Cancer through the lens of Personal Sovereignty
When I chose Personal Sovereignty as the first of my five fifteens experiment I had no idea how impactfull it would be.
Cancer has played a really big role in my life the past two years. My partner Blake was diagnosed and successfully treated for two leukemia’s, my brother-in-law passed from liver cancer just a few months ago, one friend is current battling breast cancer, another casually mentioned to me today that she is a recent survivor of thyroid cancer and tomorrow I am getting a breast biopsy for a suspicious finding in my mammogram.
As I think about Personal Sovereignty and what it really means for me, cancer comes front and center.
Blake and I talk about his being a survivor of leukemia and to him Personal Sovereignty means NOT identifying everything he is with cancer. Yes, he is a survivor, but foremost he is Blake. Surviving certainly has immense meaning for him but is not THE meaning of his life. Instead, just being Blake, as he was before cancer, is how he chooses to move forward.
People want him to scream, “I survived leukemia” from the mountain tops, he chooses not to.
People don’t understand that choice.
I do. Now, more than ever.
It is the eve of my breast biopsy and I am very contemplative about response, reaction and choice, all of which are really what Personal Sovereignty is about.
I am a storyteller and offer my life wide open and raw to anyone listening, so many know what I am doing tomorrow morning and they are either reacting or responding. Those who are reacting are worrisome and heavy. Those who are responding are concerned, but positive. They embrace who I am and do positive thing like enlisting a Buddhist monk to say a prayer for me or send me a gratitude poem (thank you Rob) and fun things like create new meanings for biopsy, big idea on people staying young (thank you Garnet).
I am oddly energized, centered and am in that “being present with what is” space. Just 4 years ago I had a call back for an ultrasound and reacted very emotionally and negatively to the experience, the difference, a richer, truer self awareness and amazing learning which came from CoachVille. I see things differently, but more importantly I respond to things differently.
It would be very easy to get caught up in the reactive negative energy. I know people have best intention at heart, but they already attaching negative feeling and story to my experience tomorrow.
There are great odds in my favor, as 90% of these biopsy are negative, but many dwell in the possibility of that 10%. I am not many, I am me.
Personal Sovereignty allows me the freedom to stay in my authentic space, allows me to have a really great week, teach some wildly energized class, to feel happy and to make different choices.
Today, I choose to put my flip flops on, get in my car and turn Pink “Raise Your Glass” up really loud. I choose to sing at the top of my lungs and drive to the beach. I choose to sink my feet deep into the sand and as I look out at the infinite blue just feel really extraordinarily grateful.
Personal Sovereignty lets Blake be Blake, and not just a leukemia survivor, and Personal Sovereignty lets me be me. Loud, goofy and grateful, maybe the 10%, maybe the 90%, but always me!
In the Spirit of Play and Possibility,
Coach Deanna
For more about the Five Fifteens Experiment – click here!
Join me each Wednesday and through out the week as I write about another of the Five Fifteens and examine my experience and my life through the perspective of that word or phrase. Experiment with me! Comment on my experience, discuss and engage or add your own voice as you become part of the experiment. It is powerful, thought provoking and keeps you present in the pursuit of human greatness!
Hi Deanna..beautifully written story. I have thought a lot about what you were sharing in class. One thing that stuck with me was when you said that Dave suggested you take a walk on the beach, take your shoes off, and really feel the sand ( or something close to that !).. It is the same in life..we have to take the protective barriers off our souls ( soles of the feet) to really feel and experience life, relationships, and ourselves. With the barriers, down we can feel and particpate in our lives.
Making a decision not to react to your situation, but to respond with faith, maturity, and a sense of “it will be okay no matter what ” will give you freedom, flexibility, and grace. I am sending you and Blake an army of angels to protect you and care for you tomorrow and always.
Holy crap, Deanna. This post is so powerful, in so many ways. I feel I need to re-read and re-read again to get all the juicy goodness out of it! I’m holding you in my thoughts of white light for a positive outcome (and I suspect that you would say whatever the outcome, it’ll be positive in some way).
Thank you for highlighting the Five Fifteens; somehow I lost track of those. So much power available in these – it’s a bit frightening. Then again, Thomas’ brilliance and genius was a bit frightening!
Hugs,
Sherrill
What beautiful music you’re making with your words and energy – I Love It! Since I’ve met you I’ve always been inspired by your ability to help others dance to a new rhythm. I guess there are some medical staff that need to be exposed to a human catalyst for changing rhythm. In anticipation of another great story, I dance with you!
I can hear the centeredness in your words and I am at peace within my own world. Thank you for that. I now know that no matter what I have to do or handle I can do it with Personal Sovereignty. The message brings a deeper meaning to it now.
Thank you for sharing your story Deanna. I totally support and understand your decision to respond as you are. I am journeying with leukaemia and choose to live every day with my heart full of joy. Whatever will be will be and I am totally in charge of my response.
Namaste!
Namaste Rosemary,
It certainly is a journey filled with immense challenge and at time unfathomable joy. My door is always open for you – call the main number and ask for me!
With thoughts of peace and healing,
Deanna
Yes, you’re goofy and silly and perfectly imperfect. That is why I love you. Remember, no one who was “normal” ever did anything worth talking about. Thank you for allowing us to experience You. My heart and thoughts are with you.
Well done Deanna…there is nothing more powerful in the universe than being the person we pretend to be. I commend you and Blake for having the courage to be yourselves…in all your up and down moments. Here’s to another great day of changing people’s lives!
Garnet
I too have been on a two year journey of “what is.” For 16 years I have had Fibromyalgia. It has been a diagnosis that I understood. I listened for the signal’s of what my day was and my moments were as to what I could do to live at my best. I embraced my best. I understood my best and played very well there. Then two years ago I realized that I would need to play in another arena that I had no clue what “my best” play would be. The combination of new and unexplored adrenal failure, mono, virus, bacterial infection and shifting my body from one type of hormone replacement for one that shall we say was met with a violent reaction on top of Fibromyalgia was somewhere I had never played. I met it with everything but play. Two years. Two years. At times I felt that my calendar just changed pages without me making a mark on them. At times the pages were not turned at all. Then came a place and time when I took a big breath and realized that my “being” was indeed going to be an experiment every single day. And THEN it became a game of play. To play where every moment was different and totally out of my control and void of any particle of energy was an experience I never thought I would play in never-the-less be filled with joy. And today joy it is and tomorrow it will also be joy. The lessons I have learned in the last two years while coming to the depth of experiencing joy are precious and ones that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Deanna-
Keep living your “out Loud awesome Self” no matter what-
Luv-
Marilyn
Today is good!
I was at the hospital first thing this morning for a breast biopsy. My first mammogram, second mammogram and ultra sound warranted a biopsy.
The mammogram they took TODAY while preparing me for the procedure and to determine where to go in for the biopsy showed that the spot moved – so it would then NOT be DCIS – which meant NO biopsy and NO cancer. WOO HOOO!!
WOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! YAY – life is good!!
Yay, yay, yay!!!
YAAAAY, Deanna! I can see the joy on your face all the way from Colorado.