Healing yourself through forgiveness
As I continue to write and talk about my journey through my treatment and recovery, I have had the opportunity to talk to fellow survivors and their caregivers. There are two aspects that struck me as common in all our stories.
All of us were initially hesitant to talk about our illness for fear of being judged by others. I asked a caregiver— “Why doesn’t she talk more about her battle with cancer, it could help others like us a lot”? He conveyed that his wife was afraid of being judged, criticized, or even pitied maybe, and had never revealed her suffering to anyone apart from her immediate family.
When I first started writing about my illness, I was asked — “What are you going to write? You are not a doctor.” Well, I agree that I am not a doctor and I can’t advise anyone on the right course of treatment to follow. What I can do, instead, is give strength to others like me so they take comfort in the knowledge that they are not alone. Its infinitely comforting to know that there is a person out there who has undergone a similar experience in life and has emerged stronger (with a few battle scars maybe!) Doctors I have met or read about think that an important element in the treatment of cancer is the patient’s own mental strength. There is only so much that medicine and surgery can do for you. It takes a special kind of strength and resolve to bounce back from the lengthy treatment and prepare yourself every time you have to go to a hospital knowing fully well, that there isn’t going to be any happy news coming your way anytime soon.
In the initial days, a survivor told me about forgiveness and that changed the way I was viewing my own battle. And I must say, it helped me heal internally. Deep-rooted anger, resentment, and unresolved conflict affect not just your mental and physical health but your immune response as well. Studies have found that the simple act of forgiveness reduces stress, anxiety, blood pressure, risk of heart disease and reduces pain, among a host of other benefits.
I started reading a lot about forgiveness and figured that we hold grudges or hold onto painful memories of conflict, of having been wronged or having suffered at someone’s hands for a very long time. It’s not so much the act of wrongdoing but our memory of it that causes us more distress and pain. I found that there were three things that had scarred me and which I needed to let go to get better:
- Resentment towards others who had wronged me. People who had caused emotional distress to me and my memories of those experiences.
- Things I blamed myself for, mistakes I had made in the past, of poor judgment, trusting someone too much, bad career choices, bad people choices and so on.
- Things that external factors caused — we call it luck, fate, Kismet, destiny. We blame our environment for being responsible for what’s wrong with us.
Forgiveness begins by letting go of your grudge against yourself. If you can forgive yourself, you will feel a ray of light shining through your heart. When I forgave myself and decided to erase all bad memories which I blamed myself for, I felt I suddenly gained the will to live and to fight. I remember repeating to myself — “I am what I am, and I am no longer angry with myself”. The next phase was forgiving others. I found solace in my unshakeable faith in Sai Baba (Shirdi) helped me forgive others. I turned towards Sai Baba and told him that I am ready to forgive and forget all about the terrible experiences I had when I trusted certain people. And Sai was there to lend me support so I could sail through it. Forgiving a person doesn’t mean you are ready to take a person back in your life. Because that would mean that you might just have the same sad experiences again. It just means that you decide not to let that person affect you again, or play an important part in your life once more after you erase the sadness or anger associated with your memories with the person.
The third and an integral part of my process of forgiveness was to stop blaming fate or external factors for my condition. Initially, I remember asking God — “Why me? I wasn’t a bad person ever in my life.” I tried to find reasons or triggers for my cancer. My doctor put it to rest — “For your own sake Swati, stop trying to find a reason for your cancer. It was caused by your weakened immune system and nothing else.” That helped me deal with things as they were. Every dose of chemotherapy and every fraction of radiation were considered as a part of a process that was going to make me feel better eventually. I had my own countdown ticking away in my head for each of those, and I admit, the foodie that I am, made a long list of recipes that I would try and foods I would eat again after I got over the bouts of nausea, weakness, and blackouts! I made a list of places I would visit, activities I would do, trips and catching up with friends, and so on.
Forgiveness helped me heal my inner self from cancer that was engulfing my soul. I had become a bitter and sad soul indeed in the years gone past. Sometimes I wonder how Cancer taught me to live my life fully again…..of being mindful of all the little things that give me happiness every day…...of caring more…..maybe loving myself more…..not being hard on myself……and of course judging less and criticizing less. In hindsight, getting cancer wasn’t so bad after all. It changed my life for the better, making me more positive, happier, and more forgiving.
