Join Rebecca and the Learning to Live Log

Learning to Live Log

Watch Out!

I'm Jumping In!

Surviving and learning to live are concepts that I have been thinking about extensively over the past year as I embark on my own rebirth in the field of cancer survivorship as a writer and consultant.

Many of you know me from my two decades of work in mental health and stigma reduction. Fifteen of those years were spent overseeing the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism and 165 year-long mental health reporting projects. Others of you know me as a two-time cancer survivor, friend, or family-member with a life-long passion for writing. When I am not deep in this work, I can be found in my garden, bare hands burrowed in the earth. It is the gardening, after all, from which so many lessons on living can be learned.

Each winter, I drive by our aquatic garden with its frigid waters speared by brown stubs of what were the glorious plants of last summer. The memories of the technicolor aquatic irises, waterlilies and lotuses always fade as the mercury buries at the bottom of the thermometer. Fear bites at the edges of my mind. Will they return or is the murky bottom their final resting place? As if in response, I blast the car heater, wipe the condensation from the window, and extend an audible gratitude that the seat warmer is blazing hot unlike the broken one in the 17-year-old Volvo driven during my early career.

With the emergence of summer this week, I could be found perched barefoot on the stone ledge of the garden taking in the miracle. Three waterlilies popped through the blanket of green pads now covering the water’s surface. It was a rebirth marked with vibrant colors of pink and salmon and petals spread wide to accept the sun. They survived the winter.

"Go Live Your Life," my doctor told me when treatment was over. The months and years beyond my two episodes of cancer have been the greatest classroom in which to learn how to live.

The past four seasons of my life have been dominated by rebirth and surviving. Consulting work has enabled me to meet many champions in the field of oncology and scores of cancer survivors in every stage of treatment or building a life beyond. Their stories along with my own personal passion to address the mental health of cancer survivors is what pushed me to go deeper and complete a proposal this spring for a book on post-treatment cancer survivorship. Along the way, I have been caring for my sister who is approaching a full year of battling an illness that almost took her life twice last summer. She is surviving and finding her own rebirth as she transitions from undertaking elite athletic events to oil painting that is more conducive to her condition. And then there are the three investment houses that we renovated and provided a rebirth, but more about that later…

I would like to take you on the journey with me as I complete my book on mental health and post-treatment survivorship and work on projects that address the mental health needs of survivors. Lessons abound that are applicable for almost anyone in any phase of life, even if you have not experienced cancer. Others who have survived a traumatic life event such as a divorce, unexpected death, natural disaster, or other serious illness may find my writing and work particularly helpful. Perhaps you are entering a new phase of life such as an empty nest or retirement and could benefit from the content that survivors provide about building a meaningful life.

It is my hope that the Learning to Live Log will be a place that you can take just a few minutes, perhaps with a cup of coffee in hand, to engross yourself in the ideas of how to build a more meaningful life through the lessons of survivorship. There will be tools and features in the future that will enable you to participate in the conversation and spread the word.

Here’s how you can join the journey:

· This Log post will pop in your email about every other week unless you choose to subscribe differently. Read it and forward to colleagues and friends.

· Encourage colleagues and friends to subscribe by visiting my website www.survivingthebook.com or emailing me at palpantr@gmail.com .

· If you are a cancer survivor, I am interested in hearing more about your experience surviving post-treatment and the ways in which you are learning to live with your new mind, body, and relationships. Please email me at palpantr@gmail.com and provide your contact information or watch for a survey that will be linked to future emails and through my website.

· Follow me on social media by clicking the buttons at the bottom of this page.

Let's Do This!

It is high time that we have an open and honest conversation about what real life is like as a survivor. Current media images too often only involve pink ribbons, balloons, parades, and middle age women striking warrior poses. These things certainly were not the trappings of my survivorship experience or the experiences of the survivors I know. Instead, in the months and years beyond treatment, I had to address significant mental health issues and undertake the hard work of building a new life. There was a lot of laughter and tears along the way. It took me years before I could talk about it, and I finally broke the silence through this Huffington Post piece in 2012.

While writing this piece today, I took a break and headed out to the aquatic garden again for another look at the waterlilies on the surface. Just as I thought, the depths of the garden were as mysterious as my mind envisioned while trying to shape the image in words on my screen. It almost is impossible to see what lies beneath the blanket of green pads. It holds secrets. My overactive brain thinks of snakes and monsters (how ridiculous!), and I practically fell when a toad scared me by plopping in and breaking the exposed surface into ripples. How do the waterlilies survive, emerging from those depths into the beauty before me?

So, I settle in to think. How do we survive, in so many cases against all odds, to become our better selves? I want to know about the mysteries that happen during the great swaths of time under the surface, away from view, that ultimately are the keys to surviving. After all, I think that is what makes all the difference. Let’s jump in and find out, shall we? Watch out – cannonball!!

Rebecca Palpant Shimkets.

To contact via email palpantr@gmail.com or connect via social media channels.