It's all in your state of mind

My father-in-law has a favorite expression, “It’s all in your state of mind.” Never was there a more true expression.
The tricky thing is keeping your state of mind in a proper, healthy state of being.
I was doing very well with this until things started going wrong. After the discovery of a blood infection (from the picc or the port) and spending several days in the hospital with two weeks of intravenous antibiotics ahead of me, then the discovery of blood clots in the picc line vein…doubts and fear try to sidle their ugly way into my thoughts. They pop up uninvited and it takes a small battle to banish them each time they appear.

Here are some of the ways I am learning to battle them:

1) With gratitude. I am so grateful for my children and the way they continually rally for me. My daughters sat there in the hospital with me for hours on end with only the view of pale green walls and hospital sounds as background. . My son and daughter-in-law came to the hospital each night to play a round of Apples to Apples. I am grateful that my sister Boo showed up at 11:00 in the evening, having literally blown in from Raleigh on a bumpy flight. Then she spent the night in the hospital room with me in a varying poses of discomfort on the little chair that supposedly is a bed--once I looked over and she was actually upside down in the chair.

I am grateful for the doctors and nurses and med-techs and housekeeping individuals who had a smile or positive news. And for those who fortunately (unfortunately?) discovered all the bad news and have a plan for my recovery.

I am grateful that I am done with the chemo.

I am grateful to my daughter, the one who gave up her exciting job in Washington D.C. to sit at the kitchen table and listen to me whine and watch me burst into tears every other minute. And who received lessons on how to hook me up to an IV twice a day. She schleps me to the doctor and the hospital and cooks for me and cleans up and mostly just puts up with me, dredging into her seemingly bottomless well of strength for another reasurrring word and hug and attempt to make me smile.

I am grateful for friends who show up at the door, come and sit with me and watch me suddenly burst into tears again and act as if they don’t mind.

I am grateful to feel so loved.

2) With breathing. In and out, sometimes deeply. Sometimes while praying, sometimes while attempting to meditate, sometimes while crying. (I do that a lot lately.)

What do you do? How do you keep your state of mind in a positive place? I’d like to know.