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KarynJ's avatar
KarynJ
Member
3 years ago

Bouncing forward - can we do this?

There is this expectation that after treatment, we will bounce back and be our old selves again.  Of course, anyone who has been affected by cancer or knows someone who has been affected, realises it's not that easy.  There is a lot of emphasis on learning to accept the "new me". 

Tiffiny Hall, personal trainer, ex-Biggest Loser trainer, has come up with this concept of bouncing forward.  She has related it to pregnancy and accepting that her body after childbirth will never be the same.  So instead of pressuring herself to "bounce back" and have the same body she did before pregnancy, she advocates bouncing forward and accepting her new body and becoming the best "new me" that she can.  Obviously, she was super fit before pregnancy and will always look 100 times better than the average person. 

However, I was wondering if it was an idea we could adopt or adapt to cancer survivors?  Can we bounce forward and move into the space of acceptance of our new way of living?  Can we find a similar phrase to "bounce forward" that has more meaning to survivors?

Let's get creative :)
coping
inspiration
survivorship

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  • Afraser's avatar
    Afraser
    Member
    3 years ago
    It’s worth considering that we only live forward, not backwards. We can’t genuinely put ourselves back in time about anything. We may talk about feeling ‘just like we used to’ but time has passed, our hair is a little longer or greyer, we have learned a little more maybe, there is still change. For those who have really difficult side effects, or recurrence, or utterly changed life expectations, the wish to be back as you were is totally understandable. But for those with a renewed hope of a future, walking briskly, even plodding, to a new sense of who we are may be more realistic than ‘bouncing’. Either way, as one who has found my life post cancer (which just might never have happened) to be fulfilling and full of new and quite spectacularly good things, it may be worth the journey.