Ep #46: Part 3: The 5 Stages of Cancer Grief: Bargaining

Today’s episode is a part 3 in a 5-part series called The 5 Stages of Cancer Grief, and today’s segment is all about Bargaining. Bargaining, along with the associated guild, is an attempt to negotiate your way out of the grief event into what you imagine would be a better reality. I’ll teach you how to identify and cope with bargaining, and help you return to the present moment in a constructive way.

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

+  Why your brain wants to bargain

+  The telltale signs that you’re bargaining

+  How to exit a bargaining thought loop

+  An exercise to help shift obsessive “if only” thoughts

+  Truth & Dare Quote: The truth is that while bargaining is a normal stage of grief, it’s also a way of trying to avoid experiencing the actual emotion of grief.

Featured on the Show:

+  Episode TDC #35: The 5 Stages of Cancer Grief

+  Episode TDC #44: Part 1: The 5 Stages of Cancer Grief: Denial

+  Episode TDC #45: Part 2: The 5 Stages of Cancer Grief: Anger

+  Episode TDC #42: Conceptual Cancer: Healing Social Constructs

+  Book On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

+   WANT TO CREATE A LIFE YOU DESERVE? Whether your goal is to get healthy, change careers, improve relationships, focus on self-care… You can create whatever you desire. If you need help figuring it out, it's time for private coaching, no more waiting for Monday.

+  Are you looking to use your cancer as a catalyst for emotional self-awareness and powerful change in your life? That’s exactly what my work with Truth & Dare Cancer is all about. If you need help getting started, book a free consultation call, and we’ll explore how you can take the first step. To schedule go to truthanddarecancer.com/call.

+  Join the Truth & Dare Cancer Facebook Community. It’s a safe space where I and lots of other like-minded women with cancer hang out and share our stories, struggles, tips, and support.

+  I’d love to hear your perspective and thoughts about the conceptual cancer topic – just tag me on Facebook or Instagram @truthanddarecancer handle

Full Episode Transcript:

Welcome to Truth & Dare Cancer, the only podcast that teaches you how to supercharge your self-healer, navigate fear, and recalibrate your life by using cancer as a powerful catalyst for change. On this show we get real about all things cancer. And now here’s your host, cancer survivor, mathematician and certified life coach, Ceca Mijatovic. Hello and welcome back! You are listening to the episode number 46 of the Truth & Dare Cancer Podcast. If you have not yet done so please subscribe to us on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast, and like us on Facebook. Just use @truthanddarecancer handle on Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms. To access the show notes for this episode go to truthanddarecancer.com/podcast and select episode number 46. I’m your host Ceca Mijatovic and today we are diving into part 3 of a 5-part series on how to embrace the 5 Stages of Cancer Grief. Knowing how to deal with grief is essential for healing. And I know that some of you are thinking “enough already” but I’m here to tell you that this is too important not to talk about it. It’s not fun and it’s not easy to learn how to deal with and process grief but it’s fundamental learning for your healing. Just like last month, I kicked off with the episode on conceptual cancer and how healing social constructs is every single person’s responsibility – it was a topic that not many want to talk about or think about but it’s way to important for healing our society, the world, and the planet. So let’s continue on this grief healing path… In the first part of this series we talked about the first stage of grief, denial. Tune in to episode 44 to learn more about denial. In our most recent episode, we talked about the second stage of grief, anger. I shared a lot of super-interesting, cutting edge research about the role of unprocessed emotion - particularly anger - in contributing to cancer. Check out episode 45 to learn more about anger. Today we’re diving into the third stage of grief: bargaining. Many of my clients, when they come to me, catch themselves making a deal with God - whether or not they believed in God before their cancer diagnosis. “Please God, if you heal me, I will strive to live healthily and be the best parent and wife I can ever be – and never complain again.” “Please God, if you heal me, I will never take my life for granted again.” “Please God, if you heal me, I will devote myself to charitable works for the rest of my days.” This is bargaining. It’s an attempt to negotiate our way out of the grief event into what we imagine would be a better reality. The other form of bargaining people often engage in is the “if only.” “If only I had gone to the doctor six months ago, when I first noticed that bump.” “If only I had never started smoking in my 20’s.” “If only I had managed my stress better / gotten out of the rat race earlier / taken better care of my body.” These if-only’s and what-if’s keep you dwelling in the past, believing that if you had taken a different action, things would be different now - and, you, of course, assume better. Guilt is also a common cousin of bargaining. The what-if and if-only thoughts cause a lot of guilt. People start feeling guilty around those thoughts “If only I had gone to the doctor six months ago, when I first noticed that bump.” “If only I had never started smoking in my 20’s.” “If only I had managed my stress better, and so on. Many cancer patients ALSO feel guilt related to their situation, including: Worrying about loved ones’ reaction to the diagnosis and treatment Feeling guilty about taking time away from work Feeling guilty or anxious about health insurance and finances Feeling classic “survivor’s guilt” Most cancer patients encounter guilt as part of their journey, but it’s essential to find healthy ways to cope so that guilt is not ruling your life. The truth is that while bargaining - and associated guilt - is a normal stage of grief, it’s also a way of trying to avoid experiencing the actual emotion of grief. Instead of feeling your grief, your brain goes around in circles trying to explain all the ways you could have avoided cancer (or whatever grief event is happening). You’re bypassing your grief by having a sidebar conversation with yourself about how you could have avoided this grief in the first place. In effect, bargaining is your brain’s way of distracting you from feeling the grief. But as I always say, the only way out is through. You can’t move through grief by negotiation. So when you find your brain locked in a circular thought pattern of “if only” or “what if” or “please God if you do this, I’ll do that,” try this exercise. Grab a sheet of paper and on the left-hand side, write all the painful “if only” phrases. Turn around each thought to find how its opposite is true. Try a few different “opposite thought” iterations. The one that feels the most peaceful is the truest one. Let’s take a few examples: Painful thought: “If only I had gone to the doctor six months earlier.” Opposite thought: Actually, I have genetic predisposition for cancer; it was slow-growing and took ten years to get to this point. Going to the doctor six months earlier actually wouldn’t have changed much of anything. Painful thought: “If only I didn’t get sick after every chemo treatment, I would feel better.” Opposite thought: I might feel better for that day if I didn’t have chemo, but everything else would be the same - I would still have cancer. Painful thought: “If only this other person got cancer instead of me.” Opposite thought: All pain is the same. Somebody feeling more or less hurt than me does not change the pain I’m going through now. One of my own recurring thoughts is about my memory. I used to have such great memory recall that I’d bring up something at a work meeting that had happened months ago. They would check the minutes from that meeting, and my recall was often word-for-word what had been said. Since my cancer, my memory is not the same! So my painful thought is, “If only I could remember everything like i did before i’d be better off.” I turned that around: If I’m living in the present moment, remembering or not remembering the past doesn’t necessarily matter. Ignorance can be bliss! And as Mark Twain said: If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. When you notice that your brain is bargaining - remember, the key phrases are “if only” or “what if” - bring yourself back to the present moment. Notice the floor under your feet or the feeling of the chair or bed against your back. Notice what you see, hear, smell. Experiencing the world through your five senses will ground you in the present moment. There may be feelings of grief and discomfort in the present moment. Breathe into them. They will pass. Pay attention to your thoughts, and make sure your thinking is not causing you additional suffering. And did you know that I have a free closed FB group for women just like you? One essential aspect of healing is to have a community and be surrounded by other women going through cancer and experiencing the same things you are. So now you can have that experience, and you are invited to join my free closed FB community called Truth & Dare Cancer and once you join you can continue the podcast conversation with other women going through or living with cancer, who just get it. To join go to truthanddarecancer.com/facebook and I’ll also include the link in the show notes. Now, are you looking to use your cancer as a catalyst for emotional self-awareness and powerful change in your life? That’s exactly what my work with Truth & Dare Cancer is all about. If you need help getting started, book a free consultation call, and we’ll explore how you can take the first step. To schedule go to truthanddarecancer.com/call and doing so is the first step toward claiming your life back. Let’s recap: bargaining, or negotiation, is a normal stage of grief. It’s another way that our brain tries to bypass dealing with our current situation. Bargaining is characterized by trying to make a deal with God (If you only heal me, I’ll do xyz), or by dwelling on things you could have done differently in the past to create a different result in the present. You can pull yourself out of a bargaining loop by re-grounding yourself in the present moment, or by looking for truth in the opposite of your “if only” thoughts. Be sure to tune in to the next episode, when we’ll be diving into the fourth stage of grief: depression. If you got value from this episode go ahead and subscribe on Apple Podcast and even write a 5-star review. This also helps others to find the podcast, by all means, share this episode with someone else that would get value from it as well. And in the meantime, I dare you to find the truth in your cancer! Thanks for tuning in. If you want to stop identifying with your cancer, you can download a free “You Are Not Your Cancer” guide at www.truthanddarecancer.com/podcastfreeguide.

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