for Carers

Whether you are the partner, parent, grandparent, child, sibling or friend to someone with cancer, you will be feeling something in response to their plight. Your feelings are just as valid and substantial as those of the person with cancer. They may be very different feelings, but they matter just as much.

Gathering your resources is important for you and for the person you care about. They will feel reassured that you are fostering your own resilience and this will allow them the same permission to take care of themselves and what they need. 

Start by noticing what you are experiencing right now. Write down what you need, what resources you have already that meet these needs (don’t overlook the strengths you already have), and what needs are unmet, so that you can begin to gather these resources. You may need to think creatively about how to ask your wider community to help with the practical resources.

What I hear described quite often is the difficulty of dealing with things that cannot be changed. Humans have a clear preference for the familiar and for control. Things outside of our sphere of influence can tend to be experienced as threatening, activating our fight/flight/freeze fear response and making it hard to be present and come alongside the person we love at a time they most need our presence.

One of the most powerful things you can do is cultivate a mindful pause practice. There are probably a million ways to do this, from having a cup of tea in the garden to going for a surf, but one of my favourite is cultivating the quality of spaciousness. Once you do this practice a few times, you will find you can do it anytime, anywhere and thats when it becomes most useful….