LIVING IN GRATITUDE 77 : TAKING LIFE AT ITS PACE

I lived life at a high speed, afraid I would miss out on something : there was so much happening in the world, and I wanted to be a part of it. I was healthy and strong, so I was able to push myself far.

This year I was forced to stop. While I was going through my treatment, although I was grateful that the treatment was curing me of cancer, I also cursed it for depleting my physical and emotional body. All of a sudden I 'got' what it meant to live with a body that was very weakened. I experienced what it meant when each step, each movement was a huge physical effort. It was like crossing into a grey area I had completely ignored: learning to have compassion for those with physical ailments (whether due to old age or illness).

Now, I'm so grateful that I have been forced to slow down. To take life at its pace, rather than at my previously, frantically chosen pace. It's given me a very new way of looking at life and relating to people, this, in turn, deepens my appreciation for E V E R Y T H I N G.

photos from this year's Diwali - India's festival of light (the equivalent of Christmas in terms of families coming together and celebrating).

LIVING WITH GRATITUDE 76 : WRITING AGAIN

After reading a friend's book, I have been inspired to write again... although the fatigue still remains in my body, I feel like communicating again, for the first time in over 4 months.

My friend describes her journey with cancer: “yet with all our (medical) advances, far too many of us remain ill. We’re ill within body, mind and spirit. Patients who are dismissed by doctors as medically “cured” often remain unwell and restless in a quest for something more. The hurt hasn’t stopped. The search for well-being continues long after the treatments end.”



I have lived this. Once I was “cured” everyone around me expressed so much happiness and joy. I was off the "cancer" hook. However, inside, I still felt so physically unwell and so traumatised by the treatment I could barely talk about it. For the first time in my life, I knew what they meant by "shell shock", I felt like a veteran who had come home from war : shaken to the core and unable to share the feelings with anyone who had not been through the trauma (cancer treatment). I felt so alienated. It felt like my life, as I knew it was over. No more desires for anything. My spiritual and emotional bodies were also in great need of healing. And the doctors were calling me "cured!".

I was “cured” in June. It’s now November. I planned to touch base at Sakthi Amma's (in South India) for ten days in July and do the rest of my recovery period in Paris. But once I got here, I felt I was in the best place on earth for my recovery. It has been. And it still is.

In the last days I feel as if a layer of thick mist within has lifted. Actually, in the last few weeks, this feeling has arisen several times. Those moments of feeling well are like oil on the surface on water : as soon as I try to touch it, it dissipates, the fatigue rises and I’m back in bed for the day. The sense of a little victory disappears and I have no choice but to give in to the needs of my fatigued body.

One thing is different this time, is that I have the desire to write. This is new. Maybe a renewal.