Brene Brown, one of my very favorite authors, focuses her research on courage and vulnerability, among other things. A few months ago, I signed up for her weekly newsletter that offers you a ‘dose of daring‘ every week in the form of a quote and a beautiful image. I look forward to these emails every week and thought I’d share the link to sign up with you!
I strive to be courageous. To feel safe in my skin, to know that I am loved, and to trust that I am enough.
I strive to tell myself, “that’s not my shit,” as many times as it takes and to believe it. To know that not every battle is mine for the taking and that I will know when my time to fight has come.
I strive to tell myself, “Be Nice,” as many times as it takes. To sense when someone just needs a hug and to give as many hugs as I can.
I strive to make a change when I know a change is needed. To decide on a different path, on a different way of thinking, knowing that the cost of change is so much less than the cost of being stagnant.
I strive to spend more time in the fresh air and to do all I can to keep the air fresh. To cherish more time walking in nature with myself and less time having memorized conversations with the characters of Friends.
I strive because I am here, striving for me and striving for those who have come and gone. Knowing along the way that life is precious and not to be doled out in any which way.
I strive to feel free.
How would you respond to the writing prompt, of a photo of the Freedom Sculpture?
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This writing comes directly from one of our participants in our Unspoken Ink Creative Writing Group for young adult cancer survivors. The participants met for 2 hours each week, for 10 weeks during our Fall 2016 session. This writing has not been edited since its original creation, showing the wonderfully raw and powerful prose coming from the courageous writing group participants each week. The Winter/Spring 2017 session is happening now. If you’d like to sign up for future sessions, please email info@lacunaloft.org or sign up on our interest form.
Starting today, everyone who signs up for our newsletter will receive a free download of our new, Courage poster. Print it for a wall hanging, use it as a phone or computer wallpaper, the possibilities are endless. Joining our newsletter will let you in on all of the awesome happenings here at Lacuna Loft, up close and personal. You’ll know exactly when to sign up for our creative workshops or book club, exactly when a new writing group is forming, the moment we announce a new program, and more.
Courage is a necessary default state of being for young adult cancer survivors. The challenges are many and the struggle is real. Find courage in this simple yet beautiful Courage poster.
Already a newsletter recipient? Go ahead! Grab your free courage poster download today! (Right click on the image below and choose “save image as…”)
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with being human. Our existence can seem so fragile and I find myself obsessing about what I could lose next. Having young adult cancer and losing a parent to cancer as a young adult can do that to a person…one day the world changes so drastically that one can forget how life ever seemed so simple before.
How do you put yourself back on your feet when you’ve become out of sorts with the world? I tend to look to music, tv/movies, or books to help. I’m currently reading the Divergent series. The dystopian world of loss, confusion, and courage was so easy for me to connect with that I felt myself drawing more and more into the books as I continued reading. The ideals of being brave and learning to live with life’s fears were powerful to me recently as I paced through my house checking, rechecking, and checking another time whether I had considered everything that could catch on fire while I was gone.
“Do I look like I’ve been crying”…
“No…You look tough as nails.”
– Divergent, Veronica Roth
Remembering the ways in which I am courageous and tough as nails is sometimes helpful…and yet really the next lesson to learn is how to embrace the hurt and the pain until it passes. Instead of being annoyed and exasperated with feeling the grief and the fright, I wish to be able to sit with it, being understanding and compassionate with myself…being able to trust that I am tough as nails regardless of the anxieties that enter and leave my existence. These moments of grief and hardship will come and go, into survivorship. I’ve seen that be true for myself as well as other survivors I have come across.
Do you have a hard time remembering that as a young adult cancer survivor you are tough as nails? What helps you to remember?
