Arbutus Coaching’s Blog

Welcome to Because Life Isn’t a Dress Rehearsal, a blog written by life and business coach Kathy Santini, owner of Arbutus Coaching. This blog contains coaching tips and advice to help you become the most self actualized, effective person you can be, both personally and professionally. If you’re serious about “growing your possibilities,” and transforming your life, then you’re in the right place. My goal in writing this blog is to help you create a life that is easier, bigger, richer and more rewarding than the life you’re living now. So let’s get started shall we, because life isn’t a dress rehearsal and time’s a wastin’.

• About Kathy Santini

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Cancer Survivors – Life After Cancer, Living a Life without Regrets

By arbutuscoaching | August 10, 2009

I had the most delightful day yesterday, which I’ll write about in a moment. But first a little background. As a cancer survivor, my take on life is a little different than many I know, but not unlike many cancer survivors. Having faced death at the ripe young age of 42 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I don’t take life for granted at all. At the time of my diagnosis, I was passionate about not wanting to have any regrets, regardless of how much time I had left. This feeling only grew when I learned a month after I was diagnosed that my Mother’s breast cancer had metastasized and that if her experience was true to the statistics, she had about 18 months left to live.

This double whammy – my diagnosis and my mother’s - led me down the road less travelled and a path I might not have taken. I quit my secure government job and set about living a life without regrets. For me, this meant doing humanitarian work in Sierra Leone, sailing through the Caribbean and Bahamas for four months with my then boyfriend, building a house with him, and working as an editor in a war zone in Kabul, Afghanistan before taking coaching training and starting my coaching business.

It’s been 10 years now and I don’t have any regrets about how I’ve lived my life. Well maybe one. I, like other survivors I’ve talked to, spend money at a faster rate than before our diagnosis. I think it’s because we don’t know if we’ll live to cash in our RRSPs. Some of us have joked about starting a 12-step program for cancer survivors who spend too much. And while I’m not concerned that I’ll be combing through dumpsters when I’m 65, there’s no doubt that my spending habits have changed.

Back to yesterday. I attended a baby shower for a young woman I coached, a cancer survivor who became my client after a workshop I held for cancer survivors. A lot of our coaching relationship was spent helping her decide whether or not to have a baby. In her words, she had exceeded her shelf life by two years, after her doctor had given her two years to live. She was in limbo, stuck in neutral, not knowing what to do next given her doctor’s expectations, yet desperately wanted to have a baby.

My client’s sister-in-law was her surrogate and a healthy, beautiful baby girl was born less than a month ago. I am so proud of my client and feel so privileged and honoured to have been part of the process that got her there. Her experience got me thinking: how often do we hold back and not take a risk, because we want a guarantee before doing so?

The truth is, and it’s something anyone who has had a major life crisis or had something happen to them that wasn’t “supposed to,” knows, is that there are no guarantees and that life is way more random than we care to admit. There is no guarantee that my client will live to see her daughter graduate. And there is no guarantee that she won’t. My client has planned for all possible scenarios AND taken a leap of faith, because having a child was very, very important to her. What a wonderful example to us all and what a role model for her lucky little girl. I’m so thrilled and proud to have been part of the process.

Take Action Challenge Think of something that you really, really want to do, but have avoided doing because you want a guarantee. Look at your life 5, 10 and 20 years from now through the lens of a no regrets life. What will you feel like during those time frames if you don’t do this thing your soul is calling you to do?  And how will you feel if you do? Really feel the feelings. After you’ve done that, map out the first step you should take. And then act on it, within 24-48 hours, because behaviourists tell us that we have more momentum immediately after making a decision. We lose our mojo if we leave it longer than a day or two.

Topics: Arbutus Coaching |

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