I recently did a gorgeous interview with the very brilliant Dani Binnington from Menopause and Cancer. I so wish that Dani and this work had been around when I had my first cancer in my mid-30s and became infertile and menopausal after chemotherapy. It would have helped a great deal to feel less alone back then. Here’s a link to the podcast:

Our conversation has had some lovely feedback, for which I’m very grateful, but I was also very disturbed by someone on a social media feed who suggested, in response to a clip Dani shared from the podcast, that we get cancer from “unforgiveness” and “resentment for others”.

So, for the avoidance of doubt, no, we don’t get cancer from not forgiving or from feeling resentful. Cancer has many causes, some genetic, some environmental, some causal, some utterly random. But your anger, your hurt, your choice to forgive wrongs done to you or not, your resentment about injustice – none of these will give you cancer.

My dear cancer friends, we did not give ourselves cancer, any more than our thinking ‘positively’ can cure us. Our culture would prefer us not to be angry, hurt, envious, jealous, anxious, sad, resentful, or anything but docile and ‘happy’ – but our emotions are not things to be got rid of, they are beautiful clues to understand ourselves better.

Feel what you feel. Allow it to show you what else you might want in your life, how else you might like to be, what you are not yet that you can aim towards. None of us might get there in the end, but our feelings, our emotions, are precious signals on our way. Feel them all, they’re all allowable, all of value – and none of them will give you cancer.