Breast Cancer: Psyching Ourselves Out In A Positive Way

There is a reminder that I seem to need on a regular basis and that is that things never turn out the way we think they will. Another such reminder is that generally speaking, nothing is as bad as it seems. Now I consider myself to be a pretty positive-thinking person but if that is really the case then why do I succumb to being afraid about what is going to happen in a situation before I have experienced it? And why, in retrospect, do I find that usually something that occurred was nowhere nearly as bad as I thought it was when it happened?

“Ah, the power of the mind! For some reason, it seems easier to give way to fear and self-doubt when facing any situation.”Barbara Jacoby

Ah, the power of the mind! For some reason, it seems easier to give way to fear and self-doubt when facing any situation. When we find ourselves facing one of what may be the biggest things of our life like breast cancer, it is easy to focus on all of the things that could go wrong and all of the bad outcomes that may happen as a result. It is easy to recall all of the stories that we have read about others whose outcomes were not what we are hoping for ourselves. And as all of these negatives start to flood our minds, it is easy to start on that slippery slope that will not produce the results that we want. This is a normal place to go. This is an easy place to go. And most likely it is a comfortable place to go because it is familiar.

But, what if, just for this one time, we chose to focus on all of the positives. We have had a lifetime of practicing and performing on so many stages and this is only one more. We know the outcome that we want. So by applying the very same logic, if you are facing a treatment or surgery, etc., you know that you can have a successful outcome. You are in the hands of professionals who are completely trained to treat you. You just have to allow them to do their work with the knowledge in mind that it is just a matter of time for this current treatment to be completed and then you get to rest and recover. It doesn’t matter what the experiences were of anyone else who has had the same treatment because they aren’t you. Each person is totally different from everyone else.

You can choose to think about what next step you need to take in order to move forward in this moment and in the knowing that now you know what to expect from this treatment. But, most of all, you can choose to become a person who will not be controlled by whatever the treatment that you are being given and do whatever is necessary to have a better outcome than you could ever have imagined. It is, now and always, up to you.