This past week I went to my third Healing Journey workshop and the focus was on using the mind to heal the body. We spent a lot of time on mental imagery and did an amazing guided meditation too.
Continuing from the previous week, the focus was on moving emotions out of the deeper mind into conscious awareness, and eventually "discharging" some of it through this process, in the hope of reaching a state of fairly constant calm joyfulness, which can only happen when we are not tossed around by uncontrolled thoughts and distress.
In the guided imagery meditation, we got to pick our place (and I picked Sans Souci beach). We added to the mediation a piece about fighting the cancer in our bodies. I focused on seeing my body as a garden, and my mind as the gardener, removing the cancer weeds and leaving intact the healthy plant cells. It really helped me feel more at peace and content.
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I also went to my first return to work class at Wellspring this week. There were about a dozen people in the class and several that I already know. It was really good, I know I will enjoy it and gain some good coping skills. We did a questionnaire about the readiness to return to work, and we will be revisiting it in the last session to see how far we have come. The questionnaire talked about desire/anxiety to return, confidence to manage workload, the schedule, your boss, etc, energy level, concentration.
We had to list our 3 biggest challenges for returning and we discussed challenges as a group. Mine were around the current director, work-life balance and stamina/concentration for a full work day. We all had similar concerns! We also talked about benefits of returning too though - and that helped to focus on some of the good things too :). It will be nice to get my full salary again. LTIP is of course a great thing, but sometimes it has been tight for me to manage on 70% of my salary. In addition to more money - There is definitely a sense of fulfillment I get from work that I don't get from other things and I know that. It will be good to take that on again when I am ready.
The facilitator did say a gradual return to work is critical, over 6, 8 or even 12 weeks.
The facilitator talked about the iceberg metaphor which really resonated with me. All people see when you go back to work is the tip of the iceberg - mainly your external physical state - and that looks fine. I think I look pretty "fine" on the outside - my hair is growing back, I am in a pretty good shape physically now etc. Going back to work, I must be "back to normal" right?
What people don't see is the rest of the iceberg under the water, which has things like worry, anxiety, emotional distress, fatigue, brain fog, etc. Right now is my time to experience and process everything I have been through, and deal with the rest of the iceberg.
I am very thankful that I have an employer that has allowed me to be off work for the cancer treatment and recuperation period. Part of me does feel a tiny bit of guilt not being back to work yet. BUT - I have been with the government for 14 years now, and have compromised my own personal time, health and life on numerous occasions to get work done for the organization. This is my time right now and I need it. By doing this work with Wellspring I will be in a better state of readiness when I go back.
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