A client recently shared that while she sat in the waiting room, she noticed that everyone else had someone with them, someone who held their hand, while hers sat empty because she had no one to support her.

She wasn’t complaining. She simply stated, “I don’t have anyone who can support me in this way, and I know that support is important.” According to research, she’s right. Support is very important, and not all of us have it.

If you do not have this kind of support. If, after saying the word "cancer" out loud for the first time, you’ve heard only silence. If you've caught yourself apologizing for needing help, as though needing it were the failure rather than the circumstance, and if you've smiled through an appointment, driven yourself home, and cried alone in the car so no one would have to carry it for you, this is for you.

The silver lining of cancer, if it ever comes for you, will not be something you manufactured. It won't be the reason you got sick — it isn't. And it won't be a prize handed out for suffering correctly. It will simply be something you notice, one ordinary day when you weren't looking for it, about who you've become and what you now hold close.

And if it never comes? You have lost nothing. You are not behind. You are not doing this wrong.

You are a human being, facing one of the hardest things a human being can face, exactly as you are. That has always been enough.

A Tapping practice you can do with your own two hands to resolve the two feelings that tend to show up in treatment: Helplessness and Hopelessness. They rarely announce themselves. They arrive quietly, usually late at night, and they sound something like this:

Nothing I do makes any difference.

And nothing is going to get better.

If you have surgery scheduled, you are probably discovering something that rarely gets discussed at pre-op appointments: the waiting is its own ordeal. The procedure has a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, and a care team. The three weeks before it have only you, at 2 a.m., rehearsing everything that could go wrong.

We all know that it’s important to keep our stress levels in check, but often, with the pace of life, and certainly with the onset of an illness such as cancer, that is easier said than done. If you’ve tried different ways to maintain a healthy level of stress but nothing worked, here is what I teach every one of my clients.

Feeling anxious when receiving a cancer diagnosis or undergoing treatment is understandable, even expected. Whether it’s about treatment-related side effects, cancer spreading, or returning after treatment has ended, whether it’s about losing our independence, our support system, relationships, etc.