All this “fight” talk is outdated to me. It just implies our inability to accept what is and work with it. Until we accept it is what it is, change inefficient ways, love all parts of ourselves and world, we won’t move into anything different.
I first started thinking about this a few years ago when I learned part of my genetic history. Cancer makes people feel like they need to fight. Similar to how pandemics make people feel like they need to fight the virus. I don’t think that’s the solution.
Sure, make the changes, do the treatments, set your boundaries, begin training yourself to get through tough times, be seen, be heard, push back on inequalities and lessen the powers over you and others. However, fighting implies you don’t like a part of yourself, or world. You find it unacceptable, which it could be, not denying that. But it implies a part of you has no place. The more you push back and fight these things, the stronger push back you get, because now that part doesn’t feel it belongs, it feels threatened. It doesn’t feel like it has a place in this world. It doesn’t feel seen. It doesn’t feel heard. The more you fight it, the stronger it gets. So the fight cycle keeps going round and round when all it maybe needs is a little recognition for why it’s causing issues.
I’d prefer a more of, you can be here, but you can’t consume me or the world approach. When I processed through years of fear my BRCA1 diagnosis triggered, I finally came to an acceptance of it just being a part of me. Nothing more than that. I was cool with it. I understood the origin of it coming into existence in the first place and did my work around healing that, forgiveness around it all. Acceptance of how it’s contributed to the person I’ve become. I began to see BRCA1 not as a death sentence or torture chamber, but as a marking of strength and resilience. I started to love that part of myself. I started to honestly have a tremendous amount of gratitude for all it being brought into my awareness. I don’t believe it will ever develop into an all-consuming “cancer” because I know I’ve made peace with its existence. I just take each day as it’s presented to me, knowing if a support system is needed, it will be there. I don’t live in battle mode any longer.
Let me repeat that. I do not live in battle mode any longer.
The pure panic driven state I lived in, fairly consistently for the years after learning I carried the BRCA1 gene mutation, was a blessing not everyone receives. I honestly BELIEVE this. It forced me into facing parts of myself I, and those before me, had ignored. It didn’t matter that it was ignored, it didn’t matter what I or anyone else did to cope. It all has and had its place. It all works together in its own beautifully intricate ways.
So, time for some real talk…
Sure, I was fucking pissed that I had to watch my mom suffer horrendous cancer treatments, not being able to breathe because her lungs were filled with fluid. I was traumatized from watching her suffer and actually witnessing her last breath as she left the Earth. I was fucking pissed I had to grow up without a mother. I was fucking livid as hell when they told me I had an 80% chance of suffering like my mom did. I was fucking pissed I had years of severe, disabling depression. Had years of panic. Years of sickness. Had to experience my cousin being murdered. Had to experience my baby cousin dying. Had to watch my loved ones suffer. Had to lose beloved pets who I knew longer than my mother. Had to struggle being the nice weird kid. Had to struggle through college classes and then keeping a job because it was so fucking difficult to even get out of bed for years. So fucking difficult to listen to the idiotic, hurtful things people said to me. So fucking difficult to see people harm or kill others, knowing they were in agony themselves.
It was EXHAUSTING fighting, everything.
It was agonizing feeling for everyone and everything all while walking around smiling just to keep the fucking god damn peace. I wanted to scream at so many people for their ignorance, hatred, and just pure stupidity. I still have these feelings come up at times. It’s actually normal to feel these things. That was the part that really opened doors for me, was the realization that all this “love and light only” bull shit was complete bull shit. You can’t “love and light” your way out of ignoring something that’s screaming for attention and needs to be acknowledged. However, this still does not mean we need to do the opposite and “fight.”
We need to be able to have room to feel and express EVERYTHING. We need to honor and acknowledge these things without creating a ripple effect in one specific direction, or protecting our personal agendas out on to others.
What I mean by this is we need to develop our own self accountability and realize no one person knows all or represents all. We all hold a different piece to the same puzzle. We need to be able to observe and listen to others’ stories and perspectives. Put ourselves in their shoes and have them return that same favor to us. Empathy is the only way I see anything really changing for everyone’s benefit. I’m fortunate to have been born with a natural abundance of that. I know not everyone was or will be. It’s why it needs to be shared and taught. I’m up for the challenge and willing to share my ways of caring for both myself and others…
So why keep fighting? What the hell is that going to shift? Maybe you need strength and resilience instead. Reframe your approach. Heal your shit. Be yourself and when you get a better grip on that, show others how to do the same.
I’m loving all parts of who I am now. I’m kind, compassionate, forgiving, loving, highly intuitive, intelligent, talented and absolutely hilarious to boot. I also love the parts of myself that are awkward, furious, hyped up, fucking pissed at stupidity, fed up with nonsense, and not full of all the answers. I know there’s a sassy old woman inside of myself that I’d like to let out more at times, too. She’d like to say stuff more bluntly and get her message across. She’d say, why do you feel the need to fight everything? Everyone has their shit. Love all of your shit and everyone else’s, too. Just don’t let anyone or anything make you their septic system. Tell ’em no, you need to flush your shit down your own toilet… but I’ll contribute to the sewage treatment plant so everyone’s shit doesn’t contaminate the world that we all need to live in together.
Like Shakira and Wyclef say, “no fighting.”
If you’d like to schedule a session with Kara, please BOUNCE on over to my website, alwaysBEhealing.com
