TAKE A DEEP BREATH

TAKE A DEEP BREATH

                                                  


I was a very active divorce attorney for many years.  Working with three other women lawyers, I wouldn't turn down a husband coming for a divorce, but the practice attracted mostly female clients. Many of these women were middle-aged and had married at the time when husbands expected their wives to remain home and care for the children as they came along. The men also controlled the financial functioning of the household. Oftentimes, our clients had no idea how to write a check or balance a budget.

Divorce would change all that for them. The four of us would take turns with our clients explaining the basics of household management.  Someone had to, or else their marital settlements might be dissipated by bad choices.

All four of us had yet another job: making sure that after we finalized their divorces, the women would take a deep breath and not make any major life changes for one year.

                              

They were coming off a major life shift; they had experienced serious stresses both during the marriage and the divorce process, which can be brutal. They often had little knowledge of how to conduct a life without a man being in charge. They looked at their futures with both endless choices before them and fear that they could not navigate those choices well.  They also had a very different social group around them now.  Some friends had "gone over" to their husbands after the divorce; divorced women sought them out and wanted to be new friends.

So many things to adjust to.

Take a deep breath.

                                                                       

I returned to my pre-law career of teaching high school in 1992 so that I could provide daily care for my aging, widowed mother. My hours and holidays permitted me to give her blocks of time for doctors' appointments and companionship. My court appearances were limited to summer, so that I could continue my law practice on a part-time basis.

In 2003 I took on yet another job: working virtually for Ken Wilber's Integral Institute which was located in Boulder, CO.  I worked every day, 7 days a week, 364 days a year, on the formation of what we hoped would become Integral University, and where I would assume an administrative position. But the attempt ended in 2006 due to a lack of funding.

In 2008 I ended my teaching career. My interests had shifted to creating an Integral spirituality course for a local adult seminary. My dream was to create a two year program to produce Integral spiritual mentors, and after a third year, to ordain Integral ministers. I put two years into creating the program and curriculum.

One prerequisite for me was to become an interfaith minister through training at the seminary, and then to seek Wilber's blessing to be ordained as the first Integral minister.  All was on track as of September 30, 2010.

On October 1, 2010 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and sought treatment at Sloan-Kettering in New York. I had a mastectomy in November, surgery for a life-threatening cellulitis infection in December, and major surgery to remove my left lung after an unrelated lung cancer was discovered. Then there was five months of chemo, a blood clot, bad reactions to treatment, a suspected but not malignant lymph node, and finally I was "done" with treatment by the fall of 2011. Others had filled in for me in my program, but by the summer of 2011 it appeared to be dead in the water with no plans for its continuation, and who could blame the school?

So after all of this turmoil, what did I do?

                                                          
No. Not even close.


I became a frenetic ball of fire, mishandling things as I went.

                                


Meanwhile, my immune system had not come back on line and I began getting bronchitis and asthma attacks one after the other.

                                                   

What I had failed to do, and thus had failed myself and those around me who trusted in me, was to heed my own words to those newly divorced women:  Wait a year after the stress has ended to make any major life changes.

I felt as though I could not give into my illness. I felt that I had no time to lose as a result of that illness.  I feared that I might have little time left to ever see my plans come to fruition. All of this led to serious unintended consequences for me, many of them long-lasting and terribly hurtful.

Cancer and other serious illnesses are not over on the date of your last treatment.  Your body, mind, and spirit have had profound shocks that you might not be consciously aware of.  The effects of medication, surgery, the losses and necessary life adjustments after such events need loving, gentle care. Self-care.

So if you've just been diagnosed; learned about your future treatments; or have just finished those treatments, take heed of this advice: