You are listening to best life after cancer, episode number 54.  Today we are talking about the science of fear and also something I just learned about, but made SO MUCH sense why people struggle to change their thoughts after cancer.

But first, I am going to tell you a little story from when I was a kid.  We lived out in the country with a stream about a quarter of a mile behind our house.  There were no other kids for miles. so my brother and I hung out a lot, even though he was 6 years younger than me.  At the end of a long winter, there was a day that was that perfect, really warm and beautiful spring day.  My brother and I were outside and headed to the stream.  We had spend time when things were frozen making a tree bridge across it.  We got down to the stream and onto the logs.  I was in the middle, with him right behind me, when I realized there were 3 snakes coiled up at the end of the logs in the sun - likely just emerging...

Well, hey friends. Hope this finds you well. We are having a winter with a LOT more snow than the last few years! I have really enjoyed some snowy walks with my dogs, along with some sledding and skiing with my kids, which has really been fun. But, it keeps snowing during the week! This leads to challenges getting to work, and school being cancelled. So funny, our family in Wyoming say that school is never cancelled for snow, but yet here in NJ, it is whenever we get more than 4-5 inches. And we have seen what happens when Texas gets snow – everything screeches to a halt. Hope all of you in that part of the US are haning in there! Interesting how things vary across the US, right? My friends in the Carolinas say that school is cancelled even if they are predicting snow! One of the things about working in oncology, man, many of my patients manage to get to treatment even in blizzards! So I do everything I can to get to work safely so that I can take care of them. I guess what I...

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...

Hello, my best lifers, and welcome to Episode 3! I am so excited to get to talk to you again today! Today is really cloudy and super windy, but this morning, my husband and I got up and went for a quick walk with our two young dogs. We have a yellow lab and a german shepherd, both of which are under a year old, so they are less destructive if they get some exercise. It started to rain just as we got home, so I was feeling lucky that the world played nice and let us get our walk done instead of pouring on us. Now I am refreshed and ready to get down to work. I wanted to do a quick refresher before we started today. In the first podcast, we talked about allowing our emotions, leaning into them, instead of avoiding, resisting or reacting to them. It is a skill that takes time, and I hope you are making some progress. The second week, we talked about the difference between thoughts and circumstances, and how to start to be more aware of what the thoughts are that are causing the...