{"id":732,"date":"2019-10-17T12:29:40","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T19:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherylrostek.com\/?p=732"},"modified":"2019-10-20T22:42:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T05:42:32","slug":"facing-the-brutal-facts-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherylrostek.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/17\/facing-the-brutal-facts-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing the Brutal Facts of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you know me well, you know that I LOVE Brene Brown, her books and her teaching.\u00a0 I appreciate her authenticity and wholehearted approach to life.\u00a0 Part of her definition of wholeheartedness is accepting \u201cYes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn\u2019t change the truth that I am brave, and worthy of love and belonging.\u201d (1)\u00a0 She has taught me much about the down-sides of perfectionism, about the value of increasing my vulnerability, about my people-pleasing tendencies, about pressing into courage and what that looks like, and so much more.\u00a0 Most recently I am reading her book, Dare to Lead.\u00a0 In this book she quotes James Stockdale, an 8 year Vietnam POW survivor. He says (2):<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end- which you can never afford to lose- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

FULL STOP.\u00a0 I like the \u201cfaith that you will prevail in the end\u201d part.\u00a0 I do good with that part. But, in the last couple of years I\u2019ve become aware that I do not have good coping skills for \u201cconfronting brutal facts\u201d and the feelings associated with them.\u00a0 I am an avoider.\u00a0 Growing up I didn\u2019t talk about my feelings.\u00a0 Feelings are inconvenient, feelings are inefficient, feelings are\u2026.vulnerable. I held in front of me a shield of perfectionism and performance.\u00a0 This was my coping mechanism for dealing with brutal facts: stone-facing them. \u00a0And I didn\u2019t even realize I was doing this<\/em>. \u00a0I attacked the \u201chard\u201d of life with an impenetrable shield, thinking I simply wasn\u2019t very emotional. \u00a0\u00a0Brene Brown has taught me that you can\u2019t selectively numb emotions.\u00a0 If you numb the difficult ones you also numb ones like joy.\u00a0 Huh! You see, this coping strategy, this shield of mine, worked for 30+ years.\u00a0 As it was falling apart, I thought it was still working.\u00a0 My body\u2019s voice spoke otherwise: CANCER.<\/strong> A BROKEN IMMUNE SYSTEM. YOUR SHIELD ISN\u2019T WORKING ANYMORE.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come to an understanding in the past year or so of the inseparable integration of my body, my soul\/spirit, and my mind. \u00a0\u00a0Health is multifaceted.\u00a0 I cannot separate physical health from spiritual and emotional health and vice versa.\u00a0 With my medical background it was a journey to this realization, and yet even in the medical professions it is now common belief that \u201cstress\u201d (mental health) has a negative impact on the body (physical health).<\/p>\n

I share all this in hopes of helping others.\u00a0 Perhaps some of you resonate with aspects of being a perfectionist, being performance driven, and lacking in the vulnerability department.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, I share this because this September I began writing a book about my cancer story.\u00a0 This is a courageous endeavor.\u00a0 Writing a book about my cancer story is a journey of facing the not-so-neat-and-tidy parts of life. It is requiring me to re-enter the trauma of being told at 35 years old, with a preschooler and 2 babies, that I would only live 1 more year.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to \u201cgo back there\u201d to rehash that traumatic time in order to write about it.\u00a0 In fact I\u2019ve been dragging my heels in doing so.\u00a0 However, I feel compelled that I need to write my story (and do all the re-hashing that entails) in order to spread HOPE.\u00a0 Interestingly, in writing my story and facing my brutal reality I am finding \u201cincreased faith that I will prevail\u201d because look, LOOK at what I have survived.<\/p>\n

In re-entering the \u201cbrutal facts\u201d of my reality with a new vulnerable approach, with my shield down, I\u2019m uncovering truths about myself that keep me curiously pressing forward.\u00a0 I realized just yesterday that I need to wholeheartedly explore how motherhood has shaped me.\u00a0 I realized that my cancer story starts with the stresses of twin-motherhood that I didn\u2019t have coping skills for, that played a role in the breakdown of my immune system.\u00a0 This is a \u201cbrutal fact\u201d of my reality I previously didn\u2019t know how to face.<\/p>\n

Today images popped up on my google photos memories taking me visually down memory lane of 3 years ago. As I sit in remembrance of the trauma of 3 years ago, it aches.\u00a0 As I open myself up to feel, I feel broken.<\/p>\n

This hits me hard.\u00a0 I remember those days feeling like Peter from the bible: terrified so close to drowning.\u00a0 The bible story tells of Peter in the middle of the sea in the middle of the night and seeing Jesus walking on water.\u00a0 He accepts Jesus\u2019 invitation and hops out to join him.\u00a0 He experiences the supernatural and also walks on while water keeping his eyes on Jesus the source of this supernatural experience. \u00a0But when the huge waves come, he takes his eyes off of the Source and begins to sink.\u00a0 He is terrified. He is in over his head.\u00a0 He will drown without the help of the Supernatural.<\/p>\n

Those days 3 years ago I felt so close to drowning, grasping to keep my head above water.\u00a0 The only way to do so was by focusing on something more powerful than myself: a bigger and greater power than I could ever muster.\u00a0 A power mightier than the storm waves crashing on my life.\u00a0 I was living an impossible life.\u00a0 The only way I kept from drowning was by focusing my eyes on my Supernatural Source.<\/p>\n

Today too, rehashing the past and the reality of my present and the uncertainty of my future I need walking-on-water-kind-of-power coursing through me.\u00a0 Because this is too much.\u00a0 This is real life and the waves are knocking me over.<\/p>\n

My Higher Power is God.\u00a0 So I call out, oh God keep my head above water. Oh God don\u2019t let me drown.\u00a0 Oh God I cannot do this.<\/p>\n

And My Higher Power replies, \u201cNo, you can\u2019t. But I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

To write my cancer story I must lay down my shield and expose my very vulnerable humanity.\u00a0 I must remember that I am a very fragile vessel of life.<\/p>\n

To live and write wholeheartedly I must repeat this process every single day:<\/h2>\n

1. Acknowledge the brutal reality of my life
\n2.Call out desperately to my Higher Power to keep me from drowning.
\n3.Find faith that I will prevail in the end.<\/h3>\n

Simple.
\nDifficult.
\nVulnerable.<\/p>\n

A brave journey SO worth braving.<\/p>\n

I sincerely thank you for joining me in this whole-hearted adventure of writing my cancer story.<\/p>\n

XOXO,
\nCheryl<\/p>\n

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  • Dare to Lead<\/em>, Brene Brown. P. 72<\/li>\n
  • Dare to Lead<\/em>, Brene Brown. P. 57, Referencing the Stockdale Paradox as cited in Jim Collin\u2019s book Good to Great<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>
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