The author, pictured with her husband, said she has been a lifelong people pleaser. A cancer diagnosis gave her a crash course in setting boundaries.
Courtesy of Lynn Shattuck.
The summer I turned 50, I was diagnosed with lymphoma. While the type I have is considered to be very treatable, it's also considered chronic."You'll likely die with it, not of it," my oncologist told me.The one-two punch of turning 50 and receiving a cancer diagnosis became a crash course on managing another chronic ailment that's long plagued me, people pleasing.As a firstborn daughter, disappointing people I love has always felt physically painful to me. When my son was a toddler, and I'd leave to go to a yoga class, he'd sob as we watched me through the window, his face scrunched up like he was being tortured. I'd try to override the ache in my chest as I backed the car out of the driveway, reminding myself that my son was safe in my husband's care, and it was healthy for me to take a little time to nurture myself.As my kids grew and I attended regular therapy, the silent, impossible expectations of myself that I hadn't realized I'd been carrying started to appear, like invisible ink being revealed. I started to see that the flood of guilt I felt when I put my kids in part-time childcare or hesitated to volunteer at their schools was neither necessary nor healthy.Cancer offered clarityLymphoma occurs when the white blood cells responsible for fighting infections mutate and multiply. People-pleasing, I've learned through the years, is, for women, a cultural norm and often a survival tactic. It's meant to keep us safe, but if unchecked, it gnaws at us, depleting us.Cancer brought my people-pleasing into sharper contrast. When someone asked me to do something I didn't have the time, energy, or desire to do, I began to feel a "no" rising up. I'd start to push it away, as I'd always done. But a quiet voice said, "You have cancer. You can say no."
