In the past, I have mostly used mindfulness skills for coping with negative and repetitive thoughts in my head. Stuff my mind would make up and try to convince me it was truth and important enough to require my fullest attention. It mostly worked well for me. Then, around 18 months ago, I was faced with an actual realty that required every ounce of mindfulness I could muster.
Along with my daughter, her husband and our extended families, I have been supporting and caring for my granddaughter who has been fighting cancer since October 2017 when she was just 16 months old. If I hadn’t already had experience in mindfulness, I would have struggled so much more than I have. Watching her suffer, be overwhelmed and confused is something very difficult to put into words.
All that ‘practice’ on fake stories has paid off. As the roller coaster of feelings came, from the shock and numbness of diagnosis, the sadness and the anger of ‘why her?’, the over whelming realization of what treatment she had to endure to try and beat this disease and the fact that life would never be the same, I have tried to allow them to just be there, just ‘sit’. Give them room. Notice the physical sensations. And carry on with what’s in front of me. Sometimes that was a very sick little girl as she struggled with treatment. When she wasn’t in such a bad way, I made myself enjoy even the smallest glimpses of happiness.
I said very early on that whatever the outcome, we owe her our very best selves’ every day. She deserves this. She has done nothing to deserve cancer but she does deserve our best. To make her every day the best it can be, the good and the bad ones. Mindfulness was a priceless tool.
When she was first diagnosed, I wondered how I would sleep, how I would stop crying, how I would put one foot in front of the other. I did it by doing just that. One foot at a time in front of the other, and then another, and another. Focusing on each footstep, each choice and always keeping her in mind and trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves.
Even with mindfulness it was not easy. The hardest and most horrible thing I have ever had to go through. But I do feel as if I have handled it all with a fair amount of composure and dignity and I hope my example has helped other family members and friends to cope as well.
Her treatment is still ongoing but we hope to be finished in the next few months. She will be 3 in June and what a wonderful gift it would be to be done before then.
Though 18 years ago when I had my original breakdown, which led me to mindfulness, was a difficult time, I am now grateful for it for forcing me to learn skills I can now call on for the rest of my life.
So do it now. Learn what you can. Sit, breathe, meditate, read, listen to music, or take time out to do nothing, whatever resonates with you. Empower yourself so you can be more resilient for whatever life may throw at you.
