The gift of cancer
It’s a privilege to have silver hairs, deep scars and complex stories.
One that is not given to many.
They are a testament to the rich wisdom of learning our journey of life brings.
On this day 17 years ago, I was officially diagnosed as Cancer Free. Every year since, I've taken the time to use this occasion to reflect on my journey so far. It’s interesting how the relationship between my past evolves and changes based on what I have lived, learned with the time.
What a journey it has been!
Although I had been diagnosed as Cancer Free, I didn’t feel healed. There still was a deep emptiness inside. It was only a few years later I realised that my healing and quest for meaning and purpose in my professional and personal life was only just beginning. It had its ups and downs where I felt like I was digging up the deepest and darkest parts of my being, my soul.
Questions and feelings that I had been avoiding and repressing
Why am I here?
What will I leave behind?
Why do I feel empty? As if I were never enough..
Why do I feel I don’t deserve to be happy or loved?
Anger, Pain, Hurt, Rejection…
It’s one thing to cognitively know the answers. However, it's a whole other thing to allow yourself to embrace the discomfort of the questions you don't have answers to. To use the discomfort of a question or an emotion was a doorway to a whole new reality and possibilities for yourself and the world you want to create.
By embracing fear and rejection, I met trust
By embracing anger, I met strength that comes from the heart
By embracing pain, I met compassion
By embracing hurt, I met love
By embracing loneliness, I felt deep connection and unity
Nothing compared to the feeling of living and breathing these qualities with every cell in your body. It completely rewires your entire nervous system and you start to interact with the world in an entirely new way. One that is filled with vitality, infinite possibility, creativity and love!
Recently, I was talking to a client currently facing their need to validate their existence. They mentioned that our session felt like a privilege, especially with everything that is happening in the world: countries at war, burning planet, plastic, polarisation of politics, families…
I said if everyone did this work themselves, the work of unlearning, of healing past, current and generational trauma, to reeducate ourselves in creating a new paradigm for self, others and the planet. We would have the awareness to stop projecting on each other. We would have the capacity to face and have the challenging conversation that need to be had to change the course of history. We wouldn’t be in the state we are in.
So, this year it feels like I’m coming full circle. It is one of softening, of gratitude for my disease. That thirst to live, to heal, to grow, to share my learning and empower people in their lives continues to deepen.
It is one of the main reasons that has pushed me to create my business, Cultivating Wholeness - to build an empowering space where people can be themselves, be supported in their growth on our collective journey of healing and remember who we are, our innate gifts and oneness.
The starting point in creating the world we want to be a part of and the one we want to leave the generations to come!
