Dear Fellow Travelers,
Lately I’ve been practicing strengthening my physical balance. It takes me back to yoga days when I first paid attention to what goes on in my feet when I try to balance. To feel this, bare feet are best, or stockinged feet. You need to challenge your balance a little bit to find the sensation. Too much challenge and you lose your balance all together. You can increase the challenge by standing on one foot, by closing your eyes while standing, by reaching your arms in the air. Keep your knees soft. It’s not cheating to stand by a wall or a chair back for safety. The point is not to create the most difficult balance pose that you can sustain, but to challenge yourself just enough to feel the sensations in your feet.
When I stand on one foot, I can feel all the micro-adjustments that my foot and ankle are making. They feel like tiny movements to adjust and distribute the pressure evenly around the sole of my foot. That movement of adjustment is essential to balance. You must allow those tiny movements. Resist too much or become too rigid, and you lose your balance.
Noticing this again during the past weeks has helped me navigate. I generally have a positive outlook on life, and even on living with metastatic cancer. This is intentional – my life is richer when I choose a positive focus. AND – I don’t deny reality, and there are days when it hits hard.
I’ve just been through the scan cycle (all is stable I’m pleased to report). Every three months I have scans to assess my cancer status. Cancer folk give supportive nods to each other as we approach the uncertainty of scan time. There’s a word for it: scanxiety. For me, even when I feel confident that my cancer is stable, scanxiety is real. It reminds me in a very concrete way that I live with cancer. One day a scan will reveal progression, new activity of the cancer. Progression of cancer is never good news.
So approaching my scans, I had scanxiety. I have other non-cancer life challenges right now. (It always seems unfair that life hands us all more than one challenge at a time. But I digress.) Some of the cancer folk I follow online and in support groups have started talking about hospice or have died. I had a couple of days where the weight of all of it just felt too heavy. I don’t want to have cancer. I don’t want the limitations it brings. I don’t want to have a shortened life. I don’t want to have a painful decline.
I lost my balance.
To find my balance, and my hope, I had to do some tending and adjusting. First, I noticed my exhaustion. I have had a general rule for myself for several years when I am critically underslept: no permanent decisions, no permanent consequences. I just don’t see life clearly when I have a big sleep deficit.
When I noticed this, I passed the day with mindless distractions that asked nothing of me. I asked little of myself. I felt my feelings – sad and mad in my case. I ate comfort food that I also knew would sit well in my stomach. I grudgingly got some fresh air. I got in bed early and I slept. Lest you think I handled this with grace, I assure you I did not. Describing it in hindsight makes it sound less messy than it was. But the point is that, messy or not, I allowed those micro-adjustments that I needed to find my way back to balance.
The recovery continued for some days as I took tentative steps back to hope. Being honest with my beloved helped. Being outside helped. Getting some exercise helped. Listening to music helped. Talking with a friend helped. Stepping out of other crises, even briefly, helped.
And so I found my footing, my balance again.
When you lose your balance, how do you find it again? I’d love to hear in the comments.
Here’s to all the people and parts of life that make us whole, that bring us back to balance.
Thanks for being here. Please share this post with folks who might be interested.
Lots of love,
Maija
Song of the Week: All is Full of Love by Rosie Thomas. This one is a kind of meditation. When I find my way back to hope, to balance, this is what I can see again: love is all around us.
I wish I could regain my balance as gracefully as you described. Usually I grumble through the day (only to myself) and put a bright face on for the public. Thinking about it too hard only makes me more grumbly. I go to bed early and hope the new day dawns brighter. Luckily, it usually does.
I like to go the way the river is going or I find myself inserted into rocks. Like you said, too much resistance makes me rigid. Just "being" with my lack of balance really helps me, in the end.
Bright blessings to you and your sweet wife. Sparky
I needed this today. Five years and counting with MBC to bones. Thank you for telling it like it is 🤎congratulations on the scan! My last one was stable too💜