Episode 33 Shownotes - 7 Steps to Freedom from Worry After Cancer

You are listening to Best Life After Cancer Episode 33.

Well, hey, friends! Crazy times, right? Looting in the capital building, a presidential impeachment, a global pandemic coming up on a year in duration, I mean you can’t make this stuff up! Sounds like an end times sci fi movie. Lots and lots of people have a lot of worries about all of this, and for my Best Lifers, that is just the cherry on top of their cancer sundae. You know what I mean, right? For me, I worry about my all of my people, family, friends, patients, about depression and the effect of isolation as people go through treatment. So, I wanted to spend some time today talking about worry and how it affects emotional wellbeing after cancer.

So what is worry? Worry is an indulgent emotion. What does that mean? It is an emotion that doesn’t move us forward or create results in our lives. It keeps us stuck. Really, it is a habit that we get into and can’t find our way out. The reason it doesn’t create any action is because it is a loop, either worrying about something from the past that we can’t change, or worrying about something in the future, which we can’t guarantee won’t happen. So our brain thinks thoughts like “what if my cancer comes back?” “Why did this have to happen to me?” These questions are destined to bring negative results, because when you ask a question, your brain will go to work finding the answer. If you ask “what if my cancer comes back” the answers will likely be things like I may be on chemo permanently, I may not be able to take care of my family, and I may die. Or “why did this happen to me” will bring answers like I must be cursed, everything bad happens to me, or there must be something wrong with me. We can see that those answers will bring MORE worry, in a never ending loop. Can you see how worry creates more worry?

I like to think about worry as a form of emotional clutter. It craps up our brain and crowds out what we could be thinking that is more helpful. It weighs us down. It even increases the risk of what we worry about happening. How? Well, if we think “what if my cancer comes back?” and we feel more fear and anxiety, often that leads us to buffering that feeling with food and alcohol. Alcohol directly increases the risk of recurrence. Increase in BMI or weight does as well. The worry even can act as a trap. It doesn’t fix things and it may lead to feelings of hopelessness. We all know when we feel hopeless, it is not a great motivator to get us to exercise. I also see patients in the worry cycle that ignore symptoms and delay tests because of fear of the worst case scenario.

So how can we address worry? I have 7 steps to decreasing worry. Are you ready? If you take even one or two, I guarantee your worry will be less. First, we need to understand worry’s secret. It doesn’t want you to know this, but worry is usually focused on the past or the future. It is “why did that happen” or “what might happen”. If you understand this, and that you can’t change the past or what happens tomorrow, only what happens today, you have knocked worry down a bunch of pegs in one fell swoop. So, be present. In what is good today. What is fun, serene, beautiful today. Don’t miss today because you are focused on yesterday or tomorrow.
Next, when the worry rears its head, get some relief by becoming the watcher of emotions. If this sounds hard, it isn’t! You observe the emotion in your body. Where is it located? How does it feel? Is it in your chest or belly or arms and shoulders? Is it hot or cold? Dull, heavy, aching, pulsing? My anxiety is in my upper chest and throat. It flutters and pulses, and feels hot and a bit sweaty. This will give you a bit of relief from the feeling. When we focus on the feeling, often it relaxes a bit. Try it, and see. You can even pause the podcast, think your worry thought, and work on it right now!

Third, write it out. Write down your worry thoughts. There is something magical about this that I can’t explain. When we write out what we are worrying about, put it on paper, and then read it back, it helps to release the thoughts. It lets our brain know we hear it and are taking the worry seriously. It gives us space to evaluate and see what thoughts are really a bit farfetched or unlikely. It allows us to start to see that it is thoughts causing our discomfort, not reality. Reality is that you are alive TODAY. So write it down. Every day. This is one of the BEST ways to decrease worry. But it doesn’t last forever. If you write today, and then never write again your brain will fill up with challenging thoughts again. It is like emptying the trash. We never think, oh, I emptied the kitchen trash, it should never get full again, right? We know it is full again every time we turn around! Thoughts are like that – you need to keep writing to keep feeling better. When the worry starts to creep back, that is a sign to ask if you have been doing your writing. Finding these thoughts can be life changing. I had a client this week who thought for sure she was not an emotional eater, but as we have worked through many of her thoughts and feelings, we found that post treatment, she felt “empty”. She literally had been filling the empty feeling with food, and had gained 35 pounds after treatment completed! She had attributed this to Tamoxifen and menopause. If we hadn’t found that thought, I have no doubt she would have gained back the weight she has lost on the program!

Fourth is taking action. Look at the journaling to see what the worry is. Is it recurrence? This seems to be one of the most common. Create and implement an action plan to decrease the odds. This may include deciding how much you will drink, how many days a week you will exercise. It may look like scheduling and calendaring your tests and follow ups. It may involve assessing your weight and making a plan to lose if you are not at the midrange of an optimal BMI. It may be prayer, and making a plan to spend a certain amount of time communing with your higher power. Taking action helps our brain to feel like we are doing what we need to do, and helps it release its grip on wanting to worry. If the worry continues, a thought I like to counter it with is “I am doing everything in my power to get the best odds, so I can move forward knowing I am doing it all right”.

Next is making a decision not to worry about what others think, say or do. We cannot control other people’s thoughts or actions. We know this, right? We often want to, but it never works and then we feel frustrated. So, we need to decide first, that others have the right to think, feel and do whatever they choose. And then we have to decide that it is OK for them to be wrong about us. If they have a thought or say something we don’t like, we don’t have to make it mean that there is something wrong with us. We can just let it mean that they are wrong, confused, misinformed. We don’t have to tell them that or convince them of that. We can think “My friend thinks that I should be over this, but she isn’t in my body, and has no way of knowing what I should or shouldn’t be doing or feeling”. Just like we want to change her, she wants to change us! Let it go. Let her think and say what she will. It is ok and what she feels and says is always about her thoughts. One of the greatest freedoms in life is letting the people around us be who they actually are without trying to change them. Just actually loving them for who they are and accepting them as they are! Once we stop trying to change them, we worry less about what they say and think!

6th is focusing on others. When we focus on others, we take a step back from our own problems, and it can feel like a bit of relief. It also gives us something that we feel good about, which often helps to combat worry. I have a quick story to share. When I was in medical school, I hadn’t found coaching yet, and spent a lot of time with awesome thoughts like “this is too hard”. “When will this be over?” and “this isn’t fun”. All seemed so true, and led to a lot of self pity and poor me. I didn’t like feeling that way and I knew that feeling grateful for where I was always helped me get out of the funk. On the street outside of my apartment building was a homeless man. He said hello every day as I walked to class. I began to bring him food many days. He was so grateful. I felt better, and had a thought, it is so great I have a place to live and food – I have a comfortable place to come home to and a nice setting to study. When times were especially rough, after an awful night on call, or when things really felt too much, I started to bring him food and sit with him while he ate. It put all of my “poor me’s” in perspective. It made me feel grateful for all of my blessings, hopeful that if I could help one person, I was making the world a little bit better of a place, and more patient with the challenges in my day to day life. So if worry is overwhelming, ask your brain, how can I lift up someone else? Because without even trying, when we lift up others, we often lift up ourselves. One caveat I want to point out, though. If you are already a person spending much or all of your time doing things for others and never making time for yourself, the exact opposite may need to be true. Say no to some of the commitments that don’t bring you joy. Let yourself know that you matter, too, and commit some of your time and energy to you. You need and deserve your own love and attention.

Finally, ask for help. Digging out what thoughts are creating our issues is not easy. We often don’t want to see or admit what we think or tell ourselves. These thoughts may be hidden and challenging to uncover. The first and often most important step is identifying our thoughts. We need to see and understand what is there. I am enrolling my Emotional Freedom after Cancer Course on February 14th. Why? Because we can’t love others if we don’t truly love ourselves. Finding freedom from fear, grief, anxiety, worry, anger are the best gifts you can give yourself, and your family. Because if you are miserable, you that is what you are consciously or unconsciously sharing. If 3 months of work could change all of that, what would that be worth in life? If you could live with hope instead of fear. If you could be present, without the worry hanging over you. If you could enjoy all of what life brings without waiting for the other shoe to drop. You deserve this. If you aren’t sure about coaching, sign up for a free minisession to discuss one issue of your choice on my website and see how this can change your life.

Ok, so let’s recap. Worry is indulgent and NEVER creates meaningful change. It usually involves things in the past or future, so being present in NOW is helpful. Ekhart Tolle tells us: “only the present moment is real and only the present moment matters. Both an individual's past and future is created by their thoughts and people's insistence that they have control of their life is an illusion "that only brings pain".