I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

“Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.” 

~ Hunter S. Thompson

What does it mean to listen to your body? Often, it means that people think you are crazy when you talk about your health and body. From family, friends to doctors and nurses. Even before my mastectomy, I have spent my adult life learning to maneuver the medical establishment and how to advocate for my health and to heal my body. This path of wellness has taken me for quite a ride. One of the biggest lessons of this has been that the wellness of the mind is the precursor to wellness of the body.

Some history... If you haven't read my previous posts about my mastectomy and reconstruction you can click here to start on Part 1 and give it a read.

I am far from the only person going through heavy shit with their health. I have had many students over the last 10 years that have had baggage of health (mental & physical) issues, students that I have done my best to teach tools to in an effort to better choose how to deal with the hand that they have been dealt. But what does that even mean?

Not a one of us is immune to having things in their life get totally fucked up. Either by crappy adult decisions, decisions we must learn to accept as our our own, or by things totally beyond our control. When going through my hysterectomy, broken elbow, broken pelvis, mastectomy & reconstruction - mind you all this went down in a 7 year period - each morning I had a choice on how I wanted to live the day. Some days I did well, I read and practiced my yoga (off or on the mat), I talked and reached out to people that I loved and that loved me, people I respected, went to the gym, did the things that nourished my soul and body. This is the tale that most teachers, mindfulness teachers & writers will tell... how they applied all these amazing mindful techniques to be a better human. And don't forget, to pay them for all this amazing insight and tools on living a perfect, healed, life. However, what I can also share with you, in total Just Faking It honesty, is that about 40% +/- of the time, I was not coping in a healthy way. Some days I coped by sleeping late, drinking too much booze, smoking too much weed, spending well beyond my means. Alienating myself from the healthy people in my life. I would wake up in a shitty mood and choose to stoke that fire of shittyness and wallow. Need proof, if you see me out and about - check out the damage to the rims on my car thanks to those poor life choices ;)

The interesting thing to me in admitting that in about 40%+ of the time I did not cope in a healthy way, is the freedom of simply embracing that. Embracing my own crazy. That if we are really working on our own wellbeing and wellness (mind & body) then we can cultivate the ability to learn from the garbage decisions as much as the good ones - sometimes we learn way way more from those poor life choices.

Following my reconstruction and being filled with hope as to a new, healthy, future, there was one thing that I could not shake. My unwillingness to compromise on my new path of living. This unwillingness to compromise is both totally awesome and a driving force in my life post mastectomy, but it is also a thorn in my side.

I made the choice to not participate in anything that does not bring the good into my life. The first thing that went were the friendships and relationships that were not nourishing me. Relationships are not often looked at as a means of wellness in our lives, or as a catalyst for living better. But if you take a second, I'll wait...... to think about it. How much do the people we choose to be around - from family, to friends, to employers and coworkers, to strangers - impact our energy, perspective and wellbeing?

How many people do you spend time with that you dread seeing, that you know will leave you exhausted (energy vampires)? How many people do you spend time with that make you feel alive, ready to live deeply and incredibly? How often are you leaving social situations where you spend the next minutes, hours, days kicking the shit out of yourself mentally for how you "should" have responded or acted in any given situation? What would your internal dialog tell you if I said that WE ALL DO THIS? In the last 20 months since my final surgery I have forced myself to really watch my thoughts, actions, reactions and then to do something about it. My social circle is about 1/3 what it was prior to my surgery.

Just like in cooking, when you reduce something down, it gets complex. Concentrated. Beautiful. And that is where I am beginning to find myself now. I have a handful of close friends and family. I have stopped putting effort towards connecting and communicating with family/friends that don't enrich my life, and with that my inner narrative has began to changed too. Look, I am not saying go be an asshole and tell off anyone that you don't feel like is contributing to your life (in person or through social media) - that is simply a dickish thing to do - don't do that. I am saying that by beginning to watch my thoughts, my physical response to the people I interact with on a daily basis, I have allowed myself permission to pare down my circle of trust. I am now surrounded by a beautiful and complex group of humans that support me (and me, them), but more importantly, call me out on my bullshit and when I reinforce old patterns by repeating old stories that are not accurate at all, they let me know. Guess what? This is yoga too! Those friends and family that are no longer a part of my day to day are still loved and I would still be there to support them if asked, I just choose to limit the amount of energy I am now putting out.

I challenge you, my reader friend, what does your circle of trust look like? Are they nourishing you? Are they challenging you to human better? Are you fully present when you are with your circle? Watch your thoughts when you are not alone, notice how your body and breathing change as you move through your day. Do this without judgement or expectation, just watch.Through this watching decide if you like this pattern or if you are choosing to change how you are moving through your day. Some days you will nail it and some days it will be akin to attempting to nail Jello to the wall. But that is life, that is practice.

As we wrap up another year and decade choose to be a light. Hanukkah ends tonight, for those of you that are not in the know, to celebrate this holiday those of Jewish faith light a menorah (candle holder) each night, using a special candle to light the rest. This candle is called the shamash. Literally translating into the helper or servant. Its job is to bring light to the other candles and to be of additional light. This is my main goal each day from now until my last breath, to be the shamash. And to surround myself with other shamash.

Happy New Year, happy new decade, happy practicing on this next trip around the sun!


"Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality & duplicate it" 
~ Bruce Lee 

A Write Return

Someone once told me, that to be a writer, you must write. But what happens when there is just so much going on in your mind that you can't seem to get the words out on the page? That the stories you want to share become this tsunami of incoherent babble so you just say f*ck it and nothing happens. For almost two years.

The last time I sat down to put preverbal pen to paper was in March of 2018. In the thick of the reconstruction of my chest following my mastectomy. In the midst of being totally and completely adrift emotionally, physically and spiritually. With the literal weight of my decision to put my life on hold for the sake of my physical health. Since then, my mantra of "just faking it" has been put more into daily practice than ever before.

Shortly after getting cleared at the end of the mastectomy ordeal I retired from the company I helped to grow over the last almost two decades. I walked away from health insurance, stability, a paycheck, and familiarity that had been my safety net through so much. But I knew in my bones that this was the only choice I had. I did not get spared from the reaper to continue living status quo. The lightest I have felt, for as long as I can remember, was leaving the meeting with my business partner/boss after having just given my notice. The first big step toward my future and into the unknown.

The paramount lesson from my ordeal with my breasts was that tomorrow is not a promise. That at any moment in time, everything can, and will change. Change is the only constant in life. As 2019 began I made the commitment to return to myself, my authentic self. Easy right? Sure, we all know who we are, right? HA! Nope... The girl that once was physically strong and emotionally rock solid was not the girl looking back at me in the gym. The girl that was once adventurous, sure of herself and powerful in the face of things that frightened her had left the building. As I began to put forth effort to live again with every cell in my being, I found myself terrified of everything, of every part of my daily life.

Somehow throughout the process of gaining my health and hopefully longevity I had developed a crippling fear of life. The duality of being pulled to live as fully as possible, not only for myself but also living for the many friends that have left this earthly plane via cancer, while I was given the gift of continuing life. I was feeling/experiencing fear in almost every part of my life, it was part of each thing I did, every day. I began working with my partner in his residential construction company not only doing the bookkeeping and office management but also on site painting and helping with other laborer type things. Fear here too... but there was a freedom and empowerment that came along with that choice. To go from running a company to being low man on the food chain was glorious. To listen to music, paint and make things beautiful began to awaken me again, the deep me that had been in hybernation for a long winter.

When I would be on site painting, there was a wave of peace that would wash over me, a zone I would fall into that I had never experienced before. Not only did I love working with my man and not being behind a desk all day, but it began to be almost a moving meditation. A one pointed focus each day that allowed all the other mountains I had been carrying to fall away. So thats what I did, I painted. I taught yoga. I practiced giving myself time to continue to heal. To work through what I had just been through. That I was given a second chance at this life thing. For the record, being in this practice of healing and moving through is scary, scary beyond words. It is messy. It is challenging, that is, from what I have been told, is how a person knows that they are actually healing.

2019 turned into the year of the cocoon. Where I went inside myself to plant the seeds of who I am on the other side of it all. To start to organize everything that has gone down in this decade that is now winding to a close. The loss, the love, the wins, the losses, the adventures & travel, the excitement and let downs. The 10 years packed full of living. I must acknowledge though, that I am, just like you, faking it. I have deduced though, through what some would argue is too much self reflection, that this next chapter requires me to start writing again. To kick my fear straight in the dick and put myself out there. To share my stories of life. So I start now, on the eve of my 40th trip around the sun, to write again. To tell my stories and observations with the intention that I might connect with others out there needing their own connection to help them through their own life adventures.

Ive said it before and I am sure I will again and again, none of us know what we are doing. There is no manual. There really are no rules to how we can design our lives. As long as we continue to strive towards our own authenticity and to create large areas of healing within ourselves.

all photos and writing ©2019 Jen Marcussen