Episode 018: Finding The Light Amidst The Darkness
May 27, 2018•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode description
One of the worst side-effects of cancer is that it takes away control and it changes the way you see yourself and the world around you. It’s easy to lose sight of who you really are, and you need to find your way back. That’s what I love about Sophie’s book "The Cancer Whisperer" - it’s all the ways that you can take your power back without being a hero. Sophie shares some fantastic advice and insight that can really help you:
Dealing with fear that comes with cancer
On being blindsided by cancer diagnosis
Keeping your personhood intact
Dealing with conflicting emotions
Coming to terms with cancer
Finding the light amidst the darkness of the dis-ease
Dealing with moments when life shocks you with an event that you weren’t expecting
Unique perspective on grief
and much, much more!
Links
Sophie Sabbage Website
Book Review: The Cancer Whisperer
More To Life
Episode 005: Become Your Own Case Manager
Full Transcript
Joe: Sophie, there’s a metaphor in your book where you refer to cancer as this place on the map where the map runs out. That’s exactly how it feels, like this is the unchartered land. Sophie, what is the first thing you should do to re-orientate yourself in this new world?
Sophie: I think it’s a place on the map where the map runs out. I think it runs out for other people in other ways. We find ourselves in these situations that we have no guidance for, no plan for. A cancer diagnosis is blindsiding. It blindsided me. It really blindsided me. I didn’t really have many symptoms. I think the very first thing we need to do is deal with our fear, because we’re in shock and fear and often in denial at the beginning.
That can take over and start to run the show. I remember when I was diagnosed, I was given lots of leaflets in the British NHS about what to expect from chemotherapy and what to expect from radiotherapy and how to apply for disabled parking, but no one handed me a leaflet with how to deal with my terror, and my grief, and my rage. No one even asked me the question. No one in Britain, in our lovely oncology wards, our stiff upper lips, was even talking to each other about how scared. No one was reaching out to say, “Are you as freaked out as me?” For me, I needed to really confront, challenge, work through my fear before I could do anything that felt remotely powerful in response to my disease.
That’s really why I wrote the book, the help people do that. I have a background in psychology and I have a toolkit for dealing with fear and rage and all of those things. I found it tough. I thought if I found it tough, I wonder who else is finding this tough. Here I am, that’s what I spend a lot of my time doing now, is helping cancer patients work through their fear.
Joe: Yes, that’s fantastic, Sophie. What is the first thing you would suggest to do about fear? What is the first step in the process?
Sophie: I think the first step is to name it, and not go all positive. I meet many cancer patients who instantly get into: I have to be positive and I’m going to be okay, and it’s all going to be fine and I’m going to fight this thing. I’m going to do the battle. I don’t think that thinking helps us at all, I think we need to take some breath into our precious bodies and say: I’m scared. I’m just scared. Most fear, interestingly, is caused by what’s going on in our heads. A cancer diagnosis is frightening enough, because clearly it’s a frightening thing to happen. Then we start telling ourselves things like: I’m a goner.
Or, it’s over for me, I’ve wasted my life. It’s unfair, I’m failing my family, it’s my fault. It’s the world’s fault. I’m powerless, it’s hopeless. I have to do what the doctor’s say. We just get into this, I call it: Mind talk. Where we start predicting the future and imaging what’s going to happen and telling us how terrible it’s going to be to have chemo.
