Mental Marathon

MENTAL. MARATHON. The phrase I keep coming back to when trying to describe this cancer journey. Now, technically I haven’t run a marathon, but I’ll pull from my experiences running two half marathons (which make a whole, right?) for this analogy. 

When you begin, the road before you is long, the course relatively unknown. And this is no marathon like the one in Savannah in the fall (flat, in a temperate climate); this marathon is through mountains in the desert. The temperatures are bone-chilling cold at night and sweltering-hot during the day. The mountains in front of you hide the view of what lies beyond them. You can’t see where the finish line is, but you are assured there is one. And so you begin, putting one foot in front of the other again and again as you move forward in a direction. 

Along the way there is sweat, tears, pain, and chills. There are highs, lows, beautiful sights, and depths of despair. And ultimately, it’s your mental attitude/outlook/perspective that will determine how you finish the race. Will you focus on the hurdles or the finish line? The shadows or the light? The pain or the joy? The unknowns ahead or God’s faithfulness in the past?

The other word I find myself using all the time is “recalibrate.” 

Throughout my life, anytime I hear stories of tragedy, the words that jump out of my gut and spill out through my mouth are “Oh, I can’t even imagine!” I empathize deeply and feel things as if they are happening to me. I always thought that if tragedy struck too close I would just literally stop breathing and die on the spot. But then I got “the news”, and after sobbing, yelling, letting out deep groans of agony, the emotional response gently subsided and I was still breathing. 

The beauty in the design of our brains is that they adapt. The whole fight or flight thing kicks in and you start to think about next steps and what actions need to be taken. You make appointments, you seek wise counsel, you pray, you research, you start moving. You adjust because you don’t have a choice about the situation in which you now find yourself.

When I was first told that my mammogram was “suspicious” and that I’d need to come back for a biopsy, I was handed some pamphlets about breast cancer to which I replied, “Thanks, but I’m not allowed to read those because of my anxiety.” I know my limits, I’ve come a long way in managing anxiety, and I KNOW I am not allowed to google! But when you do get an actual diagnosis, you have to educate yourself in order to make wise decisions. There is a time and a place for google, and this was it.

Throughout the past couple of months though, when I am in a position of needing to gather information, educate myself, research, I just feel yucky afterwards. Down, gloomy, blue, detached, sad...the wind sucked out of my sails. So I always have to follow it up by flooding my brain with Absolute Truth. Because as far as science has advanced, there is so much further to go. (This has become abundantly clear throughout this process and is why I now care a whole lot more than I used to about organizations and causes that raise funds for research). From an eternal perspective, there is so much our tiny human brains can’t comprehend about the nature of God, but we have been given a great gift to be able to know some absolute truths, some guarantees! (To my knowledge and experience thus far, those don’t exist in the medical world). 

After googling, I have to recalibrate with Truth. 

I have to hold my situation and circumstances up to God’s truth and an eternal lense. What I always find is hope - the conviction of things not seen (Heb. 11:1, Ro. 8:24) 

So I flood my brain with Truth and here’s how.... when I went through my anxiety crisis a couple years ago I created a shared album in my photos on my phone. Every time I read a verse that speaks to me directly, I make an image of it (using the Bible app) and save it to this album. When I am struggling mentally, I open that album up and just read through it. It’s as good as popping a Xanax (and I speak from experience there). I physically feel the tension in my shoulders, the tightness in my throat, the worries in my head losing their grip on me as I read and meditate and focus on the truth, on the Light. 

Back to the marathon... I used to the think the finish line was being healed of cancer. I’m learning however, that even after that “cancer-free” declaration, a whole new kind of storm can brew. And bottom line, there will always be storms/tunnels/valleys (pick your favorite analogy!) in life. The ultimate finish line is heaven - where we will experience complete healing and freedom and joy! Usually you get to choose which race you are signing up for - 5k, 10k, half marathon, whole marathon, iron man, etc. But in *real life,* you don’t get to choose how long your race is...sure there are things you can do that may (or may not) influence that (another post for another day), but ultimately none of us knows exactly where our finish line lies. And until we reach it, we can expect bumps, hills, mountains, and curves in the race. But if we focus on the Truth, we’ll also get to see beauty, good, redemption, and hope will see us through til the end. 

If you are fighting through your own mental marathon in life right now, here are some of my favorite truths to consider along the way...