At my last treatment I talked with the woman who does the healing touch, or relaxation therapy.  She is a lovely, gentle woman who has helped me get through many sessions of chemo.  I told her how I had begun to be able to let go of my anxiety about the treatments and sort of surrender to the experience instead of fight it.  She laughed out loud, clapped her hands like an excited child and swooped down to kiss the top of my head: a  sweet and loving gesture that touched me to the core.  I’ve met so many warm, kind, strong people who have cared for me so deeply and powerfully.  

She told me that she has overheard many conversations in the chemo room, and most of them revolve around people’s response to their cancer, and the treatment, and how they are going to “fight this thing” or how they are going to “beat it.”  And as they speak, their body tightens, and their face hardens and she can see tension in every line.  I’ve seen it too: at the lodge in Victoria, and in the chemo room at the hospital.  And I do understand it, to an extent: we all want to live, and we all want to be well and healthy and to be ACTIVE in our experiences.  We DON’T want to lay down and be vanquished; we DON’T want to be helpless, powerless, voiceless.  I’ve been there myself: mute and anguished at what was being done to me.

But Gayle raised an interesting point.  She said that when we fight, every part of us is taut, and hard; nothing can flow in us when we are so tight, and she really feels that this can block or hinder whatever good the medicine accomplishes in our bodies.  When we give up that fight, our body relaxes, and rests, and there is the possibility of movement and flow.

I don’t really know about all that, but it does seem to make sense to me.  After my last treatment, I had a couple of days of pretty intense pain – intestinal cramping.  At first I felt sort of angry that I was having these pains: I remembered them after my radiation, and they were so debilitating, and I hated the thought that they had returned to plague me.  So I tried to ignore them.  I got up from my chaise lounge, and attempted to sit at the computer and work on my grad speech.  I couldn’t do it – the pain was too intense to allow me to sit comfortably.  I squirmed around a bit, and tried to change my position.  I held my breath through each wave; I tensed up; I fought it.

And then I remembered.

I got up from the desk, stretched out on the couch and gave up.

I gave up the fight, and surrendered to the pain. 

And found rest.  

When I felt the pain begin, I breathed it out and imagined I could see it leaving through my finger tips.  I focussed on keeping my body relaxed and just letting my body do what it needed to do.  I kept my thoughts focussed on letting go rather than on holding in.   And then I remembered that I had done something similar when I was in labour.  When I could feel a contraction beginning, I stretched out my hands, breathed very hard, and imagined the pain building to a certain point, and then flowing out through my finger tips.  I could almost see it.  And now I imagined that I could see the pain leaving as I surrendered to it.

The power of surrendering.

Surrendering gets such bad press.  In movies, surrendering is always the last ditch attempt to preserve life and property.  And it’s always accompanied by white flags, and shamefaced resignation. It is considered weak and cowardly. But I wonder if surrendering has more power than we imagine.

What if I surrendered to other painful things in my life rather than fighting?  What might happen?

What if I surrendered to my fears about my health?

Whenever I think about the cancer returning, my body tightens, my breathing  quickens, and I feel an inward trembling.  And my first response is to fight it: I grit my teeth, clench my hands and mutter, “It is NOT coming back.  I am NOT going to die from this.”  But what if I surrendered to it?  To the fear, and to the cancer.  There is a certain amount of peace involved in giving up, or giving in; and I’m beginning to understand that it is not necessarily a weakness to give in.  In some ways, I feel stronger and more courageous when I acquiesce to the inevitable.  I feel more calm and more centered.  I am where I am today because God brought me here, and He may take me somewhere else tomorrow, or a year from now, or two.  And I can surrender to that.  To be at the center of God’s will, and to know it is a powerful place to be.  

What if I surrendered to other things as well?  My shyness?  My awkwardness?  My complete inability to articulate my thoughts?  To speak?

What if I gave in and stopped fighting to be be someone I’m not?  What if I calmly accepted all those flaws, and stopped trying to force myself to change?  What power might result from that capitulation?

I don’t know, but I’m going to think about it.