How Do I Stay Positive?

I play Jedi mind tricks on myself.

Ok I don’t know if they are Jedi mind tricks per se, mostly because, much to my husband’s horror, I haven’t actually seen Return of the Jedi. But he’ll be proud I knew the term and threw a Star Wars reference in here, nonetheless. But I digress.

Here’s what I mean. When we set out on this adventure, we had several doctor’s appointments that laid out what we could expect over the coming months; we knew there would be the surgery, and they would put in tissue expanders. Then we found out there would be chemo and radiation, and only after that would I have the surgery to remove the expanders and replace with implants, finally completing this whole ordeal.
So I envisioned that chemo would go until the end of the year, then radiation would take us to February or March, and then we could have the surgery to replace the expanders. Spring = done.

Several weeks ago we realized my timeline was a little off. I found out that after radiation is complete, I am going to have to wait 4 to 6 months before that expander surgery. Which basically means a year from now, we will still be in this battle. Once again, I learned this season will not be over as soon as I had hoped. This was a big mental setback – this cancer wasn’t just taking a year of my life, it was taking two. The light at the end of the tunnel was simply too far away.

I had to find another way to encourage myself to make it to the end. I had to find a Jedi mind trick, a way to make my mind focus on the positive. That’s when I realized the importance of milestones. Instead of just focusing on the finish line, which is now so far away it’s actually discouraging, I realized I needed to look at this journey differently – there is the end of the season as a whole, but there is also the end of treatment.

If you think about it, for a lot of people the end of treatment IS the end of the season. So it’s a huge deal, and it needs to be celebrated! Realizing this helped change my perspective from “the end is so far away” to “the end of treatment is much closer”. It’s a small Jedi mind trick that brings hope and celebration into a long road of perseverance.

So if you need help staying positive in your circumstances, play the Jedi mind trick. Find a different way to look at the situation so it’s in a positive light. It’s ok that it doesn’t feel positive at the time…duh, that’s why it’s a trick!
Play the trick on your mind, then do two things – 1) choose to think about that new perspective instead, and 2) speak that perspective in your daily life. Before you know it, the emotions will follow and these are no longer the drones you’re looking for. Boom. Jedi mind trick.

Pro Tip: Thankfulness is a great Jedi mind trick – there are always reasons to be thankful, no matter what you are going through. Maybe it’s looking at things differently, like instead of being frustrated with that annoying co-worker, you realize how thankful you are for your job. Maybe it’s listing out the blessings in your life in a journal. Maybe it’s focusing on the things you take for granted like water and clothes and electricity. Maybe it’s being thankful for the fact that you’re in a good mood, or the fact that there are no doctor appointments today. Hey, maybe the new Star Wars movie is even coming out. There’s always something!