Living Beyond Cancer, Some Thoughts

As we move into the last weekend of Breast Cancer Awareness Month let’s keep the theme of Living Beyond Cancer in mind not just for our fellow breast cancer survivors, but for all cancer survivors.

As cancer survivors, we have learned first hand the preciousness, power, and beauty not only of life, but of our own health. We may have been given a second, third, fourth, or who knows what number chance at life. A chance to reinvent ourselves. A chance to live differently, more fully, than we did before. Let’s not take that for granted. Let’s honor it.

Let’s honor it by not just getting through the hustle and bustle of the day to day, but by choosing how we want our day to day to look like. Saying no to the things that we don’t want to do. Saying yes to the things that we know ring true to our soul, the things that make us smile. The things that exhilarate us. The things that bring us joy and peace. Let’s start including them in our day to day, even if it is only for a few minutes each day at first.

While focusing on those things that bring us joy, we need to remember to also include doing something that scares us just a little. Something that we want to do but are afraid to do. Because as cancer survivors we have already lived through the scariest thing, facing our own mortality. So let’s take one step towards that thing we’ve always wanted to do or try but are afraid to. Because to truly live beyond cancer, you and I have to live beyond what we think we are capable of. We have to stretch ourselves. We have to embrace the life that we have been given, whatever it looks like, in spite of and because of it looking different than it did before. Embrace it and jump in!

In Honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and all of the brave Breast Cancer Survivors out there.