My father died of cancer 10 years ago and before that my grandmother died of cancer. It has been burned in my brain that if multiple people in your family have died from a disease, you have an extremely high chance of suffering the same fate. There have been several occasions in my adult life where something felt weird, whether it was neck pain, or just something that wasn’t right with my body and I would immediately fear that it was cancer. There have been times when it consumed me so much so that I could not think of anything else or function. The last month, I have had a weird pain in my neck and at first I just thought, “Oh I just need to change my pillow.”. So then I did and the neck pain didn’t go away, and as the weeks passed, the more I feared that it could be some form of cancer. Then I found a strange lump in my mouth on my gum, it felt like a bone. I freaked out at first then thought, “Oh I am just overreacting” then the fear rushed back. “What if it isn’t just in my head, I haven’t been to the dentist in awhile, what if it’s something bad?” The fear consumed me so much that I felt sick to my stomach. I had knots and I couldn’t think about anything else. The fear consumed me.

A friend of mine messaged me one day in the middle of all this fear and anxiety. We were talking about something completely unrelated and then I just randomly spilled all these thoughts out to her. She suggested that I watch “The Secret” on Netflix. I have made it a point to watch it every day to remind myself to not focus on the things I don’t want to happen and not to focus on the things I fear happening. The first time I watched this movie, I felt a sense of relief, I felt the anxiety of everything that had been plaguing me melt away!

Now every day, I write down the things I am grateful for, the things I want in life and I don’t focus on the things that scare me. I can’t say that I have done this every day for the last month because I only found out about this movie 4 days ago, but I do intend on making it a point to watch it every day and to continue to write things I am thankful for. One of the most important things I write is “I am thankful for my health.”. I truly believe that being thankful for my health will keep me on the path I want to be on with my health. I have made it a mission to not fear suffering the same fate as my grandmother or father.

I am truly thankful for my health. I am so thankful for being told about this movie because even though I’ve only seen it 4 times, I feel in my heart, my mind and my body that it has literally changed my life. It has changed the way I think of things. It has change my outlook. Thank you!