Hello Sweetheart,
I am so pleased to tell you my book Hoping and Coping: How my darling little son and I broke free of cancer is now available on Amazon.
You can click here to buy it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B6BQ3YD/
The book is about my son Yousef’s and my journey from cancer diagnosis to treatment for his osteosarcoma, to living with all the changes that childhood cancer brings.
Hoping and Coping is also about hope and the power of choosing our thoughts.
Most of all, it’s about the most powerful tool we have at our disposal: our questions.
Questions open our minds.
Most of us look for definitive answers, especially when we are in crisis. We cling to answers from friends, the internet, doctors, and others because we are so afraid.
“But you said!” we cry when the answers are wrong.
“You promised me!” we say when someone’s assurances don’t come true.
We might be thinking, “It isn’t supposed to be this way!” We feel wronged and outraged and we want to blame someone or something.
But, when we decide what is “supposed” to be…or we think we “know for sure,” we have shut the door on the flow of the Universe, the Source of change and grace.
We’ve shut ourselves off from what is possible.
Answers do that. Unbending mind does that. Open mind does the opposite: it allows room for something different, something more.
Questions open the door to possibilities.
In the book I write,
When you start to pay attention, you will see your feelings come up and fade away like waves on the beach. Up they come and almost swamp you. Then, they recede around your feet. How might you let them rise and fall away without taking you out to sea?
Before you say, “I can’t do that!” consider this: it’s just your mind telling you a story. It can easily change from “this is terrible” to “OK, this will be a challenge that we can get through and be better for at the end.”
What are you telling yourself right now?
How might something better be true? What might be some alternative thought, one that will give you hope?
Even if it is outrageous, ask, “what if…?”
- What if this disease is resolved right away?
- What if all my fear is unfounded?
- What if we sail through this experience with ease?
- Why not?
If you answer that “why not?” question with any sort of certainty based on what you have heard or think you know, that’s your signal, your opportunity.
Ask:
“What is possible now that would be much better?”
“What wonders are possible now?”
“How might I choose a different, less fearful thought?”
I know, it’ll take practice. Maybe you’ll let me be your “question coach?”
I really pray your new year didn’t begin with terrible news. But if it did, maybe together we can find some different questions to ask and an outcome that ignores all that we think we know now.
What else is possible? I don’t know. Let’s see.
Feel Hugged,
Helene