Nothing can quite prepare you for hearing the three words “You have cancer.”   Even worse is learning that your
particular disease is incurable. 

I was diagnosed in 2018 with Multiple Myeloma, a very serious blood cancer that creates severe bone tissue loss.  I had two freshly broken vertebrae from just bending over to pick something up off the floor while also having fractures on both sides of my rib cage.

In short, I was in real trouble. I was very anemic, could not climb a flight of stairs, in immense pain and had stopped eating as my body was shutting down.  After going through all that Oncology had to offer, including a failed Stem Cell Transplant, I turned to natural therapies, including an 8-week stay at an alternative cancer center in Arizona. 

Unfortunately, nothing moved the needle for me. 

It wasn’t until I learned the undeniable link between Stress and Disease and how to finally calm my emotions for my healing to begin.

Looking back, there were clear signs and symptoms that I had been ignoring for several years, but I was simply too busy with my life as a wife, mother, and a fast-paced corporate employee.

I was literally running exhausted from one task to the next: from work commitments, grocery shopping, food preparation, housework, kids’ appointments & activities, and helping care for my aging and dying parents.

From the outside, I gave the appearance of optimal health, as I was slender & toned from a good diet and regular exercise–but that was just a façade.

It is funny how the human body is amazing at letting you know when the way you are living your life just isn’t working for you. It starts with gentle nudges of warning with symptoms like chronic fatigue, insomnia, migraine headaches, frequent colds/flu, and indigestion. As those get ignored because we choose to ‘soldier on’, the body gets
louder with increasingly more painful symptoms until we are literally forced to stop.

When I arrived at this crossroad, I realized that to heal, I needed to completely change my life. Our bodies create cancer; therefore, our bodies can heal it. For me, this meant learning how to regulate my negative emotions and find daily joy in life again.

While I was very successful from many measurements, I was rarely happy. In fact, I hated working in Corporate America, but I was good at it and well paid. I can remember years with little-to-no free time for pursuing any hobbies or just getting any pleasure out of life.

Happiness was something that I scheduled for the future, usually when our family went on a vacation somewhere. When I started examining myself, I was horrified to learn just how much daily stress and fear I had been living with. It wasn’t just that I was putting off my happiness for the future; I was mentally in crash position – bracing for impact at all times, even while sleeping.

The simple truth is that the design of the human body requires calm and happiness to be healthy. This is also true for weight management. Negative emotions and stress literally create disease and death. The key is learning to accept ourselves, flaws and all. Regardless of our age, weight, health, and past traumas, we need to become our own best friend and stand by ourselves with love.  We also need to accept and forgive our past and the people who may have hurt us.  Truly let go of all pain, anger and regret and learn to live with gratitude and joy as your default emotions.  

The final part of my healing journey was learning to finally Trust Jesus with my future.  This literally freed me as I could finally stop my incessant worrying (anxiety) about the future and find peace.  This is true freedom as I can now get ridiculously happy without needing my outside circumstances to manufacture it!

Through my own personal journey, which included quitting my lucrative corporate career and learning how to finally trust God, I have stabilized my disease and am now living my happiest life.