grief of loved ones, baby loss, a challenging (yet now adorable) child in his early years before an Autism diagnosis was handed to him, and then, to top it off…..’effing’ breast cancer.
But…..have you ever been so peaceful about life’s process? The ‘road map’ of life that’s been handed to you. Do we understand why certain crappy happenings have been sent our way, handed to us to cope with? ‘Aaaaaaahhhhhhh I know why’ I say to myself, I understand why I had to endure what I’ve had to, which is far less than most have had to deal with. I know precisely why…..it’s all to make me stronger, to give me the fight and confidence I was lacking, to let me know I can overcome anything if I put my mind to it. I get it now.
The latest challenge might have taken my right boob away from me forever, but I am thankful this challenge gave me a clearer general perspective. And it may have taken the majority of my fingernails but they’ve grown back now. And the life challenge I mention may have taken my hair for a short while too but hey, it’s growing back and it’ll look how I want it to look soon enough. And I wonder as it grows whether it’ll be better quality than before it decided to go AWOL because it was in shocking condition before. Dry and brittle from being subjected to too much heat from straightening irons.
‘So, let’s start a fresh, shall we?’ my life plan proclaimed. ‘Let’s give this particular human being a reason to start over again. Begin life again with a clean slate.’
So, my advice is this if it’s worth anything……always give love to what tries to take you down, tries to ruin you and trust that all that comes to you is meant to for your own self development.
If you don’t LOVE the life you lead you’ll always find yourself trying to re-boot the computer images in your mind…….
*Technical Support:*
Yes, how can I help you?
*Customer:*
Well, after much consideration, I’ve decided to install Love. Could you guide me through the process please?
*Tech Support:*
Yes. I can help you. Are you ready to proceed?
*Customer:*
Well, I’m not very technical, but I think I’m ready. What do I do first?
*Tech Support:*
The first step is to open your Heart. Have you located your Heart?
*Customer:*
Yes, but there are several other programs running now. Is it ok to install Love while they are running?
*Tech Support:*
What programs are running?
*Customer:*
Let’s see….I have Past Hurt, Low Self-Esteem, Grudges, and Resentment running right now.
*Tech Support:*
No problem, Love will gradually erase Past Hurt from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory but will no longer disrupt other programs. Love will eventually override Low Self-Esteem with a module of its own called High Self-Esteem. However, you have to completely turn off Grudges and Resentment. Those programs prevent Love from being properly installed. Can you turn those off?
*Customer:*
I don’t know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how?
*Tech Support:*
With pleasure. Go to your start menu and select Forgiveness. Do this as many times as necessary until Grudges and Resentment have been completely erased.
*Customer:*
Ok, done! Love has started installing itself. Oops! I have an error message already. It says, “Error – Program not run on external components.” What should I do?
*Tech Support:*
Don’t worry. In non technical terms, it simply means you have to Love yourself before you can Love others. Pull down Self-Acceptance; then click on the following files: Forgive Self, Realise Your Worth, and Acknowledge your limitations. Then the update is complete and everything will run smoothly from now on.
……And THAT, dear readers, is how I got over Breast Cancer. I forgave it for coming to me. For me, it’s now not ‘F*ck You Cancer, you picked the wrong girl!’ It’s ‘Thank you Cancer, you picked the right girl!’
It’s exactly one year on and….well….I’m still here! 🙏🏻 This very day, one year ago, 3rd December 2020, at precisely 3.30pm, I heard the words ‘I’m sorry to tell you, you have breast cancer’. My day was a happy one until that moment. I have to be honest, I walked into my scheduled hospital appointment in complete denial. Then my whole world shattered in an instant. A click of the fingers and your life flashes before your very eyes. I looked around the room for support and comfort…..none. But I knew that anyway. There was no-one there with me because of Covid, not because nobody offered to accompany me. I had to attend the appointment alone. To hear that devastating news whilst by yourself is soul crushing and scary. Did I know at the time that I would be one of the lucky ones to survive this horrible disease? My prognosis was good so I discovered later. But in that moment, on hearing my diagnosis, all that flashed before my very eyes was the possibility of a shortened life.
If I were to have written a letter to myself, say, a few years prior to that moment in the hospital room, quiet enough to hear a pin drop, my heavy sobs the only sound, these are the words I’d have used when putting pen to paper…..
Dear Abbie,
There will come a time in your life, in the not too distant future, when you will be presented with something that is going to shake your world, turn it upside down a bit. A word of warning…..be prepared! It’s going to be a rough ride. Hold on to the ‘hand rails’ and don’t let go. Don’t you dare let go. Do your best to grip tightly, taking note, having an awareness of why it’s landed in your lap and learning valuable lessons as you navigate through the difficult time.
It’ll be a happening in your life that will test your strength and your sanity, try and rob you of your life, quite literally. It will try and put a stop to your very existence in this physical world, attempt to make you buckle or wilt under the pressure, the pain and the heartache. It’s a disease that will end up taking your hair for a short time and one of your breasts so that your body will never be quite the same again. Learn to accept and love your new body anyway….you must. Promise me you will.
This body of yours will be filled with strong drugs to try and kill the disease before it kills you. Your body will be weak at times but be sure to keep your mind strong. You will have to work on doing this every day without fail. This will ensure that you drop kick this disease and boot it into touch. You will beat it in style and shout loud and proud ‘F**k You Cancer, you lost, you did not beat me’. You will take a bow when it has been defeated and the ‘war is won’. Pat yourself on the back. You will, however, always remember the people you have known in your life who this disease did defeat and hold them in your thoughts.
Through all of this, the struggle and the sadness, you will learn important life lessons though, which you will take as a positive. You will discover that you are stronger than you think you are, you are worthy of living a good and happy life, you are important enough to still take up space in this world. It will not take you down because you didn’t give it permission to do so.
You will learn to respect yourself, look in the mirror and be comfortable with what you see. You will realise it came to you to teach you not to sweat the small stuff in life. You will then live unapologetically with confidence knowing in your heart of hearts that you are a better person for it; different, that is true, but better. It will bring you some sadness along the way but you will come out fighting and know that it came to show you that life is worth living and it will be a happy one at that.
You will then share your learnings. In sharing your life, your journey, and being an ‘open book’, the main reason being to try and help others overcome any kind of adversity with a particular way of thinking and feeling, you will welcome mixed opinions and some might judge, saying “why is she so ‘out there?’”, others finding solace and comfort in your honesty and upfront approach. You will be ok with this as you know you’re sharing your journey for the right reasons….to guide others in believing they, too, can overcome life’s challenges with the correct mindset and showing them to look for the joy in life, search for those silver linings. Because you know they are there if you only choose to look for them and you wish for others to realise this for themselves.
You will gain confidence knowing that if you can beat cancer, you can try your darnedest to conquer anything life throws at you. You will think to yourself, ‘I am enough’ without anyone’s validation. You will succeed and will live to tell the tale.
Good luck! And when the time comes, show that ‘effing’ disease who is boss. Acknowledge and accept that there will be days where you’re not coping well and that’s fine. Allow them to be there, work through them knowing they will not last. Stay strong in your belief to overcome this period of your life. I know you can do this. Do yourself proud!
……The moment I made the switch in my mind from thoughts of death to determination to live.
What if I die? This question had crossed my mind in the very beginning when I received my diagnosis. How could it not? Isn’t that normal? Wouldn’t you think the same? After I had cried bucket loads of tears, over a period of a couple of weeks, and my mind was clearer and more focused, I went into my office and created a ‘personal effects’ folder, with information such as website passwords, my bank details, all my personal information, one place where someone could go and retrieve this sort of information including my finances, in case I died, in an effort to make their life easier if the unthinkable did happen.
I would imagine people’s opinion on death is split, perhaps not evenly. I would hazard a guess that most people think that experiencing death too soon is a really scary thought and have a crippling fear of it, and some will be entirely ok with the concept, knowing in their heart of hearts that when their time is up, when it’s curtains for them, when the grim reaper comes a-knocking (only the naughty, badly behaved people!), that it is divine timing and they are ok with that, feel peaceful about it, accepting their fate with grace. I am not going to lie, I was scared shitless at the start of my ‘big C’ journey!
I’ve always thought the end of my life would be in my ‘old age’, the age that is considered not too early to be taken to the ‘pearly gates’, an age that is considered acceptable to go, when people say at my funeral, ‘she lived a full life, she had a good innings’. But when those four horrid words were muttered by the specialist, “you’ve got breast cancer”, how long I thought I would live was potentially brought forward by a few years and I had to come face to face with the concept of not living a full life to what is classed as ‘old age’. My demise was brought to the forefront of my mind. And for a short period of time the idea stayed there, filling my mind with worry and anguish and flooding my heart with sadness. That harrowing thought was not something I wanted to continue feeling, and actually more for my son, an innocent child, who is 5 years old and needs me, especially with his diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder. I don’t want him to be left without me. I want to stick around so I can guide him through life, to help him navigate through the struggles he may encounter, help him understand things which will, no doubt, be harder for him than if he had a neurotypical brain.
So, there was the moment, two weeks after my diagnosis when, having digested the news and cried enough tears to create the Pacific Ocean #2, my whole mindset changed. My fighting spirit kicked in and that is when I said to myself, “Abbie, nothing can take you down without your permission. Put up your best fight and don’t EVER back down’. I wasn’t going to let cancer win.
So, fast forward a couple of months and this brings me to the time when a friend and I were out walking, walking and talking…..oh, haven’t we all got good at walking, by the way? It’s one of the only things we’ve been ‘allowed’ to do for so long now isn’t it? What with Covid-19 making its appearance last year. I’m sure we’ve all become expert walkers. On that note, have you ever studied how people walk? I have. You’ve got the tiny steppers, the huge striders, and what about the ones who walk with really enthusiastic arm movements, their hips jolting from side to side; it’s quite an animated look isn’t it? Just shy of running, not quite fast enough to run but walking very, very fast. It’s fascinating to watch. I LOVE a bit of ‘people watching’, don’t you? In a park, on the beach or when waiting at the station for the already late train to be even later; anywhere that is a public really…..Oh I love it! I always wonder what people’s lives are like when I’m people watching. Is it because I’m nosy? Or just interested in people? I have always wondered…..
Anyway, back to the conversation with my friend. We were chatting about my upbeat mindset living with cancer (interestingly…..when I first typed ‘living’ it came out as ‘loving’, I guess that is exactly what I’m doing…loving life although I’ve got cancer). Anyway, see below how our conversation went:
My friend: “Your optimistic mindset seems to have taken an exponential leap since your breast cancer diagnosis. I’ve always known you to put a positive slant on things in your day-to-day life; it all seems to have been kicked into overdrive now though.
Me: “Yes, indeed. I think when the chips are down and something very serious and potentially life threatening happens, you are backed into a corner and forced into making a choice how to react, or more appropriately, how to respond to what’s happening. And I chose to up my game and adopt an attitude that nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to keep me from surviving this and living to tell the tale. I also have an unwavering faith, in my mind, and a strong fighting spirit, and getting through this will actually help my physical body to respond to that”.
“When you’re feeling brave and invincible, your body is making neuropeptides similar to Interleukin 2, which is one of the most powerful chemical to fight cancer cells.”
Credit: ‘Quantum Healing’ written by Deepak Chopra MD
My friend: “I wish I had the same mindset as you in life generally, and I can see that when it’s a huge life changing issue you almost have no choice but to gain more strength, but I wouldn’t wish anything drastic like this, something life threatening to turn up in my life, to have that firm belief and faith instilled into my brain”.
I was actually stumped by my friend’s statement. I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t really a question but I still wanted to know how to answer it. I thought it was an interesting statement, nonetheless and wanted to provide her with some insight. Why does something as serious as cancer need to happen, and for a possible early death to be brought to the forefront of one’s mind, to really turn things around and start to live life with purpose? So I asked my sister, my mentor, Vanessa, how she would answer that. Her words were profound and ‘spoke’ to me!
Vanessa’s first words were….”Well, we are all going to die at some point, we are all living our own lives but the very end is death for us all whether now or in years to come!” And that was it, I understood exactly what she meant.
So, my answer to my friend was what my sister said above followed by, “A possible early demise has been presented to me but it hasn’t been presented to you. We shouldn’t need a big negative life happening to encourage us to live life to the full NOW. We should make the choice to enjoy the journey of life, with an abundant mindset and overcoming adversity attitude. We can choose to live that way anyway, every day, can’t we? It’s just a choice. It’s quite simple really”. And for the reason that my sister, Vanessa, said. We are all heading towards the same end, some at different times, but the same end nevertheless. Enjoy life’s process with love in your heart. You never know when your time is up.
Let me use this analogy to explain further what I’m trying to say…… If you picture a seashore (in fact, let’s picture the Pacific Ocean #2 that I created with the tears I cried just after my diagnosis!!) and in that expanse of water there are different variants of seaweed. My seaweed had come floating to the surface whereas others, without a life threatening disease and a potential early death to contend with, may have their seaweed bobbing about on the sea bed. My seaweed is more visible to the eye but it doesn’t mean that other people‘s seaweed isn’t there. It’s just not as obvious to see.
Trauma that I’ve experienced, life threatening news like I have had, seems to ‘wake you up’. So, yes, I mustered up a strength I never knew I had, adopted an attitude that perhaps was hiding under the surface that has only now been recognised, acknowledged and stamped in my brain! A super power that I thought only She-Ra possessed but it has always been there, it’s just gone a little bit more unnoticed like the seaweed on the sandy seabed.
I also made the choice to enjoy the process of something that could potentially kill me….I’m sure that sounds very odd to hear! I’ve laughed a lot, adding humour into the way I cope has really helped too. It has certainly made the whole process easier to handle by looking at it in a more lighthearted kind of way. It’s certainly not a trivial issue but I’ve decided to see it that way in my mind’s eye.
My healing, which, in my mind, will happen by the way, will be the proof that this ‘stuff’ works. This mindfulness is not a waste of time. So, it just so happens that getting cancer has given me the playground to play with this stuff. It has encouraged me to make an inspired choice, to trust the process of life. And as I mentioned earlier, I’m a true believer that a combination of an overcoming attitude and positive thoughts can have a profound effect on our physical bodies.
On the subject of trusting life’s process, there’ll be twists and turns on the journey of life, and trusting that it’s all set out and designed for us, and that everything will work out in the end, is tough to do sometimes. We just have to trust that it will. Here are a couple of analogies….like the bumpers, rails or barriers down a bowling alley that are surrounding a lane for when it is a child’s turn to bowl to prevent the balls from going into the gutters. The bowling ball always bounces back into the main drag of the alley and is more likely to hit the pins. Or the guided missile, it goes off course a lot but always hits its target.
And when trusting life’s process, take this hypothetical situation…..Just imagine you are on the edge of a cliff. Someone is there with you, standing a couple of feet away, saying, “I am going to push you off the edge of this cliff. Your ‘wings’ will open after 5 seconds and save you, give you a soft landing.” Do you trust that everything is going to work out well, have a good outcome, and jump anyway? Will you take that risk in your mind and believe that everything will be ok?
I truly believe that out of my greatest despair has come my greatest gift of life, a whole new perspective, a complete trust in life’s process for me.
So, going back to my friend’s observation about wanting to have the attitude I do about overcoming adversity but without having to adopt this way of thinking as a result of traumatic news like mine, why wait until you’re forced to have the thoughts that death could potentially come early? We are all going to die at some point anyway so make a choice to be happy NOW, live life to the full NOW. You don’t need to wait until your seaweed floats to the surface of the seashore.
When my sister, Vanessa, and I were growing up, we were lucky enough to have the most wonderful, supportive parents who instilled in us at a very young age to believe that anything is possible if we believe it to be so; that we can achieve anything in life if we just set our minds to it. They always taught us to be kind to others; that if we saw a lady wearing a top we liked and she looked lovely that we shouldn’t be afraid to tell her so; to be happy for someone if they bagged a promotion at work; that if someone cut us up at a junction we should not react with fury but respond with love and acceptance; to smile at strangers, just because…..😊
How lucky are we to have such amazing role models? You never know how your attitude, your words, your smile can make a difference to others, and possibly just when that person needs it most. ‘Paying it forward’ has always been a pleasure to me. And with all of the life lessons mentioned above, it’s stood me in good stead for coming to terms with, and dealing with the biggest blow ever, the greatest life challenge I will ever have to face.
When I was told I had grade 3 breast cancer, I’ll admit it took me a couple of weeks to digest the information, to admit and accept it was happening to me. I spent the best part of two weeks in total denial in my mind, unable to face up to what was actually happening to me, what could happen I guess, and what I would have to go through in the months, maybe years ahead. I spent hours crying at the thought of the long, agonising road ahead of me. The ‘not knowing’, the fear of the unknown, the endless hospital appointments, then the waiting for CT scan results to tell me whether the tumour had spread and was curable or not! (How I slept a wink in those agonising days, I have no clue!) And then after that period of desperation and being at a loss in life, I cast my mind back to the life lessons bestowed upon me from a young age, and my precious Mum and Dad’s caring, warm and encouraging voices rung in my ears…..’you can overcome anything if you have the ‘want’ and the ‘will’ to do so’.
That’s all it took…..the biggest, yet simplest decision of my whole life was made, it was being presented to me on a plate…..my strength of mind was being tested….my mind was made up….I will survive this! No question! No doubt, an unwavering belief that I would absolutely and categorically live through this disease. My focus was to get through this difficult period in my life that was being launched at me, dropped on me from a great height. To me, it was simple! I’d achieved a lot in my life, and brought a lot of positives into my life, just through, what I believe to be, the power of intention, the power of thought, and pure belief. This life-threatening situation was to be my biggest test yet!
Many people have been so forthcoming and kind in saying that they find my attitude towards my cancer diagnosis inspiring and uplifting. I’m still floored, in a good way, by the hundreds of messages I’ve received from people showing their support, care and love and that will stay with me until my dying days (which is not yet!)
But, you see, I don’t necessarily see myself as inspiring, I see it as a choice. It was no big decision to be this way, to think like this, it just happened and it was simple to me. I chose to use my powerful mind, which is far more equipped than any computer, to overcome the physical ailment in my body. And I know I’m not free of cancer yet….oh, but I will be. What other option is there? Why would I lie down and decide that this is my lot, that it’s ‘curtains’ for me? I’m too young. Mid 40’s is no age to die!
It’s true, life throws up the unexpected at times. These days I just keep pushing on, believing in the possible not the impossible! I realised, when I needed to realise it most, that I AM made of strong stuff. And it’s only when you have ‘strong stuff’ to deal with that it’s brought right to the forefront of your mind. And I wouldn’t have been dealt this hand if I wasn’t able to cope with it. I truly believe that.
The main aim of my ‘Boobie blog’, apart from the fact that I am finding it truly stress releasing and cathartic, is to help other people, like my lovely parents taught me, with a mindset change. And to help others believe in their ability to overcome absolutely anything with the right attitude. We have the power within us; we sometimes don’t see that because we’ve never had the experience before. I don’t wish you this experience but practice now, be mindful now, whatever challenges you are facing.
A dear friend, a few years ago, once said to her husband that she had been ‘Abbie-fied’ after spending some time with me, chatting about all things to do with the ‘power of the mind’ and on the subject of ‘to visualise is to materialise’. To this day, that is one of the biggest compliments anyone has ever given to me.
In the hope that I can make a difference to just one person, maybe more than just one, the following heart-warming story is why I want to share what works for me, why I am constantly putting myself out there, why, if more of us adopt a more overcoming attitude in life, we will have the belief that absolutely anything is possible.
I see ‘Impossible’ as ‘I’m Possible’. What about you?
#belikeabbie
My wish is that…..’If I’m the boy, YOU will be a starfish’.
Abbie’s Boobie Blog 