"You're So Strong" and Cancer

Your story will be greatly influenced by how you talk to yourself.

But first, it will be influenced by how others talk to you.

If you’ve undergone cancer treatment, you will have been pegged a “fighter” or a “warrior.” The books and the websites will call your situation a “battle.” You might have even been encouraged to imagine your treatment like it was marching into your body like tiny soldiers going to kill the bad guys. Keep fighting, hang in there, don’t give up. Maybe you cringed a little on the inside each time someone said it? Maybe you still struggled to even see yourself as someone who "has cancer"?

Having gone through it twice before, let me admit, that from the time of diagnosis throughout my treatment, I never once felt like I embodied any sort of "warrior spirit." In fact, it felt ridiculous to me every time someone called me “strong” or “amazing.”

As treatments went on, I only grew weaker. Treatments felt like they were killing me without actually killing me. They didn’t make me stronger. I never signed up for any of this. I only relented to treatment for a chance at survival. I felt more like a victim -- even for several years after being declared “cancer-free.”

But here’s the beautiful thing that eventually happened for me; if you’ve had the misfortune to have to endure cancer, I hope it happens for you, too. At some point, well after my treatment had ended, the language that had once made me feel so uncomfortable, began to manifest itself in a surprisingly positive way. For me, it had everything to do with becoming aware that I could actually learn to feel like this strong person that others had said they saw in me.

At some point, I discovered that regularly attending yoga classes at my gym made me feel… better. By bearing weight on my joints and bones in various poses, my muscles began to strengthen. And by gently stretching and moving and breathing intentionally, I could coax my body to soften and relax. Then later in the gym, while working with a trainer, I discovered that I could lift heavy weights safely. I could move and exert parts of my body that I thought were permanently limited. I felt confident. Strong. My trainer called me “a beast.” It embarrassed me at first. But then I realized, "beast" is a huge compliment in the fitness industry.

Maybe when people say “You are so strong,” or “Keep fighting,” they are just trying to be nice. Or maybe they see something from their vantage point that you can’t see YET. In your quiet and desperate surrender to cancer treatment, there IS strength. There is always strength in surrender, in letting go, in seeking aid from a higher source. I learned that from Yoga. And from life, the greatest teacher of all.