“Treat yourself well, darling. We all have days when we feel less than we are.” S. C. Lourie

If you’re having “one of those days” kick off your shoes and be nice to yourself. Don’t believe all the negative thoughts. Don’t take that stuff personally.

Today is a day to be kind to yourself.

To show yourself self-compassion.

This is a personal view as a family member of someone with cancer. Please be aware that some of the content may be triggering. Please take care 💚

It’s been a while since I wrote about cancer. It’s not that it’s not been at the forefront of my mind. I think when it’s part of your family it does stay there pushing its way to your thoughts. But I just haven’t had anything of any real worth to say. Or anything to share. Lately though my thoughts are busy.

We currently are waiting in results from my mum’s latest CT scan. We have appointments booked with the two hospitals involved in her care in the next couple of weeks. This will be to discuss the next steps. We know it won’t go away. We know the prognosis isn’t good. But we will find out how bad it is at the…

The way we see ourselves, and the things that happened to us, are not true reflections of reality. They are merely constructs that our mind has pieced together.

Yet those constructs are believed, and they influence what we do, how we see ourselves, and our relationships with others. Thus, they’re very, very powerful, for they influence everything.

For example, if I think that you don’t like me … that you’re tolerating me … that the lovely things you say are really fake and insincere… then this will shape and influence how I feel and act with you.

It will become my embodied experience.

Mostly likely …

I’ll feel bad about myself. A bit unsure and insecure. And I’ll start to feel quite anxious when I’m hanging out with you. Perhaps I’ll stutter and I’ll stammer, and I’ll say some stupid things … for I can’t be my real self …

Unhealed trauma can sometimes look like:

1. An inability to relax and feel safe in relationships. Always being afraid that the relationship will end, or you’ll be supplanted by someone else. Having a deep fear of abandonment.

2. Having a deeply ingrained sense of shame. Believing there is something badly wrong with you. Believing you are deeply flawed at your core.

3. Having a fragile self-esteem. Never feeling you are truly good enough. Believing you don’t deserve to be wanted, loved, respected, valued, and treated as well as other people.

4. Craving external validation. Needing constant reassurance from others.

5. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Being afraid to relax in case things fall apart. Living with high levels of anxious. Feeling you are always on high alert.

6. Feeling you have to change yourself for other people (in order to be loved, or accepted by them).

7…