Walking Away From Cancer - What Does This Mean And How Do You Do It?

This is a question I am often asked when people hear me say "It is possible to walk away from cancer?".

So, 10 years after my own diagnosis, I want to take a few moments to explain myself.

Walking Away From Cancer is not about the physical side of this disease or it's treatment or it's cure, as such. It's about how you think about cancer and how that affects your quality of life and possibly your outcome.

When we are diagnosed with cancer we are thrown into an unfamiliar, fast paced world, where albeit unwillingly, we soon slip into our assigned roles. We very quickly become 'the cancer patient' or the 'cancer survivor' and are soon wearing the labels they give us. Before long, it seems every description of you, includes the word 'cancer'. It's defining you at every level.

It's a club no one wants to join, and once you are in, very difficult to leave.

Walking Away From Cancer is about, NOT wearing their labels. It's about holding on to you, the person you were the day before you heard the words "you have cancer". It's about NOT belonging to the club.

Clearly this experience will change you in ways you cannot even imagine yet, but it does NOT have to OWN you!

It is possible to walk away at any time in the process, what ever treatment options you decide upon or what ever your outcome, because this is an emotional walk. One that will get you mentally off that merry go round and back to living your life as YOU.

So how do you accomplish this?

Firstly, we all have to change the way we view cancer. We treat it like it is something 'special' that it is an invasion and we begin attacking it. We even use words like 'Fighting' and 'War' when talking of this disease.........why? We don't when talking of other auto immune diseases, so why cancer?

Why does cancer scare us into submission?

Secondly, we each have to come to the point in time where there is a defining moment for us. Where we temporarily wake up and realise, that our minds are being hijacked and re-conditioned to think differently about just who we are.

This moment needs to be grabbed and noted for what it is, which is your own self trying to assert its dominance again. It's a moment when your inner self is shouting "STOP the ride I want to get off". If this moment is missed, we can all too easily slip into our newly assigned role and get comfortable.

For me, the defining moment was very early on, in fact on the day I was having my pre chemo tour of the Cancer Clinic. A very nice and well intentioned nurse was to show us around and as she greeted us, she said, with a warm smile............,

"Welcome to our unit, you are ours for life now".

Something inside of me that had been bound very tight, just snapped and I heard myself saying (in my best British accent), "NO I BLOODY AM NOT! You've got me for 12 months and then I'm OUTTA HERE!"

The nurse smiled one of those knowing smiles that said she knew better but I knew in that moment, I was not going to let this thing define who I was. I was NEVER going to belong to her club, that this was a passing moment in my life and nothing more. Cancer was not my life and was NEVER going to be who I was......period!

I was motivated into a frenzy of determination to be done with this thing, this incident, this passing sickness by the following year. I was not joining the "Cancer Club"!!!!

My journey over that year and the subsequent 9 years has brought me to a place of knowledge and self trust that now shapes my life. I have learnt many things about cancer and myself, but one thing I know to be an absolute truth is, it's not just about medicine. It is not just about what they can do for you.

It is about YOU!

It's about how you think about cancer and how you think about yourself!

IT'S ABOUT ATTITUDE!

So, if you are ready to change the way you think and feel about your cancer? If, you've had enough of the fear and dread? If you want to find the hope, strength AND attitude to TAKE back OWNERSHIP of your life?

Then, come find me on the bright side.

Coach Lin