Unravel Cancer: Experiences with family battling cancer: Right

31 July 2009

22:28 Right | Gentle

My dad has been telling me a story from his early days in AA. He said he had a problem with someone & was complaining to his sponsor about it. His sponsor took out a business card, and folded it in half so it stood like a tent. On one side he wrote "right" and the other side he wrote "gentle".

He asked my dad, "Would you rather be right or gentle?" This lesson in reducing my expectations of others and moving more into a flow of accepting what is, has been quite difficult, yet progress has been made.

So it has been, with my state of affairs these last 2 weeks. What the yoga retreat taught me was to be gentle with myself, no matter what was going on. Even though my body was reacting in all sorts of different ways, and I've been sleeping for 12 hours a night and waking up tired, and not leaving the house much, I'm gentle with myself in these actions. Clearly my entire being has needed sincere rest, and regeneration. This has resulted in me not going to any meetings for 2 weeks, and only lightly touching on the daily suggestions my sponsor wants me to do.

Yesterday when she called, she kicked me hard in the ass to get back on the program bandwagon. She said I couldn't call her if I wasn't going to work the steps & daily suggestions the way she outlined for me. She said I wasn't committed to the program, and that she sponsored so many people that she couldn't waste any time on someone not working the steps. Needlesstosay, I was quite resentful & angry after the phone conversation. Later that evening, I wrote more of my 4th step, and included her, but it didn't seem to help. My pride is severely wounded, so I've been in "stinkin' thinkin'" mode since yesterday, and frankly I'm confused.

One slogan of 12-step programs is "first things first". This is a way to help prevent your brain from going to CrazyTown with distractions and overwhelm at a situation, and instead focus on just the immediate task at hand. In a way, I was doing this by trying to stay present with everything I felt, including the massive fatigue & lack of concentration. This often lead me to shirk my daily 12-step responsibilites. But, I also knew that sleep & taking care of my body, was the first thing I needed to do.

Another slogan is "Do the next right thing". What the "right thing" is changes all the time. For me, the "right thing" in these last 2 weeks has been to sleep as much as my body has asked for, to be gentle with myself, to give myself full permission to relax and go slow, to write this blog, and to cry & smile when the mood struck me.

Honestly, doing these things was a great sign of progress for me. Even though I felt physically mopey, lethargic, and worn down, inside I was quite content. For the first time, probably ever in my life, I was allowing myself to just be, without forcing myself to do stuff or be perfect in the eyes of my mom, my family, God, or a mystic cloud of peer judgement. That niggling feeling of anxiety that I wasn't "good enough" or "perfect" was barely present these last 2 weeks. It was like I climbed to the top of a high mountain on a spring day, and finally caught my breath.

Instead, I've been using the best two-letter sentence ever created: N-O I've said No more these last 2 weeks than in my entire life! It feels great! Actually, saying No is only half of it. When the person I said No to, respects the No, and honors it, THEN it's a completely satisfying reflection of self-love. It's yet another amazing result of all this hardship & pain. I'm no longer afraid to say No.

But, I digress.

What wasn't so thrilling was hearing my sponsor say No to me. Ahh, life is different when the shoe is on the other foot, eh? I have to laugh at myself for this. :)

On one hand, I can see where she is coming from. She's right: she's not a therapist, so it's probably not a good idea to talk to her about everything with an assumption I'll be helped or feel better.

On the other hand, she also told me a condition of working with her was that I was to not be in therapy, I haven't been. If I need support beyond the steps, or I have questions about what's happening (like the fatigue, etc.), or if I want to learn about her experience with the 4th step, I can't ask her unless I'm doing all the stuff she prescribed. This just doesn't feel right, nor make any sense.

It just seems like all the grief & sorrow is perfectly normal for someone going through my situation. Yet, it's beyond the framework of the steps. The steps teach us how to deal with alcoholism or drug addiction, not the death of a loved one from cancer.

The experience with my sponsor left me so unnerved, that I felt like ending the relationship. While I could see her point fundamentally, it was the lack of gentleness that blew me away. Nobody should be talked to, and put down like I was in that conversation. Something just seemed seriously wrong. Since I've gone through so much of this process with her, though, it seems impractical to find a new sponsor. I'm only half-way done.

The hardest part of the experience of having 2 family members dying of cancer, is having to be so strong for everyone PLUS be strong for myself. It's been such an unrelenting tsunami of chaos & intense feelings, that I'm tired, exhausted. Literally! My body is reflecting that, right? (*schink* a lightbulb lit above my head) I just want to be weak for a change, to fall into the arms of someone else who can hold me for a while, because my arms are tired of holding myself. I just want a shoulder to lean on sometime. I thought my sponsor could be that shoulder, but clearly she cannot. I thought my roommate could be that shoulder, especially since she was so beautifully before I left, but she is not that shoulder either.

The spiritual option would be asking God or my Higher Power to be that shoulder. Somehow it's just not as satisfying as a real live voice, or a real live shoulder. It's worth a try though. What else have I got to lose?

Meanwhile, I'm not sure what to do about this sponsor thing. So, the next right thing in this situation, is to do nothing. When the next next right thing reveals itself to me, then I'll take action at that time. It may be a day, a week, or a month, but I trust I'll know it when I see it.

Labels: al-anon, al-anon sponsor, alcoholism, do the next right thing, first things first, gentle, right, sponsorship

Breathe.

I'm a 30-something professional woman who's mother & brother were both diagnosed with Grade 3 Astrocytoma tumors within about a week of each other. My mother's tumor is in her brain, and my brother's tumor is in his spinal cord, causing him to lose feeling in his arms & legs. These writings are about my experiences dealing with them, coping, loving them, loving myself, and living my life knowing that they are both dying. I hope you find inspiration and courage from my writings to help you get through whatever is going on in your life.