You now understand that joy and fear can coexist, and you have decided to feed joy.
You feel this truth the most on a Tuesday morning in your oncologist’s office. Not only that, but you’re sitting there shaking in fear while you wait for test results. You feel terrible in your stomach. And then you notice the sunlight coming in through the window; you feel the warmth of it in your hands. You are feeling both. Fear and appreciation. They are living together in the chest, breathing the same air.
Cancer teaches this strange lesson quickly, and it is an unsettling lesson. You don’t get to choose whether fear shows up. Fear shows up uninvited, camps out in your mind, and it doesn’t leave. Fear whispers with every scan. Fear shouts when you find a new symptom. Fear even crawls into your bed with you and shows up at breakfast.
But here’s the thing you’ll find: joy doesn’t wait for fear to leave.
You took a position before. You thought you had to beat the fear out. Not only that, but you thought you had to be brave and be unyielding. Then maybe, after you conquered the night, you could feel happy again. That is not how it works. Fear doesn’t leave when you beat cancer. Fear doesn’t take a vacation while treatment is over. Fear becomes part of your place, just like mountains on the horizon.
So you also have a choice. You decide to feed joy.
What does that mean? It means you consciously search for ‘what brings you joy.’ You take a long time to return and appreciate each sip of coffee. You call your best friend just to laugh at nothing. You may crank music in your car and sing badly. Likewise, you let yourself cry while watching commercials. You hold your dog longer. You sit and watch the sunset on purpose.
Feeding joy is intentional. It takes work when you are tired. Sometimes fatigue combines with the fear and negativity that is so loud that joy feels impossible. On those days, you start small. You find one tiny thing. The soft material of your blanket. An easy text from someone who values you. The fact that you are here, still breathing, still trying.
You stop waiting to feel joyful until after the fear lessons. That day will never come. It doesn’t mean you ignore the fear. It means you practice holding both. You acknowledge your fear, but it doesn’t take the driver’s seat. So you say, “Absolutely, I’m scared of my appointment next week.” Then you also say, “And right now I’m truly enjoying this conversation.”
This is not toxic positivity. You are not pretending it’s all ok or that you don’t need to wear a mask or cancer cape. You are not putting on a false smirk and pretending the world is spinning correctly. The feeling of fear deserves respect and acknowledgment. Fear is protecting you, alerting you, and keeping you watchful. But fear does not get to be the sole voice in your universe.
You feed joy by being clear about where you place your thinking focus. You can spend 3 hours Googling the worst-case scenario, or you can watch that show that gives you deep belly laughs. Check both are real. Check that they can run together at the same time. But only one gives you sustenance.
Other cancer patients understand that you can laugh in the waiting room. You know how to celebrate the little things, the small wins—good blood counts, manageable side effects, one more day of ok-ness. Joy is the survival instinct. The caution. It’s not frivolous.
Many important people think you can’t be both scared and happy. They’re wrong. You can shake in anxiety about tomorrow and be happy about today. You can blink holes in a tree with tears about your loss and jump for joy about what you still have. Likewise, you can hold fear in one hand and joy in the other.
You have learned that fear and joy can live together. They do live among each other. You wake up every day with both.
And every day you get to choose which one you will feed.
Today you feed joy.
