Shift for Wellness

The pangs of waking up to bright lights creeping underneath the crack of my door as they light the way to the bathroom for me churn deep in my gut. This morning I will not breathe the stale hotel room air and bend to pick up the newspaper that’s been slipped through the crack of the door at an ungodly hour by a no doubt too-tired hotel worker. It almost all makes me wish I was not home. This morni...

As you move through your holiday season, honoring your celebrations with friends and family, I wish for you peace, love, perfect health, inner calm in its simplest of forms, and the ability to see the silver lining in all that life places before you. You owe yourself that much.

Together we have to ask ourselves as parents and teachers, and those who are influencing young people: What are we doing to send a message of calm? How can we send the message to students: All will be well?

There's beauty in coming through one of life’s most trying challenges. Everything is beautiful. The rain. The snow. The heat. The cold. Crotchety people. Screaming children. Bad drivers. Long lines at the store. Wifi that’s down. Flat tires. WHO CARES?! I’m happy I’m alive to be able to experience it all.

Regardless of our abilities and strengths, we should never hold ourselves back from honoring what we know for sure is our truth. Allowing ourselves to “settle” is not living our best lives. It’s boring. It’s cheating ourselves out of what life has waiting for us.

Take that strong conviction you had as a child. Take those beliefs that you so strongly held on to and bring them into your life right now. Believe with all your heart and soul that you are well. That you can be well. That you have the free will to choose wellness.

At the time when I wasn't well, I was certainly in survival mode, but what about those who did their damnedest to survive their journey? Those who struggled, won, and struggled some more only to lose? Weren't they surviving each day they made it through?

I watched my body bounce right back to life just as quickly as it atrophied. The body is such an amazing machine. It can be brought right to the edge of lifelessness, giving you just enough to hang on, and then pop right back to where you were before your diagnosis.

Because I have more recently become very good at filling up my gas tank, remember it’s a practice, I want to share with you what I have in place for my self-care. It’s my hope that my plan will spark a little something in you to make you think about how you can make the same SHIFT in your schedule.

Sadly, 75% of what the average person tells him or herself is negative. And what's even sadder is that many people in our lives have scripted our self-talk, but the good news is we can rescript it. By selecting and feeding our minds positive affirmations the programming in our minds can and will change.

I know from first-hand experience that when confronted with the news of a friend or loved one’s illness, there is a certain uncomfortableness that surrounds the issue when addressing the person for the first time after learning of the news. You’re flooded with uncertainties: What do I do? What do I say? How should I act? Is it ok to smile? Is it too crass to crack a joke? Does this mean that I alw...

If I knew then what I know now about how to take control and be mentally still and relax my body, my agonizingly sleepless nights would have been so much more bearable, relaxed, and filled with restful sleep. When I couldn't sleep, I wish I knew...

The single most important piece of healing after an illness is to accept that nothing is the same. Realizing there is no going back to the life you once lived can prove challenging at times.

More than one million people in America get cancer each year and for more than sixty-five years, the American Cancer Society has been finding answers that save lives- from changes in lifestyle to new approaches in therapies to improving cancer patient’s quality-of-life (cancer.org). What we know now and what I’ve been told by my doctors many times over is, that it’s all about the attitude.

I can no longer survive on even just five hours of sleep. I need a good 7.5 to 8 hours or I might as well stay home for the day. I count back from the time I need to wake up and take it from there. Good luck and be well. Remember the immortal words of Maya Angelou, "When we know better, we do better."

My life is busy and taxed and stretched and pulled in all directions just like yours. Dates help to center me and remind me of who I am. They remind me of my passions and all that I cherished when it was just me. A time I had long before my diagnosis and when days were simpler.

Maybe you can help someone or yourself SHIFT today to a better place. Tell them something wonderful about themselves. What would you say to yourself?

The truth is there’s a physiological limit to the amount of willpower we each have. Hence, if you try to change too many things at once, you inevitably fail. It’s a scientific reality. Instead, consider the simplicity and elegance of selecting one powerful word.

I know that if I don’t honor my mind and body and stop to rest and be still, my body retaliates big time. It gets me back with respiratory infections, dizzy spells, and horrendous stomach issues. I believe seven years ago my cancer diagnosis was a message for me to stop and slow down.

Reading about your situation online can send you into a panic very quickly. Stick to the experts and listen to your healthcare professionals and keep your spirits high. Don’t clog them with irrelevant rants from the Internet.

One piece often overlooked when one is not well, is the health and wellness of the caregivers. They need just as much TLC because they're burning the candle at both ends.

It was the worst of times, it was the best of times. As crazy as it may sound, battling cancer has been the greatest experience of my life. It's like the first line in A Tale of Two Cities, only for me, it was backward. Giggling quietly to myself as I sat across the desk from my oncologist, I thought Holy crow I’m actually going to have chemotherapy. Crazy! It was so weird, so surreal, but I thoug...