Linda Holman

    "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...