Surrender Isn't Always Admitting Defeat

I've always been looking for lessons learned through my cancer journey.

I've have been rewarded with many insights, initiatives, ideas, and adaptations in treatment systems and in deeply personal ways too.

I've taken the Stoic principle of focusing my attention and efforts on those opportunities to exercise personal control. The opportunities often presented themselves as obstacles at first. I found myself using obstacles to increase my focus, affirm my strength or apply adaptive learning.

I approached this learning lessons effort as a duty and responsibility in my role as a patient.

I had serious trouble in seeking and learning lessons in the recovery stage. I had been warned about the challenges in recovery. And what I was told to expect was what is happening.

I acknowledged that the treatment finish line was merely the end of a stage. I accepted recovery as a post-treatment but was also aware us us a continuing extension of radiation treatment.

Residual radiation was still present in my body and killing cancer cells. But the toxicity side effects were also creating collateral damage in recovery. Recovery has been, by far, the worst part of my cancer cure journey.

It was slow, painful, exhausting, and demoralizing. My physical wellbeing was at an all-time low since diagnosis. And nothing seems to be getting any better very quickly.

Frustration was turning into anger. I found myself wanting to put up a fight against the process of recovery. I just wanted to do something by way of resistance and expressing “strength” under the circumstances.

The more I became preoccupied with such behaviors, the more obvious it was that resistance was futile and anger is no manifestation of strength. In fact I was squandering my mental health focus at a time I needed it the most.

So I searched for an alternative strategy, one more aligned with my personal role as a patient. I had already run out of patience with the recovery plateau that seemed to be stuck in neutral.

I wasn't going to give up. I wanted to be proactive in dealing with the recovery phase of my cure journey. But I couldn't find where my personal agency and control elements where when slogging through the collateral side effects of radiation.

I seem to be committed to refusing to give in. I still had the frustration and anger rabbit hole experience tainting my perspective and judgement.

Then it hit me. Recovery wasn't my obstacle, I was. I had made some bad attitude choices about how to deal with recovery. I had to get out I my way.

To do that I had to get rid of thoughts like I was giving up and giving in to the frustrating recovery process. That giving up or giving in framing of the was about losing or admitting defeat.

I needed to rethink the reality of recovery. It was a way towards the win, to be cured. It wasn't an obstacle but a means to that end.

There was no fight with recovery. There was no white flag of defeat. There was no failure to accept.

But there was a necessary surrender of the belief that I could some how influence any aspect of the recovery phase.

By surrendering to recovery will be what it will be, I got out of my way. I stopped being an obstacle to accepting recovery as positive part of my cure.

I have become more authentic to the reality of taking this stage one day at a time. Meditation and breathing are more meaningful now as being present is devoid of and expectations.

Stress levels are back to very low. Surrender working, as is the recovery process.