Sometimes when life hands you lemons you don’t realise the lessons that come with it. But in reality, our hardest times often result in the most profound changes in our mind, mantra and life… and quite often, what those profound changes can be is all up to us!
I’ve talked before about the cancer road I’ve travelled on and the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Perhaps the most profound of those lessons are the ones about self love and self confidence.
Self love is so important and yet, can be so difficult when going through such immense physical changes. When battling cancer and undergoing treatment, I experienced some volatile side effects to my day to day quality of life. When the depression and anxiety of a cancer diagnosis meets the physical changes of the disease and the treatment, exuding self love and confidence seems impossible. This is when its important to realise the small things are actually the big things! When I look back to my treatment days I realise that going through the treatment was an act of self-love of its own accord. I was taking the effort to take care of my self, getting up to go to appointments when I didn’t want to or subjecting my body to something I knew was going to make me feel immediately sick… going through cancer treatment is an act of self-love because you are doing what is best for yourself.
Accepting some physical changes is difficult. Whilst some are temporary, when you are in the thick of hair loss or weight loss, the temporary nature doesn’t make coping any easier. It took me awhile to accept that I wouldn’t be returning to my pre-cancer self. Fortunately, with a little bit of patience and a lot of compassion, finding self-love and healing in an altering body is my end goal, and something I work towards each and every day.
And that’s just the physical changes! The emotional changes can be even harder and last long beyond the physical ones. Cancer disrupted so many aspects of my life and the very essence of who I was. It forced me into change and to confront my mortality. It resulted in sadness, anxiety, loneliness, fear, frustration and guilt; many of these feelings I still confront and deal with every day.
But through all that, through all the negative, there is positive.
I now have a profound awareness that life is short and special. I have shifted my priorities and gained clarity. I have actively chosen this year to work on loving myself, forgiving myself for any past mistakes and choosing to take care of myself properly with diet, sleep and exercise in a way that is good for my body and soul and nothing to do with society expectations on appearance. I now set clear boundaries and only say yes when I truly want to. Setting boundaries is my crucial form of self love, maybe not as luxurious as a spa day, but it has given me the freedom to fill my cup with the things and people that matter most.
“In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experience that shaped you”
– Unknown.
Self care and self love is not selfish and will mean different things to different people. What’s important is discovering what it means to YOU!
Forever grateful,
Nic
