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Dear Friends,

We finished our 4th book group reading The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss, by Sandra Marinella. This is a book group; writing is not required, but it is encouraged. At our last session we listened to anyone who wanted to read something they had written.

I’m sharing with you (in Healing Story section, below), what Kerri Geary read. Kerri has been living with cancer almost as long as I have, so she writes from experience. She was one of our healing story tellers at our 2015, Cancer as a Turning Point, From Surviving to Thriving free conference, in Denver. She has lived with cancer for 25 years. Her piece elicited a lot of laughter, especially from those of us who have lived with cancer for a long time. We’ve all experienced what she writes about. I hope you enjoy reading it. Laughter is good medicine.

Reading Sandra’s book has been a profound step toward writing for many of us. I’ve been working on writing my cancer memoir for at least a year now. I started it before the pandemic gave me more time to focus on it. It’s been such a meaningful way to spend the many hours of staying at home. I want to share with you the first and last paragraphs of the working copy of my introduction:

This is a cancer memoir, but it is not a story of how I became cancer free, because I didn’t. My first cancer diagnosis was in 1989. I have had 3 primary cancers – breast cancer in both breasts and ocular melanoma – and more recurrences than I can count. Essentially cancer has been a chronic illness for me for over 30 years. I have had breast cancer metastasized to my lungs since 2011. My story is about living fully and thriving with cancer.

Whether my book gets published or not, writing it has been a healing process for me. We all have stories in us that want to come out. Writing can help us understand our stories better, and we can even re-write some of them.

Registration is open for the next book group that will start on Zoom in May. We have had waiting lists for every group so far, so I recommend signing up early. I look forward to sharing this profound experience with some of you.

As always, I welcome your comments; to reply please click here.

In the Spirit of Healing,

Jan Adrian, MSW
Founder and Executive Director
www.healingjourneys.org

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• CancerTalks is a new podcast started by Cheryl Buck. Her desire is to interview people who have experienced the transformational power of cancer. She chose Jan Adrian to be her first guest and that interview premiered on March 26th. You can listen to it here:
  https://cancertalks.libsyn.com/website/cancertalks-episode-1-living-with-cancer.
  
  You can also hear it on YouTube. The podcast is also searchable on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and any other podcast App. To find it on those sites, search for: CancerTalks Episode 1: Living with Cancer.
  

• We are excited to offer our 5th online book group, reading The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss, by Sandra Marinella. Jan will co-facilitate the group with Susan Lugo. There will be 6 weekly sessions, starting May 5th at 10 a.m. PDT and running for 6 weeks. If you are interested in participating, please click here for more information.

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