Healing while going through illness

A year ago, when I was told I had breast cancer, my first reaction wasn’t fear. It was, “Not more flipping healing… I thought I’d done enough!”
Those were my exact words to the doctor and the nurse. They looked surprised, but inside I already knew what I needed to do.

This past year has shown me something I think more of us need to hear:
you don’t have to wait for everything to be sorted, fixed, or tied up neatly before you start finding your way forward again.

I’m still healing, on every level level.  I still have emotions sitting in my chest. I still have days when I doubt myself or feel lost. But at the same time, I can feel myself rising — not in a dramatic way, but in small, steady shifts. Little moments where I choose myself. Little moments where I breathe, soften, listen, or simply carry on.

Life doesn’t pause so we can heal.
We learn to heal inside the mess, not outside of it.

And sometimes, that’s where the real strength begins.

Strength in everyday life

Strength looks different for each of us, and we need to make peace with that. Too often we carry these old ideas of how we “should” be, what we “should” be doing, and the way we “should” do it - usually shaped by the people who came before us, the ones who told us who we had to be.

But we all have so many strengths inside us already. It’s our job to find them, because no one else can do that part for us. Yes, others can guide us, teach us, support us… but the discovering? That’s ours.

Most of the time, we don’t even realise how strong or resilient we are until life hands us something difficult. It’s often in those messy, uncomfortable moments that our true strength shows itself. And even when things feel overwhelming, we can still keep going. Life doesn’t have to stop while we “do the work”.

And we’re not alone in this. So many people walk through their days - work, the school run, the supermarket - carrying their own quiet battles. Sometimes they smile through it, not because pretending is the answer, but because healing and continuing with life is actually possible.

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.” — Bob Marley