Linda Holman

     "Jealousy takes root in the soil of insecurity."       – Beth Moore.   Over the years I've been told a few times that I am insecure - usually not in a kindly way, and it always cut me to the core as I had no idea how to not be insecure. It felt like such a failing and being informed of it bluntly just made things so much worse. I've never understood how someone would think that shaming someone for being insecure could in any way make that situation better, but I suppose it came at the end of them trying to prop me up emotionally and eventually giving up in exasperation.  So it's something I've been aware of for a long time; however, it was on one of my stays at the retreat centre where I was really able to take a step back from it and see how much my insecurity had dripped poison into so many aspects of my life and relationships. It was shocking and knocked me off my emotional axis for a few days as I processed it.  I realised that...

  "There is a voice that doesn't use words. Listen."  - Rumi. While I was staying at the cabin I had lots of time to sit and stare, to think, and to not-think and just listen to the feelings and ideas that arise in the absense of distraction - in the quietude. It is my favourite part of being there and I wish I could bring that state into my "normal" life more often, but that's a topic for another blog.  I have always been drawn to religion in general and Buddhism in particular, completing a degree in Religious Studies (and Art History) about 15 years ago. But I've never felt able to dedicate myself to one religion in particular, I appear to have some form of commitment phobia when it comes to my spiritual life! I struggle to see past human involvement in the divine as it is reported to us, and I don't think any one system of belief or ethics can apply to all humans.  But I've always said that if I HAD to pick one, I'd go for Buddhism. I like...

  "Not all who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien. Last month I had a little adventure followed by time at a retreat centre, and it felt to me like the perfect balance. I love my life, am grateful for what I have, yet still I get so energised by being in new places and stepping outside of the everyday ordinary routines. There's something about a trip away that opens me up to all the wonder and joy of our world and increases my ability to think in new ways about how to live my life and spend my time.  Driving north to the centre, I took a couple of nights to stay in a town I've never stayed in before and then in a city to visit with friends. The weather made driving on the first day pretty scary, with rain coming down so hard I had to pull over, but I made it in one piece and filled my cup with new views and old friends. Then on to Hobbiton, which I loved, and then to Sudarshanaloka, where I had five nights in a forest cabin in delightful solitude.  Driving up to the ...

   “Real rest feels like every cell is thanking you for taking care of you . It’s calm, not full of checklists and chores. It’s simple: not multitasking; not fixing broken things.”  — Jennifer Williamson I love Christmas, but I get stressed out when I have too many social things to do around it. For me the best part of Christmas is the time when the tree is up - the smell of pine, and my husband and I cuddled up on the couch watching sweet Christmas movies. Time off work, time to relax on the deck with friends and family, the quietness of the week between Christmas and New Years. Time to rest and recharge. What I don't like is feeling pressured to buy gifts, cook for lots of people, or run around too much on the day itself. I don't like the drive to finish all the work, visit all the people, and do all the traditional things. I'm also not a fan of how much of the pressure to have the perfect time is applied almost exclusively to one person in the family - usually a woman....

  “ Recovery isn’t a gentle self-care spree that restores you to a pre-illness state. Though the word may suggest otherwise, recovery is not about salvaging the old at all. It’s about accepting that you must forsake a familiar self forever, in favor of one that is being newly born. It is an act of brute, terrifying discovery.” - Suleika Jaouad  I recently read over my New Normal blog from two years ago and thought it was time for an update. We are heading towards the end of the year and hitting some "cancerversaries" - 3 years since my mastectomy and reconstruction, and nearly 4 years since the diagnosis. Having lost my sister-in-law to metastatic breast cancer earlier this year I don't like to openly celebrate my survivorship - I'm glad to be alive and healthy of course, but making too much of a song and dance about it feels insensitive.  I've recently realised that the cost of my survivorship is a PTSD-like response to any kind of injury or illness - is ...

  Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels "Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realise there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." – Lao Tzu A few weeks ago I saw "It's never perfect, make it work" written on a blackboard outside a barber shop and I thought it sums up how I think about life these days. I used to be very hard on myself and everyone around me, with very high expectations and a low bar for disappointment. I'm very glad those days are behind me, but sadly I don't think I was alone in that.  Society can be hard on people, especially young women, and the pervasive sense of never being good enough seems to be common for many people. I certainly used to feel like there was something just a bit wrong with me, and so it felt good to achieve things and receive praise from people. But so quickly the buzz of praise would fade and I'd be back to feeling bad about myself again.  This lack of self-wor...

  "Never believe that body is permanent. Body is like a water bubble. Mind is like a mad monkey." - Sathya Sai Baba   When I first heard the phrase "monkey mind" I immediately understood what it meant! I was a few years in to my meditation journey, and mostly this had consisted of making huge resolutions to meditate for impossible amounts of time, followed by disappointment that I was never able to "empty my mind" or stop thinking.  But learning that the nature of our minds is to be like a monkey - jumping from thought to thought as a monkey jumps from branch to branch - this was very freeing! That's just my mind being the best mind it can be. It's been running the show for a long time now and absolutely expects that any idea or notion that it flings at me will be given my full attention. I leaned that I didn't need to try and stop the thoughts, I just had to stop being carr...

    "Go within every day and find the inner strength, so that the world cannot blow your candle out."      –Katherine Dunham    Meditation seems super interesting to you, but yoga.. not so much. Is it possible to get benefits from meditation without having to do yoga? Yoga and meditation are often practiced together; in fact there’s a school of thought that the main point of yoga is to get the body ready to sit for long periods in meditation. The word “yoga” is often translated as “union”, and the uniting of the mind and the body is a common way of thinking about it, so in that regard they can work well together. But there’s absolutely no requirement to do yoga along with a meditation practice - and especially when you are new and working on building a habit you want to have as few barriers to practice as you can . I think it’s easy to get caught up in how we think something should look, or focus on having all the perfect conditions before starting so...

  “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”  –  Arthur Ashe Sometimes people get pretty excited about the benefits of something they've recently tried and get quite evangelical about it. I've definitely been guilty of this over the years, even though I find it annoying when people do it to me. It can have the opposite effect and put me off trying new things just because someone tells me I "should" try it!  Another barrier to trying something like meditation is wanting to have all the conditions right to begin - that's basically impossible, so it's best to just start as soon as you can, even if things won't be perfect. You don't need any special clothes or particular types of cushions - you can meditate in a chair, sitting on a train, or even walking !  There are many, many different types of meditation, and most groups want you to meditate in a particular way as their experience tells them that's the "best" way to do it....

  “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” - James Clear Consistent underachievement can help us reduce perfectionism, which holds us back from starting things and makes us very hard on ourselves. If there’s something you want to do, then starting small is great, and starting small today is amazing. Consistent underachievement can help us get out of our own way and begin doing the things we’ve always wanted to do, without all the huge self-imposed expectations. Years ago, when I first read the phrase “consistently underachieve,” I hated it. The thought of specifically setting out to do a crappy job felt like it went against every fibre of my being — I was utterly in the grasp of perfectionism back then. But it was a seed, planted in my overwhelmed and under-rested brain, and it grew and grew until I had to take notice of it. The idea is that rather than making a massive life change, which you’ll struggle to maintain (for example, doing an hour of...

It's been a wee while since my last post - I wanted to take this year to really relax and recover, and try and figure out what my "new normal" looks like. I'd love to say it's been a year of ease and endless happiness but that'd be a lie. It hasn't been a bad year - but there have been a number of challenges I really wasn't prepared for. I don't think you can ever be truly prepared for cancer and its aftermath, you just have to roll with it and hope it doesn't run you over. Yay for drugs! I started the year moving into the (hopefully) final stage of treatment, hormone drugs. As my tumour was oestrogen recepter positive I am able to take drugs to block the production or uptake of oestrogen - which is a growth hormone that "feeds" the tumour. Taking these pills for the next 5-10 years helps to stop the cancer coming back. There are two types - aromatase inhibitors or Tamoxifen . Generally post-menopausal women (which I am now, tha...

 “As our body journeys through life, and life journeys on our body…. life will leave marks on us too. From the creases of our wrinkles to the birthmarks on our bodies to the tattoos we decide to place.”      ~ Lauren Klarfeld, author I don’t know if I have enough distance - either emotionally or through time - to truly “review” my year of cancer, but my archaeology study starts soon and I won’t have the time nor inclination to write any more blog posts. So this is it, most likely. Before I start I want you to know how much you reading this means to me... I get SUCH a thrill when a post gets read. Thank you, thank you! Naked and afraid The title “Repeatedly naked in front of strangers” tickles me, and is a phrase that sums up my 2021 - a large number of strangers (medical professionals, but still strangers!) saw my naked boobies, which was really very odd. I later realised how conditioned I had become to nudity when I accompanied a friend to a medical appointment ...

 "My friend Linda is having a mastectomy Her breast will no longer be next to me Instead there's a void Like when they removed her fibroid As part of a previous hysterectomy."      ~Matt Hunt Kia ora! I love that poem above, written a couple of months ago by my friend, and I'm glad to have had such well-rhyming surgeries! I hope you are well and are not getting run over by the Christmas madness. We are not putting up a tree this year as I'm struggling with the reminders of this time last year, when our lives changed utterly with my breast cancer diagnosis. I'm concerned I will stop loving Christmas if I associate it too strongly with all this waves vaguely . I am promising myself this will be a very short blog post as, a) who the heck has time to read a long episode in December, and b) I've not done much apart from recover from surgery . We will see how that pans out though... I do love to rant and rave a bit! Craft I have cut out a few patterns ...

 “Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the Culprit— Life! ”      ~ Emily Dickinson Kia ora whānau, thank you for visiting. This episode is about my recent surgery: a single mastectomy with immediate reconstruction. The intention is to explain it as clearly as I can so people having a similar procedure (or who are supporting someone who is) can have another resource to call upon. Please note this is being carried out in New Zealand, and different countries may have different types of surgeries that use similar terminology. I have already had a lumpectomy with lymph node removal , so didn't need further lymph node removal. I opted for an immediate reconstruction as the public waiting list is so long for delayed reconstruction that I'll never actually make it to the top of the list. I had initially thought I wanted to see how I went with a straight mastectomy and possibly a delayed recon, but now I'm glad t...