The Emotional Shift After Cancer No One Talks About

0:00Hello, it's Gabby here for you. Before we jump onto this week's podcast, I just want to let you know about two ways that you can work with me. First of all, I do one-to-one coaching and I do that via Zoom so we can jump on a Zoom call at the time to see you. The second thing I've got for you is an online coaching course that's 12 modules that you can download straight away now. There will be a link somewhere around these podcast notes and this is the course that I've designed and it's got everything in it that I wish I'd have known when I finished concert treatment and I was lost. So you can download that course now and you can start working towards making this your happiest and healthiest year ever. I'd love to hear from you to let me know what you think. Take care, bye-bye. Hello and welcome to Confidence after Cancer. I'm your host, Gabby Mottashead, Cancer Survivor, Coach and Author of Thriving After Treatment. And before we begin today, I want to say something important. If you're listening to this podcast and quietly thinking,

1:07I don't feel like myself anymore, work feels harder and I don't know why, you don't have to figure it out alone. I offer Confidence clarity calls where we talk about where you are now, right after treatment and where the coaching support could help you rebuild your confidence and your identity. You can book under the calls with me at the link in the show notes. Now let's talk about something that many women experience after cancer treatment, but almost nobody explains and that is the unexpected emotional shift after cancer. Many women tell me something like this, Gabby, I used to be so strong at work, I could handle pressure, I was always calming meetings, nothing used to bother me. And then after treatment, something had changed, suddenly you may feel more emotional, you may feel more sensitive,

2:07you may feel more sensitive to criticism or you may get overwhelmed more quickly. Small things may affect you much more than they used to do in the past, and the worst part about this is you start thinking, what's wrong with me? Why can't I just get back to normal? But here's the truth, nothing is wrong with you. Your nervous system has been through a life altering experience. Cancer has changed your nervous system. Cancer treatment isn't just physical, it's so emotional, it's so psychological, your body has been through months, perhaps years of uncertainty, fear and survival mode, maybe chemotherapy, maybe surgery, certainly a lot of hospital appointments, waiting rooms, scans, test results, doctors, your nervous system will have been on high alert for a long time. And when treatment ends,

3:11something surprising happens, it was certainly surprising for me. I certainly expected to bounce back, I couldn't wait, I was so impatient to get back to the person that I used to be, but this is what really surprised me, you don't instantly bounce back. In fact, many, many women find the emotions arrive afterwards. And that moment when life is supposed to go back to normal, didn't actually come from me. And during treatment, you are in survival mode, you just keep going, don't you? Appointment to appointment, treatment to treatment, on test to another. But then when treatment finishes, the world and everyone around you expects you to simply return back to your life, maybe back to work, back to responsibilities, back to the person who you were before, the inside, you know that something has shifted, your priorities may be different, your tolerance for stress is different, your body feels different, and sometimes your emotions

4:16can feel so close to the surface in a way that you may not have experienced before. And what I see a lot is why I achieve in women struggle the most with this. I see this especially with the professional women that I work with, leaders, high performers, women who were always capable, dependable, strong. The one that everyone leans on, you may have built your identity around being the person who multi tasks, who handles pressure, who solves problems, who takes care of things, the one who keeps everything together, whether that's at work or in the family or in the people around you. So suddenly, when you feel more emotional at work, it can feel deeply unsettling. And you may think, well, my confidence is gone now, people are going to think that I'm weak, you may think, I should be coping better than this. But emotional sensitivity after cancer is not

5:17weakness, among all of it's information, it's just feedback. Your system is asking for a new way of living. And what your body is often saying is, that old way of living no longer works for you, the people pleasing, the constant pressure, the pushing through exhaustion that a lot of us do for many years sometimes, cancer can often force us to pause and ask us to ask a question we may never have asked before. What kind of life do I actually want now? I'll repeat that because it's such an important question it was for me. What kind of life do I actually want now? And there's a saying isn't there that a lot of people actually spend more time planning their annuals so a whole day than they do actually designing their life? I did, I fell into a career, I enjoyed my career, but it wasn't something that I actively planned. I just fell into my career and then went for promotion to promotion, studying for more and more qualifications. I didn't actively plan it.

6:19And so sometimes you end up in a position where you think, well, I've got this position now, I'm good at it. I earn a lot of money maybe or it gives me status, it gives me whatever your job gives you. But cancer force me to take a step back and think about yeah, but what makes me happy? What kind of life do I actually want now? And for many women, the real work begins after treatment ends, not physical healing, but identity healing. This is the work that I do with my private coaching clients, helping women move from surviving to thriving. Not by forcing themselves back into the old version of who they used to be before the diagnosis, but by building something stronger, a new relationship with themselves, stronger boundaries with all this, a calm and nervous system, more confidence in who they are now, and the ability to return to work and life

7:23without burning themselves out trying to prove to anybody that they are back to normal. Because the truth is, you don't need to go back, but you do get to move forward. And if this episode resonated with you, if you're listening to this thinking, this is exactly how I feel, that I wanted to know something you are not broken, you are not failing my love, you are navigating one of the biggest identity transitions of your life and support can make that journey so much easier. So if you'd like to talk about where you are right now, you can book a confidence clarity call with me, it's a calm, private conversation, where we can explore what life after treatment looks like for you now, what challenges you may have, the link is in the show notes, I just want to remind you that it means the world to me that you're listening, so thank you so much to listening to confidence after cancer. And if this episode helped you at all, please share it with another woman

8:24who may need to hear it. And remember, cancer may change your life, but it does not take away your ability to build a powerful, confident future. Thanks for listening my love, I'll see you in the next episode. Remember, stay safe, stay sane, thank you.