New Year’s Resolutions are a great reminder to stay motivated, positive and to enjoy life, especially for those living with cancer. With 2022 just days away, look forward to the New Year as a chance to refocus your energy and thoughts.
The following are Gilda’s Club Westchester’s Top 4 New Year’s Resolutions:
- Worry less: Try not to consume yourself with negative thoughts. Tell yourself to “stop” when bad thoughts creep into your mind and find something else to occupy your time, like going to lunch with a friend or watching a movie that makes you laugh.
- Advocate for yourself: Making treatment decisions for yourself can be extremely difficult and overwhelming, but also… empowering! It’s important that you understand treatment options and that you have the right to make your own choices.
- Share your experience: By joining a support group, you can connect with others who are going through similar challenges. This will not only make you feel better, but you can also help another individual who may feel alone or lost. Giving advice or sharing what you have gone through can allow others to relate and bond.
- Build an online community: Sometimes the most difficult part of living with cancer is the feeling of isolation. MyLifeLine is designed to connect people living with cancer to their caregivers, as well as friends, family members, and others in their support network. MyLifeLine is a free service that allows you to create your own private support website. You can document your experience and receive social, emotional, and practical support along the way. MyLifeLine also features discussion boards that provide a safe space to connect with others like you, share your own cancer experiences, and offer insights, coping strategies, and inspiration. Having this kind of support reduces stress, anxiety and isolation and allows you to focus on what matters most – your recovery and healing.
Gilda’s Club Westchester offers a Living with Cancer support group. Members can join our community and find a warm and welcoming space for support and connection throughout the cancer experience. Research suggests that support groups can help to reduce the three most significant stressors associated with cancer: unwanted isolation, loss of control, and loss of hope. For more information visit, https://gcw.gnosishosting.net/Events/Calendar.
If you are a member of GCW, contact Sarah DiGiaimo, Oncology Social Work Manager, to discuss your support group options: [email protected]. If you are not yet a member of GCW, please sign up on our website under https://cancersupportcommunitynyct.org/become-a-member/ to attend a New Member Meeting offered weekly, alternating on Tuesdays at 10:00AM & Tuesdays at 6:30PM to learn more.