Sixth question: are we managing the relationships with our loved ones well?

When cancer appears in our lives both we and our loved ones are under shocked. We get the impression that something has radically and permanently changed. This happens because usually we live in the illusion that life is made of positive events and cancer destroys this illusion. In psychology, this illusion is known as the positivity bias or Pollyanna effect, so called from the name of the protagonist of the novel by Eleanor Porter. It usually helps us to live life with enthusiasm and hope but it makes us feel unprepared when we are faced by negative events that also constitute part of our life, like cancer.

Because of the positivity bias, it often happens that the way our loved ones relate to us changes: we are now different in their eyes and they think that they have to treat us differently from before. This does not help us to cure cancer intelligently.

 

At each step, to make the decisions we need to make, we have to be able to converse calmly with our loved ones, almost as if nothing had changed. Therefore, we must carefully manage our relationships with our loved ones and build a relational climate based on awareness and maturity that is necessary to take on the challenge of curing cancer.

It is up to us to take the initiative and break the ice. By treating us as we were different, our loved ones think that they are taking care of us, that they are protecting us by sparing us responsibilities and sufferings. They do not see the other side of the coin: they are putting us in a position of inferiority and preventing us from discussing with them and from having adventure companions with whom to think about the challenge that lies ahead of us.

We must lead them to consider cancer as a phase of life to experience together like we have done until now with other phases of our life. We must convince them that it is better for everyone to face together reality for what it really is.

As in the case of learning how to manage our mind, to manage the relationship with our loved ones we must become a little bit like psychologists. We spend our life trying to build good relationships with our loved ones. In our own way, we are already experts on relationships. Now we just need to be more careful and technical about it.