The blindingly obvious

?Sometimes we just cannot see the wood for the trees.

The blindingly obvious is obscured by a whole host of mental clutter.

That’s how it has been for me and I wasn’t even aware.

It’s been 12 months since my diagnosis of incurable prostate cancer. A year of turmoil. A year in which my whole life has been turned upside down. A year that has disappeared around me.

I’ve been picked up and relocated in a new and completely different place. It is an alien environment and one that takes a great deal of adjustment and getting used to.

Things I used to do I can’t do now. The way I used to look I don’t look now. The way I used to feel I don’t feel now.

“But you are still the same person with the same values,” my counsellor said to me. “You’ve just landed in a different place.”

Mentally I guess I resisted that notion. I still wanted to be the old me. I still wanted to do what I used to be able to do.

It’s taken me virtually a whole year to come out of the other end of this tunnel I have been going through.

I’ve recently had a meeting with my GP in which he said – in the nicest possible way – that I need to make more effort. But in baby steps. My wife sat in the corner of the consulting room and nodded vigorously in agreement.

That evening my wife had a tough conversation with me. I know it was tough because I sat and cried. But I do that at the drop of a hat these days anyway.

Being emotional comes with the hormone therapy treatment. I cry at any given moment.

But my wife said that the GP was right. She said she hated seeing me feeling down. She hated seeing me unhappy. She hated seeing me not having any get up and go.

Then she apologised for being so tough and gave me a hug.

But in truth it was just what I needed and I pondered that conversation for a day or two.

As a life coach I work with my clients who are facing overwhelm. Who can’t cut through the chatter going on in their lives.

What do I do?

I get them to focus on one thing and get that sorted and then we can move on to the next thing and then the next. Baby steps.

Blindingly obvious.

And then it became clear.? Before my diagnosis I was still jogging around 5Km or more. But I started off doing much shorter distances and I increased them slightly each time I went out for a run.

My runs were down a lovely 2.5mile country lane at the bottom of our road. Beautiful countryside. Fields of sheep, cows and horses.

My distance markers were particular trees, road signs or buildings that I used to gradually increase my distance.

“That’s what I am going to do,” I said to my wife. “I am going to start walking the lane. Start again from complete scratch. It will give me a visual objective and times that I can use to measure my progress.”

I’ve just done my first walk. I put on all of my training gear. It was great to be out in the sun seeing that beautiful countryside. I came home hot and sweaty and tired. I slept for the rest of the afternoon.

But it was a first step and I felt good to be doing something positive.

Sometimes the blindingly obvious takes a while to see.

?

?