Shining Soul

Pick a star up in the sky and pretend that star is me.

Shining bright with love for you, so all the world can see…

Yesterday I told you a bit about my life and how it feels to be a woman without breasts because they were taken due to breast cancer.  This is my 3rd foray into trying to have breasts again and I am blessed to have found such an amazing doctor who has changed my life with her dedication to women who have endured more than their share of heartache, pain and emotional/physical anguish.

I will honestly tell you that the road to the ‘new normal’ after having breast cancer and multiple surgeries (10th breast cancer related surgery scheduled for December, but #14 in my life) with one more for 2013, is not an easy road to endure.  It’s a road full of pot holes, disappointments, pain and yet triumph as well.  It’s a road that is best when shared with others ~ easier to share with those of us who have traveled it or are traveling it with you.  It’s not for the faint of heart although I am still known to faint at the sight of a needle even after all of the needles I’ve endured over the years.

It’s no different than life for everyone else for we are all on this journey together.  None of us escape heartache, pain and sorrow.  Perhaps you’ve not had breast cancer, but you’ve been shouldering an illness, abuse, depression, a different type of cancer or some other difficulty.  It may not be the same, but the choice is ~ you can endure it and keep taking baby steps forward or you can allow it to rule your life and not move forward.

It’s your choice my friends.  What I’ve learned though is that it’s a choice that I make everyday. 

I can choose to allow my situation bring me down and epitomize the victim role/attitude by feeling sorry for myself, by crawling inside and not taking the helping hands which are offered to me.  Or I can choose to rise from it and shine like a star!  I can use my experiences (there are many beyond breast cancer but that’s for another day) to help others, to be kind, to be understanding, to have patience…to help, to support and to guide by what I know and have gleamed from my own life.

Learning to love your own body is a lesson we all need to learn, breast cancer or not! 

Learning to love yourself for me is a life-long process.

As I thought about my post yesterday, I realized that I have old tapes playing in my head of not being enough and perhaps that’s why I’ve been having such a terrible time lately ~ and perhaps that’s why Dr. Phil and Oprah’s magazine struck such a chord in me yesterday.  My inner voice, you know, that inner strength broke free yesterday from the bonds that I’d imposed on it.  Today I feel freer, I feel more like the girl I love to be ~ the one that may give you TMI (Too Much Information), but will do so willingly if it helps even one other person because that’s my goal here on my blog.

If I can touch just one of you, help one other person to feel that they are not alone, that yes, I have experienced the same as you and I am still here…inspire you to keep taking baby steps…then I feel like I am living according to my divine purpose.  Because that’s why we are all here ~ to help each other on this journey of life.  Helping hands can be found everywhere.  We all have a story to tell…it’s up to you how you write your story!

Breasts or not, I am still a woman who can say she is blessed to have seen the darkness of life and has chosen to search for the light and found it! 

You can’t appreciate the stars if you’ve never endured the darkness! 

Shine on my friends!  Shine on!

xo

Storm’s a brewin’

Lightning, Thunder, Stormy Seas…

The last few days I’ve been suffering from a migraine which usually means the barometer is changing and it has been.  We’ve been having some thunderstorms, rain, sun and unusual weather.  As I sit here writing this post, it’s intermittently been raining cats and dogs one minute, with thunderous clouds and loud, rolling thunder and then suddenly the sky switches to bright sunshine with the quiet roll of thunder in the background.  In fact, I feel like it’s like me these days…sunshine with a touch of raincloud followed by a bit of thunder.

But I digress because I wanted to post about change and how difficult it can be on the body, the mind and others around us.  I think this is where my inner and outer thunderclouds have originated.  I’m on a changing cycle I think and it’s a bit stormy here for me as I go through the changes.  I’m a bit daunted to be honest by the unknown ahead, but having delved into the unknown before, I am shoring up my courage to keep taking baby steps.

The outer thunder is just the careless roar of others which I can deal with although I’d prefer calm, sun-filled moments.  But that’s ok for me.  I’ve been through far worse.  The inner thunder is more treacherous to me and having experienced it before, it leaves me a little shaky these days.  Nothing like a touch of the unknown to scare me a bit.

I remember when I was first diagnosed, I was afraid to cry.  Imagine being afraid to cry!?  But I was afraid that if I started to cry, I’d never stop.  Now I know that sounds silly, but to me, it was perfectly logical.  I was unable to mourn the loss of my breasts because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop crying about it.  So I held the pain inside until I almost burst.  Then a very dear friend told me not to be afraid to cry because eventually I’d stop…and those simple words, ‘eventually you’ll stop’ made all the difference in the world to me.  And the shift happened.

I cried for the loss of my breasts, for the time I spent in chemo, radiation, in hospitals, alone…I cried for the time I worried that I wouldn’t see my boys become teenagers.  I cried through sad movies, silly commercials and any true life story article or movie or book I could put my hands on.  It was like I needed that reason to cry and not the reason that I had in my own life and heart.  But through allowing those tears to escape me, I felt the weight of the sadness lifting from my soul and my heart.  It was when I allowed myself to cry, I was able to heal my heart and begin to take baby steps again.

It’s been a busy 8 weeks since my Dad passed and I’ve not had a lot of time to mourn the loss.  I know all about the grieving process having endured it when I had breast cancer 10 years ago.  I’ve been moving along through the 7 steps, only to stagger now.  But in the thundercloud where I am presently, it’s only fitting that a storm’s a brewin’ because I think many changes have occurred in the last 8 weeks of my life…and I just have to keep my thoughts on the prize of a sparkling rainbow!

Cheers to fears, tears and thunderclouds…

for they make the Rainbows that much sweeter!

xo

A Series of Miracles…

Life is a Series of Thousands of Tiny Miracles ~ Mike G.

I have been on an incredible journey the last 2 weeks which without sharing too much, I will tell you that I am having an amazing surgery on May 9th in NYC which is going to be executed by 2 pioneers of this procedure which will change my life forever, for the better.  To tell you that I am so very grateful for the journey that has easily led me here is an understatement.  I have repeatedly cried tears of gratitude over the past 2 weeks as I am so very blessed to be given this rare opportunity to change my life and my body for the better.

As a breast cancer survivor, I have endured many surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation.  In the past 10 years alone, I have endured 6 surgeries.  I have lived with a numbing pain that never leaves me and is such a part of my life that quite honestly, I can’t remember what it’s like to not be in pain.  To have the gift of the opportunity to remove the implants which have plagued me for 10 years and are causing me increased pain and complications even after having them already replaced once to no avail is such a blessing to me that it makes me tear up even as I write this to you.

I couldn’t have orchestrated the timing, the help, the benevolence, the serendipity of all of the amazing coincidences which seems to miraculously appear and make my life and my decision easier.  I know that I am meant to have this surgery right now as all the planning in the world couldn’t have lined up my stars, my appointments, my angelic helpers and the blessings that have rained down on me like cherry blossom petals in the wind.

I have all that I need for this long surgery and recovery ahead.  Strangers have helped me in inexplicable ways and doors have opened for me faster than I could have exclaimed ‘open sesame’ which I just continue to find so amazing.   I just keep going with the flow and I’m not worrying!

So, my post today is to tell you to keep believing, keep hoping, keep praying,

keep manifesting and keep your faith.

Because my story is living proof that there are a series of miracles out there ~

waiting for you when you’re ready.

And you’ll find that you are incredulously calm when it happens…

a peace overcomes you and you just know.

May All be right in your world today too!

Happy Sunday to you all.

xo

I saw this quote on Facebook and copied it as a card.  Unfortunately, I can’t remember from what site I found it and I can’t make out Mike’s last name which is the reason for the G., but I am hoping  Mike won’t mind. 🙂