lifeaftercancer

Happy New Year!

I wanted to share a New Year ritual that I have that helps me to ‘draw a line’ under the old year just passed. I like to take down my old wall calendar and look at my paper planner (I am old school, I like to have a diary that I can write on!) However this works equally well with digital planners.

I like to take some time, over a cup of tea, and reflect on all the things that happened, good and bad, in the year just gone.

There are two things that always surprise me.

1. How mu…

1 Remember it's OK to feel down sometimes

Sad days happen to us all. It is temporary and is part of life. As someone who has suffered with depression in the past, I know how it feels to be down, but sometimes I just allow myself to feel a bit sad, I just don't stay in that place for too long. 

“Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

2 Look in the Mirror and Smile

Smiling releases neuropeptides, which help fight stress. Other feel-good hormo…

I had an interesting day today, I went to a hair loss clinic, my hair has never grown back properly since chemotherapy, it's grown back, but so fine and sparse.

And so I recounted to the consultant today everything that I have tried over the years, nothing really worked. And as always I got emotional when telling him how I felt, and how my oncologist had sent me to a psychiatrist when I cried in his office. My anguish was so painful, I may have felt like I was going crazy, I wasn't, I just want…

I believe that you cannot be fearful and grateful simultaneously. Gratitude is the antidote to fear.

As a breast cancer survivor, I don’t want to live in fear every day, When my treatment ended, for a long time I lived in fear or a recurrence. I had Inflammatory Breast Cancer, very rare and aggressive, with a high recurrence rate.

I trained as a therapist, using NLP and coaching, and time after time I heard that gratitude and fear cannot be felt at the same time. So I have trained myself to st…

7 Steps to Self Love

I’ve written before about how Self Love is the first step to healing your life. Really connecting with yourself, putting yourself first may be a habit you find hard at first, but I found these steps helped me, and I hope they help you too

1 Create a self- love ritual

I like to do this every Sunday evening. A time to consciously think about pampering myself and preparing for the week ahead.

A bubble bath, scented candles and some uplifting music help me to relax. Bea…

As women, we are taught, often subconsciously, that nice girls are not ‘selfish’ and ‘take care of others first’.

That’s sometimes appropriate, but as a reformed people pleaser, I know that not being able to set clear boundaries with others can cause you so much pain. Sometimes we need to be ‘selfish’ and put ourselves first. 

When you exercise your boundaries and learn to say no, you have more free time to devote to what is important to you, your health, your passions and priorities. And yes you…

We all want to thrive when treatment ends don’t we?

But what is the best thing to do? Change your diet? Take supplements? Avoid certain foods? Eliminate sugar, dairy, meat?  Abstain from alcohol? Lose weight?

Well some of those things may or not be appropriate for you.

But they are not THE BIGGEST THING you need to do.

If you are a cancer survivor, you know that cancer= FEAR

So to really thrive the most important thing we need to do is to let go of the fear.

Working on your mindset, is the MOST import…

What a shock we had last night, landing at Manchester Airport at 4am, it was cold, raining and our taxi had left due to the plane being delayed.

Back to real life with a bump!

We have had the most wonderful two weeks in Cyprus, listening to live music, a boat trip, catching up with friends, many wonderful meals and days around the pool or on the beach. And the cocktails....

Also, I was so very blessed to have the most amazing massages - it wasn't until Nijole worked on the knots in my back …