If you missed Part 1 and 2 of this blog, you can catch up: Part 1 HERE Part 2 HERE _______________________ Hard Truth 4 Dear Diary… 19 August 2014 “When I’m happy, I seem to be REALLY happy, because to me these little moments of bliss are wondrous. I smile bigger and nearly feel like I could bounce around. It’s ecstasy. Because when I feel good, it’s an absolute blessing. I have now felt rock bottom, so I see a whole new happiness and embracement of life that I didn’t see before.” *Hard Truth:  The Little things are the big things. We’ve all heard the saying, “It’s the little things”, however, don’t just say it because you’ve heard it and you know what it means…  Often sayings like these are thrown about and not given any conscious thought – You need to truly FEEL it, you need to recognise these little moments of bliss that come to us daily.  These moments truly are what magic’s made of. Reflection 1 (after first cancer):  I think I …

If you missed Part 1 of this blog, you can read it HERE Hard Truth 2 Dear Diary… 6 August 2014  (After my first chemo) “I had been building on the mindset with regard to the drugs (chemo)… Poison or cure? The more I thought of poison the more negativity and anger pent up inside me, making me anxious and not ready! Not ready for what??? I want and need to be here, I love and appreciate my life, I need to fight and to do that I NEED chemotherapy!” *Hard Truth: Accept what is.  Accept what you cannot change.  [Rise to adversity and maneuver your way through the ‘detour’ until you find a new road]. Save your energy in fighting against what you cannot change.  Accept and adapt to whatever adversity has thrown you off course. I believe before my diagnosis I spent way too much time fighting against things that could not be changed.  I can also tell you first hand, that this causes unnecessary stress and illness. Reflection 1 (after first cancer):  whilst you …

I wrote the initial blog ‘5 hard truths’ two years ago (based on diary entries from 2014).  Fast forward to 2018, I’ve since faced another breast cancer diagnosis in June of this year.  Over the past month I’ve had a chance to review and reflect on previous material from my blog. It’s through the reflection of these ‘Hard Truths’ that brought tears to my eyes… Three-fold: Firstly, it’s re-living that raw pain through the words of my diary entries and vividly remembering how I once felt (some of those entries, still break my heart). Secondly, the reflection is with gratitude… I’m so freaking proud of how far I have come and how I’ve learnt to deal with fear and uncertainty. And finally, I appreciate how these truths are still relevant to me, to you; to anyone, and these ‘truths’ I extracted from my experiences are timeless, universal lessons with relevance to any situation. Furthermore, ‘5 Hard Truths’ was born through my experience of pain, suffering and indescribable fear – it’s through my real life experience …