Resilience: definition 2) "an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change", from Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary

To me, resilience means facing difficulties or adversity of being diagnosed with cancer or having a loved one diagnosed with cancer and trying to do something to make this event less of a negative impact on your life. The act of doing something gives you a sense of control or at least that you have control over something (even if just one thing) rather than being totally helpless in your situation. In my personal experience finding a bit of control lead to hope and hope lead to resilience.

We designed Think About Your Life to provide people with structured way to think through the adversity the are facing and to discover an action they can take (do something to find control).

Earlier this month, I received an email from a colleague about her experiences using the website in the discovery stage of the journey with cancer. She is supporting a friend who is going through tests and surgery to determine if she has cancer. While you are waiting to find out if you or a loved one has cancer, emotions can run from one extreme to the other. People have described the "waiting" experience to feel like torture. We can't change the process of diagnostic testing, but we can find ways to cope with the waiting. It is possible to identify what it is we need to do in order to get through the day. In the email from my colleague she explained how using the hopes and fears tool helped her sort out her feelings and face her fears - to do something while waiting and feel a sense of control.

Resilience is also experienced when the "adversity" isn't necessarily getting a cancer diagnosis, but finding our way forward after treatment. Linda lives in Australia and has graciously offered to share her one page profile.

She is in the new normal phase of her journey with cancer. Below, Linda shares her thoughts after considering what is important to her now and support she needs in her life right now, two years after finishing treatment for cancer.

"Completing the one page profile has made a huge difference to the way I view my life at the moment. Reflecting on what is important to me and my hopes and dreams was a timely reminder to focus on the positives, and where I am right now in life is exactly where I am meant to be.

During the last two years I have been on a mission to make a difference and get my business to the point where it is financially viable. I have slowly become caught-up in the web of work. I put pressure on myself to achieve extraordinary success, …to be living proof that you can not only "survive" the disease - you can achieve success and flourish.

I could almost see the valuable lessons I had learnt from my journey [with cancer] slipping through my fingers. Lessons of humility, compassion, gratitude, acceptance being present to each and every moment no longer spoke their messages loudly but remained a faint whisper in the background of my days.

Through using the one page profile all the lessons from my journey came flooding back with resounding clarity and I have felt more content and positive over the past few days and months. It has enabled me to approach my work and life differently, without the burden of pressure I put upon myself and reconnect with my sense of fun and spontaneity."