A roomful of people watched the screen as an enormous animated needle stitched jaggedly across the doll’s face. I instinctively grabbed my own face and leaned back as if I could protect myself from the visual imagery before me.
No one else seemed even remotely troubled. Me? I was sick to my stomach.
It has been two years since I had surgery for melanoma. I am one of the lucky: it wasn’t an aggressive form nor was it in an advanced stage.
The cancer was surgically removed and we were done with it. Unlike many I didn’t need chemo or radiation.
The scar on my face should have been the least of my worries.
It has taken me a long time to let go of the pain associated with having a facial scar. Friends tell me repeatedly it is barely noticeable. Now I simply need to continue to actively, consciously believe it.
A few months ago I was talking to my massage practitioner, taking notes after we talked following the massage session. She alerted me to the way I was associating to the melanoma. “My cancer,” you said. “You called the cancer ‘yours’ as if you took ownership of it.”
She was right. I didn’t have cancer, I saw the cancer as something that was a part of me, like my blue eyes or my right foot. “My cancer.”
When I discuss my son’s autism I do not ever say “his autism” just like I don’t say, “He is autistic.” That isn’t who he is. He is a young man who happens to have autism. I am his mother and I had melanoma at one point in my life. I have had basal cell carcinoma, too. Right now I do not have any form of cancer.
Immediately after my first surgery, my sutures did look like the ones in the movie. It was a completely normal response to the unexpected imagery on the screen.
I am pleased to say the experience washed more of my fearful thoughts away as well.
I continue to get better and better, to improve, to become more of who I have always been and will always be without layers of what was clouding my experience.
This is what being bold, day by day, does. It awakens us to what is true. It reminds us of the stairs to better and the path to increasingly wonderful. Each day we’re bold, each day we add to the increase.
Fear pops in, we hug her a little and invite her along for our adventure so that she too may learn what it feels like to be bold with love rather than scarcity or alarm.
Better. Becoming Bolder. Adding to our increase daily.
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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Fall and Winter, 2014 and beyond.
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© 2014
This post is a part of the ongoing series for 31 Days challenge. I will be writing 31 blog stories about bold choices and using a bold voice....
I started the challenge late and yet now I am all caught up. if you would like to read all my posts from the beginning of the challenge, simply visit here, at 31 Days of Bold Stories, Voices and Choces
The question is making sure to carve out the time and to document it all in a way you'll enjoy reading about bold choices in a most authentic, real-me voice.
I'm grateful you are reading.
