Power in perseverance
Who knew that being diagnosed with cancer twice and having the prospect of having a baby ripped away and going through years of treatment could be such a powerful tool in being able to deal with a global pandemic?!!! You never know how strong you are until you’re tested hey.
I didn’t realise how equipped I was until now. To look at our current situation of the mad explosion that is Covid. What a nightmare for so many. I decided when it all kicked off that I would tackle it head on and turn it into a positive. Or at least try to. It wasn’t easy at first but a look at what I could do rather than what I couldn’t soon helped get things into perspective.
To be able to deal with the repercussions of the magnitude of Covid and be in a place where I could take a really bad situation and turn it on it’s head was a good feeling. I’m bloody lucky. I know that much. But when the privilege of being alive is there, my philosophy is to always seize the day. So I did some crazy events at home including running a marathon in my garden and completing the Three Peaks Challenge on my stairs. Why? Because I can.
Back in the early days of my diagnosis, I knew from the offset that I would have to draw on every single morsel of strength and energy to get through my treatment. Most of the time I was in autopilot mode getting through each day at a time. A floating sensation done in a mechanical way moving me between meetings and appointments. Between hospital beds and wards. Between various different medical professionals. Calling on my inner Braveheart to deal with the catastrophic impact both mentally and physically of surgery and drugs. I was determined and fired up from the start.
Even when I felt blimin awful. The yuckiest of the yuck, the shittiest of the shit, I still felt fired up. I had purpose and meaning. The little voice always telling me to be strong, to look forward and to persevere. I wanted to succeed in getting better. My mind, body and soul doing their utmost to be in tune with each other.
Perseverance is an interesting concept. So many of us have this power and potential. We have the array of qualities needed to mastermind this approach. We don’t realise how focussed and strategic our minds can be until we have no choice but to aim for success. To survive. To dream and believe and achieve. Be resilient because we have no choice.
But what drives that persevering nature? What hooks us into wanting to overcome difficulties and trauma? What gives us that passion of being so driven and alive with such fierce like a towering inferno lapping away. For a lot of us it’s in our makeup to want to confront things and be able to get out the other side. A survival instinct to power us through.
There have been times where I have felt defeated. I’d be lying if I said the last seven years has been a breeze. It so hasn’t been the case. But even when I started having negative thought processes there was something there, almost in a spirit form, re-energising and re-focussing me. It was that desire to get better, to overcome adversity and to live my best life.
Which brings me back to the start of this post. The thought of how going through cancer helped with dealing with lockdown. There’s lots of similarities. But I think the most ‘stand out’ ones for me is that notion of having things taken away from you. The sense of losing control of a situation. Being dictated to. Listening to advice and guidance and rules. Being restricted with movement. Missing out of your ‘normal’ activities. Being in a situation where you feel like you can’t see the wood for the trees and when things will ever go back to normal. To a certain extent a bit of fear and worry and will everything be ok. The most amazing feeling when things do start to change and a ‘new normal’ is adopted.
And then there’s the realisation that you can’t control the future and what will be will be. To adapt and make use of time instead of fretting. To grab an opportunity to make change. Having to be resilient to the max. To put a positive spin on things and to persevere.
This link to Forbes has a great piece on perseverance. I like it because I think it applies to all aspects of life. Whether professionally or privately. It, to me, highlights that perseverance is a mindset that we can all get to in order to better our lives and tackle all obstacles that are ever out in our way. To bounce back.
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