Ep. 100: Rising Above-Transformation Through Writing w/ BC Sisters - Gillian, Melissa, Sarah, and April

For our 100th episode, we explore how storytelling helps us reclaim body, mind, and spirit after cancer. Gillian Lichota, April Stearns, Melissa Andersen, and Sarah Zsak share how writing transforms fear into agency, supports embodiment, and creates space for healing and connection.

Featured book: Rising Above: Our Transformational Journey to Wholeness After Breast Cancer

Gillian Lichota – Founder/CEO of iRise Above Foundation, breast cancer thriver, adventure traveler, and lead author of Rising Above

April Stearns – Founder/Editor of Wildfire Magazine; breast cancer survivor guiding expressive writing workshops.
editor@wildfirecommunity.org

IG: @wildfire_bc_magazine
FB: facebook.com/wildfirecommunity

Melissa Andersen – Former teacher turned nonprofit advocate; HER2+ survivor focused on healing, nature, & creativity.
Substack: @melandersen
IG: @ms_happyturtle
FB: Melissa Andersen

Sarah Zsak – Speech-language pathologist, mom of four, Peace Corps alum, and Stage III survivor centered in faith, connection & hope. 

Resources

Personal Ink (P.ink Day): https://p-ink.org/p-ink-days/

ACS: Breast Cancer Facts & Figures:
https://www.cancer.org/

Ohio State article on early signs of breast cancer:
https://cancer.osu.edu/news/most-breast-cancers-dont-start-with-a-noticeable-lump

Hopkins Reconstruction Surgeons:
Dr. Lily Mundy – https://profiles.hopkinsmedicine.org/provider/lily-mundy/2700651

Dr. Nima Khavanin – https://profiles.hopkinsmedicine.org/provider/nima-khavanin/3052769

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Mission Of The Show
• 1:25 100th Episode And Theme Reveal
• 2:39 Introducing Gillian And The Anthology
• 4:25 The Power Of Giving Voice
• 7:20 Meet April: Motherhood And Cycles
• 10:30 April On Breaking Generational Patterns
• 16:35 Meet Melissa: Embodiment And Anger
• 19:30 Tattoos, Grief, And Reclaiming The Body
• 24:22 Meet Sarah: Faith, Family, And Time
• 27:10 Holding Faith And Fear Together
• 31:15 Gillian’s Reflection On Transformation
• 36:05 What Rising Above Means Now
• 41:45 One Truth For The Newly Diagnosed
• 46:00 Writing As Medicine: How To Start

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:00

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Test Those Breast Podcast. I am your host, Jamie Vaughn. I'm a retired teacher of 20 years and a breast cancer thriver, turned staunch, unapologetic, loud supporter, and advocate for others, bringing education and awareness through a myriad of medical experts, therapists, caregivers, and other survivors. A breast cancer diagnosis is incredibly overwhelming with the mounds of information out there, especially on Dr. Google. I get it. I'm not a doctor, and I know how important it is to uncover accurate information, which is my ongoing mission through my nonprofit. The podcast includes personal stories and opinions from breast cancer survivors and professional physicians, providing the most up-to-date information at the time of recording. Evidence, research, and practices are always changing, so please check the date of the recording and always refer to your medical professionals for the most up-to-date information. I hope you find this podcast a source of inspiration and support from my guests. Their contact information is in the show notes, so please feel free to reach out to them. We have an enormous breast cancer community ready to support you in so many ways. Now let's listen to the next episode of Test Those Breaths. Well, welcome back, friends, to this episode of Test Those Breaths. I am your host, Jamie Vaughn, and today I am so excited to tell you that this is the 100th episode of this podcast. It is a milestone that means so much to me. But started as a way to make sense of my own experience has become a space for connection, truth telling, and healing. A place where stories remind us that we are never alone in what we carry. Today's episode is called Turning Fear into Freedom: How Storytelling Heals the Body, Mind, and Spirit. The conversation isn't just about surviving cancer. It's about rising emotionally, spiritually, and creatively. It's about what happens when we give voice to what we once silenced and how storytelling becomes medicine for the body, mind, and soul. Each woman you will hear from today embodies a different dimension of transformation through writing, identity and motherhood through April, resilience and embodiment through Melissa, and faith and surrender through Sarah. Today, together, they show us that healing isn't about returning to who we were, it's about becoming who we were meant to be. Before we meet them, I am so honored to welcome someone very special to me, Gillian Lachoda. Gillian is the founder of the I Rise Above Foundation and the lead author of Rising Above, Our Transformational Journey to Wholeness After Breast Cancer. I originally met Gillian a couple of years ago, and since then we've become close friends, connected by a shared understanding of what it means to rise through the pain and rebuild the with purpose. She's been on this podcast before, and last April I had the privilege of traveling with her and other survivors to Peru through her foundation's healing retreats, experiences that are as spiritual as they are transformative. Jillian's work creates sacred spaces where women can feel seen, supported, and whole again. She reminds us that healing isn't about burying our pain, but about transforming it, giving it shape, giving it purpose, giving it voice. Jillian, it is such an honor to have you back on my show. You and I have had so many conversations in the past, and I'm so excited that you're the lead author in this book. And I just welcome you. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02: 3:50

Hi, Jamie. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me back. I'm super excited to be returning with my co-authors on this anthology project to talk about, you know, the experience and the contents of the book and the impact.

SPEAKER_04: 4:07

That's awesome. Um I I just want to let you know that I had such a good time reading each story because I feel that in every single story that we can resonate with it. Um so thank you with that. I am gonna start out with asking you this question. What happens when we give voice to what we what we once silenced? And how can storytelling help us reclaim power over our bodies and our lives? I know that's powerful. That's a huge question.

SPEAKER_02: 4:38

Yeah, yeah, that's a big one. Well, I really think that, you know, when we give voice to what we once silenced, something really profound happens. At least it did for me, and I know it did for my fellow co-authors in this anthology. Um, the shame begins to dissolve and the isolation, I like to think, starts to soften. Um and storytelling transforms the body from a place of fear into more of a best, uh, sorry, a vessel for truth. And it allows us to reclaim our agency to become the authors of our own story, not just in the characters living through a breast cancer diagnosis. So, I mean, every time one of us speaks our truth out loud, I think we give each other permission, other women to do the same. And that's the ripple effect, I think, of courage. It turns, you know, pain into purpose and wounds into wisdom. And through storytelling, we reconnect with our bodies, our communities, and certainly for me, my inner strength. And we begin we begin to rewrite that narrative that was handed to us, um, shifting from mere survival to a deeper, a deeper becoming. And I know for myself, you know, the survival for me was in my story was like from birth. And what breast cancer did was just kind of rip, rip that wound, that, you know, scab off and expose the wound that I really had to address. So, because in the end, you know, I think storytelling isn't just expression. I think of it as liberation. It's how we remember who we are and how we rise after something like a breast cancer diagnosis.

SPEAKER_04: 6:28

Yeah, that's very powerful. And I've read your story before. You do have a powerful story and you've just sort of come full circle and you have been allowed to amplify other people's stories. And I really resonate with this storytelling because that and writing for you for you all, um, that is why I started the podcast in the first place, was to be able to amplify voices and to help people understand that they are not alone. And there are so many things that we can connect with. So thank you for that. Well, I would love to bring on our first co-author, April Stearns. We are talking about how illness does not just change a body, it reveals the stories that we're living there all along. I am so grateful to be joined by April Stearns, founder and editor-in-chief of Wildfire Fire Journal and Writing Community and author of the essay Forged in the Fire on Illness, Motherhood, and Becoming a First Generation Cycle Breaker. In her piece, April brings us into the moment her four-year-old daughter sees her after surgery into that hot and into that hot tub scene where a little girl is staring at her mother who has come home without a breast and into the fear that their bond might fracture the way her own bond with her mother did. From there, she traces a much bigger story, healing from generational trauma, learning that rest does not have to be abandonment, and discovering that strength is not pretending you are fine. It is letting yourself be a human in front of your child and still choosing connection. April shows us how cancer can be both fire and forge, how it can threaten to repeat old patterns and also become the place where a mother decides this cycle stops with me. April, thank you for being here. It's so great to have you. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01: 8:22

Hi, Jamie. I'm doing great. Thanks for that intro. It's it's nice to hear our stories kind of reflected back at us. So thanks for that.

SPEAKER_04: 8:30

Yeah, and I love that. And I get your Wildfire magazine, thanks to Jillian each month. I actually just saw something in my mailbox that one's on the way. So I'm excited about that. Well, I have a question for you. How did cancer become a mirror, not just for your body's changes, but for the relationship with your mother and your daughter?

SPEAKER_01: 8:53

I love this question. So, yeah, my essay chapter in the book is all about this reckoning that happened kind of 13 years after my diagnosis. In the writing of it, I'm back there with my daughter. Like you said, she was four when we were going through this, three when I was diagnosed, and then turning four. Um, but writing this really put me back to being a child and experiencing that original illness scenario with my own mother. She had a pretty severe, I guess for her, maybe for anyone, um, personality disorder. And the way that that manifested in our house was we all walked on eggshells around her. That illness was the center and we all orbited around it. I can distinctly remember standing outside my front door after getting off the school bus, kind of listening to see is it a good day, is it a bad day? And there was there was so much fear and pain in my childhood that I ultimately wasn't sure that I was going to be a mom at all. And so in the chapter, I wrote about how I finally came to that decision after my mom passed away. And it wasn't arrived at easily because I was scared that I might either become my mom, you know, myself, or maybe give birth to her. That was very terrifying for me. I didn't know how to handle any of that. I hadn't really learned a lot of coping skills growing up beyond just white knuckling it and just surviving it. And so then I reached that decision, had my daughter, and then cancer came. And I was sure that cancer was going to put me back into that position of becoming my mom. And that was really scary to me. Even more scary to me than my mortality was what that cancer was going to do to my daughter. Was she now going to have that same experience of tiptoeing through the house? The cancer would be the thing, you know, that was ruling everything. And it was really interesting through the writing process. And truly, I learned so much in writing it that I thought I had already healed. But I realized in writing it that my mom had a choice. And she didn't have a choice of having that personality disorder. She didn't have a choice of any of that. Same as me. I didn't choose cancer, but she did have a choice of how it became centered in our family. And I realized through writing it how much I had worked to not let cancer be the thing, you know, in our family with my daughter. We regularly took adventures from Cancer Land where we did other stuff and only talked about it if she wanted to talk about it. You know, I did a lot of work to have things in place to make the days that I spent in chemo easier for her. And then I wrote about trying to make this experience of my massectomy easier for her, too. I can tell you that is the cycle breaking. Like my mom didn't do any of that, or at least it wasn't apparent to me that she did any of that. Rather, it just was her disappearing from me, her withdrawing from me, taking her love away from me, everything in service of her illness. And yeah, it was hard to come face to face with that, to see that in that mirror of writing the chapter, but extremely healing for me as well and gratifying to see how far I had come.

SPEAKER_04: 12:46

Yeah. You seem to be a very introspective type person. I have quite a few friends in my circle who have had those kinds of experiences where they have been the cycle breaker. So kudos to you. That's amazing. I really appreciate your sharing that. And your piece is extremely powerful. And I highly recommend people to read that. Well, thank you very much. And my next guest is Melissa Anderson. And in this segment, we're talking about reclaiming the body, not in the in a neat inspirational way, but in a real messy, deeply human way. It actually happens. I'm so grateful, Melissa, that you are joining us. Your essay is Becoming the Soil the Seeds Need, traces your journey through breast cancer, prairie fires, chronic pain, and the strange, tender work of learning to live in a changed body. Melissa takes us from the biopsy room to the chemochair to standing topless in front of a mirror the night before her mastectomies, and finally to the tattoo studio, where her scarred chest becomes a swallowtail butterfly among zinnias. Along the way, she discovers that anger and grief aren't weaknesses. They're proof she's still alive. Melissa doesn't sugarcoat survival. She shows up how beauty, she shows us how beauty and pain can live in the same breath and what it really means to reclaim your body and your humanity at the same time. Wow, I resonate with that, Melissa.

SPEAKER_03: 14:22

How are you doing? I'm doing very well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 14:26

Good. I'm I I really would love to see that uh tattoo. I actually got myself a big tattoo on the back of my neck for similar purposes.

SPEAKER_03: 14:35

Anyway, so I mean, I haven't like it probably peeks out a little if you're on the yeah, you can see it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do it. Hello.

SPEAKER_04: 14:44

I I love that. Yep. I thank you for showing that. The question I want to ask you is when you think about reclaiming your body through that tattoo, through surgeries and through writing and ritual, what has it taught you about being fully alive and fully human?

SPEAKER_03: 15:02

Yeah, well, thank you. That's a great question. Um there's there's a lot to unpack in that question. I think for me, for much of my life, I just I ignored the messages my body was trying to send me. Um, I think I often just sort of tried to live in my head and not fully in my body, um, and not understanding that, you know, my body is trying to tell me things. And if it was, I kind of wrote it off as like I'm being too sensitive or, you know, I have to kind of buck up, right? Like growing up in a culture that really seemed to celebrate grit and resilience in a way that is, you know, not showing hard emotions. You know, I talk about how I'm a first generation college student, and for me, that meant working really hard to try to be successful in a landscape that didn't feel like it was made for me a lot of the time. And so I didn't allow myself hard emotions. I sort of, anytime they came up, I stuffed them down because I wanted to make sure that I could be successful, you know, and so I worked really hard. Um, and you know, you can read in my chapter, I burned out as an educator because I had very I had poor boundaries and um wasn't able to really show up for myself in the way that I needed to. And I certainly didn't pay attention to you know how things showed up in my body, and I became this victim of chronic stress after a while. And in the last few years, I've done quite a bit of work somatically to try to like connect with my body in different ways and honor this vessel that we're given. And I've learned a lot about how our bodies store unresolved trauma, right? And for me, breast cancer was the thing that sort of broke it all open for me. You know, it forced me to confront things about my body and the the anger that I had with my body that I didn't really realize that I actually had for a long time, and I had to had to overcome some of that because when I faced breast cancer, it was it was during 2020. I was diagnosed with breast cancer the same week that the entire world went into the COVID lockdown, right? So we were all in this collective crisis together. Um, meanwhile, I had just gone through a career transition, so I was trying to find my way there. Um George Floyd is murdered, you know, several miles from my home. So our my collective community that I live in was grieving that. And so there was just there was so many things all at once, right? And then I'm going through chemo and I'm super sick and and all that, and I'm isolated because I'm sick, right? Um, so I was I was very angry. I I just was carrying a lot of anger and um for me, the things that I that I've had to do, you know, to try to face some of that, um, has really helped me recognize the the various lessons our bodies are holding and trying to to teach us. It's it's been figuring out how to connect with my body and really allow myself some grace. Um and the writing and the tattoo and and all of those pieces have been little steps along the way that have helped me explore those things. Um you know, it forced, you know, writing this chapter forced me to sit and unpack some of that hard stuff. And there's, you know, a lot I didn't even include in the chapter. So, but it was really healing for me. And I recognize that, you know, that existence of joy and pain together, right? How they can sit side by side in the same moment, um, and that complexity is something that we all have to navigate.

SPEAKER_04: 18:59

Right. I was just gonna say, it seems like we all have to navigate that. Um, it's just such a common theme about forgiveness and being angry and giving ourselves grace. I definitely resonate with that as well. Um, thank you for sharing that, Melissa. I appreciate that. And I love your tattoo. I'll have to show you mine sometime. It's on the back of my neck, so I don't get to see it, but I got it done in Costa Rica. And that was a really cool, cool thing. I was gonna put it on my arm, but I then they were like, yeah, you've had lymph nodes removed. So no. So now I can't even see my own tattoo unless I'm looking at the back of my hair. Um, okay. Thank you for that, Melissa. So our next guest in this segment, we are exploring faith, family, and the sacred ordinary and what it means to live with both faith and fear in the same breath. I'm joined right now by Sarah Zach, a mother of four, a speech language pathologist, and the author of Time with My Babies. Her story takes us from the chaos of daily life, soccer fields, carpools, and church community into the stillness of diagnosis that changed everything. It me what it means, excuse me, through her words, we see what it means to fight for more time, to pray for another season with the people you love most, and to find holiness in the most ordinary moments, dinner tables, sunlight, through the pine branches, the small grace of getting to tuck your kids in again. Sarah's story reminds us that miracles often live in the mundane, and that surrender doesn't mean giving up. It means trusting that love is still the strongest force in the room. Sarah, hello, welcome, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00: 20:47

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_04: 20:50

Well, absolutely. Um, I have a question for you. This is kind of loaded as well. How do you hold faith and fear in the same breath? And what role has writing played in helping you live inside that paradox?

SPEAKER_00: 21:06

Well, I'm still kind of putting this together, so bear with me. But I guess to me, I don't see it as much as a paradox as maybe more of like a tutorial. You know, before breast cancer, I was, you know, nice, but not much of a helper person, if that makes sense. And, you know, I always thought I'd have time later to make it right. And I was pretty focused on career advancement. And um I would say that breast cancer jumped into my life, and then everything changed. And I was able to see just how fleeting life is, how quick, how you don't always have that time to make it right, you just kind of have now. And I feel like the breast cancer, you know, brought me to the edge of a cliff, you know, the cliff that we all have to let go of when our time is out, and allowed me to look over early. And it gave me some really good perspective. And I think the fear of leaving, and oh, I should say that the writing really helped me to kind of process that perspective and and really um get into the meat of it. But the fear of leaving my children early um grabbed my attention. You know, not being there to care for them like happens to so many people. And it put a spotlight on, you know, the true nature of life on earth, right? And I don't think I would have the depth of faith that I have now if it wasn't for that fear.

SPEAKER_04: 22:45

I like it. Interesting. You all have such different stories that it are so powerful, and I like that there are some similarities and some that are so different from each other that we can all kind of come together and create this wonderful platform of stories that will definitely resonate with other people. I highly recommend people get this book. We will have the link in the show notes so that people can grab on to that. Okay, so now we're gonna come back around to Gillian um to wrap this up. Gillian, I I want to talk to you about your reflection on the alchemy of becoming. Tell me what you love most about this collection.

SPEAKER_02: 23:33

Yeah, sure. So rising above our transformational journey to wholeness after breast cancer is what the title of the anthology is called. It brings together a collection of voices of young women whose lives were, you know, suddenly interrupted by breast cancer women who were building careers and falling in love and stepping into motherhood and discovering who they were. And this anthology goes beyond stories of survival, which I love so much. It goes so much deeper than just the breast cancer experience. It's what breast cancer has taught us how, you know, about moving forward and who we really are. It's about transformation and what happens when we turn toward our pain and use it as a like a doorway back to ourselves. And, you know, each chapter explores a different kind of healing, you know, through motherhood, through faith, through body, through voice. And these stories are raw and lyrical and deeply human. So there's something in this, in the pages of this book for everyone, not just breast cancer survivors. Um, there are a lot of lessons, and they show us that when we tell the truth of our experience, and through doing that, I believe we begin to heal, not just ourselves, but others who are also like walking similar paths. So together, these narratives form like what I kind of envision like a tapestry of this resilience and this incredible sisterhood that that we have within our young breast cancer community. And they remind us that um wholeness is still possible even after that rupture, which Melissa alluded to there. And at its heart, you know, the rising above anthology is like a sanctuary of voices. And, you know, we re need to remember that it's not just storytelling, it's raising awareness, and that awareness is, you know, saving lives. So, you know, what I love most about this anthology is how each woman's story reveals a different facet of that healing. So, and together as that tapestry, you know, they form something whole. So with April's story, she reminds us that healing can be generational, that it's when we face our pain, we begin to break the cycle we inherited and mother ourselves back into wholeness. And I 100% related to um your story, April, and your experience um going into motherhood, because we, you know, um there's a lot of threads within April's story that remind me of my own experience. And Melissa shows us that healing is also embodied, that scars aren't symbols of what's been lost. They're evidence of, you know, what's been transformed, which to me is for me, my own experience is something really beautiful. I look at myself when I'm naked in front of the mirror, I no longer look like want to close, you know, hide my eyes to what I'm seeing. You know, it's a testament to what I've been through and what I've learned. And Sarah teaches us that healing can be sacred and that it's when we surrender into faith and presence, grace enters the room. And, you know, even just even just during the hardest moments. So for me, through the my own chapter, The Alchemy, Alchemy of Becoming, I've learned that healing is a continual process of dissolving what's false. I've told myself a whole lot of false narratives through my life, so that, you know, my, our truest light can emerge through all those cracks. So, you know, together, these stories show that rising above isn't about moving past what happened. It's about like integrating it. And it's about turning rupture into rebirth. And when we share our stories, we become mirrors to one another, which is what I love so much about this book. We remind each other that even after devastation, you know, beauty, purpose, and love are they're all still possible. And is to me, that's the alchemy of storytelling. It's turning like, you know, that pain into gold and that isolation into sisterhood and that survival into a deeper kind of life moving forward. Love it.

SPEAKER_04: 28:03

I love that so much. I was just talking to a friend of mine right before our interview, and I was telling her that this particular book is not just for breast cancer survivors. This is for survivors, just you know, with any kind of generational trauma, any, you know, deaths in the family, things that we've told ourselves. I tell, I tend to tell myself false things as well. And so it's it's always nice to talk to people who do the same thing. It's like, okay, we're not alone. We're not alone, right? So thank you so much, ladies, for being on the show. I have a couple of uh reflection questions that I want to ask uh for you to share with our audience. I would love, April, for you to share what does rising above mean to you now, now that you've written this piece and you know, have have uh shared your story.

SPEAKER_01: 28:55

Hmm, good question. I think it was said earlier in our um in our conversation, but I think I know now that for me, rising above the cancer experience means kind of remembering who I was at my core, which I didn't even know who she was really, you know, until I went through this experience of cancer, including the writing that I've done around it and writing this chapter. I so I think that rising above for me really means getting back in touch with who I am on the most deep level. And it means acceptance, you know, and and being okay with it, being kind of messy to figure all this stuff out. And knowing that, you know, to take a line from my own chapter, that that we are forged in the top. toughest fires and and we will become something on the other side. Just as as Jillian just said about alchemy, I I really resonate with that.

SPEAKER_04: 30:10

Yeah. Very powerful. Thank you. Sarah, what about you?

SPEAKER_00: 30:16

Yeah. I mean I think just to piggyback on that, the you know above meaning better than, like higher than you were before breast cancer, before whatever um, you know, metamorphosis you've been able to undergo because of breast cancer. So you know I learned a term called antifragile while I was sick. And I'm gonna, you know, word finding chemobrain, I'm gonna mess up the name, but I think it was Nassim Nicholas Taleb. You know, something thereabouts. He coined this phrase which is basically like next level resilience. So it's like not just returning to what was but seeing the opportunity that's possible because of that disruption, which I found really meaningful and I've found a lot of meaning in sort of the old wisdom, old sayings, you know, like you can't take it with you living on borrowed time. Like those are timeless for a reason. And you know I came to the conclusion I'm way definitely far from perfect. But I've come to the conclusion that the only thing that really matters is at the end at the end of the day is just love and relationships and the kindness that we show each other. That's it. That's all you can take with you. So with you know I'm trying to be my own version of above where I was and making tiny steps. You know I go frequently still to Baltimore Johns Hopkins Hospital and along the route there are unfortunately you know often people that are very down on their luck. And I at the beginning I didn't do this but I've started this is small but I've started bringing a box of kind bars and I hand them out when I can be close enough to someone. And you know we just had at the end of the soft all the sports seasons for kids just end it. And we have a um a softball coach two coaches who've been season after season really working hard and just somehow we just always missed getting them a gift. And so this time I said why don't we collect a gift? And we had$400 for two gift cards. And it was nice to be able to facilitate something like that. And you know now I'm the one saying I'll give you know I'll give her a ride I'll give him a ride and um you know I just cooked a a meal for someone other than my kiddos and my husband and I got to feel what it felt like to be the one with the pot rose slopping around in the back of the van. And it feels great. And to me it's above what I was I love that I love that kindness.

SPEAKER_04: 33:06

Melissa what about you?

SPEAKER_03: 33:07

What does it mean to you now rising above yeah I mean similarly to what you know we've we've already heard as as far as like what this means is really for me it's living into my most authentic version of myself right like really showing up um in all of the messy ways that I might show up and um just embracing all of it because when we think about you know it's like the the title of my chapter about becoming the soil this the seeds need if if we if we cannot accept our ourselves and if we can't show up authentically we're we're not going to be able to help others right we're not going to be able to grow anything else including ourselves and so how do I you know think about how I'm showing up for my body for myself for others um is it my most authentic version and to me that's if I can do that if I can really learn how to do that that to me is is rising above love that um April I want to come back to you I I would like to ask you if you could tell one truth to another young another young woman just beginning her journey what would it be?

SPEAKER_01: 34:32

Hmm that's a really good question. What's coming to mind is what do they say worst club best people? You know we none of us like would choose this by any means but I have also received so many gifts from just being in community with other people who've experienced cancer as well and the support the support is there. If you are going through it if you're new to it I know it's really really scary is really really hard and you will be held if you allow yourself to be seen and vulnerable here.

SPEAKER_04: 35:12

And I think think there is a gift in that yeah I do too yeah that's very good good advice there. Sarah what about you? If you could tell one truth to another young woman just beginning her journey what would it be?

SPEAKER_00: 35:27

Yeah I mean the main thing that comes to mind like all all the truth that has been spoken is resonating with me but the main thing that I think is really evergreen on my end is just you you probably would find it very difficult to believe right now. Or maybe you wouldn't but it's possible that it wouldn't seem like it but something good can come of this down the road. It's hard to see it but have the faith.

SPEAKER_04: 35:57

Yeah you had yeah you had said something about you know when you were talking about rising above I feel like a lot of us uh have gone through a period of time where we think okay we're broken we are not you know we're we're not as good as we used to be and I definitely went through that but I do now that I've gone through the journey and met folks like you and heard your stories I feel like collectively good can come out of it. And I feel that just doing this podcast interview with all of you is something that is good that has come out of this. And Melissa what about you?

SPEAKER_03: 36:32

What would you tell someone who is just going through this journey yeah I would say you know learn to say yes to help learn to say yes to community um and and be okay you know asking for help and admitting when things are hard because I think that was a hurdle that I had was you know trying to be strong and trying to heal quickly you don't know how long like that that could take a long time right like let let it come um and take the time it needs to that doesn't mean you know stay there forever right like but say yes to the healing say yes to the things that feel good and kind of like everyone else said like say yes to the community like I have met some of the most amazing women in the last five years and I mean if I would have said no to all those opportunities I would like that's part of my journey as well right that that's part of my growth and so yeah just say yes to the things that that matter yeah I love it.

SPEAKER_04: 37:44

Those are all really great reflections. Thank you ladies so much Jillian I'm gonna turn my attention to you now um I would love for you to give us a little reflection um on your experience and just anything you would like to say to end this episode.

SPEAKER_02: 38:04

So much you know so much that can be said and um I really believe that we rise above not by surviving but by transforming and that's what rising above is truly about you know transformation not just of the body but of the soul and each of us here has learned that awareness begins um with authenticity and that's why this collaboration with um Tesla's breasts feels so meaningful to me not only because I just adore you and all you do Jamie because we're because awareness is only um is not only about like you know scans and self-checks it's about checking in with your heart and our stories and with one another in the community. So it really aligns with what we do at IRise Above. Our foundation, you know, our mission is to empower young women to live fully to rise emotionally and physically and spiritually after breast cancer. So if there's you know one message I hope listeners take away it's that your story matters and that your body is sacred and your voice whether it's spoken or written has the power to heal and that power can help rise to lift others in their journey and that's really what we are doing here and sharing the wisdom that we've learned through you know contributing to this anthology I love that I appreciate your doing that I just think it all is just comes full circle and it's definitely touched my heart reading your stories and talking with you further about them.

SPEAKER_04: 39:51

So in closing I would like to give each one of you an opportunity to you know say something whatever you'd like to say just to to our audience.

SPEAKER_01: 40:04

I do like this mantra writing as medicine what can you leave us with with you know that might be helpful to other people April do you want to start sure yeah I'm passionate about writing as a healing tool for sure I would absolutely encourage everyone to give it a shot the type of healing or the type of uh writing rather that is the most healing is expressive writing and expressive writing is the kind of writing that really asks you what you feel about a situation. And so you know if someone wanted to get started with writing I would just say you know start with what I really want to say is and and lean into that always coming back to you know how you feel about it. And if you're writing about an experience you had like also ask how did I feel going through that how do I feel about it now? But that can be a really powerful entry point onto the page and just see see where it goes.

SPEAKER_04: 41:09

Thanks Jamie I love that I used to be a writing teacher and it was so hard to get students to just start just start putting stuff on paper and but once they started and finally came up with their piece they felt so good about it and most of my kids love doing that reflective creative type writing. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 41:33

Sarah how about you what would you like to leave us with well on the theme of writing isn't medicine I'd say everybody's probably different what I feel like I process the best through writing. I guess I need the time I'm not sure. But uh and there's a lot to process with breast cancer. So you know all the amazing things that have happened in that context and um for me you know it's hard not to believe after you know everything I've experienced and I feel almost a duty to tell people about that or to get it down on paper. And so that's been very relieving to me that I can you know put this witness on the paper and I feel like okay I've lived up to the gift that this was right.

SPEAKER_04: 42:24

And I I like this kind of book because at the beginning people used to say hey Jamie you should write a book I'm like I don't know if I want to write a book. Podcasting was and and and verbally speaking to people you know was much more up my alley but now that I'm thinking about it, doing a book like you have put together Jillian and having people write chapters that feels like it may not necessarily be as overwhelming um as writing an entire book you know just on your own. And so I like the idea of putting several stories in a book. So kudos to you. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 43:02

Just to clarify not gift of cancer gift of like appointments and um oh I was like oh boy that's a that's you know not true. I mean I do from my perspective I see it as like a severe severe blessing but I mean other things that came through for us that can't naturally be explained.

SPEAKER_04: 43:25

Yeah. Thanks for clarifying that.

SPEAKER_03: 43:27

And how about you Melissa Yeah and thinking about you know writing and and how you know that's that's been healing for for me but we but we worked with um Jessica Buchanan who you know leads SoulSpeak Press is the publisher of the book and I remember in our first meeting um she told all of us about you know a memoir memoir is when you know you've been through something you've learned something and you have something to offer something to share. And I believe we all have a memoir in us whether we write it or talk about it right I think we we all have those stories that matter and those stories that have the power to transform not only ourselves but also you know hold up a mirror for someone else so that they can be transformed, that they can be healed. And I find that like so powerful and I I just think that you know our stories while all of ours are so different like there will be people that resonate with them and whether they're breast cancer survivors or not you know and so I just think that's so powerful.

SPEAKER_04: 44:35

It's such a gift for people incredibly powerful.

SPEAKER_02: 44:39

Well thank you so much ladies Jillian I would like to leave you with we have a a call to action for people what can we leave our audience with well from my own experience you know going through originally being diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and later as metastatic I've been at this for a long time I'm in my 13th year of dealing with it. And you know no matter how much support I have around me at the end of the day this is my journey and I'm walking it and sometimes when you're on that journey or when I'm on this journey it can feel isolating you know and so and there's a lot to process to Sarah's point all along the way and to be able to use expressive writing to take the feelings that you have within your body that are, you know, because they're stored there, you're inherently it's taking up room, right? So if you can use the tool of expressive writing to bring your thoughts and feelings together and formulate them and really really look at them for what they are, that can be extremely liberating. It can be so such a freeing feeling that once you've kind of worked through that it allows room for other things to enter and I can't say enough about that when you know someone is diagnosed like a newly diagnosed or any point within their you know breast cancer walk that writing is such an important tool. So I would highly recommend as a call to action to pick up our book it's available on Amazon and I think it's gonna be linked to show notes. My my dear friend April Wildfire magazine offers lots of options for expressive writing memoir writing um and we partner through the IRI Foundation to offer that for free to people that want to be able to take that I hope to we'll be doing that again in the new year. Just seeing how it really transforms people's experiences in such a positive way it's it really warms my heart and I I want that for all people who are you know struggling with their breast cancer experience.

SPEAKER_04: 47:09

Yeah that may be a good call to action for me personally well great I I just um I think that it's such a great idea to write and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading every one of your pieces and April and Sarah and Melissa and Jillian I very much appreciate your being on this 100th episode of test those breasts and to my audience my call to action to you of course is to always self-check make sure that you are advocating for yourself get yourself to the doctor if you feel that something is not right in your body you know your body best and you get to decide on you know whether you should be able to have to get a mammogram or ultrasound if you need to know if you have dense breast tissue. That's always my call to action and we will see you next time on the next episode of Test Those Breasts. Bye for now. Friends thank you so much for listening to this episode of Test Those Breasts I hope you've got some great much needed information that will help you with your journey. As always I am open to guests to add value to my show and I'm also open to being a guest on other podcasts where I can add value. So please reach out if you'd like to collaborate. My contact information is in the show notes and as a reminder rating reviewing and sharing this podcast will truly help build a bigger audience all over the world I thank you for your efforts I look forward to sharing my next episode of Test