Caring Circles

When we enter cancerworld we may not have thought about "caring circles." The idea of a caring circle is that care moves from the outside circle to the inside circle, while "complaining" or "venting" goes from the inside to the outside.

When we enter cancerworld we are immediately transported from wherever we were on the caring circle to the center. That means, if everyone is functioning with good boundaries, then we ought not be put in a position where people come to us and cry about how the cancer in our bodies is affecting their life. Because they, by definition, are not at the center of the circle, we are.

There are some obvious exceptions. If we are a parent we can think of our children with us at the center of that circle. A parent's cancer does affect the life of their child. They are in the inner circle with us.

For the most part, everyone else is on one of the outer rings of the circle, friends, congregation members/workmates/drinking buddies (you get the idea), acquaintances, and finally Social Media or other folks. Just know that you as the person at the middle of the cancerworld story, have permission to tell folks on the outside circles that you don't have the energy to hear how your cancer is affecting them.

The caring circles also give us permission to relax a little with respect to caring acts. So many of us have lived our lives being helpers, or making sure we are reciprocal in our giving. This may not be possible for us when we enter cancerworld. The caring circles helps us relax and understand that when tragedy happens the folks who are not affected directly are free to help the folks who are affected.

And if that is hard to get a handle on we can think of it this way...when there is a hurricane we just send aid to the folks that are affected. We don't expect those folks to reciprocate with gifts or attention, or anything else. We just respond. When we are thrown into cancerworld we are in a new and hostile territory that is confusing and scary and oft time painful. We are in need of help. The caring circles remind us that we are, indeed, in the middle of the circle. It probably isn't going to be our permanent home. While we are in cancerworld it is okay for us to just be where we are.