Creativity as Healing

​While I was waiting for results, attending appointments, and going through endless tests last year, I made the decision to finally begin writing the book I had been planning for some time.

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During the long months of waiting and unanswered questions, I wrote sixteen chapters.

 

​Writing gave me something important during that period — a focus beyond cancer, hospital appointments, and test results. It allowed me to step beyond the constant cycle of fear and anticipation and reconnect with a deeper, more creative part of myself.

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What began as the idea of writing a book has slowly evolved into something different. Over the past year, my writing and experiences naturally evolved into "Jean’s Reflections" — a space that gives me the freedom to continue creating and sharing in a way that feels present, meaningful, and alive.

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Being creative helped me reconnect with greater balance within myself and in the way I experienced life.

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Self-reflection, writing about my journey, and allowing myself creative expression have all become important ways of helping me stay uplifted, present in the moment, and focused on living life rather than holding onto fear.

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Through writing, I found not only an outlet for my thoughts and emotions, but also moments of peace, purpose, and gratitude even during some of the most difficult periods.

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Healing Beyond Treatment

I never really saw myself as ill, only out of balance.

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I realised I had become so focused on simply getting through each day that little space remained to appreciate the smaller moments and quiet beauty within life. Much of my energy was spent coping, enduring, and trying to keep moving forward whilst carrying a deep exhaustion that had slowly become part of everyday life.

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Self-reflection helped keep me grounded, while also freeing me from becoming consumed entirely by fear and survival mode.

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It helped me reframe my thinking, allowing me to focus less on fear and more on how I wanted to live, find balance, and respond to life.

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Importantly, self-reflection is very different from overthinking. Healthy reflection encourages understanding, awareness, and growth, while rumination traps us in repetitive cycles of fear, regret, anxiety, and self-criticism. The purpose of reflection is not to judge ourselves harshly, but to understand ourselves better.

 

I came to understand that continuing aggressive treatment can sometimes create further damage, limiting what may still help in the future. These were not easy realities to face. There were moments of fear, grief, and difficult decisions that are hard to fully put into words.

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But somewhere within all of this, my relationship with time began to change.

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Time became precious in a completely different way.

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I stopped focusing so heavily on counting time and instead began focusing on the quality of the moments within it. Self-reflection, self-care, nature, stillness, and the love of my amazing family became the things that mattered most.

Their love surrounded me, supported me, and at times carried me through the hardest decisions and most difficult treatments. In life’s darkest moments, I learned just how deeply healing love, presence, and human connection can be.

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Being outdoors, surrounded by nature, allowing myself moments of peace, and reflecting inwardly helped me find calm amidst everything that was happening around me. These things reminded me that even out of balance, or what some may call being ill, life still holds beauty.

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I no longer measure life only by time. Instead, I try to make each moment meaningful, peaceful, loving, and as magical as possible.

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Cancer changed many things in my life, but it also taught me to value presence, connection, and the quiet moments we so often overlook while rushing through life.

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Self-reflection cannot remove pain, difficult realities, or fear. It cannot erase difficult diagnoses or suddenly make life easy. But it can help us reconnect with ourselves while moving through life’s hardest moments.

 

Cancer taught me many painful lessons, but one of the most important was this:
It reinforced my belief that healing is not only physical. It has to be holistic — mind, body, and spirit.

 

Sometimes healing begins quietly, in the moments where we finally stop long enough to listen to ourselves honestly, gently, and without judgment.

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Through waiting, fear, and survival mode, self-reflection helped me find my centre again.

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Over time, I came to see ill health as a form of imbalance, something that can be created by many different factors within our lives. I believe healing begins not only with treatment, but also with understanding ourselves more deeply, accepting change, and sometimes making difficult changes in our lives in order to restore balance.

 

I also came to understand that nothing in life is ever completely certain. For me, healing and regaining balance became less about “living ill” and more about learning how to live well — embracing the present moment, accepting change, making every moment count, and finding meaning, purpose, and quality of life despite uncertainty.

 

And perhaps, in finding my centre, I came to understand that although I cannot control everything life brings, I can control how I respond, how I embrace life, and how deeply grateful I am for the love and support of my family and friends.

 

Change inevitably brings endings, and I realised it is not endings themselves that concern me most, but rather the sadness of what may one day be left behind. That understanding slowly changed the way I viewed cancer and life itself.

 

Instead of allowing sadness to define my days, I began focusing more intentionally on creating new memories filled with laughter, love, joy, and meaning. I came to understand that life is not simply about time itself, but about the quality of the moments within it — valuing them fully, sharing love openly, and truly living in the present whilst we can.