Today is a reminder to “Go Easy” on myself.
In March 2022 I was diagnosed with colon cancer. To support me through this, I chose a context of GRATITUDE. Grateful it had been found early, grateful for the NHS, for the people surrounding me with care and love, for my circumstances allowing me to live and work through my months of treatment. In early June 2022, I wrote “I’m feeling frustrated“, written while I was in the chemotherapy stage of treatment. I wrote about how the context of GRATITUDE was no longer feeling right for me, so I shifted to one of ACCEPTANCE.
As I write this today, I await a colonoscopy in the first week of July, part of the standard follow-up approximately one-year post-surgery. As the NHS team remind me, it is standard procedure and, statistically, there is very little chance of there being anything problematic picked up by the colonoscopy. So, yes, my rational mind says “It will be fine”.
Here is the thing though. I woke up this morning suddenly more than a little irritated by something as minor as living in a house where things are in flux as the place is refreshed, updated, redecorated etc. I like everything in its place, and at the moment there is “stuff” everywhere and it has me “on edge”.
As I sat with this, I realised that this irritability was irrational. It then struck me that ever since my colonoscopy was booked a couple of weeks ago, I have had a degree of “low-grade” anxiety and depression about the colonoscopy. After all, when I had my last colonoscopy I was given a cancer diagnosis, so my rational mind is overtaken by my sense of worry.
If I think of levels of anxiety being on a scale from 0-10, where anything below a 4 is very much manageable, then if we are at zero we are totally chilled and zen. However, for me, I always have to add perhaps +1 to that 0 even when at my most relaxed, simply due to the fact that I have tinnitus, so my left ear always has a constant ringing in it. If I then add, say, another 2 or 3 due to the colonoscopy coming up, then that takes me up to 4 without anything else going on in life.
If I am currently already at a “4”, then it won’t take much for me to “tip” to being reactive to things not being as I like them.
So, time to choose a fresh context until I have the colonoscopy and get the (statistically highly probable!) “all clear”.
I choose a Context of “Go Easy“.
I will go easy on myself, not expect myself to be totally relaxed, not expect myself to feel “fine” all the time. Once I am aware of that, I can give myself what I need in the moment, and so be in a better position to not become reactive at things that would normally not bother me at all. Oh, and by going easy on myself, I will also be in a better position to go easy on those around me!