“The more you celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate!”

— Oprah Winfrey

Celebrating: looking back and ahead! Find your reason!

Taking time to celebrate, even the smallest of wins throughout the year, not only allows us to appreciate the joy and beauty of the win, but it also allows us to look ahead towards future wins and things for which to look forward. Never is this truer than during the last month of a calendar year, the holidays or the first month of a new year, and especially for those navigating their cancer journey, which by design is riddled with challenging incremental steps towards the ultimate goal of healing.

And so, whether you are reading this hot off the digital press with our December newsletter (sign up here), catching up from your holiday reading at the top of the new year, or just getting to know us and reading through all of our informative articles, our intention with this article is for you to take a moment and deliberately pause to look back and ahead with some celebration. To actually find your reason and to celebrate you!

For many years traditional science and non-traditional research has demonstrated the benefits to the mind, body and soul by tapping into our brain’s ability to release positive chemical reactions from feeling good about ourselves and taking time to recognize a win or success, even if a small one. It is our body’s own fireworks manufacturing and firing center!

So, how to do this? As always, a few practices I have personally found helpful and am sharing for your consideration. Start by asking yourself a couple of questions:

1 | What went well for you this year? 

Let this question navigate through your mind, body and spirit to really get to the answers. 

Action item: Challenge yourself to find at least three things that went well.

If you are struggling with this, then think about what went well through the frame of:

• it did not hurt you

• it did not prevent you from going forward and thus you completed something

• it was able to be done better than you expected before you began it

An example:

When I started my first regimen of chemotherapy in June of 2019, I knew that minimally, I would have to do eight rounds of treatments (once every three weeks), before I could stop that particular regimen. So instead of counting up to eight, I would instead recognize and shout-out my completion stats. 

I would say, “I already have two treatments completed and behind me. Phew, that’s a relief!” 

It was completely a type of “Jedi-trick” on my mind, but I found that it helped me think about what was “done and well” and worthy of celebration versus what I still had to complete.

And after recovering from the battering of each of those treatments (especially the first three), I would celebrate having gotten through the beating and feeling better than when the actual treatment session began.

2 | What horizons are you seeking as you look ahead? 

Action item: Write down an achievable goal (big or small) that you can win.

I would encourage you to not just answer this question in the traditional “setting goals for a new year sense”, but rather through a lens of both optimism and pragmatism. Recognizing those two are more distant cousins than siblings, allow me to explain.

An example:

Optimistically speaking, your horizon could be to quickly reach the next level in your treatment phase (perhaps to complete treatment altogether or to reach ‘complete response to treatment’ and thus stabilize your cancer journey, even if some form of ongoing treatment continues) and once reached, that can be your celebration. Pragmatically speaking, your horizon could be seeing an increased tolerance to your treatment medications (irrespective of the number of treatments needed or the overall duration), such that your body continues to adapt (which it will) and thus your side effects are lessened (which is a welcomed respite), and that too can be your celebration. My point in saying all of this is that horizons can be large and vast, or they can be small and incremental. Take the time to set the ones that are best for you and most achievable, so that you can win, even if small at first!

 3 | What routine or practice will you put in place to enable “celebrating” to become a habit?

Ah, there it is! The toughest question! 
It’s all theory until you actually DO!

Action item: Decide on something you will do as your celebration routine.

As you can guess by now, I like to write things down, and this is how I form my habits. I set daily routines, or times in the day when I do this or that...I conscientiously force myself to look for the wins and write them down. Even if it is texting a loved one with that “small win”, I do it. 

An example:

My vitals or my pre-treatment bloodwork results have always been a set of stats that give me a reason to celebrate throughout my treatments. I would comb through all those results and find at least a couple that were “normal” or near normal levels and I would say, “look at me and these great results! Strong!”

As a patient, YOU have to be your own best champion and celebrator! And I can tell you that this is something I still do today, after close to some sixty-plus individual rounds of chemotherapy treatments and counting. That’s right! Strong!

The pre-treatment bloodwork results check is a great example of my celebration routine, in that as soon as I look through my results and find at least a couple that are normal/near normal, I text my sister Leonor and my life-partner Derek and let them each know about my strong blood work results. It makes me feel good and I know they also feel good for me and that makes me feel good! A small win-win! Find a routine that you can put in place and start it now.

With love,
Amelia O.