This document discusses how living with illness and uncertainty can be a transformative experience. It notes that illness often creates feelings of fear, loss of control, and uncertainty about the future. While these feelings can be difficult to cope with, the document advocates embracing uncertainty and focusing on living fully in each present moment. It also emphasizes the importance of community and spiritual support, as well as cultivating hope, compassion, and meaning during difficult times. Overall, the document explores how facing illness and uncertainty can lead to personal growth and wisdom if one remains open to learning from the experience.

1. Full „Catastrophe‟ Living
Evolving Wisdom when living with Illness
and Uncertainty
Dr Ruth Sewell
Lecturer and Psychotherapist.

2. In the words of Zorba the Greek…
The realisation of wisdom requires
participation in „the full catastrophe‟ of life

3. What we expect
Instinctually life is organised:
So that we understand and live in harmony
with others and our environments
It relies on having control and expectations.
From this we look for certainty

4. Life threatening illness jolts us into a
process of transformation; it changes life
bringing a „loss of innocence‟ and the
creation of uncertainty and even a sense
of catastrophe.

5. Imposing threat
For most the starting point of uncertainty,
and fear, is the instinctual association,
with cancer and other life limited disease,
of impending death.

6. The grip of fear and uncertainty
Many speak of feeling in the grip of
extreme trepidation, struggling to ward off
fear and trying to gain control and regain
a sense of balance, self belief and trust in
the certainty of life again.

7. The creation of uncertainty
Many factors interact within an individual to
determine their ability to assimilate
personally threatening information.

8. Dora
“Since my cancer, and even though others
love and care for me and help me, each
day I am haunted by fear and if it isn‟t
fear it is living with not knowing, with this
dreadful uncertainty. For me this has been
harder than the cancer and treatment.”

9. Uncertainty separates us from life

10. When they were building the walls,
How could I not have noticed?
Not a sound,
Imperceptibly they closed me off
From the outside of the world.
John O‟Donohue, Eternal Echoes

11. Jane
“Facing breast cancer made me stop and
ask myself, what have I done with my life?
Life is so very short. My life had become
trivial. I loved painting but gave it up „too
busy‟. I have come to feel insecure, not
knowing what to trust, uncertain…I don‟t
want this to be so, I want to understand
and not be afraid.”

12. Wisdom and the quest for self-knowledge
and to truly know ourselves is central to
the human search for wholeness and
meaning.

13. Jung offered..
Note the difference between the
damaging hurt of wound, which causes
someone to bleed and die of it, and the
healing wound out of which our greatest
creativity can grow.
Jung cited by Somers (2002)

14. Uncertainty
Addressing the „pain‟ that has no reason

15. Healing Uncertainty
Finding Meaning
Reviving Hope
Rekindling Trust

16. Listening to the journey
„Listening to people dialogue with their
symptoms, I am struck by the sense of a
journey: that we come from somewhere
and we go somewhere, and illness is but
part of the process‟
Somers (2002:166)

17. Journey to the Whole
Healing is a process of integrating and
balancing the parts of oneself at a deep
level of inner knowledge that gives each
part equal importance and value.
Sanders (2005)

18. Responding Holistically

19. Family and „Community‟.
The impact of uncertainty affects those closest
to the person experiencing the disease.
It is crucial to explore the impact on the family
in an effort to ease suffering and encourage
greater expression of doubts fears.
To reconnect them to strengths and hope within

20. Dostoyevsky (1992) considered the quality of the human condition and
the human being as..
„a creature capable of infinite suffering, as
long as they do not stand alone and the
suffering has meaning‟

21. Spiritual and Existential Strivings
Enable the patient/person to identify their
priorities in responding to what makes
them fearful and to express any
„hauntings‟.

22. Spiritual help
To make possible the way to improve,
relieve and „heal‟ that which is „vulnerable‟
„in pain‟ and „questing‟ within them.

23. Embracing uncertainty
Compassion exists within every human
being so that it can become a „healing‟
force in our own lives.
Karen Armstrong

24. Rekindling of Hope
Living each moment, fully, no matter
where we are in life……encouraging each
other to…..

25. Living Each Precious Moment
focus attention and intention from „putting
days in life‟ to creating „greater life in our
days‟.

26. Uncertainty does not go away, but learning
to manage it and respond rather than
react seems to help…

27. Heart-the healing portal
„ The heart must break to become large, for
when the heart is open, then „God‟ can put
the whole universe in it‟.
Frankel (2003:16) citing Harvey
(1991)

28. Joan
• “At times my heart has been raw, open and
heavy; such sadness and fear, but now, I can
take a day at time. The uncertainty hasn‟t gone
away, it can‟t do; but now instead of running
scared from the thoughts of dread and loss of
courage, I have learned to let it be. I am not a
talker, but I have learned it helps to „let it out of
the black bag‟ so that I can enjoy the moment.”

29. Healing Effect
For those in a „healing‟ role

30. Learning to receive and give
support

31. Healing and Consciousness
„The level of consciousness we bring to the
situation determines the outcome. There is
something that is constant underneath
everything… we just need to make a
commitment to finding it.‟
• Lancaster (2007)

32. It is only with the heart that one sees
rightly, what is essential is invisible to the
eye.
The Little Prince.

33. Stay focused
Take a day at a time
Anticipate the ebb and flow of the
emotional, mental and spiritual tide
Remain open to what is „under-wraps‟

34. Dr Ruth Sewell
Lecturer in Integrated Palliative Care and
Spirituality
Psychotherapist
Clinical and Academic Supervision
Tel: 01626-779649
Email:heart@ruthsewell.f9.co.uk