Letting Go of The Past is Critical!

Being in a stressful state raises your cortisol levels (stress hormone), which in raises blood sugar levels and shuts down other aspects, such as your higher level cognitive functions (complex thinking) and your metabolism and related elimination of toxins.
Especially in early days of a Cancer journey, you will likely feel incredibly stressed and go through an emotional roller-coaster following your diagnosis. This is essentially unavoidable, unless you are a robot. However, it is important that you slow yourself down, accept that you have a battle to win and regain your composure and hope.

In fact, some form of traumatic level stress event is most likely the root cause of the cancer having developed to begin with. It may be external toxins, but if not, ongoing chronic inflammation (ie physical stress) which itself can often be linked to mental stress.

One of the first things to do, which is pertinent advise for anyone, is to make peace with the past, to let go about what has gone before. Nobody needs to fret and worry about things they cannot change and no good can come from dwelling with regret about would’ves – could’ves or should’ves. The past should be occasionally used to reflect on and learn from to inform decisions to be made moving forward! My eldest son, offered this beautiful analogy of treating the past as a rear-vision mirror only (like a car), where you occasionally glance at it (for example to shift lanes), but gazing at it too long will be dangerous and likely derail your path forward!

In my own life lessons I came to the conclusion that our past has brought us to where and who we are today, including the opportunities that lie in front of us. Playing mind-games about returning to the past with current hind-sight, to fix a mistake or do-over some temporal experience, is perhaps great stuff for fictional television, but the reality of it is that it is mere fantasy and obviously impossible. It only leads to depression and an unproductive spiral of negative thought. We need to keep in mind that each moment precedes the one that follows and its effects run into perpetuity. A small change in the past would have resulted in a completely different present. The cure-all for me about dealing with my past is that I would (even if Q would come and tempt you Start Trek fans) not be willing to give up my children, my wife, my personal growth – all of which would change if we had a different moment in our past. Nevertheless, beyond this philosophising, we can in fact only make decisions in the NOW!

Let go of the future too

This leads us to letting go of the future too! Being anxious about what may come, without actual practical solutions that may hedge some risk (such as insurance, being healthful etc..) is not helping you. In fact, anxiety about the future is a down-payment of a future stressor that may never come, without actually avoiding having to deal with it should it come. Why do this to yourself? There is no good that can come from being fretful about the future. At best you can make some decisions today, given it is only in this very moment that you live. Thus, to extend a little further – it is only in this moment that happiness and joy can exist! Do not rob yourself of joy and happiness by escaping from the now and letting yourself be victimised by the stuff of imagination: the past and the future.
What has helped me is a knowing (faith) that ultimately God has total control over everything and, like all others, has our eternal welfare as top priority. While we have had literally hundreds of loving and caring friends, family and strangers pray for Sally’s recovery and even a opportune council of almost a dozen religious ministers lay hands on her and pray (followed by an immediate absence of pain from the rectum), I always trust that His will be done for the greatest good. Fortunately our Lord is gracious and merciful and our journey doesn’t end here. There is a different reason we must travel this path.

So, I kept the scary details from my wife (with her permission) and we both remained focused on a positive future. Staying upbeat, Sally dressed brightly (as usual) and brought her bubbly spirit to the otherwise gloomy and drab Oncology ward, bringing a smile to the nurses. On our way to hospital and other therapies, we take the scenic route and stay out for a nice lunch together. We keep focusing on the positive and take on the challenge with comfort of the powers in our corner: love, hope, joy, peace…

3 practical ways to make peace with your past

Many people look at something that happened in the past with regret or resentment. Sometimes something that has occurred festers and becomes an all-consuming cause of stress. Oftentimes this is an event or series of events or simply the result of circumstance that is reflected on in light of current knowledge or expectations. It honestly doesn’t matter what it is, or how ‘bad’ it is in your mind. X did this to me, I experienced X etc..
What matters is that the video that plays in your mind makes you have a real negative experience today and that stress is destructive, taking away your peace and plays a part in maintaining any state of dis-ease. What makes it even more problematic is the fact that a past experience cannot be ‘fixed’ or ‘un-lived’/’un-seen’/’un-experienced’. It cannot be changed and this makes for an endless loop of frustration.
Well how do you break free from this? Let me give you a few methods that can be very effective. Use any or all!

Time-traveler’s logic

Within the boundaries of hypothetical mind-games, because time travel itself is impossible (time isn’t actually a thing that you can travel through, but merely a way to describe progress), consider the scenario that you could possibly go back and make the one change you have in your mind. However, you do not get to cherry pick the effects on your newly created timeline.
Today, you find yourself in the sum total result of everything that went before: everything! It is a package deal. Your job, career, children and family, relationships, house, friendships and health and spiritual growth. In short, everything that defines you and your life right now.
In the hypothetical time travel your conundrum is that a single change, however insignificant it may seem, would have seen you in a completely dramatically different life right now. A fraction delay and your son/daughter wouldn’t be here, there would be a different person instead if at all. You may not have landed that job or ended up thinking the same way about the circumstances that have otherwise been important to you.
To put it in another way, to wish a change in the past is in fact a wish to throw everything away and replace it with an unfamiliar different you!
Each moment is a new beginning to those that follow, with the effects cascading down into eternity. There is nothing isolated or disconnected and no matter how trivial, the effect of every moment is real.

Dissolving intentions – the balancing act

If the cause of our stress is from a memory of the past that has us lay blame on someone else. Then we need to first acknowledge that it is truly impossible to really know what the intention of that someone else was. Noone really knows the eternal effects we have on others and so we never truly understand the effects of our actions.
Having said that, there is rarely if ever only a negative effect of something, even though we may simply be blinded by our own negativity. A way to start forcing ourselves to thoroughly contemplate the context more properly is to try to balance the picture.
The way to do this is to keep asking the why and what and then look at both positive and negative outcomes/effects of this. We do this until we can no longer find any unresolved conflict. It may be that the ‘scar’ you may feel you have and the resentment you have been holding on to wasn’t only unhelpful, but in fact has genuinely left you a stronger more determined person capable of being the you you need to be today.
It is in all sincerity possible to look at even the darkest elements we may experience as a gift to enable us to become better, which in turn helps us to live more fulfilling lives.

Forgive

In the real sense of the meaning, this is not an emotional feelings based detachment, but in fact a way to leave the past behind. Not holding onto the past (it cannot do any good for you!) but simply looking to the present is a great way to live. That way too, you can actually be present in this moment and experience peace and joy. (They cannot be found and experienced elsewhere.)
This may, or may not incorporate you assuming the best intentions and letting go of judgement, which would speak readily for itself as another way of clearing your emotional attachment to some event in the past.

Golden Rule

Another way to help let things go, is to contemplate where you yourself have been inattentful, careless, inconsiderate, selfish, rash,.. X fill in blank here. None of us are perfect and we are called to treat everyone else in all things in a manner we ourselves would want to be treated under similar circumstance. Would we like to be forgiven our mistakes, then we should forgive others.

Final thought:

When we step into the past, we make the past the present so to speak, while at the same time making the present to nil effect. Since peace can only be experienced in the now, we must be present in the present! No peace exists anywhere else!!! If we look for something in the future, we too make the present to nil effect, so just be cautious about what you focus your thoughts and energy on.