EMOTIONAL WELLNESS

I just finished reading the book Chinese Cinderella. I bought it as soon as I saw it in the bookstore because my high school friends were just telling me that the girl’s story is not far from my own. Reading through the memoirs of Adeline Yen Mah, I certainly felt her fears and her struggles as if they were mine. I found myself in her loneliness in a family that was emotionally distant, in her struggles with being the unfavored child, her resolve to gain acceptance by achieving in school, her dreams to make it out of her own will and effort. Needless to say, I cried many a tear going through the pages of the book.

Today, I was going through my devotional book, Journeys with the Cancer Conqueror. The chapter I am currently on spoke of how research is providing clear and convincing evidence that cancer can be triggered by charged emotional states. These emotional states are mainly variations of fear, anger and guilt. The presence of these emotional states through a stressful event in the past two years might have contributed to the onset of cancer. The good news: Unburdening often contributes to healing. The devotional book further says that in our society, sickness is a powerful force, one that is rewarded. Patients can manipulate this belief to meet their needs. Some people even cling to cancer as a newfound way to fulfill emotional needs that, otherwise, have gone unmet.

At this point in my treatment, I have done quite my share of introspection and I have come to acknowledge that the stress of the past year must have really compromised my health. When my mother was in the hospital for one hundred days last year, and we struggled to keep her alive, I once again reverted back to my childhood when I would always try to rescue her from trouble. I remember how, as a young girl, I would be overwhelmed with such guilt every time I felt that I could not protect her from my father’s anger. This had gone on and on, when my father left her, when my sister became a problem, when she had to struggle to support my nephews, when she became depressed after my father’s death. Towards the end of her life, when I felt that my tumor had grown too big and I knew for certain that something was wrong, I just could not find it in me to put my health before her welfare. All this time, I could not brush aside the guilt as well as the frustration that I never truly gained her, nor my father’s approval.

Having read that people with cancer tend to use their illness to fulfill emotional needs, I suddenly realized that sometimes it seems like my having cancer has become too much like carrying my medals in childhood, in order to gain admiration and approval. This light bulb moment was a true God-send because I know that in order for me to get past this cancer, I first need to resolve whatever emotional conflicts brought me here.

Slowly but surely, I am changing not only my eating habits, but equally as important, my emotional lifestyle. I have the ability to choose my emotions, everyday in every situation. This is a critical change on my journey to wellness.