Samantha Siegel: Embodiment – One of the Unexpected Lessons in Survivorship
shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Embodiment: One of the Unexpected Lessons in Survivorship.
I get regular massage as part of my physical maintenance program in cancer recovery. Even that’s major growth because body work used to feel like an indulgence before cancer.
My massage therapist is an angel from above. She checks in with me prior to each session and asks how I’m feeling in my body. This past week, I was positively reflecting on the fact that I seem to have an answer each time: ‘I’m tired. My legs feel tight. My port scar aches. My feet burn. Or I feel good today.’ She attends to each answer with a unique approach.
During last week’s session, I suddenly remembered being in my 20’s. In that moment, I had the surprising realization that I have no recollection of what it felt like to be IN my body for that whole decade. .
I recall my anxieties and ruminations from that time. My ambition. The way that I abused my body with sleep deprivation and chronic stress and how I was convinced that regular jogging could be enough to thwart the negative effects of such a high strung existence. Yet I do not remember any level of atunement to my bodily sensations unless there was a sickness or problem of some kind.
Cancer completely redefined that relationship. Mind-body-spirit. Now, I fully inhabit my physical being and I’m in touch with the subtleties: when fear or worry causes a symptom and how I might move through that. When I’m overdoing it that day and just need to take a rest. When I notice that I’m still healing from treatment.
I treasure the moments when I feel vigorous and also when I sense various aches and pains that remind me I’m still here.
Cancer was such an unexpected opportunity to explore this relationship and to finally make peace with myself.
In the program we’re building, we’re developing ways to support people through these transformations. More acupuncture, PT and other rehab services, lifestyle medicine courses, psycho-oncology, peer support and more. These programs need to be accessible and affordable. This is not fluff. It’s all part of the medicine.
What has cancer revealed to you and how do you think it can be incorporated into survivorship programming?”
