Today is World Cancer Day, the theme of which in 2012 is “Cancer Can Be Prevented.” The most important pledge you can make today is not monetary. It is your pledge to make healthy living choices, including individual lifestyle changes.
I eat a healthy diet, I exercise 2 hours daily, I don’t smoke, and I’ve taken the medical advice my docs earlier this year gave me: I should no longer drink alcohol. But, my lifestyle is still not a healthy one. I lead a very stressful life.
My pledge today is to avoid stress without creating stress to get there. Stress is a key cause of heart disease among women. In all of us, it significantly weakens the immune system…a body part in cancer survivors already wrecked by the disease itself and every treatment we apply to get rid of cancer.
I’ve learned that avoiding stress is not so tough and getting there doesn’t necessarily add more stress. It’s a lifestyle change to be sure, so it’s required some adjustments in my life and I can see places that will require more changes.
What a gift I owe to the person who taught me meditation and mindfulness: how to live in the moment, not regret the past; not sweat the future. Heightened spirituality will reduce stress if I seek it every day; and, it fits hand-in-glove with mindfulness. I try to seek it. All I can do it try. No stress.
I’ve found marked stress-reduction by staying in a circle of compassionate, supportive, genuine friends and embracing those relationships. Even if the circle is sometimes a circle of three, I accept it as bounty.
And like many people, I’ve figured out that I’m more at peace and less in stress if I quietly step around those whose values don’t mesh with mine. I had to find that out for myself and the hard way.
On this World Cancer Day, I pledge to fight the fight as arduously as ever, without political divisiveness, over-zealousness or disregard to the underlying purpose of my work. It is stressful at times to make my voice heard for a cause that has struggled for years to become mainstream. But, if I fight the fight fairly, I’ll get closer to the goal with less stress. I may not be the first to score. That’s unimportant to me. With conviction void of stress, it’s enough to know I chose to remain healthy…physically, emotionally, fiscally and spiritually…and fought the best that I could.
