"The Gift of Few Options" to quote Tim Ferriss
High risk & little return - but I discovered a greater gift as a result of cancer treatment.
I was listening to a very early podcast episode of Tim Ferriss (10 years ago in fact) on my morning hike and Tim referred to part of his conversation with Kevin Kelly as the gift of few options, not withstanding I thought it would make a great title, it got me thinking about what it was I was learning on this healing journey and as I enter the next phase of my eating life.
I thought how relevant that comment was to life after head and neck cancer, how relevant to the minefield that is the healing journey and process and how much of it is mental as well as the more obvious physical. It was in fact not true, this healing process has provided if not few, a greater gift which continues to provide.
It made me wonder whether other cancer patients felt the same way. Did this type of cancer produce different feelings and outcomes for the human underneath the treatment? Was the loss of tongue, lymph nodes, jaw, roof of mouth, smile, face creating different humans? How did that differ from losing a breast or breasts or internal organ, how did it affect the daily life of the person managing its loss? That is of course if you managed to not lose your life in the process.
If personal experience is anything to go by I now know that loss of social interaction with eating and drinking is one of the biggest hurdles to:-
a) not only come to terms with but also,
b) create pathways to manage that process is vitally important in creating a new ‘eating life’.
This might only become apparent some time after treatment. I know I spent a number of years just working out ‘how to eat’ and how to eat in company.
Now it’s more a matter of finding other activity that I would typically share with others that does not involve food or drink, although I notice I am increasingly getting better at sharing food socially as time goes by.
That in part is because of physical capabilities, healing continues but and most importantly, it is because over the past 3 years particularly, I have learnt to understand my own mind better.
Meditation and the particular process I chose (or rather stumbled into) has created a different person mentally than who I was before not only diagnosis but also treatment.
I was the sort of person who’s mind ran at a million miles an hour, I exercised and did yoga breathing which certainly helped, but until I learnt to really explore my mind and conscious thinking I really had no concept as to how powerful I was.
When I say “I” I mean my mind and self talk, self thinking and the voice in your head that constantly talks to you. Runs with ideas, and what I should say, will say, will do and what I am going to do … you get the idea.
Quietening that and listening to what the topic was, what the outcome might be and what it was really providing as an outcome became the gift that did quite literally keep on giving.
When it finally clicks into place, what “they”mean by meditating you start to unravel years of conditioned rut creation. You can sit with the pure essence of who you are and in that I started to find more internal tools as to how to manage what had happened to me.
The last few days I have had a sore throat. This is where this cancer started for me in my left tonsil and I had a relentless sore throat for nearly 9 months. To say that having or getting a sore throat now freaks me out is an understatement, any little niggle in my ear canal, throat or mouth makes me very anxious. I start to worry and I mean really worry, what use to be a not give it a second thought ailment, now is a major “what if” moment, or it use to be.
I took myself to bed for a full day, stayed warm and thankfully had homemade chicken soup on hand. I slept, my body tells me now to stop, just stop and do what you have to do to start to feel better again, everything else can wait.
And so I listen to my body and do what it tells me to do. No guilt, just respond at some sort of primal level to whatever it needs. I can only do this now because I have this inner and much deeper understanding of how I operate on a daily basis. I notice and listen to what my mind is doing, my consciousness is creating and can manage that process so much better than I ever have before.
So the “gift of few options” and high risk little return seemed at the time an extremely good analogy for what I (and many others) have been through, except I have discovered a greater gift which continues to provide as a result and that is better management of self.
I know we all wonder ‘what if’ - what if it comes back? what if it metastasises somewhere else, what if I can’t do this or that? How am I ever going to manage XYZ? We have all been there, we all ruminate about the what “ifs”.
As soon as I start thinking like this I recognise it for what it is and immediately start on a process that creates a different thought play, I don’t waste time on what ifs, I do what I can do now, I enjoy what I have now, and I focus on that.
This has opened up a whole new world of freedom for me, I now have time to work on interesting things, projects that feed my sense of purpose and feed my overall sense of good health both mentally and physically.
Mastering that internal dialogue has been one of the greatest gifts for me and I use it every day, it doesnt mean I don’t cough, spit or have pain, I do, but I don’t focus on it and focus on what I can do, that’s the difference.
Eat well.