Mind Wealth: Striving to thrive again!

Medicine equipped me with the knowledge to support others through their illness, but it didn’t prepare me for how to hold my own mind through cancer.

That’s where I discovered the importance of what I now call mind wealth: the mental and emotional resources we cultivate to face uncertainty, discomfort and fear.

I’ve learnt through my experience of cancer that mental resilience is as much a part of healing as treatment.

During treatment, I was in survival mode.

Achieving remission was a huge relief but there was a feeling of underwhelm, since finishing treatment did not mean the emotional impact disappeared.

My mind suddenly had the space to begin to process everything that had happened, triggering a lot of anxiety and grief.

This shocked me - what’s hard to come by is psycho-oncology support; the structured guidance for the mental and emotional experience of cancer.

I was treated at a leading cancer hospital, and despite my familiarity with the NHS, I naively assumed there would be structured support on hand from mental health experts, especially when I finished treatment and was ready to engage.

Instead, my referral to psycho-oncology at the hospital was met with a response along the lines of: “You don’t meet the criteria because you have to be severely unwell, essentially suicidal, to qualify. It may be best to contact your GP.”

Mental health services are chronically underfunded and understaffed. Yet, I hoped that in my situation, navigating recovery from cancer, the support structure would be a continued part of my treatment.

This isn’t a reflection on the dedicated healthcare staff who are extraordinary, but rather on the systemic gaps in mental health care.

The experience left me feeling alone, helpless and concerned for others who might face the same barriers at a time when support is desperately needed.

However, as a doctor I knew that I could refer myself to NHS talking therapies and was in therapy relatively quickly. This is not something everyone knows.

In the meantime, I focused on building my mind wealth.

Here are some practices that have helped me cultivate mental resilience during my journey, although it has not been easy:

1. Routine but flexible self-care: Gentle movement and mindfulness.

2. Emotional expression: Talking with loved ones, and later my counsellor trained in trauma therapy.

3. Reframing fear: Giving space for anxious thoughts without judgement and recognising what is actionable versus what is rumination.

4. Gratitude and connection: Small moments – time with family, connectedness with nature.

5. Non-pressured pace: There have been times when I have wanted to hide away and ignore the world – something I have learnt to be kinder to myself about.

A Doctor Learns to Be a Patient...

Ironically, being trained in medicine gave me the science to understand my body, but it was humility and vulnerability that taught me how to nurture my mind.

Healing is never just physical. Mind wealth, the conscious care for your inner world, is essential, yet only touched upon in the clinical setting.

To anyone walking this path, remember: caring for your mind is not optional. Approach your mental health with as much diligence as your physical health and you may find that the two reinforce each other in ways that medicine alone cannot achieve.