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Breast Cancer- There Is A Way Through Your Fears by Anne Bennett Bennett

Have you had breast cancer in the past, or are you undergoing treatments now? If so, SoulCollage is a practice that you will seem like a gift to you.

Get in touch with the voices inside of you that have something to say about your cancer.

Open yourself to the gifts they bring you... and free yourself from your fears. It's time to live again!

The Journey Begins

This is the story of my breast cancer journey, and how gluing magazine pictures onto mat board led me back to my spirit.

In December of 2001, breast cancer was the furthest thing from my mind. I was busy. I had a loving husband, a nice home, three beautiful stepchildren, a good job. Then my perfect little world was suddenly turned inside out and upside down.

A routine, suspicious mammogram. A phone call. Mammogram #2. A stereotactic core biopsy.

My diagnosis: breast cancer, stage 2, infiltrating, ductal, HER2.

All of the above happened within the fearful, anxious, unbelievable time span of 7 days. And my life has never been the same.

The next nine months held a most strange quality of disbelief and exhaustion. It also held two surgeries, four chemotherapy treatments spaced three weeks apart, and 47 radiation treatments (spaced daily, over the course of 9 weeks).

Fears of the Cancer Returning

It's been three years since my life was turned upside down and inside out.... Three years. My prognosis is very good. I hear this every three months depending on which doctor my appointment is with: breast surgeon, medical oncologist, or radiation oncologist.

Three years have passed. I look good. I feel good. And yet nothing has been able to quiet the storms of fear that threaten to overwhelm me from time to time. The insidious fear that the breast cancer might return. The intimidating fear of another potentially deadly diagnosis.

I have meditated and prayed about this. I have talked about it with my wonderful therapist and with other breast cancer survivors. I have tried guided imagery, journaling, and art journaling. These have all tempered the fear to some extent, but only for a very short while.

How SoulCollage Soothed My Fears

Then I began practicing SoulCollage and my inner dynamics began to change.

SoulCollage is a personal growth tool that is a mystical, magical blend of intuitive art and good ol' collage fun. Using our intuition and imagination, we create a deck of collaged cards where each card reflects a different aspect of who we are. The cards are then used to assist us to access our own deep wisdom and help us answer life's questions.

There are four suits in a SoulCollage deck: The Committee (the inner voices in our minds), The Community (the family and friends who love us), The Companions (animal totems who lend us their energies) and The Council (archetypes who symbolize major life themes for us).

SoulCollage cards are made using magazine images, scissors, a glue stick, and 5" x 8" pieces of mat board.

It turned out to be the best way for me to deal with the lingering fears that I was left with after my cancer treatments were over. I listened carefully inside of me to the voices that had something to say about my breasts, and my breast cancer, and I made three cards over the course of a few months.

Naming my Inner Voices

The "voices" I named and then worked with in the coming months were: I am the one who fears breast cancer returning, I am the one who hates her disfigured left breast, I am the one who survived breast cancer and walked away from it (both of these voices were Committee members), and I am the one who gave you the courage to survive breast cancer.

You can see the SoulCollage cards I made for each of these voices at http://www.kaleidosoul.com/breastcancer.html.

After making the cards, I journaled with them, asking each voice the following questions: Who are you? What do you have to give me? What do you want from me? How will I remember?

The Healing Continues

The entire process of making these SoulCollage cards and then dialoguing with them led me deeper into my feelings about my diagnosis and all that I had been through on my journey since then. This led me to a very deep and powerful spiritual healing that is difficult to describe, yet very real in my life.

Now, when my fears of another cancer diagnosis threaten to consume me, I simply look at my SoulCollage card that honors that voice inside of me and I acknowledge it. This voice, this fear will always be a part of me, but I do not have to allow it to control me.

Anne Marie is a breast cancer survivor, freelance writer, & self-taught artist who teaches SoulCollage with passion and joy. Anne Marie lives, laughs, sings, works, (and makes her own SoulCollage cards!) in Beverly, MA. To see some of her cards, and to learn how to make your own SoulCollage cards, please visit http://www.kaleidosoul.com

Article Source: http://www.earticlesonline.com/Article/Breast-Cancer--There-Is-A-Way-Through-Your-Fears/23725

Why is breast cancer getting so much more awareness than others?

I think any type of cancer is serious, but I'm tired of ONLY seeing things for breast cancer. Commercials, profitable organizations, walks, etc. My dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer over the summer, and although they "removed" it, it's very likely to keep coming back, but it seems like society doesn't look at it as being just as serious. I know people are aware and do things to help, and it's not just bladder cancer that I'm worried about, but why is breast cancer getting all the attention?

Well, it's currently Breast Cancer Awareness month, so breast cancer is obviously high profile at the moment.
But yes, it does have a higher profile generally than other cancers, and there's a very simple reason -sheer hard work.

Breast cancer awareness campaigns and BC Awareness Month started as a campaign by ordinary women, most of whom had breast cancer or had lost someone to breast cancer, to raise awareness so that people knew the symptoms, examined themselves regularly, attended their routine mammograms etc. It caught the public imagination, enthusiastic participation and hard work by women made it grow into something nationally, then internationally, recognised (and then big business cashed in).

People have limited time, and choose their campaigns; those who campaign around illnesses are usually concerned with the illness that's affected them or their family. I know a couple who have a child with a very rare and life-threatening condition (not a cancer). Much of their time is now taken up with campaigning around this condition - fund raising and agitating for more funding for research, more education, more awareness etc. What they're doing is what what the women who started the breast cancer awareness campaign did. And it's as a result of the hard work by those women that breast cancer is no longer the automatic death sentence it once was - but don't lose sight of the fact that in the US an average of 112 women die from breast cancer every day (that's one every 15 minutes), and in the UK.that average is 33 a day - I don't have statistics for other countries.

There are awareness campaigns ad months for other types of cancer - but the plain fact is that none has had the sheer hard work put into it that breast cancer awareness has, hard work by people affected by breast cancer and their families.

I agree that awareness needs to be raised about other cancers too.and while I hate ‘competitive illness’ I can see why there is resentment about an imbalance in awareness raising and fund raising.

BUT it does annoy me a little when people complain about the attention breast cancer receives in comparison to other cancers. The solution is not less attention for breast cancer, but more attention for other cancers – and there is nothing to stop any group of people starting a campaign along the lines of the one started by those women who started all the breast cancer awareness.They'd have to be as dedicated and work as hard though

Tags: breast, breast cancer, breast cancer awareness month, breast cancer statistics, breast cancer symptoms, breast cancer walk san diego, cancer, charity, health, science

This entry was posted on Friday, October 13th, 2006 at 12:12 am and is filed under Medical, Mobility and Special Needs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.