We have never talked about mental health as much as we have in recent times. And it is still not enough.
Date
Edition 1/1 — Oct 2024
Category
Articles
In one of my great professional moments, I was surprised with a cancer diagnosis. And worse, with metastasis – not in organs scattered throughout the body, but advancing at its site of origin.
I felt a tremendous sense of relief. My anxiety almost vanished for the first time in almost all my life memories. My emotional pain could come to an end. What my mind was creating could cease. My mental health was as sick as my physical health – or more.
With a lot of support from my family and friends, and my medical team, I managed to undergo quite an intense treatment and began to make peace with my mental health. The concept of wellness for me today is this: taking care of your body from the inside out.
Listening to its signals, paying attention to the automatic things that life throws at you. Taking it seriously. Stopping when necessary, because either you stop or life stops you. I remained functional, working, but I respected my body asking for rest after the chemo, my head spinning with so much information and the disastrous effects that radiation in the pelvis can cause.
Those who saw me said, “Wow, Gi, how well you are. How strong you are.” This came from the hospital team to my closest friends. There were moments of outrage, pain, and fear. But I remember many more moments of love and care.
Wellness was receiving every flower, every carrot cake, every frozen soup. Receiving visits, messages of love, feeling the positive energy for my healing. As soon as the treatment ended, my closest friends organized a little cake surprise at my house to celebrate the last chemo and the last radiation. It was delightful and unforgettable. On that day, my daughter said the phrase that would change my life forever. She, an 8-year-old girl, always cheerful and smiling, was in a bad mood and at one point said, “Do you see this party here? These cakes, sweets, food, balloons, and flowers? They should be for me, because I was the one waiting for my mom to come back from the hospital.”
And at that moment, all my pieces fell into place, and I decided to have a life very different from the one I had until then. But I will tell that in the next column, which I can already reveal, will be about making wellness a collective, accessible, and simple tool to practice. Inclusive for babies, children, adolescents, young adults, not-so-young adults, and the crowd that is starting an active life over 50, 60, 70, 80... and why not 90 years?
Wellness is looking inward, creating good practices, seeking simple alternatives. Taking care of oneself in a more holistic way. I conclude my inaugural column anxious (of course) to know if you liked it and excited for the other texts that will come.
In one of my great professional moments, I was surprised with a cancer diagnosis. And worse, with metastasis – not in organs scattered throughout the body, but advancing at its site of origin.
I felt a tremendous sense of relief. My anxiety almost vanished for the first time in almost all my life memories. My emotional pain could come to an end. What my mind was creating could cease. My mental health was as sick as my physical health – or more.
With a lot of support from my family and friends, and my medical team, I managed to undergo quite an intense treatment and began to make peace with my mental health. The concept of wellness for me today is this: taking care of your body from the inside out.
Listening to its signals, paying attention to the automatic things that life throws at you. Taking it seriously. Stopping when necessary, because either you stop or life stops you. I remained functional, working, but I respected my body asking for rest after the chemo, my head spinning with so much information and the disastrous effects that radiation in the pelvis can cause.
Those who saw me said, “Wow, Gi, how well you are. How strong you are.” This came from the hospital team to my closest friends. There were moments of outrage, pain, and fear. But I remember many more moments of love and care.
Wellness was receiving every flower, every carrot cake, every frozen soup. Receiving visits, messages of love, feeling the positive energy for my healing. As soon as the treatment ended, my closest friends organized a little cake surprise at my house to celebrate the last chemo and the last radiation. It was delightful and unforgettable. On that day, my daughter said the phrase that would change my life forever. She, an 8-year-old girl, always cheerful and smiling, was in a bad mood and at one point said, “Do you see this party here? These cakes, sweets, food, balloons, and flowers? They should be for me, because I was the one waiting for my mom to come back from the hospital.”
And at that moment, all my pieces fell into place, and I decided to have a life very different from the one I had until then. But I will tell that in the next column, which I can already reveal, will be about making wellness a collective, accessible, and simple tool to practice. Inclusive for babies, children, adolescents, young adults, not-so-young adults, and the crowd that is starting an active life over 50, 60, 70, 80... and why not 90 years?
Wellness is looking inward, creating good practices, seeking simple alternatives. Taking care of oneself in a more holistic way. I conclude my inaugural column anxious (of course) to know if you liked it and excited for the other texts that will come.
