Nadia Booysen unpacks why forgiveness and healing are needed when faced with a cancer diagnosis.
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Forgiveness and healing form such an integral part of oncology that they are two concepts entrenched in the world of cancer, almost to the extent that death is. This can emotionally complicate things for you and/or your family, but there is seldom a bigger crossroad that makes you re-evaluate life.
Forgiveness
My world opened up the day I came to realise that forgiveness had much more to do with me than the person I needed to forgive. Freeing yourself from that person and taking away the control they had over you is life-changing, realising that the only person who is truly suffering is you.
In oncology, forgiveness often has a life of its own. Many spiritual people experience anger and confusion towards God for allowing this to happen to them.
Family members are sometimes angry at their ill loved ones for not getting tested sooner, or not wanting to stop smoking or drinking.
There may be anger towards doctors and other healthcare professionals for not healing them, or for having difficult but honest conversations.
Then you get the patients who carry many negative emotions towards themselves for things they have done to their bodies, lifestyles they have lived, and the possibility of not being able to return to the level of physical functioning after treatment.Â
Where to from here? Â Â
Recognising that there is a problem is always the biggest and most difficult step to take, but you also need to understand what is causing the problem. Basically, what this means is understanding or identifying the event that led to these emotions – if you feel anger towards someone, you need to understand why (event). The key is in breaking down all those emotions into tangible pieces that you can unpack one by one.
Very often these emotions are linked to past trauma. Being powerless might be an emotion you grew up with and as an adult you have managed to be in control for the most part. Now all those childhood emotions are surfacing again when you feel powerless because it’s unresolved trauma.Â
Crossroads
Cancer has the ability to bring back all the unresolved issues in your life. Pay attention to it; there is a reason why it’s surfacing and at some stage you’ll need to deal with it.
With a cancer diagnosis, you’re faced with your own mortality, whether it’s because of your prognosis or purely because it is cancer. The realisation that you might not live for as long as you want to, often causes you to re-evaluate your life. It’s within this evaluation that you come to understand that you’ve been carrying a lot of unresolved events which leaves you with very strong emotions.
Healing
Healing is a very subjective concept and as much as it means being free of disease for some, it also means being symptom-free for others.
The term healing can also refer to being free from caring about opinions, forgiving, having boundaries, and making peace with certain realities. But healing emotionally from forgiving people for what they have done or said, will free you in the most liberating way ever.
It doesn’t mean that you forget or allow them back into your life. It only means that you aren’t carrying the heaviness anymore. The sad part of being hurt is that the people who hurt you are often oblivious to this, or they might not have even given a second thought about it. It’s a burden not worth carrying.
At the end of the day, forgive the people you need to forgive, not because they need it, but you do. Remember physical healing is only one part of healing. Many people need to heal emotionally before their bodies can heal and recover; maybe you need to make peace with your maker for being in this situation. Whatever it is you need to heal from, you have the power, the choice, and the wisdom. Â
MEET THE EXPERT – Nadia Booysen
Nadia Booysen is a cancer survivor and an oncology counsellor (BSW Hons (Social Work) (UP), BA Hons (Psychology) (Unisa), PGDip (PallMed) (UCT)). She consults at the DMO practices: Sandton Oncology and the West Rand Oncology Centres. Serving in oncology is not a profession to her, but rather a way of life. Nadia has a keen interest in mental health and believes that it’s an underestimated and stigmatised topic.