It is often times our more challenging life experiences, in which act as our biggest catalysts for positive change and growth. I was 32 years old when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and just before my diagnosis, one might say that my life was just getting good. I had released a relationship that was no longer serving me, received my first passport and went on my first international trip. It was also during this time I had discovered a newfound love for yoga. I practiced it religiously and I met so many new friends within this community of people. I was healing from some heavy hands that life had dealt me, including a painful divorce prior to the relationship I had just released and it was during this time that I thought, that finally the heaviness I had been carrying had been lifted. Then, to my surprise I received a call from my doctor that would abruptly change the trajectory of my life, yet the thing that I found about this particular moment and other challenging moments similar to this one, is that often times we don’t always see the gift that comes from our more trying experiences until we come out the other side. My battle with cancer was not one that I would like to repeat, however it gave me a new perspective on life that I am not sure I would have gained otherwise. The following article is the three life lessons I acquired from surviving breast cancer.
1. Find The Gift In The Present.
Practicing presence is one of the first lessons I truly understood after my bout with cancer. I feel that often times we live life in a race to get to the next big thing, whether it’s a vacation or a future aspiration, we often give little value to our life as it is now. Some of us not only spend too much time fretting over the future, but also too much time holding onto days of our past that have been long gone for many years and sometimes even decades. I had this client whom every time I would see her, she would talk about her days of modeling and what a phenomenal time that was for her. She had old pictures of herself scanned to her phone, so that she could remember herself as she was, yet whenever we would discuss her life as it is in the present, she would only talk about all the things that made her unhappy and then somehow without fail she would loop right back to talking about her glory days. In some ways, I have done this also, I was incredibly young when I was diagnosed with cancer and as I mentioned before, I was healing from a painful divorce. I spent a lot of time looking back at the life I once had, rarely grateful for my present. It was after my experience with cancer, in which I realized that life is truly temporal and each day is an opportunity to love more deeply and to live more fully. If we look around for the things that are going well as opposed to everything we aren’t happy with, it does change how we feel about each day. Sometimes, it is the small things that we have to focus on, especially when we are feeling lost in our day to day responsibilities and are having a more difficult time with acknowledging our blessings. It is on these days, in which we may have to find gratitude for the person that smiled at us that morning at the gym or even the great parking spot we were able to snag before work. Typically there is always a gift somewhere in our day, however sometimes there will be days where heavier struggles and emotions present themselves, which it may feel unrealistic to look at one’s cup as half full and I think that it is perfectly okay to give yourself whatever you may need on those days. The point is that life truly is short so it is important to not waste too much time on all the things we perceive to be going wrong because there will be times when our physical body is not at its best and what we are able to experience during that time may be limited, therefore I would encourage anyone reading this to seize the day and find the beauty in everything that you can.
2. Value Your Health and Take Care of Your Body.
Nothing has taught me the importance of taking care of my body quite like getting diagnosed with cancer. I think anytime one is faced with a physical ailment, ones health which can often be taken for granted, becomes much more valued and appreciated. Our physical bodies are magnificent, and give us the capacity to accomplish wondrous things when they are properly maintained. Like many people I know, my idea of health used to revolve around depleting diets that were not balanced, sugar free snacks and sugar replacements that were loaded with chemicals, and an exercise routine that was motivated by wanting to lower the number of pounds I weighed, however once I was diagnosed with cancer, I learned how imperative it is to feed our body nourishing foods and exercise for the sake of overall wellness and the increase of one’s natural immunity. I think the thing that often gets missed is truly how important taking care of our body is to our overall wellbeing and sense of fulfillment. When we are taking care of our bodies, through a healthy diet and exercise plan we mentally feel better, our self-confidence increases, and we not only lower our risk for many diseases including cancer, but also improve our quality of life. So much of societal focus in regards to our bodies goes into looking a particular way as opposed to true health which is only created through consistent nourishment from whole foods and regular exercise. Many people buy into the pressure of quick results and consume anabolic steroids, diet pills, or pre-workout powders filled with artificial chemicals that are terrible for our bodies. The truth is our bodies are intelligent and if we treat them with care on a regular basis they can add so much more value to our life. Cancer taught me to see the gift of life and recognize how important it is to nourish ourselves, in order to be able to do all the things we love to do while we are healthy enough to do them. Health is a gift and one day for one reason or another we won’t have the physical strength to accomplish what we can today, therefore my hope is that we tend to our physical health as part of a lifestyle and not a quick fix.
3. Align Your Life With Your Truest Self
I discovered how important it is to align our lives with our truest self once the longevity of my life was threatened. I thought about how much time I had spent doing things that I didn’t enjoy, yet I did them anyways due to it being the path that made the most immediate sense. The truth is that sometimes moving towards what it is that we truly want, can take a great deal of effort. Motivational speaker Les Brown has a favorite saying of mine, which is “if you do what’s easy, your life will be hard. However, if you do what’s hard, your life will be easy.” I had a lot of time to reflect on this in my own life and how I had chosen to live leading up to my cancer diagnosis. I thought about the possibility of my life being cut short if I didn’t go into remission and I wondered if I would be content with leaving this world and all that I had accomplished up to that point. It didn’t take long to know, that I was definitely not finished with living my life, not only for the sake of raising my children, but also for the nurturance that was still needed for the part of me that never truly showed up as the fullest expression of herself. Once I was finished with chemotherapy treatments and recovering from surgery, I no longer wanted to waste my life existing as opposed to living. I began to think about who I was at the core of my being and I also thought about the times during my life when I was the happiest. In this reflection I had thought about how happy I was when I was writing. It was and still is my greatest creative passion, yet at this particular time in my life I hadn’t done much of it and I realized how much I missed it. Once my treatments were finished, I began to seek out experiences that would nurture my love for literature. My first step to achieve this, was enrolling in community college, which opened my eyes to more passions and later I would also get asked to co-lead women’s retreats which I would end up creating the written curriculum for. Once I began to seek out experiences that were in true alignment with me and what I was wanting, several more opportunities began to present themselves that would essentially aid in the clarity of what I was desiring. The truth is that we all have gifts, in which are meant to be expressed and it is so easy to find excuses as to why we aren’t able to spend more time doing the things that we love, however life does have its many demands and it takes a great deal of focus and discipline to work around any limitations, in order to live a life that we are proud of. It is my deepest belief that in order to experience the most fulfillment life has to offer, we must find time to nurture the things that ignite the deepest parts of us, even in the midst of life’s demands. Whether it is an hour or thirty minutes a day, this will be time that one will rarely regret and I know this because cancer and the chemotherapy treatments that followed made my body incredibly weak, and in that state the only regrets I had were not doing more of the things that were meaningful to me. My hope is for us all to have a life that we can look back upon and feel only a sense of gratitude, because we chose to do as much of the things that expanded our hearts with joy, in which we possibly could.
A Final Note…
Getting diagnosed with cancer at such a young age, has definitely changed my perspective in regards to how I choose to live my life. I now take the time to live with more intention, by scheduling my days in order to achieve what is meaningful and it has made such a difference in what I experience. As I mentioned before, I understand that life has its demands. During the time that I am writing this article, I have a full-time job and two teenagers I am raising, however like many self development teachers, I have become a lover of early mornings and utilize this time for the accomplishment of most of my personal and creative goals. It is a perfect time because most of the world is still sleeping, including my teens, therefore I rarely get interrupted or run into any unexpected demands. Once my hours designated to achieving my goals are finished, my day continues on with giving attention to what my kids are needing and doing what is required of me at work. I will say that I am exhausted by the end of the day and usually in bed ready to sleep by 9pm, however I am currently excited by my life and I have even experienced an increase in my self-esteem. My deepest wish for anyone who reads this article is that you reflect upon your life and find time to do things that support the physical longevity and the emotional fulfillment of your life. We all have excuses as to why it is challenging to accomplish our goals, however I promise you, there is always a way and it is so important because our time here truly is limited and each one of us deserves to live a life we love.
