THE ART OF HOLDING BACK

I have lived my life all in — believing this was the only way. But I am learning that “all in” isn’t everything at once. It’s reverence of pace. A modulation, not a moderation. A rhythm that honors what is unfolding before the eye — allowing the becoming to complete itself before I interrupt.

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I am leaning against the marble-topped sink, trying not to meet my own eyes.
This clinical environment—of whispers and blood pressure cuffs measuring what is felt before I feel it—instructs me to settle in and trust.
I ask my hands to follow my arms in a motion of openness; a letting go and a leaning in at once.

This office restroom has become my refuge from the bombardment of information I hadn’t expected. I can feel the tension, the holding on—tightly—of a control that feels illusive in the absence of what I had come here to confirm—

“Twenty percent.”
That was the oncologist’s answer when I asked what was the least portion of the normal dose of chemotherapy we could give and still hope for a meaningful outcome.

That was last week.

Today, I am leaning against the marble-topped sink, trying to make peace with what I have just heard:
“Twenty percent was not the actual amount,
but the reduction from the the full dose.”

This—my posture of openness—is not surrender.
It is the art of holding back—

the space between reaction and realization,
the breath between shock and sense.
It is letting go of a belief unrooted in the reality of the plan.

When I finally raise my head, I meet my own eyes.
A soft smile greets me.

This woman is satisfied with herself.
“We will do this together,” I whisper. “You and I.”

The bold one who never surrenders,
and the wise one who has learned to modulate with grace.

For most of my life, I mistook involvement for purpose and haste for strength.

If something called, I ran toward it.
If something hurt, I leaned harder.
All in — not as strategy, but as furious pulse.
To pause felt like hesitation; to withhold felt like betrayal.

But I am learning that not all devotion is movement.
Restraint makes room for revelation to finish forming.
Stillness has its honored place.

Holding back is not the opposite of giving.
It is the refinement of output, a contribution of better, not more—

A modulation of energy, a dosing of timing, a trust that life knows how to unfold without my constant oversite.

When I said yes to chemotherapy again, it was not capitulation.
It was conversation.
A partnership built on rhythm instead of rescue —
fractionated doses, not a single flood.
Gentler medicine. Consistent mercy. Measured trust, week by week.

Healing, it turns out, is less a declaration and more a dialogue.
It asks for participation, not control.
It teaches through pacing —
when to enter, when to pause, when to yield to what is already working on my behalf.

And perhaps this is the real art of holding back:
to stay fully present while doing less,
to participate without overpowering,
to live as though grace itself keeps time.

NOTES — The Prescriptive Practice

Prescribe Rhythm: The Body’s Native Wisdom

Fractionated chemotherapy isn’t merely a medical strategy — it’s mercy with a pulse.
Smaller doses, paced across time, honor what the body already knows: healing requires rhythm, not rush.
Cells repair best when given intervals to breathe. The immune system finds its footing in recovery, not in onslaught.
Even the heart contracts and releases — proof that strength is built in the spaces between.

Take as directed: Let your healing — and your living — move in waves. Force nothing. The intervals are part of the medicine.

Prescribe Stillness: The Nervous System’s Reset

Stillness is not the opposite of movement. It’s the origin of it.
When the body pauses, the nervous system comes home — cortisol lowers, digestion resumes, peace returns like oxygen.
The body’s chemistry listens to your choices; even your silence is a signal.
When you sit still, you are re-teaching every cell that safety is possible.

Take as directed: Begin each morning in quiet before touching a screen or a thought. Let your body know it’s safe before asking it to serve.

Prescribe Mercy: The Science of Gentle Repair

Compassion is not soft; it’s regulatory.
Self-mercy steadies heart rate, lowers inflammation, balances hormones.
The body’s response to kindness is measurable — every gentle thought shifts chemistry toward wholeness.
You cannot heal what you continually punish.

Take as directed: Speak to yourself as you would to something fragile you hope to keep. The body responds to tone more than theory.

Prescribe Modulation: The Art of Measured Intensity

Moderation subtracts. Modulation tunes.
It’s the difference between withholding and attuning.
Every biological system knows how to modulate — hormone cycles, circadian rhythms, immune surges and retreats.
We are not built for constancy; we are built for cadence.

Take as directed: Match your effort to your energy, your pace to your peace. Choose precision over performance.

Prescribe Patience: The Physics of Becoming

Everything in nature grows through gestation. Even light takes time to reach the eye.
To rush is to fracture process. To wait is to trust that unseen forces are already building what will soon be visible.
There is construction inside the chrysalis; the stillness is not absence — it’s creation in progress.

Take as directed: When the urge to force or fix arises, wait one breath longer. Let timing reveal what striving cannot.

Prescribe Attention: The Quiet Form of Prayer

Presence is the body’s most potent healer.
Attention steadies pulse, rewires thought, quiets panic.
This is devotion without performance — the simple act of staying with what is.
Presence is what cells translate as peace.

Take as directed: When overwhelmed, narrow your awareness to one good thing. Feel its reality until calm returns.

Prescribe Sequence: Trusting the Order of Things

When we rush, we interrupt divine design.
Healing unfolds in sequence: rest, repair, rebuild.
To skip ahead is to strip the process of its wisdom.
Your biology mirrors creation — everything knows when to begin and when to become.

Take as directed: Trust the process as fiercely as you trust the promise. Let order do its quiet work.

Prescribe Reverence: The Spiritual Science of Enough

Wholeness doesn’t come from more — it comes from honoring what already is.
Every breath, every beat, is proof of sufficiency.
Overexertion is often a form of disbelief. The body’s exhaustion is not betrayal; it’s boundary.

Take as directed: End the day not by measuring what remains undone, but by naming what was already enough.

 *And for those who wish to understand the structure of this gentler rhythm,
here is the simple truth of what fractionated means—
the science beneath the mercy.

In Plain Language

Fractionated chemotherapy takes the same medicine that would normally be given all at once and divides it into smaller, more frequent portions — not as a dilution, but as a modulation.
Instead of flooding the body with a single overwhelming dose, the treatment flows in measured intervals: approximately 80% of the usual monthly total delivered gently across three consecutive weeks, then one week of rest.

This doesn’t mean 80% each time — it means the total medicine is thoughtfully distributed over time, giving the body space to process, to rest, and to partner in its own repair.

It’s the biological equivalent of watering a garden steadily instead of flooding it once a month.
The goal isn’t less medicine — it’s more mercy in the delivery.
To maintain therapeutic strength while protecting vitality, immune rhythm, and the simple, holy act of daily living.

Image: This is a shadow of me on a beautiful, old, peeling wall. Art to me. Even before this illusive part of who I am layered in. I am still that girl, but wiser. I think that silhouette would be stronger, more evident, if it were captured today.