Living the Path

There is a question that appears, often quietly and without announcement, somewhere in the middle of the cancer experience. It might surface during treatment, or in the strange liminal period after treatment ends, or much later — during an ordinary Friday when nothing in particular is happening. The question is not about survival, or recovery, or what comes next medically. It is more unsettling than that. Who am I now? It is a question that most people do not say out loud

There is a phrase most of us absorbed early in life — handed down through clinics, schools, and health campaigns: that health is the absence of disease. No diagnosis, no symptoms, no problem. I believed that, too. Until cancer came three times, and I was forced to ask a question that changed everything: what if health is something else entirely? Yesterday was World Health Day. The headlines were filled with statistics, systems, and calls to action. All of it important. None

There is a moment, somewhere in the middle of a perfectly ordinary Tuesday, when it arrives. You might be making coffee, or sitting in a meeting, or laughing at something your child said. And then — almost without invitation — the thought surfaces: What if it comes back? For many people who have been through cancer, this is the fear that does not leave with the tumour. It does not get discharged from hospital when you do. It does not dissolve with a clear scan result, though

There is a particular silence that falls in the weeks after treatment ends. The appointments thin out. The nurses who knew your name stop seeing you every week. The schedule that organised your existence — scan dates, infusion times, blood counts — loosens its grip. And slowly, people around you begin to exhale. They say: you made it. They say: now you can get back to your life. And you stand there, in the middle of that relief, wondering why it doesn’t feel the way they said

There is a particular kind of helplessness that settles in after a diagnosis. Not the fear — that comes later, or sometimes all at once — but something quieter. A subtle, persistent feeling that you no longer fully belong to yourself. Your body, which has always been yours, suddenly becomes part of a system. Appointments. Protocols. Waiting rooms. Machines. Conversations you didn’t expect to have. And in the middle of that, something very human arises: I want to do something.

There is a moment, somewhere between diagnosis and the start of treatment, when you find yourself staring at a word you have never had to think about before. For many people right now, that word is immunotherapy. You hear it in the oncologist's office. You read it on your paperwork. You Google it at midnight when the house is quiet and you are trying to make sense of what is happening inside your body. And the explanations you find are often written for a scientific journal,

There is a moment — if you have been through cancer — when the weight of everything you are carrying becomes impossible to ignore. Not the physical weight, though that is real too. I mean the other kind. The stories you repeat about what your body did to you. The protocols you added, and the guilt when you did not follow them. The identity you built around being a fighter, a warrior, a survivor — as though those words were armour rather than just words. The worry about the fu

You are waiting to feel ready. Waiting to feel healed enough, strong enough, clear enough. Waiting for the fog to lift, the treatment to end, the scan to come back clean — and then, finally, you will begin living the life you can feel at the edges of everything. I know this waiting. I have lived inside it. I was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma three times. And each time — each time — I believed there was a version of my life waiting for me on the other side of the illness. A

Something Has Been Living in Your Body You said you were tired. You said it was the treatment, the sleepless nights, the relentlessness of appointments and decisions and trying to hold everything together. You might even have said: "I think I'm anxious." But what if what you're actually carrying is grief? Not grief in the theatrical sense — not weeping at a graveside. But the quieter kind. A heaviness behind the sternum. A jaw that won't fully unclench. A fog that settles ove

There is a moment — and if you've been through cancer, you may know it — when the research tabs multiply, the second opinions are booked, the supplement protocols are printed and colour-coded, and somewhere underneath all of it, behind the discipline and the diligence and the doing, lives something you haven't yet named. Fear. Not the raw, visceral fear that hits you at 2am. That fear, at least, is honest. This one is quieter. More sophisticated. This fear has dressed itself

There are moments during cancer treatment when the mind races ahead — to the next scan, the next infusion, the next piece of news. Fear moves faster than the body can keep up. And in those moments, something as simple as closing your eyes and following a gentle inner journey can become one of the most powerful things you do for your healing. Guided visualization for cancer healing is a meditation practice that uses the mind's natural ability to create vivid inner experiences

When you receive a cancer diagnosis, the mind races ahead — into fear, worst-case scenarios, and questions without answers. The future feels threatening. The past becomes a longing. And the present moment — the only place where life is actually happening — can feel impossible to inhabit. This is where mindfulness comes in. Not as a cure. Not as a spiritual bypass. But as a gentle anchor back to now. Mindfulness during cancer treatment is the practice of paying attention to yo

During chemotherapy, your body is doing something extraordinary. It is fighting — on multiple fronts — and the treatment itself, while necessary and powerful, places immense demands on your cells, your immune system, and your energy reserves. One of the most common questions I hear from clients going through holistic cancer coaching is: what can I actually do to support my body right now? The answer is layered. Movement helps. Breathwork helps. Sleep matters enormously. And n

The word “scanxiety” may be relatively new, but the feeling it describes is ancient. When you are living with cancer, the approach of a scan can set off a wave of fear that overtakes your body and mind days — sometimes weeks — before the appointment itself. Your heart quickens. Sleep becomes elusive. Ordinary moments are interrupted by catastrophic thoughts. If this sounds familiar, you are not broken. You are human. You are also deeply deserving of support. This is where hol

There is a particular kind of silence that follows the words 'the cancer is back.' Different from the first diagnosis — heavier, perhaps, because you already know what lies ahead. The shock is coloured by memory. The fear is edged with something that feels like grief, not just for the future, but for the version of yourself who had started to believe it was over. If you are reading this in that silence — or supporting someone who is — I want you to know something first: this

The word 'remission' carries the weight of a thousand prayers. After months — or years — of chemotherapy, scans, waiting rooms, and sleepless nights, it arrives like an exhale you have been holding for so long you had almost forgotten how to breathe. And yet, for many people walking this path, what follows is not simply relief. It is fear. A quiet, unsettling, deeply confusing fear that nobody warned them about. If you have reached remission and found yourself wondering why y

The moment you are told you have cancer, the world shifts. Time seems to slow and speed up at once. You are handed a stack of leaflets, a follow-up date, and a wave of information that is almost impossible to hold. Then — before you have had a moment to breathe — you are sitting across from your oncologist, and the appointment has begun. This is one of the most important conversations of your life. And it is also one of the hardest to navigate, especially when fear, shock, an

The Moment Everything Changes The moment you hear the words 'you have cancer,' time seems to stop. One moment you were an ordinary person with ordinary concerns — appointments, groceries, the small familiar rhythms of a normal day. And then, in the space of a single sentence, everything changed. This shock is not weakness. It is the nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do when faced with something it has never encountered before: it freezes, floods, and overwh

The moment you hear the words — "it's cancer" — something shifts. The world becomes both too loud and strangely quiet all at once. Your mind races through a thousand futures, none of which feel certain. Your body braces. Your heart does something it has never quite done before. If you have just received a diagnosis, or if you are supporting someone who has, this post is for you. These are not instructions. They are not a protocol. They are an invitation — to slow down, to bre

One of the things people rarely talk about after cancer treatment is what happens when the treatment ends . When you finally hear the word remission , you might expect relief to take over completely. You imagine life going back to normal. You imagine leaving the fear behind. But for many people, something else happens. A new fear appears. The fear of cancer coming back . This fear is incredibly common among cancer survivors. In fact, many people experience it daily, especiall