In this episode, Saranne shares her deep love for traditions and rituals, regardless of religious affiliation. She explores the significance of rituals in her life, from morning routines to holiday celebrations, and how they bring comfort and inclusion. Saranne also discusses the importance of creating rituals during challenging times, such as her cancer journey, and how they can positively impact mental health and create lasting memories. Join Saranne as she delves into the power of rituals and invites listeners to reflect on their meaningful practices.
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[MUSIC] >> Welcome to Beating Cancer Daily. Beating Stage 4 Cancer for 30 years still takes my breath away every time I say it. I'm Saren, founder of the Comedy Cures Foundation. And I hope you'll join me for just a few minutes daily for the next 365 days. So we may laugh, learn, maybe cry a little as we live our best days. Beating cancer daily together. [MUSIC] I have to admit that I am a bit obsessed with traditions. I love them and I know you're gonna say, Saren, I'm not religious, I don't like traditions. I don't care if you're religious or not religious. There are traditions that don't have to be tied to a certain religion. And one of the things I love so much about traveling or meeting new people, I love to find out what their favorite rituals are. So I will just ask somebody, what's your typical day like? Even if they're going through cancer treatment, what do you do while you're going through cancer treatment? What do you bring to the chemo room? Do you have a tradition, do you have a superstition? I love to find out. I told you, I'm a bit obsessed. Now, I do love the traditions of my faith. I love everything from how it's prescribed or written like a blueprint of how I should wake up in the morning. What should I do when I wake up? What should I follow? And this isn't blind faith, but they make me feel yummy. I love that structure to the morning. I even have added so many of my own rituals and I've taught them here. I've taught them on this podcast, including making sure that I listen to comedy. I have a hand washing ritual that I taught at the beginning of the podcast. I have a laughter ritual that I do. So many fun things, including stretching, which I talked about so many times, meditating. I love lists, but in terms of why, why do I love rituals so much? I think personally, it's because I didn't have a super traditional childhood. I didn't have a very strict childhood. I always looked at other families that had big family gatherings and very ritualistic holidays. I looked at those families no matter what religion it was. And I always asked if I could tag along. I didn't care if it was a temple, a church, a mosque, anything that anybody was doing that had some order or group practice to it. I just loved learning about it, and I still do. So why do I bring this up in relation to cancer or a cancer journey or cancer survivorship? Because the science is pretty compelling. We do traditions and rituals because it makes us feel safe. It makes us feel included. And I can tell you from being a very young mom going through a divorce with cancer that that's kind of an outlier place to be. But because of my love of rituals and groups and practices, I was included in many different groups and activities because I loved doing certain rituals. So I love parties and I always talk about all the parties that I have. I became known as a house with a great holiday party. Now it was specifically Hanukkah, but I invaded anybody who just wanted to come and eat latkes and like candles and sing. It didn't matter if you were Jewish. It just was an excuse to have a party and have a lot of fun. Plus, I think the holiday is kind of cool. It's actually January 1st. I got known as the person who had the New Year's Day party. I just loved that excuse for gathering people, especially people who might not have had something terribly fun or engaging to do for New Year's Eve. And they thought that it was pretty isolating and lonely. Well, here New Year's Day, you can come and celebrate. I love the tradition of the bowl games. And I just love that brunch experience where people come. Some people are all over. They don't want to think about food, but they could come and have a nash and hang out. We could wish each other well for the coming year. So if you remember, when I was diagnosed, I was going through a divorce and I had a young child and there's this correlation between parents with fun memories of traditions, have mentally healthier children. So I had quirky traditions growing up. But when I started raising my own child, I built a lot of rituals into our mother-daughter relationship because I wanted her to have these great memories of us together. If God forbid, I did not make it through my cancer treatment. And what's pretty interesting about that is that there was a study done among people who were dying from cancer by the Pan American Congress of Psychosocial and Behavioral Oncology. And they showed that people who were at the end of their life found that rituals were significant to them, not only as patients, but their family and their caregivers, and that it was consistent through the study that patients wanted these rituals that they believed in carried on by the people who survived them because they wanted to be remembered and to remember often. And so it was really important that they created these rituals so that there was this legacy that could carry on. And I have to tell you, I did that with my own daughter. I tried to create a lot of opportunities for her to have practices that would carry forth. Not only Jewish practices, because we are Jewish and that was the religion that I raised her in, but practices that I just thought were really fun and memorable and multi-century. Now I wouldn't advise this one at all. It's crazy that I did it with my child. But I love the ritual of the Chinese fire drill. I love picking a song that we love to dance to. And then when we hear that song, we pull over and we just get out of the car and we start dancing to that song. Now that's the safe version of it. The unsafe version of it is stopping at a traffic light that's red and jumping out while the traffic light's red and then jumping back in the car before it turns green. Let's say don't recommend it. I did do it with my child and it's a very fun memory and a very fun ritual. But there are so many like for us going back to Philadelphia and having a steak sandwich or having water ice or a soft pretzel. Now we're both gluten free and dairy free. So that presents a little bit of a problem, but it was a ritual that we had when she was growing up and it made a sick and now we know it's because of gluten and berry. So that one we can't do anymore. But there are so many that I love like walking on the beach at sunrise and walking on the beach at sunset. I can't be in the sun during the strongest hours of the day. So that ritual of being barefoot, whether it's summer or winter, spring or fall and having our shoes off and walking by the beach is just a really beautiful ritual. My husband and I, we love to have breakfast or dinner in bed and just hang out together and that's part of our ritual. We make sure that we do that at least once a week. So these rituals can be religious based. There are ones that I do. I love lighting candles on Friday nights for Shabbos. I personally love going to synagogue. I love trying not to use technology during the hours of Shabbat. You have to find the ones that really work for you and then try to share them with as many people as possible. I love having guests for Friday night dinner. I love Friday night dinner. That's the end of the week for me and I love to just share it with people that I love and I love to invite strangers to it. I just do. I love the ritual of inviting strangers to my house for Friday night dinner. What do you love to do? What do you want to make your rituals? I made bringing comedy to the chemo room and throughout my cancer treatment or ritual and I got known as that patient that brought comedy and sparkling sadr and little gifts for everyone to the chemo room or to the radiation facility. I loved being known as the person that did that ritual and look, it started the entire Comedy Cures Foundation because I loved throwing chemo comedy parties for everyone. And now it's been a 24 year ritual of comedy parties. We all know that some people have been forced to do rituals so they hate those rituals and some people have even turned away from religion because they were forced to do rituals. I'm sorry for that but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Find rituals that you love and bring them through your cancer journey. Now some scientists say that people do rituals because they're scared to be left out. I'm sorry for that too. Some people do rituals because they need the well-being and comfort of the ritual. I'm all down for that. I love well-being and comfort and if that's part of what rituals give then why not? Don't ever do a ritual that makes you uncomfortable. Of course or that's dangerous but try to think of what might become your ritual. Get out a piece of paper or get out your phone and start thinking about what rituals work for you. I know that for my Italian friends and when I lived in Italy, the Sunday dinner which was really late afternoon was a big ritual and you just have to show up for that meal. It was really frowned upon if anybody missed that meal in the family and there was spaghetti sauce and meatballs and lots of other ritual foods that are close to the Italian cuisine but that was super important and bonding for a family and I loved attending those. So if you start to get it, I love rituals that are attached to food. So I'll show up at your Sunday dinner, I'll show up at your Shabbos dinner anywhere where there's food. I love that ritual but in all seriousness, I would love for you to make that list and start trying on a few, start practicing a few of these rituals and see if it makes you feel more comfortable, less stressed out if you get a sense of calm when you do it. So that I love to tell a silly joke somewhere in the episode and I found one that kind of pokes fun at this whole episode and at me for loving rituals so I'm just going to tell it to you and you could laugh at me, it's okay. Last night I went to a satanic-like ritual where we chanted around a flaming object, got it up and ate it. It's all in the perspective, right? That could be describing something like that but it's actually what we do at a birthday party and do I love birthday parties and I love birthday cake and now that I don't eat gluten and dairy, it's so sad because I have to watch everybody else enjoy birthday cake. Sometimes I'll just bring my own gluten free dairy free slice so that I could sit and eat it with everyone else and not have to pine away. So enjoy the ritual of birthday party, enjoy the ritual of birthday cakes and you can write to me at the Comedy Cares Foundation or record a message at comedycares.org and let me know what rituals are meaningful for you and what you might start new and what you think I should start practicing. I'm open to it, I do love rituals. I hope that you have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow. If you've enjoyed this podcast then I'd love to ask for you to go to ComedyCares.org and check out our membership circle levels. You will find even more resources and more programming like our live virtual Q&A sessions with me, our live Comedy Cares events with our very talented comedians, live health builder workshops with Jackie Brian hosted by me, a robust monthly newsletter plus much more. It's really an exciting community so please consider becoming a member, giving it as a gift, telling your friends, telling your hospital support group all about this community. I can't think of a more empowering way to go through a cancer journey or your survivorship or your caregiving experience than with us at Beating Cancer Daily. It's truly an honor to serve you. Thanks so much, see you tomorrow. Guess what time it is, it's time for me to read the disclaimer. Beating Cancer Daily and the membership circle are not in lieu of medical advice or treatment. They are for entertainment purposes only. Please consult your healthcare team to review your best strategy. Thanks for listening. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
