Pausing to Find Gentle Practices

Starting Softer with Values and Purpose in Mind

Ever notice how our pets seem to find time to stop, sit, and rest unbothered by our myriad of plans, schedules, and commitments?

They are able to “be” in the moment, not troubled by the busy, chaotic world rushing about around them.

Let me introduce my 3 year old mini-labradoodle, Bailey, who has the ability to remind me to pause, rest, and reset.

She was a life-giving gift given to me early in my cancer journey, and surprisingly, has become a lovely emotional support dog. She has taught me so much about presence, sitting with others, resting, and healing all things that help reduce distractions brought by stress, hurry and schedules in our lives – something that I find comes with each new year!

Greetings for the New Year

Greetings and a Happy New Year.

As the new year begins, many of us seek a newness in our lives, and a lessening of the stress and pain life can often bring. We all seem to strive for more and better in life – every year!

If any of you are still in the midst of all the new year scurry, hurry, and worry and wonder where all the well intended intentions and resolutions have gone, may I encourage you to take a moment to pause, reflect, reset, and ask “What is that all the busy-ness costing you as you enter into another new year?”.

Choosing to Shift

So many of us complain about life’s level of busy-ness where there’s no time to do what we want and value in life – the things that bring peace, hope, and purpose. Making more resolutions just seem to add to the heap of to-do’s already weighing heavily upon our shoulders.

We blame our situations, circumstances, or others for our condition of stress, busy-ness, and strife. We’re left feeling exhausted, disenfranchised, overwhelmed, and like a victim to our 21st century, chaotic lifestyles.

Our responses to manage and cope with it are well-intended yet seemingly unsuccessful.

We make New Year’s resolutions every January, consider intentions, pick a word of the year, join gym’s, start diets, select short- and long-term goals, set up planners to cope with the options facing us, etc., only to find that we can’t seem to keep up with these aspirational goals.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve done all of those things at one time or another. Yet nothing seems to last very long because I’m easily distracted, have too many external pressures and responsibilities, can be a little forgetful, or just don’t have the willpower to keep going because I’m so tired from my health issues or life’s responsibilities.

It leaves me feeling like I failed once again. How about you?

Do you ever feel like that?

Have you noticed the one thing that does get our attention?

It’s the thing that’s screaming the loudest. If something is screaming really loudly it’s likely causing us and/or others discomfort so we do what we can to minimize the discomfort. Meanwhile everything else gets thrown out the window to do “later on” or “tomorrow” – yet for most of us tomorrow never really arrives!

When this happens, we need to stop, pause, and listen to our body, mind, and soul, then reconsider, and reset so we can make informed choices about how to take the next step we need to take in order to choose the direction that points us towards our values, and the things that bring wellness, wholeness, and hope – to us, the circumstances, and people involved.

The Alternative

I think that choosing to pause, evaluate, and re-set is one of the kindest things we can do for ourselves. It’s more of an ongoing appraisal of reality of the situation, limitations, needs, and required responses given the situation faced – it is made up of choices that move us forward in the direction we need to go to choose to live well given our limitations and circumstances.

It is a gentle approach, taking needs into account from different perspectives. It’s more of a directional movement than goal achievement.

I’ve learned that this approach has the ability to build resilience in me because it’s based in gentleness and attention to needs that bring value, wholeness, and hope.

Finding Clarity

Life changing circumstances have a way of creating a crisis that brings clarity and priority to life’s most important things. It also creates a sense of urgency helping us examine how we choose to live life moving forward if we want to live life well and embrace life in a way that brings hope, joy, meaning, and purpose.

It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with stage III oral cancer (5 years ago), where I lost almost 1/2 of my tongue and had to relearn how to eat, chew, swallow and speak in new ways. Cancer was quickly followed by diagnosis of an autoimmune disease where I realized that I had to radically change my lifestyle due to the new physical limitations I faced through surgery and treatment, then compounded by an autoimmune disease that is a chronic life-long condition (requiring pills and weekly injections), especially if I hoped to avoid a recurrence of cancer and keep my autoimmune disease in remission.

How did clarity arrive for me?

A few questions quickly came to mind when I received my diagnosis.

• Have I done all that God has asked me to do in my life?

• Have I been the kind of mom my kids need me to be?

• What kind of legacy am I leaving my children, my family?

Nothing else mattered. No one else mattered. God and family. That was it.

The funny thing about getting a cancer diagnosis is that we are quickly faced with our own mortality and it has a way of showing us what is most important in life – and what isn’t.

Clarity.

As I took time to consider these few questions, more questions quickly came to mind.

1. If I want to leave a good legacy, what do I want to be remembered for?

2. What is it that I value? (There are all sorts of values exercises online)

3. What don’t I have any control over?

4. What do I have control over so that I am living from my values and won’t look back on life at the end and feel loss or regret?

• What is distracting me?

• What do I need to let go of?

• What do I need to embrace?

• What do I need to invest in?

5. What is it I can do to choose to live life wholly, fully, and cheerfully - to live my best life given my circumstances and limitations?

When I get distracted and tempted to engage in more activities I have to remind myself to maintain my priorities and a balance otherwise my body quickly tells me I’m overdoing and I end up in pain, immobile, and in bed for days.

Knowing what I value helps.

I’m including an excerpt from my book about the few simple questions I ask myself when these time arise. I hope you find them helpful.

When I know what I value in life, I can analyze the choices I make to see if they draw me closer to living out my values or further away. Am I growing closer to God, or away from God? Closer to people, or away from people? Closer to peace, joy, and hope, or away from it?

Fern E.M. Buszowski, Embrace Life, Embrace Hope: Cultivating Wholeness and Resilience through the Unexpected”, p. 62))

Pause, listen, reevaluate, and reset – this is key.

What is it that you value?

How can it help you enter into 2026 in new ways?

Still Want to do a Word of The Year?

I will still select a word of the year because I’ve done it for decades and it is part of what I value.

Last year my word was PEACE. I will likely keep the same word for this year since my health can easily steal peace away from me.

If you’d like to learn more about choosing a Word of the Year, check out one of my previous posts to help you select a Word of the Year. I have a .pdf attachment that you might enjoy.

Click here to visit the blog Word of the Year Post.

Other Big News – Official 5-year Cancer Anniversary

I’m celebrating.

Will you join me?

January 7^th was my official 5th anniversary of being “cancer-free”. This is a significant milestone for head and neck cancer patients.

I’m pretty thankful as I believe that it means, from a medical perspective, that the chances of recurrences now are pretty slim.

I have an amazing medical team of doctors and caregivers and can’t be more grateful for them. I’ve a loving family and set of friends who have supported me on this journey and still do. I am grateful for so very much – especially for the healing journey I’ve been on even if it has been and is still challenging.

I’d love it if you’d celebrate with me!

Ways to Celebrate with me:

If you have a friend who is facing cancer, or a friend walking with someone as their friend/caregiver, please forward this blog post and invite them to follow along on Substack.

We’re always stronger together when we journey together.

Spread the word… about my book – Embrace Life, Embrace Hope: Cultivating Wholeness and Resilience through the Unexpected. All proceeds from the book Embrace Life, Embrace Hope go to cancer research here in Calgary through our University of Calgary, Cumming School of Medicine, Ohlson Research Initiative into the Greatest Need Fund. So far my book has raised and donated close to $8K for this fund.

Write a review… If you’ve read my book, please consider writing a short review on Goodreads or Amazon. Reviews are the only way that people searching for a “good” book know whether or not the book is worth reading.

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