Life Lessons From A Cancer Survivor

Cancer is not a death sentence.

There is one word in life that can stop us dead in our tracks…

CANCER.

I had a chance to have contact with Anne Marie Bennette, a 7 year breast cancer survivor who has authored an excellent book called Bright Side of the Road which discusses her personal battle and triumph over Stage 2 infiltrating ductal breast cancer.

How did she do it?

What was her secret?

She transformed her life and her cancer experience by taking an inward journey and focusing on positive affirmations, meditation, gratitude and community. Anne decided to take control of her life, and to focus on well-being and her own healing.

As you may know, anyone who escapes a “death sentence” like cancer can tell you it simply TRANSFORMS their view of themselves, the life around them, and put’s all of life into a very fine perspective. Anne Marie is no exception.

Luckily, Anne Marie allowed me to ask her 6 very important questions about her life, her experience and more.

How often does one get to learn such wisdom from a cancer survivor? To learn from someone who basically faced having their life cut short, and lived to tell about it?

I’m honored to share with you the exact questions I asked Anne Marie and her answers below. I hope they help you, the reader, gain perspective and wisdom in your own life. You never know when life may be robbed from you. I think all of us can learn from her experience.

Here are my questions to Anne Marie in regards to battling cancer, how she survived, her personal outlook on life, and more…

1.  How did you turn your fear and depression around when you were diagnosed with cancer?

Well, it wasn’t something that I did overnight, that’s for sure!  It was a long, slow process and it’s actually a journey that I am still on.

I can sum up the essence of my recipe for Bright Side Living like this: feel your feelings, change your thoughts. First I gave myself permission to feel that fear and depression (and everything else!) and to accept and even embrace absolutely all of it: my fears and worries and angers and grief.  Not an easy thing, because it’s very uncomfortable and messy!

I found that if I just kept doing that, I could much more easily hear the negative thoughts in the background of my mind.  And once I could hear the negative, self-defeating chatter inside of me, I was more in a grounded position to enter my inner dialogue from a clearer place and change it.

So for me, the part about embracing positive thoughts and gratitude was only possible after I allowed myself my feelings.  I find that this is true for me even now, seven years later.  No matter what the situation, if I allow myself the ebb and flow of my feelings, I am more easily rooted in the bright side of positive thought.

2. Can you explain the importance of meditation and mindfulness in your healing process?

Absolutely. My healing from breast cancer was done from the inside out. In other words, I focused on everything that was going on inside of me, emotionally and in my mind.  I aired it all out, gave all those thoughts and feelings room to breathe.

And so then we come to breathing, and to the breath.  During my overnight stay in the hospital for my second surgery, I woke up in the middle of the night, acutely aware of the shallowness of my breath.  I was still a little drugged from the anesthesia.  My body was stiff and sore.  I was completely alone.  All I could really do was lie there and listen to my breath.  That had a profound effect on me.  Over the past few years I had gotten very far away from my meditation practice.  But there I was, lying in a hospital bed in the middle of the night. No distractions. Just me and my thoughts and my breath.  That experience really laid the cornerstone for spending some time each day just like that, lying very still, tuning in to my breath, tuning in to my thoughts. Not pushing anything of the experience away, just tuning in and accepting all of it: bright, dark, and in between.

3. What is the single greatest lesson you have learned after being diagnosed with cancer?

The best lesson I learned from my journey with breast cancer is that I am not alone. All my life, my tendency has been towards isolation.  Somewhere in childhood, I learned (most likely from my mother, a stubborn Yankee!) that I was strong only if I could do things myself.  On my own.  Not needing help from anyone else.

So my breast cancer was a huge wake-up call for me in that regard!  Suddenly, I COULDN’T do everything myself.  I learned that just because I needed help making dinner and taking a shower and remembering who I was, that I was still a strong woman anyway.  I learned to be open to what others were longing to give me: love, friendship, support, encouragement.

But most importantly, I learned that I wasn’t spiritually alone.  I had been isolating myself from Spirit for several years when my breast cancer came along.  This is the very best lesson I learned: that the Divine (which I choose to call Spirit) is with me always.  Always.

4. What gives you the greatest passion in life?

My greatest passion comes from two things: words and art. Any kind of creative play (writing, collage making, watercolor…etc) feeds me like nothing else.  Also, I am passionate about spending time with my family, especially my wonderful husband Jeff, and our gorgeous (yes, I know I’m bragging!) grandchildren.

5. What is your definition of “happiness”?

I came across a Deepak Chopra quote last week which really does define happiness for me: “Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.”

That about says it in a nutshell, doesn’t it?

Anything that happens to me, ANYTHING, is just a part of my life journey. The sooner I understand that, the sooner I accept it, whatever “it” is, instead of pushing against it, resisting it, struggling with it, wishing it wasn’t part of my journey… as soon as I respond with acceptance instead of resistance, then there is a pocket of space for Happiness to step in.

6. What advice can you give to those who are either diagnosed with cancer or for those who take life for granted?

I offer a reminder that everything they are feeling (everything!) is perfectly normal.  Express your feelings and really, really FEEL every last one of them, even the burning fear and anger.  Focus on Gratitude, even for just five minutes a day. Find even the smallest things to say “thank you” for each day.   Find a way to keep out of the past and the future, so you can stay in the present moment as much as possible.

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For more information about Anne Marie’s book, Bright Side of the Road, please visit this page: www.annemariebennett.com

To purchase the book, please visit:
www.annemariebennett.com/how-to-purchase

Bright Side of the Road is also available on Amazon.com

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Anne Marie Bennett is a writer, self-taught collage artist, website goddess, cancer survivor and SoulCollage® Facilitator.  She lives in eastern Massachusetts with her middle-aged husband (also a cancer survivor), two elderly cats and one very playful dog who keeps all of them young-at-heart. She is happiest when she is reading, writing, breathing salt air, dancing, and hugging her beautiful grandchildren.

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