If you’re a patient, you know about getting through tough times. If we reach out to other people, things get easier.
When I had cancer, I lived alone in a one bedroom apartment and quite frankly I had no idea how hard it was going to be. I thought I was tough enough to handle the challenges on my own. I wasn’t. Not only were the physical symptoms of my disease difficult, but I also suffered from depression and isolation. My story isn’t unique, or even close to the toughest one you’ll hear. Many patients like us stare down dark nights at 3 am and wonder how we’re going to make it to the morning. Being alone makes the journey much tougher. Helping each other makes it easier.
If you or someone you love is sick, connecting with other patients can be the difference between languishing alone and feeling completely overwhelmed or tapping into a sense of community and accessing resources to make your journey easier.
The first time I connected with other patients was 3 years after my treatment. I sat in a circle with other folks in recovery and thought “Oh My Gosh! I should have been doing this from day one!” There was such power in meeting people who had similar challenges. People shared ideas and strategies on how to get through a tough day. We all breathed out as we realized that we were not alone in what we were facing.
It has been my honour as a speaker and author to work with groups of patients and their families for years now. Something almost magical happens when patients get together in the same room and support each other. It would be great if you could come to the…
The always entertaining and insightful Margaret Trudeau. We get to hear her speak! How cool is that?
Do you know who’s going to do the keynote? Margaret Trudeau! Really. Impressed? I am. There is also going to be incredible content on wellness, self care and managing chronic illness in the workplace. As well, I will be doing my presentation “Taking The Laughter Pill: Humour and The Patient Journey.”
Oh, Did I mention its FREE? And there are APPETIZERS? (At least there will be until I get there)
The appetizers may or may not be salmon. I’m not in charge of the food. But frankly, how can you go wrong with salmon? Just sayin’.
All of this content is valuable. Just as important is the opportunity to connect with people who are going through similar challenges and help each other realize that we are all going through this together.
However, sometimes our “muscles” of compassion and empathy can get tired. You might be easily distracted when you’re with the people you serve. You might not care as much or be using your skills to the best of your ability.
It can be hard for us to admit that this is happening to us. We’d rather just push through it and pretend it isn’t there.
Then kablam! You realize “I’m suffering from compassion fatigue!”
It can feel like everyone is dealing with this better than we are. I’ll tell you a secret about humanity though, we all have our issues. Even the well adjusted “superstar” of your team can have a hard time with compassion fatigue.
So, how do we help ourselves through this? One of the great ways is to collaborate with our peers.
Wait. What?
Really. Collaborating with our peers can help us like crazy.
It struck me that that there are literally thousands in the caring professions who are working really hard, giving generously of themselves and sometimes feeling really worn out in body and psyche because of the nature of this demanding work. I am guessing that no one in the world has this whole thing solved. Yep. No one. However, if we have one small piece of the puzzle worked out, shouldn’t we share what we have?
I had the honour recently of presenting my keynote “The Wellness Solution: Help Yourself Help The World” for The Canadian Mental Health Association: Waterloo Wellington Dufferin. I asked people to share how they dealt with this when they were having a tough day.
What happened my friends, was significant.
People stood up, talked and joked. They shared solutions and strategies to help each other with this tough issue and the energy of the room took off. As a speaker, it was so much fun to see more than a hundred people dive in and collaborate. In fact, folks were so pumped about helping each there that I had trouble ending the exercise and getting on with the show. It was a real testament to how generous people in the caring professions are and how, when we share what we have, everybody wins.
When the day ended, people were happier knowing that they helped their colleagues and that they had learned some valuable tools they could use the next time the elephant tried to sneak back in the room.
So, have you ever been smacked upside the head with an unexplained dose of anxiety? It sucks doesn’t it? Well recently, I was going along and minding my own business when I was hit with a wack of anxiety. It was very strange! Ordinarily I can cruise through pretty much anything and feel calm and cool. Going onstage? No sweat! Big meeting? I got that. Final Episode of Game of Thrones? Ok, that can freak me out a bit. But really, most of the time, the word anxiety has little meaning other than something that “other people” experience.
Not so the other day. I woke up and for some reason and I couldn’t get started working. Everytime I was about to start my timer to do the “gazillion” things I had to do, I was totally freaked out by them. So, I relaxed for a bit and then tried again. No go. I just felt more and more tension in my chest and started to feel down right “freaky”. It was like an ocean tide of bad feeling had just rolled in and there was nothing I could do about it.
Before I knew it, most of the day was gone. The next day? Pretty much the same deal. I started to feel pretty terrible and had no idea how to change my mental state. So what gives?
A few months ago I found out that anxiety runs in my family. This should have not come as a total surprise as I had heard some family members described as “worriers”, but then I realized that these stories actually went back generations. (Here’s a hint: If you hear stories about your family being worried before the Model T was invented, it might be a family issue)
Ah! It seems this whole anxiety thing may have deeper roots than I thought. It doesn’t seem fair that genetics, that mysterious part of our make-up that brought us our eye colour, height and our love/hate of Star Wars, would have something to do with how we feel on a regular basis, but it does. Apparently our genetic history can really affect how we feel.
Here’s the other side of the coin. Many years ago a relative who I won’t mention (We’ll just call him “Dad”) was feeling really worried. In fact, he was walking around the house anxious a lot of the time. Finally it got to the point where he needed to go to his doctor. After examining him, taking his blood pressure and asking him some questions, the doctor came up with a pretty terrific prescription. 1: Stop watching the News. 2: Wear looser underwear.
So, he went home and did both of those things-and he felt better. For me it wasn’t so simple. However, I woke up one morning and the crazy tension in my chest had lessened. I was able to work again, and as I got a bunch of stuff done, I started to feel capable and OK.
Many of us deal with this. My own small foray into the world of unnamed anxiety was tiny in comparison to what others deal with. For some, waiting a few days and making different underwear choice doesn’t cut it. Folks sometimes need medical care for their condition. If you are dealing with this or something like it, I really hope you get some assistance.
My few days of discomfort was enough for me, thank you very much. Hope it doesn’t happen again, but if it does, at least I know there are others fighting the same fight and just waiting for the tide to go out.
Here are a couple of resources for dealing with anxiety here.
Are you crazy about art? I mean any kind of art. Do you get down to old Led Zeppelin tunes? Do you do needle point? Square dance? Do water colours? Woodburning? Do you paint amateurish acrylics of your dog doing water sports? Do you make needle point pillows of Harley Davidson motorcycles jumping through rings of fire? Well if you are doing any kind of art at all, or appreciating it (like our breathtaking jack o lantern up there) you are doing yourself a world of good.
It turns out, the arts are good for us. In a very big way.
I had the pleasure recently of speaking at a conference called The Art Heals Health, Health Heals Art Symposium in Toronto. There was a very impressive group of people there who are committed to exploring how the arts help all of us be healthier. There was a neurologist there named Dr Luis Fornazzariwho showed us incredible research (with diagrams of the brain that were lit up like Vegas on New Years)
This is what Vegas looks like at New Years
proving that when we either do or appreciate art in any form we are stimulating neural pathways and helping our brains stay healthy (I am assuming you only have one brain- I mean brains like “all of our brains”) It turns out that our brains really need to be exercised and stimulated on a regular basis to make sure our minds stay limber.
In my own research for my upcoming book Doing Happiness: Uncovering The Hidden Benefits of Feeling Good, I came across research that shows that art does other great stuff for us as well. Art helps make us happy! Yes, that’s right. As well as keeping our brains cooking, doing any kind of art (including Norwegian woodworking) can help us to be happier in a measurable way.
Want to know the best part? You do not have to be good at whatever you’re doing to get the benefits. That’s right. You can absolutely suck at your art and you’ll still get all the benefits to your health and level of happiness.
Don’t know what art to do? Here are a few suggestions…
1: Buy some acrylic paints (they’re cheap!) and paint a landscape. There are some GREAT lessons on youtube for every level of skill, and that’s a trip to ART CITY. I mean who doesn’t love Bob Ross?
2: Make a playlist with your most favourite music on it and go for a walk. It’s a great way to transport yourself to whole different way of thinking.
3: Dance like your choreographer is Gary Busey. (Wouldn’t that be interesting?)
4: Go to your local art Gallery and wander around. (If you want to sound impressive, mutter things like “How very didactically expressionistic!” even when ordering a coffee.) Personally, I am crazy about the AGO for a bunch of reasons.
Remember, you don’t actually have to make art, you can just appreciate it. Now we know that art is good for us and helps keep us smart, happy and gives us a shiny coat we can take advantage of it whenever we want, and remember you’re not wrecking the living room by painting a mural of your favourite Swedish Death Metal Band on the wall, your making art and staying healthy!
This is a big question and it can fill people with fear. You find out someone has cancer, maybe its a family member or a friend. What do you say? Do you say anything? Do you completely ignore the 2,000 pound Tyrannosaurus in the room and just hope it goes away? That might seem like the easiest thing in the world to do, but is it helpful? Do you drop your documents and run from the photocopier crying when you see them coming around the corner? That’s probably not the best strategy, but I’ve seen it happen. As a decent human being, how the heck do you handle this?
You see, 30% of us will get a cancer diagnosis at some point in our lives, so at some point, someone you know is going to be dealing with this issue.
Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.
As a cancer survivor myself, I have had my share of uncomfortable and yes even hilarious conversations when well meaning folks were trying to talk about something that is tough to talk about. So how do we do it?
Here’s a strategy that works for me.
Wait for a time when you have a modicum of privacy and say something like “Hey, I heard you got some bad news lately.” Then …let them talk. What’s great about this is you haven’t said what the bad news is. This gives them the opportunity to talk about it or not. They might shut it right down by saying “Ya, uh that’s private” or “I don’t want to talk about that right now.” This is totally fine and you should respect that. However, they may want to talk about it. They might say something like “Ya, I just got a diagnosis and I am totally freaked out.” or “Its still early days so we’ll wait and see” They might go into a lot of detail and that might surprise you.
If they are anything like me, they will have a LOT to say. Some of my conversations went like this…
Rob: So, ya, I’ve got surgery scheduled for next week and I think the surgeon is good, but he asked me if he should take out my whole thyroid or just part of it. How am I supposed to make that decision? what do you think?”
Bus Driver: I don’t know sir but you still need to deposit a token.
You might hear a river of opinions and worry that have been damned up for a long time. You might hear about doctors, hospital parking, and ultrasounds. You might find yourself in a 20 minute conversation that is remarkably one sided. Here’s how to handle this…
Listen.
That’s right. Listen. Listening is quite honestly one of the greatest gifts you can give someone who is going through cancer. In all likelihood they will be under a tremendous amount of stress. Being able to talk to you might be just the thing they need to feel a bit of relief.
You’ll notice I didn’t say “Listen and offer advice”. Please don’t offer advice unless you have a DR in front of your name. You will really want to because you’re a nice person and you will want to fix it. Listening is enough. Please don’t mention that they should eat more veggies or take raspberry keytone or got to Mexico to take a weird drug or talk to your Uncle Lou who beat cancer by eating only radishes. This will not help. Listening and giving them a safe place to share what they are going through will. You might be the only person in their life who they feel they can talk to. If so, then you are even more important to them than you realize.
They may ask for more kinds of help later and that’s terrific, but when a diagnosis first happens the best thing you can do is talk less and listen more. If you pull this off, you will be giving them a gift that very few know how to give.
