CANCER ETIQUETTE: What NOT to say to a Cancer Patient!

Today, I wanna talk about Emotional Awkwardness, an important topic that has affected my life in the past months given my current personal situation, which I will now explain briefly.

I have Cancer, was diagnosed almost 2 years ago and a couple of months ago was told I was(am) terminally ill. Given this situation, I came to realize many of my friends, family and people around are Emotionally Awkward. Now, I know at the beginning it is normal for people to be shocked or say something "not appropriate", yes, but this is when they first find out about a situation like this; then they have time to process things and react accordingly...or so you would think. But no, at least not in my case. Many people around me, STILL don't know how to act or what to say, or how to behave with me, which bothers me a lot!

Now, to help you a little bit, I will explain what being Emotionally Awkward is. It is the inability to react emotionally in accordance with one's goals and the rules of the environment in different everyday situations, exhibiting deficient, exaggerated or inadequate emotional responses.

AKA, Emotional clumsiness, prevents us from properly recognizing, understanding and managing our emotions and those of others, as we misinterpret their communicative signals and react improperly. This, when it becomes a trend, affects health, relationships and productivity.

In my case, it has affected relationships because people has gone "missing" from my life, they prefer to "disappear" and pretend things are not happening (the cancer in this case) so that they don't have to deal with them...or with me. Which only affects our relationship, many times, up to a level where there's no going back, there's no "fixing" of said relationship; therefore, due to their emotional awkwardness, those long-life friendships/relationships are forever lost. 

Now, in an effort to help my friends and people around me deal (a bit) better with this situation, I made a video with some "tips" and advice regarding the "Cancer Etiquette" you can abide by; however, it didn't seem to work very well since most of my friends continued to be Emotionally Awkward and then I decided to end up those relationships. I am not happy about it, but at the end of the day, it is the best you can do when you're in a situation like mine. I mean, I already have enough dealing with Cancer to, on top of that, deal with people who only makes me feel bad or frustrated.

This post is kind of a "last chance" to help some of those lingering relationships if they want advice from the source on how to behave before this situation and also -hopefully- a brand new opportunity for people who have friends in a similar situation (not necessarily Cancer) and want to do better at communicating with them and expressing themselves better when around them.

What NOT to say to a Cancer Patient! 

Remember this advice comes from someone who knows what they're talking about as they're living the actual situation, so listen carefully and don't be afraid to apply them into your life. Please, feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or anything you wanna share. Also, feel free to share with anyone you think could use the advice.

Life is Now! A Project about life, art & inspiration

LIFE IS NOW!

"Life is Now!" is a phrase collection from my most recent art project, created with the hope that it will somehow help you and/or inspire you live your life better and more happily. Please, share this with as many people as you can and help spread the word about how important it is to make the most out of life!

These 17 phrases are intended to make you not only reflect a bit about your own life and how you're living it, but also about making you inspired to go out there and try new things, to dare, to work harder, to be happier, bolder and, above all, to live life the way you want to.

Please, feel free to share as much as you can with as many people as you can!

"Life is Now!"

"Life is Now!" is an Art Project inspired by the passion to live and enjoy life to the fullest and it's, at the same time, intended to inspire others to find whatever it is they need to spark their lives and start living them to the fullest.

I am a 34-year-old Mexican Photographer who's always had a passion for all things art and visual; I've always had an urge to be able to express myself beyond words as I believe visuals have an even bigger reach, no language needed, no knowledge necessary, no thing, just an image, something that you can simply look at and, perhaps not quite understand, but that makes you feel something. I've always believed that as long as an image is able to evoke a sentiment within you, it's done it's job, regardless of what that sentiment is. Moving you somehow and touching sensitive vibes is the ultimate goal of an image.

In this particular case, I am focusing on "written art" as it is a crucial time for me to make people aware of the message that I want to convey. Long story short, I am living with brain tumors and have been given only a few months left to live; which far from making me sad, makes me wanna be stronger, go out there and live life to the fullest possible. Not that I wasn't living like that before, I've always been the kinda person that does whatever it takes to be comfortable in life, whether that entails making some sacrifices sometimes, working as hard as you can or things like that; but well, now, with an "expiration date" in my life, things do change a little as time becomes less and less and I don't know when I will stop being a normal-functioning human being.

That said, not only do I feel the HUGE need to make the most out of life as possible and try to get done as much as I've always wanted to but to, while at it, spread the word to as many people as I can so that they can do the same with their own (lives).

Now, "but...isn't that obvious?" you may think? That there's only one life, that you should enjoy life, that you should seize every opportunity and all those things; you would think so, yet, the human being insists on obsessing with the least worth it things in life and overlooking the real meaning of life, which, as lame as it may sound, is HAPPINESS.

So, in 17 phrases, I decided to try to encourage people to get out there, to take chances, to be bold, to dare to be happy in spite of what others think, to get out of their comfort zone in order to achieve what they dream of, to be free, to be authentic, to provoke them to actually live!

Due to the limited resources, this is (for now) only an ONLINE project as that's all I can do by myself right now; however, I would like to make a call out to all artists out there to help me turn this project into actual Neon Art that can be exhibited in an actual place, where many people can see it and, perhaps, feel enticed and inspired by it. 

If you're an artist and would like to collaborate with me on this project, please feel free to contact me (there is a link to my email on my profile at the bottom of this page).

For the time being, the Project will be shown online daily on my Instagram Page, where I will be releasing an Image per day starting on January 31st (KST). On the same day, the ENTIRE project will be published on this blog; so please, feel free to share it as much as you can to help spread the word, it will be much, much appreciated.

Please, look forward to the project and support it to help others live life fully.

-  Diana Verdín