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RSSTips to Better Cope with Cancer Treatment
by Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN
1 Tune in to your body.
You may wonder why
you would want to be more
aware of your body at a time
when you’re not feeling well.
But tuning in is an entry into
accepting your body as it is
right now. By tuning in, you
may recognize that what you’re
feeling may not be significantly
different from how you felt
hours, days, or even weeks
before, so you may be less likely to panic when you
feel discomfort.
2 Befriend your body.
You may feel that your body
has betrayed you. But befriending your body doesn’t
mean that you have to like what is happening to it. It means
that you are kind and gentle toward your body, and you are
open to joining, being with, and accepting your body with
all its frailties and imperfections.
Dr. Susan Bauer-Wu
3 Be aware of sensations as just sensations.
Being
aware of sensations as just sensations involves becoming
a curious and detached observer. If you step back and
observe what your body is feeling, you realize that pain is
not just one big overwhelming “thing,” but rather a constellation
of many subtle bodily sensations, such as dullness,
sharpness, aching, or throbbing, that likely change from
moment to moment. Noticing their nuanced qualities and
fluctuations gives them less power over you.
4 You are not your pain.
Sometimes it is hard to separate
yourself from pain and other discomforts you may
experience. The sensations and associated stories consume
you, and you lose perspective. With practice, you can begin
to realize that you are not the pain (or any other discomfort)
or just a patient or a disease; there is much more that makes
you who you are.
5 Turn toward discomfort.
The notion of turning
toward discomfort seems counter-intuitive. A natural
reaction is to resist it, push it away, or run away from it.
While distracting yourself from unpleasantness may seem
helpful in the short run, it doesn’t allow you to actually learn
how to live with what is happening. When you turn toward
and pay attention to the discomfort, it loses power over you.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Dr. Susan Bauer-Wu is a researcher, educator, clinician, and author.
Adapted with permission by New Harbinger Publications, Inc. from Leaves Falling Gently by Dr. Susan Bauer-Wu, newharbinger.com.
This article was published in Coping® with Cancer magazine, January/February 2012.