Category Archives: Attitude
Is Cancer a Gift? Deanna Thompson
Often cancer – or any terminal illness I suppose – is said to be a gift. A gift because what was once unconscious, unexamined, taken for granted is now in the open, conscious, and taken in deep gratitude, knowing that … Continue reading
God Willin’ and The Creek Don’t Rise
The diagnosis forced me to relearn, re-energize, and appreciate my husband, my family, my friends in a new, more honest and deeper way. We were all offered healing in the places where our relationships were broken or sagging. I remember … Continue reading
The Peaceful Way
My life purpose, for many years now, has been the call to peace both within myself and in the world. This has been my focus since I was very young, nurtured in Sunday School on the example of Jesus and … Continue reading
We All Do It Differently
Our cultural mind-set primes us to fear, terror, anxiety and the word too often used – tragedy – when we get a bad diagnosis. But that isn’t written in stone. You can meet your life, your illness and your death … Continue reading
Softening the Heart
If the heart is armored against pain and loss and fear, the bad stuff can’t get in but neither can the good. Usually what happens is just the heart going numb. Not too long after my diagnosis, I got a … Continue reading
Bad Stress/Good Stress
Generally, when fear hits us, it triggers the “flight or fight” response in our body; this is a response from our sympathetic nervous system, which means you can’t control it – at least those first few moments of fear. Chemicals … Continue reading
Live Your Life
This one is short and sweet. Very sweet. I decided what the heck, live your life right now. Do what you have to do to prepare then let it go. And enjoy the time you have left. No one ever knows … Continue reading
Simple Gratitude
It may seem hard right now to feel any gratitude. I understand that looking up into the sky when you’re standing in a pit of despair seems stupid, unrealistic, undoable. Nevertheless, even in the midst of the most awful, there … Continue reading
What You Say to Yourself
Sometimes techniques that seem simple may evoke hard and difficult emotions. If you encounter such things using any of these techniques, please stop and talk things through with a counselor or spiritual advisor. It is always best to have someone … Continue reading
Surrender
“The first step of the journey is the admission of powerlessness. It is where no one wants to go and no one will go voluntarily. We have to be led there through our own failure and experience of death. In … Continue reading