New and improved young women's support group

I got to go to the Young Women's Support Group today - I haven't been there in two months and I've missed it. There had been problems with the facilitator and they've brought in a new facilitator; I think this new one is going to work out. She has lots of great ideas and I'm really looking forward to attending the groups this fall.

The only thing I didn't like about today's group was that we talked a bit about cancer being a gift. There are a lot of people who see that getting cancer gives them a new lease on life and is therefore a gift. I disagree with this idea as far as it applies to me - I can't speak to whether other people have benefited from having cancer, and I can't say that it hasn't been a gift for anyone else.

Anyways, it bugs me when people make the blanket statement that cancer is a gift. Sure, I have different priorities now than I did before my first cancer, and I think I'm a better person now than I was before.... but is my cancer a gift because I've made these changes? I'm kinda thinking no. I was making these changes after I quit drinking (before the first cancer) and I expect that I would have got to the place I'm at one way or the other whether or not I'd had cancer. I guess there are people that would say that quitting drinking was my gift.... which it was, but not necessarily just for that reason.

But I digress. Before the session started, I talked to the interim facilitator of the young women's group (she's also the facilitator of the Spirituality and Healing group) about belly breathing. I guess you could say that it's a form of meditation where you breathe deeply into your belly and then slowly breathe out. It's very relaxing and I find that it helps me get unstressed and unanxious in a hurry. I think I mentioned before that I was having problems with getting wound up and anxious about some things. That isn't healthy and it doesn't do me or anyone around me any good. So I'll continue to work on the belly breathing as a way of dealing with this.