“If everything around seems dark, look again, you may be the light” -RUMI
My coaching story
This is a story about embracing the light as well as the darkness, because only when we learn to feel comfortable with both, we will be able to discover our greatest self.
My story starts in September 2019, after a year and a half of denial and not wanting to face my greatest fears, I finally listened to my mom’s nagging and begging voice, asking me to act. I decide to face what has scared me the most for about 20 years.
I am at the doctor’s office, and she is very nice and reassuring, she tells me that it is probably nothing serious, but she sends me immediately for further examinations at the hospital. 2 days later I am getting all kinds of tests and they confirm the diagnosis: I have cancer, my most feared nightmare has become a reality.
The time stops and I am floating like in a bubble, I remain there calm, because it doesn’t come as a surprise. All my fears and avoidance were part of me since a long time ago. For a moment, I am sitting there, and my thoughts bring me back to 20 years earlier, when my fears started, my mom also had breast cancer and the story is repeating again.
At this point, I am still in denial, the next day I want to go back to work as I have many “important” things that I must complete, the sense of duty is still there in me. I go to work during the day and cry myself dry when I am back home at nights. I am trying to forget, I feel nostalgic, scared and at this point I think of my children and family and start visualizing all kinds of terrible scenarios and what ifs.
I try to hide my emotions and the next days I found myself at the hospital, running all types of tests, thinking to myself: I am scared,but I am getting the tumour out of my body, I am getting an operation and I will get back to work and get my life back in 3 months tops!
How mistaken I was back then!!!
When I look back, in retrospection, I didn’t know back then that this was the beginning of my journey of transformation, the journey that brought me to where I am now.
Back then, I didn’t know that it wouldn’t be 3 months, that the tumour was more aggressive than what they originally thought and that I had to go not only through an operation to remove the tumour, but also lymph’s had to be taken out, reducing back then the mobility of my arm, I also went through a serious of radiation therapy and what I feared the most chemotherapy.
Going through chemo has been one of the toughest things I have experienced in life. I lost my hair, I lost my eyebrows, I lost mystrength, and I lost the complete image of who I thought I was. I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore. My body at some point became so weak that I had difficulties to stand up from my bed and walk 3 steps. But it was during this very dark period, that I started to realize that my old self wasn’t really me. I discovered that I was not my job, nor my physical body, nor my appearance, I was not the professional, super sporty and competitive woman I used to be. That was not me.
At some point, when I was not that “old “me” anymore and I could barely move my body and I was under a lot of pain, I would then look at my inner self for strength. In this very dark place that I fell into, I could see a little light in me. I could feel how, even when my body wasn’t what it used to be, I was still able to listen to music and it felt as if my soul was still dancing, and I felt happy from within.
Connecting with this inner self, made me feel less lonely, made me feel connected to something even greater than me and allowed me to accept any outcome.
After so many realizations connecting with my inner self, I understood I couldn’t go back to my old self, I didn’t want to go back. That’s how my journey with coaching started and it has been even more than what I could dream of. It opened doors to my inner powers through getting to know my values and reconnecting to my life purpose, it helped me shift perspectives and be more flexible and it also allowed me to go deeper into my emotions.
When I think of myself in 20- or 30-years’ time, I envision a bright future where this inner light I discovered, continues to guide me every day. I see myself at the end of my life, surrounded by my children and grandchildren and they see me as this courageous woman who shared this innerlight with others and helped them find this inner light in themselves.
