This past summer, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. While the diagnosis wasn’t a complete surprise given that my dad had been treated for prostate cancer many years earlier, hearing the words “you have cancer” caused a tsunami of emotion. For several weeks after my diagnosis, I would wake up in a cold sweat, usually around 3 in the morning. While I spent daytime hours researching my best treatment options, at night, when my rational mind was at rest, a more primal reaction would emerge from deep within letting me know I was deeply afraid of dying.
My cancer diagnosis required not only a medical treatment, but a soulful one as well. On the medical front, I was able to secure a highly effective procedure that has given me a great prognosis for long term survival. On the soul level, facing the truth of my mortality birthed within me a far greater urgency to live out my life’s mission to the best of my ability.
As author Michael Meade has observed, “Each life involves an essential errand; not simply the task of survival, but a life-mission embedded in the soul from the beginning.” Getting treatment for prostate cancer helped to ensure my body would survive the threat it had received. But as Meade correctly states, none of us is put on this planet merely to survive. Discovering and embodying our soul-embedded life-mission is an essential—and invigorating–task of being human.
I’m grateful now for the soul impact of my cancer diagnosis. It served as a wake-up call for me to commit fully to saying Yes to the essential errand of my life, which is to help others discern and embody their soul-embedded life mission.
Soul musings:
–what essential errand do you think you may have been given? When did you first become aware of it? What might it be requiring you to do now?
