I can’t forget about the dream I had last night. Let me tell you about it. So basically I was a surrogate for my Asian neighbors who moved to Chicago earlier in the year. The night before I had asked source for an answer about what I was to do with my life. I still don’t know. I’ve been trying to make meaning out of a cancer diagnosis and journey. Things were making more and more sense to me and on this night as I type, my two children have been sick with a cold. The children’s whining and crying and coughing and needs, needs, needs triggered me as a person who had been activated and triggered in motherhood as my very basic human needs were not being met. Simple as that may seem, it isn’t for someone who was trained to suppress human needs for survival. I’ll say it again and again that this is a very dangerous space to live in. It is not something that is spoken about in many healing circles.
So many people looked at me like a complete lunatic when I began opening my mouth about what I had come to understand in my cancer diagnosis with the lens of mind/body/emotion connection thanks to my idol, the late great Louise Hay. Louise had also been diagnosed with cancer and healed holistically. I initially wanted to heal the way she did but I was met with so much pushback and fear from family and friends, and especially the experts in the field of oncology. There was only one way to deal with it and honestly I knew that this wasn’t true.
My healing journey began with fear mongering.
And on this night as I must reflect on the answer I was given in the dream space, I had received a bit of clarity on a deep wound that I had been processing for years: my daughter’s death. I carried a baby for over nine months and I gave birth to a big, beautiful 9 pound angel who would later die. The thing about this crazy event was that I had learned to look at my daughter as having been a baby that I carried for a greater purpose. It’s almost like I was a surrogate and carried a child that would not be mine. In the dream I was emotional because I hadn’t thought through just how much I was going to care for this baby of mine that wasn’t mine. I was worried that she would have to be breastfed because I wanted her to have a good start. I hadn’t accounted for the fact that breastfeeding would create a bond between my baby and I and now I know that the bond that’s created post birth is just as important if not more so than what goes on in utero. It is a lot more stressful to care for a human life outside of the body that poops and needs to eat. When a baby is inside of you, it’s kind of easy. Outside of the body, the baby is exposed to more dangers. I cared deeply for that baby that wasn’t mine. In the dream, I realized: this feels a lot like what I experienced with my actual daughter in real life.
People had been telling me to get over it, to just move on, to return to some form of equilibrium. Thing is, I don’t know if I will ever be the same person. And it had pissed me off. I had tried to put things into perspective. To get over it, to return to equilibrium the way people seemed to want me to, because I think in my dealing with the pain, it meant that others had to deal with theirs, but in a culture that doesn’t know how to grieve, how could it be taught? How could it be acceptable?
I did my best and continue to do my best around it, but sometimes I feel as though this is one of the reasons I got cancer. This was a wound that broke me open. It changed me. I still don’t know why it happened. I didn’t have the answers. It was one of life’s greatest mysteries.
I will speak about this again soon, but the message I have to say is that if a big stressful thing happens in your life, you must release it out of the body. I’m almost certain that after meeting many people in support groups, cancer always comes with deep pain that we didn’t know how to release or handle.
This is the truth for me and I work daily to understand the meaning of what this diagnosis has for me.
Thank you for being here and reading. I’m going to keep it real as fuck in these words. I must.
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