[Barbara2]

The following website offers a lot of thoughts and messages of hope and healing. I have downloaded many of their affirmations and kept them in a file. Below is their website and an example of one of their affirmations which might offer guidance on "The Roadmap To Survivorship."

http://www.thecancercrusade.com/Canc..._survivors.asp

From this address you can receive their weekly affirmations:
http://www.thecancercrusade.com/Canc...blications.asp

Learning To Live In The Moment
Regardless of our diagnoses and prognoses, learning to live in the moment can remarkably alter the way we spend our remaining days on this earth, granting us joy and peace in the very time and place we believed them to be impossible.

The first step is to consciously let go of the past. Stop beating yourself up over what may or may not have caused your disease. We need to remember that in many cases, there are no answers to the riddles of disease. Many people who have taken incredibly good care of themselves all of their lives get cancer and other serious illnesses, too. We need to let go of the obsession many of us have with finding out "what went wrong." And if we imagine that it is something we did or didn't do,
we need to forgive ourselves.

Secondly, we must refuse to be overwhelmed by worries about tomorrow. This is perhaps hardest of all when facing a life crisis, but it can be done and you can do it, but it does take practice. Do you have surgery tomorrow? Chemotherapy treatment? Radiation? Other painful or frightening procedure or test? Focusing on it today will not put it off or make it go away, but it will rob you of the potential joys in today. Find them! I find joy in watching a favorite old movie for the hundredth time, going through family photos, indulging in cheesecake and painting with watercolors, but you are the only one who knows what brings you joy. Give yourself the gift of joy in the moments of today, and let tomorrow
take care of tomorrow.

We can take a lesson from those recovering from the illness of addiction, those who remind themselves and one another that we can only live our lives "one day at a time." There are even days when we can only endure an hour at a time, even one minute at a time, but the minutes and the hours and the days endured are victories in and of themselves. They are battles won, and they are to be celebrated joyously. These are the moments that add up to
the sums of our lives.

Resolve to celebrate every morning that you open your eyes, every contact with a loved one, every moment that you draw breath, the breath itself, every seemingly inconsequential thing or occurrence which, if examined closely, reveals a miracle.

When you temporarily lose your resolve, don't give up. Remind yourself that this is a new approach that requires practice, and gently return your attention to the present moment. If you can focus on this task and make it a conscious practice each and every day, its promise is that the joyful moments will greatly outweigh the sorrowful ones when
the sums of our lives are tallied.

Dear God, I've been awfully hard on myself lately, blaming myself for mistakes real and imagined, and convincing myself that they are the reasons I have cancer. I often obsess over what tomorrow will bring and how many tomorrows I have left. Please help me get past this harmful thinking. Help me in my resolve to build healthy new habits, to forgive myself for my old unhealthy ones, and to live joyously in the moment every moment for all the rest of my days. Amen