Cancer And Self-Compassion

Be kind to yourself.

You’ve heard that said before and, in the context of being a cancer survivor, it’s not that easy to pull off.

Many of us try too hard and go the extra mile when we really don’t need to. Or do we?

Sometimes, it’s a question of not pulling back the reins because you want to show cancer that you can still do the things you did before. That’s important.

Being kind to yourself is fine and dandy but you’ve also got to challenge yourself and go hard on yourself.

I find to very hard to sit still and relax and always need to keep pushing myself because I want to prove that I can do what I used to. It’s also part and parcel of staying fit for treatment and not being ‘the patient’.

Of course, this tends to backfire on occasions when I overdo it and then I’m forced to take it easy.

So, being kind to yourself is not that simple.

Macmillan remind us,  “It’s important to take things slow and take each day as it comes.”

I really think that’s open to negotiation! This isn’t retirement!

Sure take it day as it comes but we don’t need to enter the slow lane of life.

Being self-compassionate doesn’t mean slowing down or not planning more than one day at a time.

Some days I have bags of energy and I really don’t want to ‘take things slow’. Then there are days when I’m fatigued but don’t fancy moving into the slow lane either.

The advice published on cancer forums etc is sensible and will ‘fit’ lots of people but there are days when I don’t want to be sensible and I want to do it my way. It is therefore and individual choice.

Self-compassion is having a positive attitude and involves practising self-care that benefits your well-being and quality of life. For me, that involves pushing my limits mixed with one or two naps!

One of things I often see in my fellow cancer survivors is the unwillingness to shed the patient label. I’m a patient when I go for my treatment but that’s it.

I’m not going to adopt the patient identity beyond that and to me, that’s being kind to myself because I’m not trapped into behaving like one 24/7.

Rejecting the ‘sick role’ is being kind to yourself because cancer then doesn’t swallow your identity and become you as a person.

The problem with assuming the sick role is that we can linger in it and exclude ourselves from activities and responsibilities that actually we’d be better off engaging with.

Okay, cancer is a legitimised sick role but that can be dangerous as it may direct our behaviour negatively and make us dependent on others. It can makes us vulnerable and expect others to see us like that.

‘Patient’ implies being passive and someone with a deferential attitude towards doctors and nurses.

Deference is dangerous. Patients can be deferential to doctors and nurses and nurses to doctors. The latter reminds me of the time a nurse administered ear drops to a patient’s backside, having read a doctor’s abbreviated instruction note on the prescription: “place in R ear”.

I’d rather not be a patient at all. Being kind to myself means not accepting things for what they are but questioning, challenging and pushing.

Being who I am, and not what others want me to be, is an act of self-compassion because it means living well with an incurable disease and having some degree of autonomy and control.