Sharing the Sacred Stories of Strength Workshop with the incredible Beauties at the Living Beauty Foundation Retreat was a privilege and enlightening. I learned from the courageous women that a cancer diagnosis is just the beginning of a long journey through treatment, recovery, and then after, monitoring. The ‘after’ is always there.
In preparation for my workshop, one of my dearest friends who in 2020 received a cancer diagnosis, got on the phone with me. She is straightforward and honest about her experience. In this manner, she told me, “One day you are reading the statistics, then the next day you are a statistic.”. You become part of a group that you would have rather not joined. You have a subscription that is impossible to cancel.
Questions about identity, transcending one’s circumstances, and being seen became the workshop’s framework. As a facilitator, the magic moments are when participants begin to share, to name their truths, and allow themselves to say out loud what may have been undiscovered or kept hidden. Workshops are a work in progress, flexibility is a must. We are co-creating.
Keeping in mind the privacy and confidentiality of the Beauties, I can share the clear themes of the day. These are women who are brave and resilient. These are women whose lives have been forever changed. They are facing their mortality as they continue to love, laugh, mourn, and fight because as one Beauty said, “Life is too short.”
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