In this Episode

I was particularly struck by two things, the first being that even though Lena went through  32 rounds of radiation and 16 weeks of chemo, she did not give herself permission to rest or stop.  

The second one is her resilience and I think I should use caps for that word because she had oodles of it.  The beautiful thing about these very painful journeys is that we discover just how resilient we are. 

In the initial stages of the diagnosis, her reasoning was let’s get it over with.  Let’s get rid of it so I can keep going. Even though the sickness itself was a big stop sign.  It was a message from her body asking her to slow down or to stop altogether. 

During the conversation, I made reference to the movie, Enola Holmes. Enola when written backwards is alone, was an investigator and sister of Sherlock Holmes. She was a feisty progressive woman with a mind of her own but she had to do what she was told.  She was told to conform to the paradigm that was dictated to us by men.  That is, to be a mother, not educate herself, procreate, take care of the children and basically never stop, never rest, keep caring for others. 

I made this connection because I believe that this programming is very deep in our psyche. It could be one of the reasons we keep supporting and helping others instead of stopping and asking for or accepting help when we need it the most.  Happily, Lena got heaps of support from both her sisters. 

There are a few elements that we dealt with in this conversation,  one being the emotions and feelings that come with surviving cancer. Guilt could also be another reason why we feel the need to keep going.

This episode is about how important it is to listen to the signals our bodies give us. To me, sickness or pain is a sign with which our body tries to communicate with us that we need to stop.

Do you give yourself permission to stop, to rest?

Do you listen to your body?

If you have not, is it time to stop and listen?

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