We want to wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving and express our gratitude for the ways you have supported our community!
Continue readingHappy Thanksgiving!
Ring Theory
Have you heard of Ring Theory? It’s a fairly simple concept of support and communication that can be extremely helpful for cancer patients and their loved ones.
Continue readingResearch Opportunity Roundup!
Here are a few research studies that you may be able to participate in that will help improve care for that next YA diagnosed with cancer!
Continue readingMeet Lauren, Our New COO
Please help us welcome Lauren, our new Chief Operations Officer at Cactus Cancer Society (formerly Lacuna Loft)!
Continue readingSign Up For Lost And Found
Young adult cancer survivors often worry about returning to the dating world, to their established intimate relationships, and to themselves.
Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, returns to facilitate this meaningful and powerful program. This workshop has helped past participants dip their toes back into the water of intimacy after diagnosis and treatment. Lacuna Loft and Jean are excited to offer this journal workshop online to young adult cancer survivors (women only) of any diagnosis. Using journal techniques and cultivating an action plan for self-care, in 8 weeks you will have the opportunity to emerge from the water renewed, informed, and ready to reconnect.
Join other young cancer survivors (women only) who understand what you’ve gone through while learning how to reconnect, welcoming a compassionate understanding of your body now, and creating ways to open your heart to intimate opportunities after cancer. Sign up below!
Where: Online video chat. We’ll send you more information about joining after you register. Please have a microphone headset and a webcam.
Who: Young adult cancer survivors (women only). *If you’ve taken this workshop before, we will be prioritizing survivors who have not yet had the opportunity.*
When: The writing group meets on Sundays at 1 pm PT / 3 pm CT / 4 pm ET for 2 hours each week, for 8 weeks starting on Sunday, April 18th and ending on May 23rd. A commitment to attend each week is important to group continuity and in creating a safe space. Please be on time 
Write Now With Jean Rowe: Grounded
Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!
2021 has started with a bang. Let’s focus on how we can stay grounded no matter what is swirling around us. Let’s invite ways to hold our center and remember to chuckle when, as Betty Davis said, “fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.” The hopeful news is that there are simple ways to help ourselves.
Some of what is recommended is common sense and what we already know, and, yet, it is okay to return to this good direction when we need help. There is no requirement here. These are options for you to ponder. Notice what feels right for you.
Connect with others. You know who your people are. Remember to share how you are doing and check in on others (even if they appear to be fine). Take a break from the news. Take a break from social media. Get outside. Get more sleep. Consider making a daily, small gratitude list. Try meditation for five minutes.
Journal!
Try this: make a list of the ways you stay grounded (and maybe already are!). Write for five minutes and see what surfaces. Are you doing these things? Might you return to them to help feel grounded? Did something new appear?
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!
You never know what someone else is going through.
Be kind.
Always.
[Quoted often; Claimed by many]
Write Now With Jean Rowe: Take Aways From 2020
Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!
The extraordinary year of 2020 has come to a close. As I reflect on the glorious work Lacuna Loft journaling workshop participants have shared with me during this past year, I am struck by how wise you all are. Here are some take-aways from our time together which I hope you will see as a wisdom list. You are the authors.
You are a Rock Star
Home is not necessarily a physical space
I know my value
Rain can start things over
Love permeates boundaries
The small things count just as much
Enjoy the moment
Wear the bikini
Don’t be afraid to roar
I am enough
Happiness is relatively free, and love doesn’t cost a thing
It’s my time to shine
Think about placing this list where you can see it. Choose one phrase or one word and journal about that for five minutes. See what surfaces! Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!
Follow your heart, listen to your inner voice, stop caring about what others think. -Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Write Now with Jean Rowe: Generosity
Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!
Generosity
We are fully entering the holiday season in an entirely new way. Many of us will not gather with those we love as we normally do. The reframe is this: how can we gather with those we love under the circumstances? Who can we call to our virtual or heart-centered table? How can we invite the energy of those who matter to us into our hearts even if we’re not going to be with them? How can we send this expansive-like spirit into the world so that others can benefit from this generous thinking?
I’m not suggesting that this will make everything okay. Of course, it won’t. It’s a weird time, and, while the holidays bring up all manner of feelings, this year is an extra helping of managing our own.
I recently listened to a journal workshop participant share about how she and friends all cooked the same meal (on their own) and then gathered virtually to dine together and talk about how it went, what they enjoyed, the process. This is a supper club with a twist, and it accomplished a variety of things: creativity, flexibility, finding a new way to be with one another, and a delicious meal.
What comes up for you in thinking about choosing differently to be with the holidays this year? Write about that for 5-7 minutes and see what surfaces. Let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.
“For it is in giving that we receive.”
― St. Francis of Assisi
Write Now With Jean Rowe: Journal Writing Is Good For You!
Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!
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Journal writing is good for you! I am not just providing lip service for something in which I truly believe. The benefits of expressive/journal writing have been studied for over 30 years. Journaling as a coping technique for cancer patients is among them. If you have taken part in any of Lacuna Loft’s programs, you already know the changes for good, aha moments, and important internal shifts that can and do take place.
Research performed by James Pennebaker concluded that “physical health and work performance can improve by simple writing and/or talking exercises.” Simple. Writing. Exercises.
Kay Adams, the Founder and Director for the Center for Journal Therapy, calls the journal the “79￠ therapist.” If you knew that the anxiety, the worry, the insomnia, the punishing voice in your head, the [you fill in the blank] would lessen, subside or even stop by spending 5-7 minutes writing in a journal on a regular basis, would you? As Glinda told Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “you’ve always had the power.”
You might ask, how can journaling help you? Have you felt triggered by the smells of the infusion room? Experienced scanxiety? Wondered who you are with/after cancer? The journal is your ally towards working through those experiences. You can write anything you want. No one is going to judge you. It’s a personal, private space.
Here is a prompt to try. Write for 5 minutes. Then, read back over what you wrote and give yourself an impression of what you feel or think about what you wrote (i.e. I notice…)
Describe a place in your home where you feel safe. What makes it comfortable? How do you relax there? Is there a certain time of day you spend there? What is the view outside the window? Is anyone there with you? Where are you in the room?
Tell me how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.
-Jean
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
-William Wordsworth
Write Now with Jean Rowe: Matters of the Heart
Lacuna Loft is proud to present Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!
February brings valentines, and this month, I encourage us to think of ways we can and do love ourselves. Love is action. Love is a verb. Love is a choice. Maybe this feels awkward. Try anyway. You’re worth it.
Here is some wisdom of those who love/loved themselves:
James Brown – Super Bad
I jump back. I wanna kiss myself.
Lady Gaga – Born This Way
I’m right on the track, baby.
Tom Petty – Won’t Back Down
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down.
Whitney Houston – Greatest Love of All
Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.
Lou Rawls – One Life to Live
Why don’t you give it your best shot.
Madonna – Vogue
All you need is your own imagination.
What would happen if you use your own imagination, gave it your best shot, loved yourself, kept the world from draggin’ you down, got right on the track, and, yes, jumped back and kissed yourself?
Try this: pick one of those ideas or several. Act as if they are already in place. Write a day in your life with them already in place. Write for five minutes. Have a sense of wonder and open-heartedness at what is revealed.
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!
We set the bar for how we want others to treat us.
-Lisa Marie