On a beautiful Tuesday in October, 2013, I went in for a routine mammogram. I remember feeling proud of myself that this task was checked off of my ‘to do’ list and I didn’t give it another thought. By Friday, of that same week, I was told I had breast cancer. My world turned upside down. The doctors wanted to schedule a mastectomy immediately. The fear, information overload, and shock was overwhelming.

I had always taken very good care of myself physically. So, I was very confused. Where had this come from? Why did I have cancer? 

After I took a few days to clear my head, I began to mull over the idea that if I could just find the source of my cancer, and fix that, I would heal and it wouldn’t come back! Sounded like a good idea to me, so I funneled all my fear and anxiety into research.

But, I didn’t focus on the cancer. I believed then, and even more so now, that whatever we focus on expands in our life and gets bigger. I didn’t want cancer to get bigger, I wanted my health to get bigger. So, I focused on what I had missed in my health. While my doctors scheduled surgery and treatment plans, I focused on learning everything I could about health. One day, I happened to be reading a book (on my very own bookshelf) by Dr. Christiane Northrup, called Women’s Bodies, Women's Wisdom. As I skimmed through the pages, I happened to stop on a page that said this;

"Unexpressed emotions are like small ticking time-bombs in the body. They are illnesses in incubation.” 

I felt an electric shock move through me and knew, without a doubt, this was it! I had found the root of the cancer in my body. Unexpressed emotion was the source of my cancer. But what was ‘unexpressed’ emotion? I didn’t know the first thing about emotions. I had been ignoring and stuffing them down all my life. Those sentences lead me on an emotional adventure that changed everything.

I learned that even though I was taking very good care of the physical component of my heath, I had been ignoring the emotional component of health my entire life. No one had ever told me how important my thoughts and emotions were to my physical health. While, my cancer experience was sometimes filled with anxiety, loneliness, and grief, I kept turning my focus back to becoming more and more emotionally healthy. It made all the difference. Now, I teach women about ‘complete’ health and support them through all the highs and lows of their cancer journey. I teach you what I learned…how to heal from the inside out.

You are not alone in this. With grit, determination and compassion for yourself, you can use your cancer journey to expand and positively impact your health and your life.