How Do You Self-Care?

Katy Yost

Nathan's Joke:

What do you call a lion with no eyes?

*Answer is at the end

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Alex Huffman.

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Composer and conductor Arthur Rubinstein was once asked, “How do you handle the notes as well as you do?” His insightful response was, “I handle the notes no better than many others. But the pauses, that’s where the art resides.” A pause can be a sacred time to reconnect with ourselves and others. However, we tend to reserve pauses for peaceful and even prayerful times. If we can learn to pause as intended in a mindfulness practice, we can make this a healthy rhythm for our lives, especially during our most reactive and stressful experiences.

When our lives are packed with activity, we become human doings instead of human beings. Activity becomes a habitat, and as if on autopilot, we get in a trance of just doing. Just doing also provides us with a sense of control. We fill times of uncertainty with activity, and there is no space for vulnerability, wisdom, love, or creativity to flow. Those attributes need us to pause and just be. When we create space for pauses, we can let the light of love shine through us in all of our wholehearted worthiness. We are worthy of this pause without having to complete a to-do list or have a record citing everything we’ve accomplished; we are worthy in our own enough-ness to pause. 

While the script of this month’s meditation is fairly simple, the act of pausing must be extremely intentional. I invite you to pause and support this practice with the background music of Arthur Rubenstein found at 10 minutes with Arthur Rubenstein (https://youtu.be/JAIM_7kxu7E?si=bjd3gxbhA4QbgfNV).

Find a seated position, take a few mindful breaths, and begin by saying to yourself, “Right here, right now, let me pause.” If comfortable, close your eyes or soften your gaze, and take a moment. You might have that voice inside your mind that says: Just stop. Really stop. Come home into this Being. You don’t have to try to be aware. The awareness is what you are, and pausing is just relaxing back to inhabit it. It is natural, even as we sit still, that the mind leaves the pause and goes into activity, like fingers busily finding piano keys. And so, our practice is to just notice that . . . notice and re-relax, settle back again. It’s a radical thing to just have that intention to keep relaxing back, not doing anything, not controlling anything. Utterly awake, senses wide open. Utterly open, a non-doing presence.

Dr. Samantha (Sam) Dean is a metastatic melanoma survivor and former patient at UTSW. She graduated from the University of Missouri with a BA in English in 2012 and went straight into working with college students facing academic dismissal. She used her writing & speaking skills to mentor these students in asking questions, composing professional emails, using resources available to them, etc. Sam went on to receive an M.B.A. with a focus on both Sustainable Business and Marketing, then a Ph.D. in Public Policy & Political Economy. While working her way up in academia and getting all these fancy letters behind her name, Sam was doing freelance writing work. It wasn’t until after her melanoma diagnosis in 2020 that she decided to use all these skills to cope. She started freeform writing about what it felt like trying to survive as a 30-year-old woman in a male-dominated world while literally trying to survive. Since going into remission in May 2021, Sam has quit working full-time in academic administration. She now owns a full-service marketing agency, has authored a guided journal for cancer patients and survivors, published a children’s book, and teaches cancer survivors and teenagers how to express themselves through writing, whether via poetry, journaling, or creating a bomb resume to switch careers. When Sam isn’t working (which is hard to imagine because she has too many jobs), you can find her snuggling with her dogs, spending time with her nephews, or reading what she will undoubtedly claim is the next Great American Novel. 

Our chef-in-residence, Chris Lopez, is a stage 3b colon cancer survivor who was diagnosed in December 2019 with a 10cm grapefruit-sized tumor. Our YACS program was just in its infancy, and Chris was surprised to find a group with other survivors around his age.

Chris says, "It was a lot to take in at first. I felt scared and nervous, and I kind of wanted to leave the first meeting. I was barely coping with the realization I had cancer, and I wasn't ready to publicly voice it in a group. Butt then (pun intended), I met Roberto, Alex, Katy, Jay, Candace, Maritza, Brandie, and Sam (RIP). Had I not met Roberto, I would not be writing this bio to tell my story. Roberto was also a survivor with a similar cancer diagnosis, and after an hour of hanging out and talking with him and other survivors, I got out of my comfort zone and shared a bit. It felt great to know that there were other patients and survivors who had been in my shoes and going through some of the same treatments and emotions as me. Over time, I attended group meetings by Zoom and in-person, and I completed 16 rounds of Oxaliplatin and Fluorouracil followed by 30 rounds of targeted radiation and Xeloda. I also had an ileostomy loop surgery and reversal surgery, which means I won't be able to eat ice cream, cheese, Olive Garden, or any of the greasy foods I used to- LOL! I'm proud to report I am NED [No Evidence of Disease] as of 2021, and I owe it all to my faith, my medical team, and this amazing group of YACS. We have made some amazing, unforgettable memories. We've gained new friends and also some lost some along the way. I love guys!"