Stoic? Not me! . . . more about Feelings

A few weeks ago, Patty shared with me that several people had commented to her that I was being very stoic about my diagnosis. My first response was that they must be folks who are not reading this blog, since I'm right "out there" about the various feelings I've been having in the months since my diagnosis. And, it seems that they were indeed folks who see me in passing, dropping off the kids at school, or smiling in church.

I see myself as anything but stoic about this diagnosis of gallbladder cancer, and I feel lucky to have learned a lot about feelings and how to feel them and move through them many years before my diagnosis. Not that I have it figured out completely, but I am no longer following my early learned pattern of stuffing feelings and having them come out inappropriately every which way. (At least, I hope that's true!)

My "feelings lessons" came from many years of psychotherapy, and many years of taking and helping to run the Opening the Heart workshop (which I talked about in a post in early December (see Feeling my Anger and other Feelings). We used to give a talk on Saturday morning at the workshop that the staff labeled the "feelings talk." Here are some of the things I learned about feelings that have really helped me get through some of these intensely emotional times in recent months, and especially in the last month. (I can't believe it hasn't yet been one month since the Jan. 22 scan that revealed the cancer had spread, and that a new tumor is threatening my existence.)

These last few weeks have been hard. This past week was hard. I keep forgetting that I had general anesthesia Friday a week ago, although the stent that was placed does regularly remind me it's there. On Wednesday this past week, I felt such intense feelings of sadness and anger about having cancer, having a terminal diagnosis, worrying about whether all of my inner parts are working as they should, or the tumor is threatening their functioning. I went to work and spent most of the day with the door half shut because I would cry, work a little, and then cry some more. I didn't like being in all of those feelings, but they were there, and ignoring them would have felt awful, too. Stoic? Not me.

So what have a learned about feelings? A few things . . .

1. Feelings live in the body. They will be there, part of our human heritage, whether we like them or not.

2. We are not our feelings. When we are mad, sad, or glad, we are having feelings, but we are not the feelings. Given a chance to be expressed, and moved through, feelings will shift.

3. Feelings are neither good nor bad, but in our culture, we have distinct preferences for one set of feelings over another. That's why lots of folks talk about "bad" feelings (as in "I want to avoid bad feelings, like being angry") and "good" feelings ("I want to have happy feelings again.") No, I don't usually like feeling sad or angry. But, if my anger is directed at a behavior that is unacceptable to me, it can be a way of setting a limit. And my sad feelings may hurt my heart, but once I have let them be, they can be released, instead of stuffed into depression or anxiety.

4. When we try to shut down on one set of feelings (like sadness), we dampen our response to the world around us, and limit our range of responsiveness. We used to say at the Opening the Heart workshop that our capacity for joy increases as we allow the depths of our pain to emerge. We limit our range of response by shutting down on the emotions we don't like.

5. When feelings are "stuffed," they will emerge, sometime, somewhere, somehow. They can come out in body symptoms, in depression, in sarcasm and ways of relating that hold others at arm's length because we are afraid of being seen, really being seen. They can come out in other ways, too, but they will definitely come out.

For those of you keeping score on my commitment to grade all four sets of students papers I have home before I teach my next class, I have finished 1 2/3 sets, and have 2 1/3 to go before tomorrow is over. The week ahead is my week without chemo, but I see all of my doctors (oncologist, surgeon, and urologist) this Wednesday, on Valentine's Day. (Will they hand out chocolate hearts?) On Friday, I go in for another infusion of Oxaliplatin, and begin two weeks of the Xeloda pills. But today, no chemo! That feels good.

* The images at the beginning of this post are from Learning and Teaching Scotland, available free if used for educational purposes.

Feeling my anger and other feelings . . .

Over the past two and a half weeks, as I anticipated first the CT scan and its results, and then the removal of the pesky spot, I have been awash in feelings. Most of them have not been fun to be awash in, and I am looking forward to the possibility of other feelings coming up now that the "pesky spot" has been removed.

In the 1980s, I attended, and then helped to lead, a series of psycho-spiritual workshops called "Opening the Heart." We did many exercises at those workshops to help participants feel and release "stuck" feelings, feelings left over from past experiences, but not fully felt and released from the body. As I have been awash in my anger, sadness, and anxiety about my gallbladder cancer and the tests and appointments of recent weeks, I have been grateful for what I learned at Spring Hill (which was the name of the organization running the workshops in the 80s and 90s, but which has since closed). The Opening the Heart workshops were created by Robert and Judith Gass, and are sometimes still offered at the Omega Institute in New York.

That's the background for how I've tried to handle the anxiety, fear, anger, and sadness that have spent too much time in my body over these past few weeks. First, I felt a lot of anxiety about having the CT scan and learning whether or not there was sign of the spread of the cancer, meeting a new oncologist, and worrying about how much longer I'll live, and when the cancer will begin to spread. And I've been worried about the now-removed, annoying, changing, spot in my abdomen. I've written about the anxiety before in this blog (see September 15 especially). But some of these other feelings have gained a new intensity around the cancer diagnosis during the last few weeks.

I have been feeling anger, red hot anger at the cancer. Last Friday I was baking cookies for the church Christmas fair, and I realized I was feeling really mad at the cancer. Mad because I love baking cookies, and I want to be baking cookies for many years to come. If you don't know me, and don't know how much I love to bake, this probably sounds really strange, but it's true. Last summer after my diagnosis, my friend Maria kept asking me if I was mad yet, and I kept replying that I didn't see that there was anyone to get mad at. Well, now I'm mad at the cancer, as illogical as that might be. But then feelings aren't known for their logic, are they? . . .

I have also been feeling sadness about the cancer, sadness about some of the things I'm mad and anxious about. How dare the cancer threaten to end my life prematurely? I don't want to die now, to stop baking cookies, to stop teaching, to stop loving and parenting my kids and loving Patty and my friends. I am not ready to die! I resent how this disease has sabotaged my life, and changed the focus of how I live. I want my life back! Well, I guess I'm still more mad than sad, although I know the sadness is there, too.

Feelings, feelings about the cancer, feelings of being cheated and robbed and held hostage by wayward cells that have forgotten their true nature. Yes, I am having feelings, and mostly now I am mad!