The story of my comfort cards
Last year, I knew I was going to have chemo, and I was lost in myself a bit for that. I was so scared. Over the years I had heard so many horror stories, and now I was going to get it. How would I ever cope?
As I so often do, I let my creativity out to play.
I eyed my watercolours and the water colour paper, tore one sheet of it into eight pieces and then started to throw colours at the paper. When I was done, I added something to every page, something I knew I could lean on.
Here are the cards I doodled:
And these are the terms I added, with a little bit of an explanation:
- Creativity - I knew from experience that my creativity is something that always gives back tenfold. I knew that if I created at the depth of my healing process, I would bring myself back to joy. (I was right)
- Emotions - I knew that I would get emotional. This card reminded me that it's okay to cry. Okay to feel angry or to express any other emotion I was feeling.
- Joy - Focusing on what brings me joy is such a great healer and such a great motivator too. I am convinced my constant focus on what brings me joy is one of the things that helped me the most during chemo.
- Let go - I knew I would feel better when I let go of expectations, of things I felt I should do, of sadness. I knew I just had to bring myself back to my centre.
- Love - Letting myself be loved was something I struggled with for such a long time. Also, loving myself. I knew though that letting people love me, and letting them help me, and also asking for help out of love for myself would be a great healer and motivator.
- Optimism - I knew that I probably would feel like crap but I also knew that I'm not one who complains easily. I knew that my boundless optimism would be something that would help me through. (It was)
- Spirituality - I felt that focusing on reading texts that mattered to me, would bring me into a headspace of gratitude. I call this spirituality, but I could have also written Stoicism, because that is what I read so much of. I have pulled so much strength from those texts.
- Strength - I discovered a deep strength within, a will that was stronger than I ever felt. It's what kept me upright when my body started to fail me. A deep conviction that I would be fine.
And there it is, the set of eight cards that truly helped me find comfort. I didn't use them as oracle cards, I just looked through them and put one of the cards on display when I had a bad day, as a reminder of the comfort within.
I could have added more, but these were all that came that day.
And now the cards have a name, it came up in me when I worked on the cards today. The name is Repose. I like it.
I may make more cards, and maybe draw them again, on better paper, using the same colours.
You can download the whole set of comfort cards, plus description, on my website