Allow the "Negativity" to Gain Your Freedom

Yesterday was a terrible day.
Very emotional.

Yesterday was a great day.
I know I let something big go.

Yesterday was a day.
Yesterday was before today.

As I sat down to write this, I had an idea of what I wanted
to write, but it wasn't quite that.  It just occurred to me as
I was typing.

It is interesting how we label things as good and as bad,
based on what does or doesn't happen.  When, in actuality,
there are "just" things that happen.

Recently I was talking to a couple of women who have
been treated for cancer and one of the things that they
felt strongly about was how people labelled their experience
of cancer in a negative way, and how it was seen as a
battle, a fight, a war.  For them, it was "just" an experience
they were having.

Even the place that I go to that is so awesome when it comes
to perspective talks about "winning the fight" against cancer.
As winning is perceived to be a good thing, I am sure they
see that as a good message to offer.

In the end we are all going to die.  Some sooner than later.
Some by the hand of another (or an accident), some by
illness, some by "natural causes."

And yet, even though we know that, we are spooked by
the idea of it, and many seem unable to handle the idea of
an illness that has been labelled as a "killer."

I suppose accidents are "easier" to handle in that many of us
don't handle it, and often don't consider it.  We go through
life and don't really think about how they happen, or that
they do.  There aren't the same kinds of fears that people
have when interacting with someone who has to deal with
something that is a living, breathing, walking reminder that
who we are as human beings is terminal.

It seems we have become so "negative" adverse, that there
is a self-help culture that is built around the idea that we must
always be positive and affirming to be who we want to be.

So often people will not allow me to be where I am.  They
will not be comfortable with something that will seem
negative.

I understand and appreciate it.  The thing is that if I didn't
allow myself to go there, then things that happened yesterday
might not have.  Yesterday in many ways DID suck.  But today
is another day and today I am moving forward in the best way
I know how, which may wind up being even better than it
could have, would have, been if it hadn't been for what I
went through yesterday.

And I would say that is a good thing.

I felt boxed in and trapped and helpless...but found my way
through in an unexpected way - just like the deer in the scenario
I posted yesterday.  I was very much in the moment in the
midst of my tremendous pain, and it is what ultimately allowed
me my freedom in a way I am not sure anything else could have.

"What a sucky thing" my mind says, as it focuses on the pain.

"What a beautiful thing" my soul says, as it focuses on what the
pain allowed and ultimately created for me.

Yesterday was just a day.

cancer is just an experience.