This is the sixth New Year that I’ve celebrated since my cancer diagnosis, and each one brings with it a mixture of hope, fear and uncertainty. For many cancer survivors watching everyone plan for the future is difficult, it can produce mixed emotions and make the dawn of a new year extremely challenging.

That’s why I’m not going to use this blog to give a lecture about New Year’s resolutions or to suggest that you make elaborate promises to yourself. I realize that living with cancer often renders such gestures trivial and that your life is probably being planned week-by-week or month-by-month. Instead I’ve chosen to share some of my favourite quotations about resilience.

I hope the meditations that I’ve selected make the beginning of another year a little less daunting for you and provide you with strength and inspiration for your cancer journey. As someone once said, life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, but we can choose to get stronger and more resilient.

“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”

— Elizabeth Edwards

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

— Maya Angelou

“My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present.”

— Steve Goodier

“You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces—my family, my friends and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.”

— Elizabeth Edwards

“Those who make us believe that anything’s possible and fire our imagination over the long haul, are often the ones who have survived the bleakest of circumstances. The men and women who have every reason to despair, but don’t, may have the most to teach us, not only about how to hold true to our beliefs, but about how such a life can bring about seemingly impossible social change.”

— Paul Rogat Loeb