by Caitlin Kingsley
What have you done since cancer that you never would have done before?
It was day one of the Mindfulness in Nature retreat and a few of us were taking a late afternoon walk on the beach. In true young-adult-cancer-club fashion, we were already past the BS and small talk, so a deeper question like this felt totally normal.
I knew my answer immediately. “Hang out with a bunch of strangers,” I said. “I never would have done that before cancer. I barely hang out with people I know.”
And yet there I was, having just flown across the country to stay in a house with a group of people I’d never met, in a place I’d never even heard of, doing activities I’d never done. (Comfort zone who?)
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for those strangers to become my friends and for that house to feel like home (with way better landscaping).
What brought you here?
After our beach walk and an amazing home-cooked meal, we piled onto the cozy living room couches, exhausted from a long day of travel and meeting new people and shared what drew us to the Mindfulness in Nature retreat and what we were looking to get out of the experience.
Personally, I was looking for a reset, a reminder to live this precious life I was given, and a reality check that I wasn’t put on Earth to respond to emails in a prompt and timely manner.
After my diagnosis, I was one of those people who wanted cancer to change me, to make me a better person. I thought I would be more patient, grateful, and kind. I would live a good, adventurous, meaningful life. And some of that came true.
But there was no sainthood drip infused into my chemotherapy, and I had definitely slipped back into some old habits. I was working too hard and too much. My priorities were off, and my mind was a battlefield of shoulds. I was tired – not from doing too much – but from doing too little of the things that light me up. I was most definitely not sending it.
So, that’s what had brought me to the sleepy beach town of Stinson Beach – the chance to pause, reflect, and refocus – to literally be mindful in nature. Little did I know on that first day, still a little uncertain of what I had gotten myself into, how much more I would gain from this experience.
How do your head, heart, and body feel right now?
On our first full day of the retreat, I did something I have never done on any other retreat, vacation, or weekend if I can help it. I got up.
That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is for me. I’m a sleeper. If it’s early and optional, you will not see me there. But on this day, I joined the group for a morning yoga session on the beach. As the waves crashed and the sun beamed warmly on my face and my body was reminded how much I enjoy yoga but never make time for it, I felt so incredibly grateful to be where I was and who I was at that moment. That’s a feeling that would come up again and again throughout the week.
Later that morning, we were back on the beach for our first surf lesson. Before we were ready to take on the energy of the ocean, our awesome instructors, Sandy and Steve, led us in a mindfulness activity to help ground us. They asked us to share how we were feeling in our head, in our heart, and in our body.
I shared that my head felt empty because I was trying not think about actually going surfing, but my body wasn’t hiding it as well and felt jittery. And my heart felt happy.
It was such a simple question and such an important one and yet something I never take a moment to consider in my normal day-to-day. Instead, I fill my time with endless tasks because I can’t be alone with my stillness, and I fill my ears with background noise because I can’t be alone with my thoughts. What could I discover about myself if I just thought about how I felt once in a while?
That particular day, what I discovered was that I definitely need to invest in a wet suit. Surfing was a blast! Whether you wanted to surf, boogie board, just dip your toes in, cheer from the sand, or frolic in the waves (my personal favorite), it was completely challenge-by-choice – no pressure. We were all sending it in whatever way worked for us.
What would it take to become more gentle with yourself?
Day three arrived and I was sitting by myself in the sprawling garden oasis of a gorgeous home in the nearby Muir Beach community, overlooking the ocean. Our mindfulness guru, Barbara, had led us through a series of meditations and teachings, and now it was time to do some work on our own. I had just untied the yellow ribbon from the tiny scroll that was my journal prompt: What would it take to become more gentle with yourself?
The universe has a funny way of asking you the questions that are already in your heart, huh? The question that I had randomly selected from a pile of other tiny scrolls was essentially why I was on this retreat. Maybe the reset I was looking for just came down to being gentler and kinder to myself. Instead of trying to figure out how to work less and prioritize better, what if I just stopped and acknowledged that perfection is arbitrary, that I am a messy human being and not a robot, that there will always be more to do and more than can be done. Oh, and that I had cancer.
The world is hard enough. What if I stopped being so hard on myself too.
With thoughts of gentleness taking root in my mind, a truly magical day unfolded. We did a walking meditation down to Muir Beach, enjoyed a picnic lunch, and took time to saunter along the shore (much different from walking – just ask John Muir). It was the first time I had ever actually stopped and smelled the roses – although in this case it was to smell the eucalyptus leaves and taste the seeds of the passion fruit we plucked from a tree.
After warm goodbye hugs from Barbara, we spent the afternoon hiking among the towering redwood trees at Muir Woods National Monument, taking turns spotting banana slugs, and marveling at how small we are in the grand scheme of things.
Why do we have this immediate connection?
The next day if you had asked me how my head, heart, and body were feeling, I would have said that my stomach was still hurting from playing games and belly laughing the night before. My heart was feeling sad that we were going home tomorrow. But my head was urging me to stay present.
After a morning of surfing, a few of us were in the hot tub discussing how a group of literal strangers could become so close so quickly. It’s the cancer thing, sure. All of us, including the staff, understand the life-quake of a cancer diagnosis. We recognize the literal and figurative scars. But it’s more than that.
For one, all of us sought this out. We sought out community and adventure. We sought healing instead of numbing. We sought ways to trust our bodies again. Not everyone chooses to handle cancer like that. Which made all of us more open to the experiences and connections.
I also believe that there are few places in society where you can show up as your truest, most authentic self, especially after cancer. A Send It trip is one of those places.
These are people who see your most complicated self and don’t even flinch. They understand parts of you that you may not be ready to understand yourself. They give you space to talk about cancer, to feel it, to be in it. They don’t make you feel like you have to hide the fact that you’re not OK yet.
And these are also the people you can talk to about dry vaginas and constipation and dating horror stories all in one sitting. (I’m not saying those topics came up on this trip, but I’m not saying they didn’t.)
That night, at our last dinner together, we started talking about flossing (because why not?), and I mentioned that flossing was one of my top 10 favorite things. I then proceeded to start naming my other favorites. And to my surprise, it became completely silent. Everyone was listening and waiting for what I had to say.
I had become so accustomed to letting people talk over me as my estrogen-deprived chemo brain struggled to find words and finish thoughts, but these people, my people, were holding space for me. What a gift it is to be listened to and to be understood. I urge anyone on any part of their cancer journey to seek out a community that holds space for you, that supports you and validates you.
Now what?
I heard on a podcast that the average person is not present for 47% of their lives. That’s a lot of time to miss out on. A lot of beautiful things to let pass you by.
Before the Mindfulness in Nature retreat, I thought very little about being present. And by very little, I mean never. But so many of the answers I found on this trip, so much of what I thought I was looking for, comes down to being present.
Being present means doing less. It means being gentler to myself and embracing the person I’m becoming. It means checking in with how I feel – in my head, heart, and body – and listening to what comes up. It means making peace with the past, letting go of the lies we’re fed about how life is “supposed” to go, and being grateful for this moment, the only moment there is.
Being present means feeling the sun on your skin, savoring the taste of Chutchie’s slutty cauliflower, spotting the perfect sand dollar, smelling fresh lavender for the first time, and hearing the laugher of the strangers around you who now feel like home.
Being present means not feeling like you should be anywhere else, doing something else, or being someone else. I think that might be happiness too.
