We are coming to the end of breast cancer awareness month. What an amazing campaign it is! I have had e mails and texts to draw my attention to it and notice Thirsty Thursday (www.thirstythursday.co.uk) , a networking group for women in Cheshire, are offering portrait photographs in support of the campaign. I got as far as pulling off an application form to do a walking marathon through the night in Manchester next April. That must have been a moment of madness on a Friday morning but am more than happy to sponsor someone else to do that!

On a more serious note this is such a vital campaign. I pulled the statistics off the cancer research website and note the following:-

• Breast cancer is now the most common cancer in the UK
• In 2006 around 125 women a day were diagnosed
• But more women are surviving breast cancer than ever before

But what is the quality of that survival? I guess it varies. Depending on how we cope with other major life events emotionally will determine how we manage this one. I have written before about loss and the need to grieve after such an event as breast cancer. And we are often reluctant to ask for help .. I want women to feel empowered to ask for help and they can then come through this challenging life event stronger and more in touch with what matters. Life coaching may be just what will help with moving on. I am speaking in Wrexham in North Wales in a couple of weeks when I will be talking about why I believe coaching is so important and am hoping to run a workshop in Altrincham in Cheshire early next year for women suffering from or recovering from breast cancer.

Looking after ourselves emotionally at all times is important but when our health is compromised in any way it is even more crucial. I believe that whatever we experience it is all about loss; if a woman receives a diagnosis of breast cancer she will experience a range of emotions but at the heart will be loss. Her immediate fear may be that she will lose her life, then she may lose her breast. And then there’s the loss of her sexuality. Tied up within all of that could be loss of her anticipated future, health, maybe career .. the list is endless.

A woman who finds herself involuntarily childless will have lost her opportunity to be a mother and all the dreams that go with longing for a family. Often mothers suffering from postnatal depression will have experienced loss in some way; loss of the planned birth. For example I experienced loss having a Caesarian section and still feel loss at never having given birth “normally.” During pregnancy and before, we dream what being a mother is going to be like and when it isn’t .. there we have it, a loss again. Other traumatic life events have a similar impact; divorce, domestic abuse.

If there’s loss then there’s grief; each of us has to experience our own individual journey through it. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages and knowing and understanding that this is a “normal” process makes it less scary:-

Denial: it’s not really happening
Anger: With themselves or others including those closest to them
Bargaining: With God or whatever the individual believes in
Depression: It’s natural to feel sadness, regret, fear & uncertainty
Acceptance: This may take a long time or be much quicker .. who knows?

What’s important if you are experiencing this is to share your feelings with someone close to you or to others, such as a life coach, someone who will listen.