A single moment can change your life forever. 

That moment for me was 13 years ago. My cancer diagnosis was a domino that tipped my life in a new direction. But, this is not a post about my cancer story. At least not the details of the physical journey through tests, scans, surgical blades, and toxic symbols on IV bags. 

It’s about the rabbit hole I fell down 13 years ago and the months I spent feeling around in the dark, searching for answers to the big questions, “Who am I now?” “What does this all mean?” “Where do I go from here?” 

In many ways, cancer brought me face-to-face with myself. I’d been on the run for years—outracing painful memories from the past and hustling to escape my emotions. I thought if I could just stay busy enough, maybe the anxiety buzzing in my chest would subside. Maybe if I focused on my career, my friends, and my abs, I could pretend I was doing fine. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have to admit that I was afraid of not being pretty enough, skinny enough, successful enough, or lovable enough. 

But, at the age of 30, cancer brought everything to a halt. For months, I was too weak to get off the couch and so I would lie there, listening to the deafening sound of the clock, clicking away the endless seconds in every day. I was a prisoner to my fatigue and the chemo drugs cycling through me. My feelings were my only companions and they were not the company I would have chosen. They were big and complicated and about so much more than cancer. It became impossible to manage them on my own. 

So, together with an incredible psychologist, I set off on a journey into my emotions. We started with the losses I was confronting. The loss of body parts and the loss of my dreams of motherhood. The loss of my physical strength and the loss of my belief in life working out the way it’s supposed to. But, as the months went by and my hair started to sprout like new patchy grass across my scalp, we started to dig a little deeper, and we found tightly sealed boxes of emotions and memories that had been gathering dust for decades.  

I stepped into unchartered territory as I allowed myself to experience different therapy modalities—like EMDR, which includes very little talking and a lot of internal focus, as well as inner child work—which includes reliving experiences and bringing your adult self into the remembered past in order to give your inner child what you needed at the time. The deeper we went, the more I realized that it is possible to heal and to rewire your neural pathways because, with time, I found myself approaching my life and my relationships differently. 

As I reflect back on the 13 years since my cancer diagnosis, it’s also been 13 years of on-and-off therapy. Some years were dark and some years, I felt like I had it all together. By 2019, I was in a good place. I felt like I had done what I needed to do and healed what I needed to heal. 

Then, COVID sent me back down the rabbit hole again. From the stress of pivoting our work at A Fresh Chapter to living in the U.S. as a Canadian and hoping my immigration process would come together, I felt like I couldn’t feel solid earth beneath my feet. I had horrific nightmares related to past trauma and woke up gasping for air more nights than not. 

I reached out to my psychologist in Vancouver and after three years apart, we picked up virtually right where we had left off. I would spend my weeks holding it together as I facilitated programs, wrote grant proposals, and continued to work with our team to figure out what the future of A Fresh Chapter would look like. But, then every second Friday, my therapy session would pop up in my calendar and I would subsequently fall apart. It would take me most of the weekend to put myself back together again. 

There were days that I felt like I might never get through it. But, with each session, I began to chip through the layers of fear and pain. I leaned into contradictory emotions, practiced being vulnerable with the people I trusted, and set difficult but necessary boundaries to protect my emotional and mental health. 

Through this work, I’ve learned that I don’t have to be pretty enough, smart enough, successful enough, or lovable enough. I can just be me with all of my imperfections and I will be loved. By my partner, Andrew, who has been by my side for almost five years. By the friends who have become my family and the family members who have grown along with me. By the amazing community of people within A Fresh Chapter.

Thirteen years later, I know for sure that cancer didn’t change me for the better. It was simply the crisis point that invited me to go deeper and explore the parts of myself I had sealed off. It was the entry point to believing I was worthy of my time and attention.  

This focus on myself has in turn made me a better friend and partner, and a more resourceful, compassionate leader. This kind of work isn’t easy, but I’ve learned that showing up continues to be worth it.