I can remember the day so clearly.

I had just started 6th grade.  I was worried about going to a new school with kids I hadn’t grown up with my whole life, learning how to use a locker, and trying out for sports.  I didn’t think I’d be worrying about a deadly illness that alters so many lives each year, each day, each second for that matter.

My mom hadn’t been feeling well for a while, but I figured it was nothing serious, until she went to the doctor and sat me down that evening.

She had cancer.

Stage 3 colon cancer to be exact. I am from Augusta, Georgia.  It’s a large town with a small town feel, if that makes sense.  Everyone knows everyone, well at least the parents do.  Life was happy there.  I grew up with an older sister to play with, a mom who loves me, and a dad who always tells me to be the free spirit I am.  Things aren’t always happy, though.

One-day life hits you in the gut so hard you think you might never catch your breath again.  For me, that was the day my mom was diagnosed with cancer. I didn’t believe her at first.  Sitting in her bathroom I sat there sobbing as she broke the news.  Sobbing because I was angry, because I didn’t understand why this happened to her, because it wasn’t fair.  She didn’t cry when she told me.  She was strong and sat there holding me.  That night after I finally got my emotions under control I realized I had to be strong for her.  She couldn’t do this on her own.

Stage 3 colon cancer is no joke.  Things were bad.  My mom was in her late 40s when she was diagnosed.  Most people don’t even get a colonoscopy until they are 50.  If my mom had waited that late, she wouldn’t be with me here today.

Death.

People shy away from it, don’t want to talk about it, dance around the word like actually talking about it will make it happen, but there it was staring me straight in the face. My mom’s cancer was advanced and it wasn’t the best scenario, but then again with cancer is there even a best scenario?  She was going to have to go through chemo and radiation as well as an intensive surgery.  And then even more chemo.

I can remember her barely being able to walk into the house because she was so exhausted from treatment, crawling into the garage because she was so fatigued. My mom didn’t give up.  She was more than this sickness.  She wasn’t going to let it cripple her and wither her away.  She never complained or said she was tired.  She was scared, terrified even, but she didn’t let it show because letting it show let the cancer win and that wasn’t happening.

I remember hearing a lot of things I didn’t understand, medical terms, all much too technical. To be honest, I didn’t really want to know what it all meant because I was scared one day someone would say she only has a year left, or a few months.

Before my mom had surgery, she went through 6 weeks of chemotherapy as well as radiation.  I could see how it drained her, sucked the life out of her, but she kept on going.

Then the day of the surgery came.

I remember being at the hospital.  I’ll never forget that sterile smell.  It burned my nose and made me feel sick to my stomach.  I sat in the waiting room with family and friends waiting…waiting for the doctors to come out and say your mom is fine, everything is ok.

That isn’t what happened.

It had been 8 grueling hours.  Each minute that went by I got more afraid. I couldn’t imagine my life without my mom.

I was supposed to be worried about boys and middle school drama but here I was worried about if I would ever hear her voice again.  I couldn’t imagine not having her look in my room every night and tell me she loved me and would see me in the morning, or tell me funny stories and laugh with me.  My mom’s laugh is so distinct.  It’s so loud and high pitched I could always pick it out of a crowd.

As I’ve gotten older I notice more and more that I laugh like her, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. The eighth hour came and doctors walked out and said if my mom stayed under any longer she probably wouldn’t survive.  We didn’t know what else to do but pray.  I remember standing there with hot tears streaming down my face beside my family and friends as we stood in a circle and began to hold hands and we prayed.

Prayed for her to live.

Prayed for her to be healthy and the cancer to go away.

Prayed for her not to leave us so soon.

I was so angry because I didn’t understand why God did this to her.  I realized, though, that it made my mom stronger, which is hard to believe that was even possible.  It made her stronger for the other events that were to happen to her later. They say rain makes trees grow deeper roots.  My mom grew deeper roots in all this rain and darkness.  She was still a guiding light.

She survived the surgery.  I remember seeing her after it. She had so many tubes feeding into her pale, frail body. I felt sick. I hated seeing her like that but at the same time I was just happy to see her breathing. See her chest moving up and down.  I can say that without her I wouldn’t be the person I am today and I probably wouldn’t be at the University of Georgia like I am now.

After my mom recovered from surgery, she had more chemotherapy.  The day finally came when she finished her last treatment and she went into remission. She is now cancer free 8 years, has run multiple 5ks and a half marathon, as well as receive two promotions at work. She was strong then and still is strong now.  The whole time I thought I was going to have to be strong for her because she needed me but it turned out she was strong for me and my family.

She never let the cancer stop her.  She didn’t let it weigh her down because if she had it would have consumed her. I remember her telling me the statistic when was diagnosed was that 1 in 4 people get cancer.  She looked at me and said “I got cancer but I hope I was the 1 out of the 4 members of our family to get it.” She would have rather her suffer than to see us suffer. I can not think of a greater amount of love and sacrifice than when she told me that.

After watching my mom’s battle and seeing her survive I have been a member for Relay For Life for many years.

I not only Relay for my mom, but my Granny and great-aunt Dot who survived breast cancer, my cousin Nick who is currently battling Leukemia, and my Pop who passed away from lung cancer my sophomore year of high school. It’s not just about the loved ones I know affected by cancer, though. It’s about everyone who was affected, is affected, will be affected.  It’s about having hope in a better tomorrow.

My mom had hope, and so do I. I have hope that there will be a day where there is a cure.  Until then I fight.  I fight for loved ones lost, for those currently battling, and for those who will battle. My mom never gave up, and neither will I. She taught me strength and courage, and she continues to do so everyday. She is a force that cannot be stopped and everything I aspire to be.

So I encourage you to sign up for Relay For Life, donate to someone’s page, or participate in a local Relay For Life event near you. Together we will finish the fight.

If you would like to donate to help me meet my fundraising goal here’s the link.

June 15th, 2012. A day that I will never forget. But this story starts long before that day and long before I was ever even born. Flash back to the 1985. My parents were in their mid-twenties and had just gotten married. One day, two months after they had gotten married, my dad suddenly felt an immense pain in his chest and lower back.

A relatively healthy 25 year old, he had no idea what was going on and was rushed immediately to the hospital.

Things quickly took a turn for the worst and his abdomen was quickly filling with blood.

They had no idea what was happening or how to fix it. My dad died that day. But luckily a miracle happened and after over a minute without a heart beat, they were able to revive him. Had that not happened, I would not be here today. Doctors later discovered that his aorta had ruptured due to a genetic disease called Marfan’s Syndrome. No one in his family had the disease, so he was a fresh gene mutation. Marfan’s Syndrome is a genetic disorder of the connective tissues in the body. Connective tissue is one of the four types of biological tissue that support, connect, or separate different types of tissues and organs in the body. These tissues are found all over the body. Marfan Syndrome causes those tissues to be weaker than normal and sometimes deformed which caused the connective tissue in my dad’s aorta to be weaker than normal and burst under the excessive growth.

Despite all this, with his second shot at life my dad took advantage of everything he could.

He went on to start his own business and have three children. But the issue with Marfan’s syndrome being a genetic disease is that it was hereditary, and my parents had a fifty-fifty shot of passing it on to their children. Good thing they weren’t gamblers because all three of us ending up inheriting the disorder.

The early years of my life with Marfan’s were practically normal. Other than having to go to the doctor once a year and take medicine every morning, there was nothing drastically different about my life. Sure, I was a lot taller than the rest of the kids because Marfan’s causes the legs and arms to grow longer than normal, but that has definitely ended up more of an advantage than disadvantage.

It wasn’t until we started getting older that problems start to occur.

As the body grows larger, so do the internal organs. The accelerated growth of our hearts was concerning to doctors because they didn’t want the same thing that happened to our father to happen to us. They told us that once the diameters of our aortas reached a certain size, then they would have to intervene. As a thirteen year old boy, I basically brushed this aside and said there is no way that I would have open heart surgery. Even knowing what happened to my dad 20 years before that, I still thought there was no way it could happen to me. Even when my older brother ended up having to have the surgery, I still believed that somehow I was different and I would not need it.

The bubble of ignorance I was living in was finally burst when I was 16 years old. During my annual summer checkup, I was told that I would most likely need to have open-heart surgery the following summer. I was in complete shock and disbelief. How was I supposed to undergo a life-threatening and life-altering surgery the summer before my senior year of high school? I became angry at the world for dealing me this awful hand. Things that I used to love seemed to not have any meaning to me anymore. I stopped caring about everything. I started drinking way more often than I should have been as a junior in high school. I was constantly anxious.

My heart would drop anytime I would look at a calendar or someone asked “Are you excited for summer?”

I lived like this for an entire year. It was one of the darkest periods of my life. Eventually the time came for the surgery and I was trying to be tough and strong on the outside but on the inside I was a complete wreck. The day before my operation was scheduled, I was walking on the street in between some of my pre-op appointments when an elderly man stopped me. He handed me a piece of paper that had a prayer on it and nothing wanted to do with religion at the moment, I tried to hand it back to him and keep walking.

But the man grabbed my arm and looked me in the eyes and said, “If you say that prayer, the holy spirit will come through your chest and bless your heart.” then went into the store in front of us. I was so shaken up that I just sat there and stared at the piece of paper for a little but then I went into the store to find the man. He was nowhere to be found. It was a small store and there wasn’t an exit in the back so I have no idea where the man could have gone. I am not trying to imply anything and I don’t know if you reading this are a religious person, but I am just trying to say what happened. After this event I was weirdly calm and comfortable about my surgery the next day.

I knew that I was going to be okay, and I was.

I woke up from the operation on June 15th, 2012 feeling like I had a new lease on life, surely similar to what my dad had felt 30 year before that. After a recovery period of about a month, I went back to my normal routine but with a completely different outlook. I had been given a second chance and there was no way I was going to waste it.

These days I try to take advantage of every opportunity possible. I don’t complain about the little things because I know it could be ten times worse. And most importantly any time that I am down, I think of that strange man that gave me so much comfort in my time of need and that comfort comes rushing back. It truly feels as if I had one life before my surgery and another life after it. June 15th, 2012 is the day that I was reborn.

“It’s the size of a grapefruit.”

I imagined the bitter, fleshy pink fruit. In my mind’s eye the fruit sat, covered in layer of white, granular sugar, untouched with a silver spoon gleaming beside it. My trance dissipated like a curling cloud of smoke as I listened to my mother’s voice through the phone.

“It doesn’t look good,” she murmured.

I knew it was too late. It was too big. It wasn’t caught soon enough. It was a tumor, and it was draining my last surviving grandparent of her life.

The air was hot and humid, with the smell of food simmering on the stove. It was the kind of air that makes you feel like just one breath could give you a mouthful of whatever was cooking. I walked further into my oma’s kitchen and peered into the bubbling pot on the stove. With her giant spin in her hand, she wagged it towards me as she asked, “Hungry?” with her mouth pulled back into a sly grin.

She already knew the answer; no one could resist her spaetzle dumplings, dripping with browned butter. I gave her a long hug, pressed against the cool silk of the draping mumu that provided her a sort of sanctuary in the hot kitchen. Then I took the heaping plate.

“Wait, so how far along is she? Like, how advanced is it,” I questioned, still in shock, still hoping.

“Honey, she’s very sick.”

“Should I come home? Is it bad?”

“If you can, I think you should come…” To say goodbye?

It wasn’t said, but then again it didn’t have to be. The short exchange, now seared into my memory, was enough to tell me everything I needed to know. Tears began to well in my eyes, salty and stinging as they ran down my face. The cold night air rested on my tear-stained cheeks like a cold kiss, the dark silhouettes of buildings forming a voyeuristic audience to my grief. Almost shocked by the sound of my sobs, I went back to my apartment and feel into my bed.

“Hoopah-radah-ridah-da-felda-in-da-craada. Oops, there goes the baby in-da-craada.”

Memories of lullabies from a foreign land, dripping with harsh German enunciations, dance through my mind as I look at photos of my grandmother, cradling me as a baby. She was there, gazing down at my thick, black hair, my closed eyes, my rosebud lips, cherishing the simplicity of my total innocence. But now I’m here, cradling this photo of her, observing her in her youth. I take notice of her dark hair that’s so much like my own, and her air of seriousness that seems to radiate from the glossy image.

I can’t help but to pause and think of the authority of time.

It never stops—an infallible machine that never needs greasing or turning, wrenching or polishing. Who takes care of time? It certainly doesn’t take care of us. I wondered how long it took for the cancer to metastasize to form the massive tumor, situated atop my oma’s liver. How many seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, it took for the malignant mass to form, and for the cancer to stake its claim.

It took three hours to drive back to Rome, straight to the hospital, when my last class ended on Friday. My mother came to the lobby, to bring me to the sterile hospital room, where my grandmother lay surrounded by family. My mother whispered in my ear, “She doesn’t have long. I didn’t realize she would go this quickly…”

I nodded, and then neared the hospital bed, the ambient lighting casting a glow on my oma’s pale skin. I reached out to touch her hand, still as lovely as it had always been. I heard my aunt murmur, “She’s always had beautiful skin, hasn’t she?” I gazed down at her fingers, interlaced with mine. Over fifty years my senior and little differed between ours, besides my slightly darker complexion.

I gripped her hand a little firmer, feeling the warmth it radiated, wondering if I could feel the blood pulsing through her veins if I was still enough.

Of course, she didn’t stir from her sedated state, propped on her side as to avoid pressing on the painful tumor. All I could do was stare at her, sleeping so peacefully, only the slightest signs of her regular breaths. Inhaling and exhaling, her chest mimicked the ocean tides, and I felt soothed for a little while.

The hardest part wasn’t the funeral. It wasn’t the process of cleaning out her home, full of memories from my youth. It wasn’t that seeing my oma’s twin sister when she came to town was like seeing a ghost. It was saying goodbye to her, in that dimly lit hospital room, knowing that it was the last time. It’s an eerie thing, saying your last goodbyes to someone who is still alive. So unnatural and shocking it seemed to me at the time that I couldn’t utter a simple goodbye out loud.

I turned to my family who watched me as I stood by the hospital bed, and sobbed, “I can’t do it. I can’t say goodbye…” But what I could do was hold her hand, and I did.

This is why I relay.

So that no one else has to feel the pain of saying goodbye, for the last time, to loved one dying of cancer. I relay because cancer has gone too far. It’s taken one too many wonderful beings from this world. For all those who are battling cancer, know someone who is battling cancer, or hope that they will never have either of these connections: I’m implore you to direct your passion to this cause. Whatever your motives are, everyone who relays has the same goal—to beat cancer.

We can.

Why do bad things happen to good people? That’s the cliché phrase we’ve all heard and used before when unexpected things happen to people we know and love. It’s hard to accept these unfortunate events, but sometimes there isn’t such a horrible ending.

An unexpected twist of fate happened to my aunt and uncle’s family, but out of it all, they turned a difficult situation into something worthwhile. My aunt and uncle are two of the most caring and kind people I have ever met. Never once in my life have I heard of either of them doing something wrong or unkind.

They live the classic family life: a house in the suburbs with the perfect family photo.

My uncle is an accountant, and my aunt is a stay-at-home-mom, but does some tutoring on the side. They had two boys, Luke and Matthew, but my aunt really wanted to have a girl in the family. My aunt specifically told me, “Don’t get me wrong, I love my boys, but I definitely need more girl power in this house.” So it was decided, they were going to try for a girl. At the beginning of my freshman year of high school, my aunt announced that she was pregnant and the whole family was excited to hear what the gender of the baby was going to be.

A couple months later my aunt found out the gender, and lucky enough, it was a girl. I have never heard someone as excited as my aunt was when she announced this news. The whole family was in a “baby hype” mode and couldn’t wait for her to come. Finally, after nine months of pregnancy, my new baby cousin was on the way. I was at my grandma’s house, waiting on the call from my aunt and uncle, but it seemed to be taking longer than we expected. We didn’t get a call until the next day, with some much unexpected news. When my aunt and uncle called, there was a sorrow feeling that swept over our family.

My aunt told us that our new baby cousin, Amalie, was diagnosed with a rare disease called kabuki syndrome.

Kabuki syndrome (KS), is a disease that presents a child with unique facial characteristics, mental retardation, and socio-emotional delays. In other words, Amalie has disabilities that don’t allow her to develop and fully function like an average infant should. For the first 9 months of her life, she was put into a lower body cast after hip surgery to help set her hip bones and joints correctly. To help with the rest of her muscle movement, she had to go through extensive physical and speech therapy when it was time she started to learn how to speak. This was a very tough time for my aunt and uncle to go through. My uncle had to take time off of work to help take care of my other cousins, Luke and Matthew, while my aunt took Amalie to countless doctor’s appointments and therapy session.

My uncle said, “I have never been so stressed and so worried about someone in my entire life. At one point, I almost lost all hope because there was so much stress put on our whole family.” My aunt replied, “But we managed to get through all of this together.” My cousins helped by cleaning around the house and not causing any trouble when “baby Molly” was around. They came together as a family to support one another in this very difficult time.

Five years later, my cousin, Amalie, is now walking and improving her speech every day. My aunt has enrolled her in pre-school and is absolutely loving it. “At first it was hard for her to be in such a social setting, but now she loves it. She’s made some friends and doesn’t stop talking.”

However, there are some words that she struggles with, so Amalie is taking sign language classes to help get her points across to people. She does still have some developmental issues, like being too small for her age and not being able to carry on full conversations like an average five-year-old should be able to. Despite all of these setbacks, Amalie is one of the happiest five-year-olds any person has ever seen. “She loves to learn new things…math is one of her favorites”, my aunt says, “…and even though she has physical setbacks, she is always beating up her older brothers and is the toughest girls there is.” My aunt and uncle have given so much time and effort into helping their daughter live the most normal life she could, and I admire them very much for that. Not every couple could have done what they did, given the amount of stress that was added to their life.

Not to mention, my two other cousins, that helped out so much, even being as young as they were during that time. Due to their efforts as a family, Amalie can live a normal life and enjoy the life she was given, despite the hardships she has endured. Not many families could have come together like my aunt and uncle’s family did. Despite all odds against their daughter, they didn’t let it come between them.

Together, they put in the effort to help her and give her all the care she needs to live a normal life.

This is a quality I truly admire because having to give up leisure time and work time can be very strenuous on a family, especially when there are two other young kids in the family. They took what they were given and made the best out of a difficult situation, and are now raising one of the most strongest kids I have ever known.

Their family is a perfect example of how to handle life’s unexpected events in a manner of grace and determination.

Human beings are living in a time of great transition.

The shift away from the medical model, to new ways of understanding how our emotions shape our day-to-day reality, is now increasing in awareness.  We are learning how our emotions influence our day-to-day experience of life on earth. We are learning to understand how the heart is the power center of feeling loved and accepted, and key to happiness as much as the mind. When we are experiencing a highly emotive event, our mind embeds the experience on many levels with a super awareness, to ensure the event is highlighted and we pay attention when it reoccurs.

There is a growing understanding that using holistic models of mind, body and spirit, work to bring balance for individuals who are experiencing a mental illness.

Using medication alone is now becoming outdated and this is an amazing time, but it is a challenging time too. It is a time when human beings are seeing societal structures breaking down and lots of change in restructuring happening very quickly. This is necessary in order to create new ways to live that are healthy and balanced. Often the focus with mental health is treating the human being. The emphasis is on the person believed to be out of sync with the world in some way.

I offer that it is society’s way of living, which is out of sync, and that people become ill trying to fit a way of living that is very unnatural.

I am sharing my personal human being story, as emotional intelligence and health is core to my life and what I am passionate about. I have often been in a deeply dark place because of relationship and feeling lost, lonely, and confused. Sometimes to a point of simply not wanting to feel the pain anymore and having run out of ideas as to how to numb myself out. Over the years, I tried several addictions to “numb myself out”, not even realizing at the time, that this is what they were.

Medication can take many forms such as food and shopping, workshops, and work too. Today, I am a 50-year-old woman with two adult children living near a beautiful pilgrim site, Glastonbury, in the South West of England. I am a holistic therapist and I assist people who are seeking a return to well-being, focusing primarily on understanding the emotional mind and how to work with it.

I love the work I do, having finally come home to myself.

I am still very much a work in progress and open to new learning. I share my own journey as I have experienced times of great emotional imbalance in my life and that was essential to my path in life. What the ego mind perceives as the “problem” is also, where solutions are found: the keys to personal freedom. We really do have all that we need within us and the key is to go and search and find the answers.

I suggest people do their own research because this article contains only my views and opinions. I believe that it is one of the most important aspects of people’s personal journeys; that they are discerning and find their own way and truth. I believe it is exactly what we are here for at this time.

I grew up in a middle class family in the North West of England. My family was innovative. They had moved away from a sizable town to a brand new estate in a small semi-rural village much to the surprise of their elder’s. This was in the 60’s and it was “new beginnings”. We had a very good standard of living and traveled abroad quite often. My family was very open with me about their history and, as a child; I did not know how unusual that was.

This formed a key belief system for me from an early age, which was to become the structure of my whole life.

Talking openly and sharing what were in fact taboo subjects, especially around mental illness and in many circles, this is still the case today. On my grandfather’s birthday, his mother committed suicide. My mother found her. She was nine years old. This had a profound effect on my mother and she had a breakdown. She could not eat or sleep and was obsessed with anxiety around death. Conventional medical frameworks at that time offered Phenobarbital or Electroconvulsive Therapy. These methods would sedate her heavily or use electricity on the brain to reset the short-term memory and remove the memories of the trauma. These methods are still used in the UK today.

My grandfather decided to look for alternatives and found a Hypnotherapist. Hypnotherapists were considered alternative at the time and still are in many conventional circles today. Hypnotherapy worked for my mother and she started to recover. The Hypnotherapist focused on creating belief systems that supported well-being and recovery for her, by creating new codes of consciousness in her unconscious mind.

These overrode her anxiety and fear to a large degree. She had a relapse and a breakdown at 19. Again, she returned to see the same person and again she made a quick recovery with further supporting well-being codes being reinforced. This understanding really helped me when I had my own breakdown at 22. I did not see it coming. I believe there is a pattern of relating that leads to a nervous breakdown in this way.

Generally, there are shared components that affect all human beings.

People experience their own unique process and there does not have to be a big life trauma to trigger this response.   Here are some common factors: Living an inauthentic life – people pleasing for a corporate framework, a family framework, a romantic relationship framework and trying to be something that is unnatural/perfect/controlled. To be overwhelmed is to be doing too much and over stretching oneself physically and emotionally in an attempt to tick all the “perfect life” boxes.

This is a coping mechanism of the psyche to try to stay in control or feel like one has some control. Living dishonestly in relationship – experiencing abusive relationship and not feeling able to speak to anyone about it or leave because of fear and shame. Lack of self-esteem and self-confidence, or not being “the norm”, which is a movable feast, especially in today’s super-fast consumer model system, or being a highly sensitive person who does not want to hurt others by becoming the behavior that has wounded them.

t that time, I was in a relationship with a man who was very aggressive and had a lot of control and anger issues. He was an alcoholic. His way of relating to other people did not match my values.

I was at odds with myself. He was controlling about what I did every day, how I dressed, how I cooked food, my friends and many other aspects. This was over a period of 3 years. Over this time, he became more violent and eventually physically attacked me. When I tried to end the relationship, he would turn up at my place of work and try to persuade me to take him back full of remorse and insisting he would and could change.

This man had huge anger issues, which were always present and surfaced when alcohol released any control mechanisms he had in place. This type of behavior is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In my experience, any event in a person’s life that has created a huge emotional response for them and/or a person close to them emotionally creates Post Traumatic stress Disorder. I do not believe him to be a “bad’’ person.

People are not their behavior. This is also not excusing his inappropriate behavior or any other abusive behavior. It is also being realistic about people. People do what they know. Period. It is as simple as that. How can people do what they do not know? Human beings learn experientially and model what they see as children, which is why these patterns of behavior live on in generation after generation and this is key for understanding.

As people are not their behavior, this creates a wonderful opportunity to create change. I believe every single person can create this change if they have the motivation to do so.

All human beings have the core potential to heal and love and to live from compassion. I believe this is happening now more and more as all the tools are there for people, ready to do their personal journey, to create well-being for themselves on an emotional level. Information is everywhere and conscious ways of being are becoming mainstream with social networking and search engines.

My first panic attack happened at 22. I was barely coping, had two jobs, and was stretching myself physically and mentally. I was hiding my true feelings and not confiding in anyone. I went to a shopping center, literally 10 minutes walking distance from my home. I went into a shop I used regularly and was very familiar. On that day, the shop’s layout changed and was unfamiliar. That was my tipping point. I was overwhelmed. I started to hyperventilate, became dizzy and my eyes could not focus. I left the shop and sat on a bench in the shopping mall.

I saw a police officer and thought about asking him to take me home, as I could not access any memory of how to get there. How would I explain it him? This created even more anxiety. I sat for what felt like hours, in reality probably 20 minutes. Eventually I had enough confidence and calmness to go home. Feeling shaken, I sought medical advice. In a snapshot, I went through the medical model and had my heart and my eyes tested. Then the doctor gave me some Valium. I took one and felt like I was in a bubble, which was even worse than feeling anxious, I felt like I was under water in a goldfish bowl remote from the world. I did not take any more.

I experienced continued panic attacks, tunnel vision, could not function, and could not work. I was also experiencing physiological ill health with psoriasis on my face and cervical cancer cells. My body was revealing my true state of inner being. Many people see this as something that can be fixed. I offer an alternative perspective now, that the body and mind are simply illuminating the outer relationships requiring a change in this unhealthy way of being. At the time though, I just wanted to fix all these symptoms so I could carry on doing the same thing, the same thing that had led me to this place of imbalance.

I was not consciously aware of that back then. This is the change of focus happening now and it is the realization that our so-called diseases are revealing out of balance ways of living and relating for the human being. My doctors were sympathetic but had no personal experience of mental ill health and again, this is key to awareness. They did what they knew and eliminated all the medical model scenarios using tests then gave me a pill to keep me calm.

This is holistic too, in a sense of looking at all the avenues to find a way forward and ensure the physical body is functioning, as it should. Medication does not alter any patterns or give any practical tools for the individual to use.

The doctors did not prescribe talking therapies because they were not mainstream in 1980s UK.

In my understanding, it is essential that a health facilitator in the mental health field has walked the path of the people they are working with; otherwise, there can be no deep level of understanding or empathy. I hear this over and over from people who have sought help from talking therapies and the person they are working with, has no personal life experience of being in their shoes so although they have the best intentions, they cannot possibly understand what that person is going through.

People sharing this perspective of a lack of genuine empathy have felt that the therapy has very little impact because of that lack of understanding. Academia is important and it does not allow the same deeper understanding as experiential learning. It is recognized that support groups work exactly because of that shared experience and, I hope this will expand to include one to one facilitators helping others to move forward because they themselves have moved forwards and understand key aspects of that process. It would have been greatly beneficial for me to know how my physiology created symptoms. This came much later.

Changing the breath prevents hyperventilation. Knowing how my physiology was creating a loop of symptoms with short breaths and how to break that loop, stopped the process and the panic attack in its tracks, and really helped me help myself.

Seeing the bigger picture is essential too, but often that is not possible when we feel we are at the bottom of a dark pit.

It is good to find someone who has been there and climbed out of it and knows that we can too with a helping hand. Although we can fix certain aspects of our ill health, looking at the core root of what gave rise to it is the focus point. If this is ignored, eventually this will rise up again in a different form, as this is where the change has to take place. This foundation structure creates our day-to-day experience of the world. This is the root of all that is out of balance in our society generally and where human evolution lies.

I know now that this was the start of my personal experiential journey. I left that relationship at last and moved to London with another man, who is the father of my children. I learned how to cope with my symptoms and they happened less and less. I tried to learn more by reading around this subject. We managed pubs and had contact with many people. Some of the staff had mental health issues and one in particular had severe bipolar experiences. They were manic at times, spending hours being creative with bar displays and then going into the depths of depression with very little energy.

Our staff used to confide in us about their day-to-day ways of being, often they were far from home living in squats looking for the streets paved with gold and often had stories of family trauma. All I could do then was speak of what happened to me and suggest books I had read on the subject. I have always been open about my mental health experiences and this allowed the taboo to be released. I found once I shared my mental health story, other people opened up and shared theirs. We could then share our learning too.

Our lives changed radically in 1995 when I gave birth to our son. It was an amazing time for me, as I had never planned to be a mother and involved lots of new learning. I really wanted to be the most informed parent I could and started learning about psychology at evening class.

I was passionate about it and my intention at the time was to be a forensic psychologist. I was attracted to the pathology of psychology, which I coined “the dark side of human nature”. Our daughter arrived in 1998. It was a joyful time and a tipping point in many ways.

I would not accept for my children what I had accepted for myself in terms of the medical model. I researched all areas of health and started to look for alternatives. After studying psychology for a while, I concluded that there did not seem to be a great deal of change happening for individuals seeking help.

There could be many years of talking therapies and understanding of what created the trauma but it seemed that people were still experiencing the symptoms and not feeling or being free of trauma. I started to learn about NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming created in the 1970’s. It creates theories around how the human being learns and stores their life experience. There are practical frameworks to use from a variety of sources based on people who achieved excellent results in their field. It also includes shamanic frameworks from indigenous people.

It is very dynamic. At the same time, I began learning about Eastern frameworks of healing, using energy meridians. Although new in the West, Eastern frameworks have been extensively chronicled and used in the East for thousands of years.

I came across Emotional Freedom Technique in 2007 and was very excited with what I could achieve personally to move debilitating migraine headaches in seconds, even though I had not even started the training and only had a bare bones idea of the framework. I started to use it in all manner of ways with all age groups and found it so easy that literally children can do it and let go of trauma in minutes. At my first training session, a key part of the course clicked for me and made complete sense. The emotional mind is the fight/flight/freeze part of the brain and is a pattern matcher for trauma. When this part of the mind is activated, the individual literally cannot access their logical brain.

Accessing the logical brain is inhibited and the human being goes into survival mode.

To overthink could mean the death of the person. Whenever there is a pattern match for a previous emotional trauma, the amygdala is activated. This created huge understanding for me as to why talking therapies on their own do not create a shift in emotion and behavior. The pattern of the original trauma is still there as is the emotion so the hijack continues. Using Emotional Freedom Technique changes this. As I started to work intuitively on emotional times in my life, using this framework, I got an amazing shift.

It gave me the confidence to feel more and start to come into balance with all my emotions. One of the biggest was anger and unresolved issues around that. I love sharing this information and technique with people, because it has changed my life and many people who I have worked with. People do not have to suffer for years or be in therapy for years. They can start to take action themselves and feel self-empowered. It is a simple framework and accessible to all. In the UK, EFT is now recognized and used as a Cognitive Behavior Therapy and is becoming mainstream.

This gives me so much hope and enthusiasm. I have worked with people in the past who had sad stories. One person fell in love for the first time in their life. This created expansive feelings of joy beyond anything they had ever known and led to one episode of bipolar disorder in their teens. Because of this behavior, their family who were unable to cope committed them to an institution. They had been on lithium to keep them under control for 40 years and were afraid to come off it in case it happened again. EFT helped them let go of this fear and feel safe around their emotional self. Again, this is not a quick fix; it is a personal peace procedure that can be used every day to move to balance.

I believe that people will experience what is known as mental illness at some time in their life. It is what can help us grow, mature, and make the changes required now to support healthy relationships. For some people it is a huge turning point. Some do not overcome these crisis points and this is hugely painful for the people in their lives. This is so saddening and my heart goes out to them. I know what a huge impact suicide had on my family. I do feel that there is always light that goes out from these dark points. The more we start to speak and share our shadowed dark times, the more they become acceptable into the mainstream. The dark side is where the light is waiting to return.

It holds the potential of new ways and understanding of all the aspects of our human being self. It holds new beginnings for our world and expansion of compassion and love for ourselves. When individuals love and accept themselves, then they can truly do this more and more with others.

Jo Kenworthy www.barefootholistics.co.uk www.flowwithjo.com

(Written by Olivia Thompson)

The number flashed on the screen and my self-confidence shrank immediately. It was Christmas break freshman year of college and I was interested to see how the holiday eating and my first homecoming of the semester was affecting my body, apparently not so well.

I was at the heaviest weight of my life, only 5 pounds more than normal, but I felt like the elephant in the room. “I’m a freshman in college,” I irrationally thought to myself, “its time for me to act like the grown up I am and take charge of my body.”

As I returned to school spring semester, my resolution to diet was put into full force with the deadline of Spring Break racing toward me. There would be bikinis, there would be pictures and there would be judging, I needed to be ready. I downloaded apps on my phone to document my daily calorie intake and I signed up for local 5k races as motivation to get fit. I was conscious about the food I was eating and intent about maintaining a steady exercise plan in order to melt of the fat that clung to my belly.

After playing squash with my friends one night I entered the women’s locker room at Ramsey and noticed that there was a scale, so I hopped on out of curiosity and I was pleased with the result. The evidence of a lower number revealed that my tactics were working and that if I continued with my efforts, than I would achieve spring break glory.

Once Spring Break arrived I spent half the week with my out of state family who I had not seen since my heavier days of Christmas and they all congratulated my seemingly healthier figure. After meeting my family at the airport we went out to a restaurant to eat lunch, where there were no calorie counts on the menu. I was slightly distressed by not knowing the exact content of what I was consuming, but I let it slide because it was only one meal right?

Then at dinner, we went out to another restaurant. No calorie counts again.

My routine was thrown off, but I maintained a calm composure. That night in bed I woke up in the middle of the night with a panic attack. My heart was racing, my frustration was peaking and tears filled my eyes. “Is this the end of my diet? I just ate so many calories! Will I be fat again by tomorrow?” These thoughts flooded my mind as I wrestled with sleep. “No I have worked too hard to get to where I am to let it all go. I’ll enjoy myself this week and I make up for it when I get back to UGA.”

Spring break freshman year was great, I enjoyed my family’s company for a few days, and then I met up with my friends at the beach and felt confident with my body’s improved look. Spring break glory accomplished…now what?

Once I returned to UGA I kept my promise to make up for my treacherous eating patterns of the previous week. I lowered my daily calorie intake and increased my workouts, but I never reestablished a diet deadline. With no goal in sight, my diet took on a whole new meaning. I wasn’t working out for fitness, I was working out to make up for the breakfast that I ate.

I wasn’t counting calories to meet my recommended daily value; I was counting calories to assure that I was eating less than even my diet required. From there, my habits worsened. Over the summer, when I returned home, I would flashback to the pounds that were added to me by my mom’s meals so I decided to cut my all of my portions in half.

My family watched through suspicious eyes as I took 30 bites of every piece of food.

A week before returning to UGA for sophomore year, my mom handed me a piece of paper with 10 symptoms of Eating Disorders and asked if I recognized any of them in myself. I was enraged with defensive anger and cried as I cursed her out of my room. I was shocked by my reaction because I barely ever cry, so it was apparent that my emotions were unmanageable.

I was elated to return to UGA fall semester sophomore year because I was thrilled with my sleeker appearance and I imagined that it could only get better. I bought a scale so that I could continue to check my progress on a daily or even hourly schedule. There was no stopping my new dieting hobby. Or so I thought.

I received the call from my parents that they were forcing my withdrawal from UGA so that I could enter an eating disorder treatment facility in Wisconsin. I broke down and cried for a week. I cried through telling my roommates that I would be leaving, not sure when or even if I would be returning. I cried through writing my withdrawal application to the university. And I cried through the assessment phone call with the treatment center as they concluded that I needed to be admitted to their inpatient hospital facility due to my “emaciation.”

When I was at my skinniest moments, I felt as though I was looking in a different mirror than everyone else, “no way can anyone think that this body is too skinny. Do they not see my belly poking out?” In fact, at that point it was literally my stomach poking through my skin, just as my ribs and hipbones did. By the time that I entered the facility on October 16, 2013, I had a BMI of 14.9, my EKG tests came back irregular due to malfunctions in my heart, I had night sweats due my body’s constant struggle to stay warm and my kidneys were close to failing.

I had started a diet to better my appearance and due to a multitude of teenage struggles rooted in low self esteem, including boys, media influence and a lacking sense of control, I had put my body through so much that it was ready to die.

The following 70 days in treatment were the hardest of my life.

I was put through such a physical and mental challenges that I sometimes look back on my recovery and marvel at the difficulties that I put myself through. One of my first mornings in treatment, I broke down crying because I was given a white bagel instead of the wheat one that I ordered. If that doesn’t show how low I was in my life, I don’t know what will.

Thankfully, with the phenomenal support of my family and friends I was able to return to a physically healthy state, along with a sound mental state, and on Christmas Eve I returned home with a new outlook on life.

Of course I still have my occasional struggles with body image and self-esteem, who doesn’t? But I vow to never treat myself in the same manner of 2013 ever again, because I value my life, and the lives of my loved ones too much to suffer through anymore avoidable pain.

During this time of year I am reminded of where I spent Thanksgiving of 2013, and I am thankful to be out of that disastrous stage of my life so that I can relish in my health and celebrate my life.

The first time I heard the word ‘cancer’ was in the third grade when it was on one of my Words of the Week sheets.

The class received the sheet on Monday and by Friday we all had to know how to spell and the definition of the word. For me, the word itself was easy to spell but rather difficult to understand. C-A-N-C-E-R.

C. I looked up the word and the definition was along the lines of “an invasive and destructive tumor.”

So then, my third grader self had to also look up the word ‘tumor’ and after discovering what it was and putting it together, I realized that this was not a good thing.

I asked my teacher what this word really meant and all she told me that it was some terrible condition that makes a family come together. At that moment in time, I thought this woman was crazy; that’s not what the dictionary says. But as an awkward eight year old I just confusingly giggled and thanked my teacher for her time.

A. My second memory was when a girl I played basketball with lost her mother to breast cancer.

It affected the entire community. I wasn’t even good friends with the girl but I remember wanting to be there for her in any way possible.

I could not imagine losing my motivation, my biggest supporter, my best friend- life without my mom is one I cannot mentally picture. This is when I began to try to understand the definition my grade school teacher gave me.

N. Memory number three came into my life when my mom’s best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer.

This is when my hatred for cancer really started to arise. My mom’s best friend, Donna, is one of the most amazing women on this earth. She is unbelievably intelligent, beautiful, and inspirational. So my main question: how did such an incredible, uplifting woman have such a malicious mass in her body? I understand that life isn’t fair but this was too much. Now I began to actually see what my teacher meant.

C. Relay for Life 2015 became a part of my life because of one of my good friends who made a team and wanted me to join it.

At first I signed up because I wanted to be apart of something here at Virginia Tech (and to make her stop bugging me about it) but after hearing her story, my entire perspective changed. Seeing something truly affect one of my best friends made me want to do something. She is one of the strongest young women I know yet when the word ‘cancer’ is said in conversation, I know it hits her hard. I never fully realized that cancer is so “well known” in almost every household. It made me think about how fortunate I was that I didn’t have a direct hit to the heart.

E. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

Of course when those words came out of my father’s mouth, I knew something was wrong. The summer before my second year of college, my dad said that statement to me. Little did I know that this sentence followed one along the lines of ‘I have cancer in my colon.’

You never think it will happen to you and even when it does, you still don’t believe that it did. It hit me like a cannonball in the gut. I felt like air couldn’t get to my lungs- I could barely speak two words. He ‘didn’t want me to worry’ because I’m a busy person here at college. Yes, I’m a double major.

And yes, I’m in a sorority. And yes, I’m already stressed about being five and a half hours away from home. But NO, these things do not come before my own father. After trying to explain this to my dad he still didn’t agree. And that’s the thing about cancer: it makes everyone who is dealing with it so much more selfless. You don’t want to force it upon other people but you can’t deal with it by yourself.

R. Relay for Life 2016 is where I stand today. After all of my encounters with cancer, I took it upon myself to make sure I made a difference.

Fortunately, I was chosen to be a part of the Relay for Life Fundraising Committee (aka the best one). My relay family is one of the greatest ones I’ve been a part of at Virginia Tech. Each and every one of them has dealt with cancer in some way and they are the most supportive and loving people on this planet. They are here for me through every struggle I have and I am beyond blessed to be apart of such an amazing group of people.

In case you were wondering, I got a perfect score on my Words of the Week test that week, which was expected because I was an overachiever in elementary school. However, I would’ve never guessed that this one word I was forced to learn in the third grade would affect my everyday life and shape me into the individual that I am today.

I can honestly say that cancer is one of the worst things to ever cross someone’s life, but, with support, dedication, and love, anyone can overcome the battle.

(Written by J.S.)

At the beginning of my freshman year of high school, I was 14, naïve, and had a developing passion of life.

My life was going well- everything was going my way. After I thought things couldn’t get any better, I met Zack.

He was older, attractive, and for some reason he liked me. Talking to him was like drugs; he made me feel so alive. I had never-ending butterflies in my stomach when he was around. In my eyes, he was perfect. After about a month of “talking,” I became his official girlfriend. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. I had my first REAL boyfriend, what more could I ask for?

He was my Prince Charming.

We’d talk for hours over the phone nightly and see each other every weekend. Zack was the sweetest person I’d ever met. He made me feel like I was the most important person in the world. As you can probably imagine, I fell for him rather quickly. He had all of my heart. Since I was only 14, he became my first everything, and I mean everything.

I lost my virginity to him on Valentine’s Day.

I was so nervous and scared, but I all that I could think about was how much he meant to me. I knew that losing my virginity was a “big deal,” but what I didn’t know is that my attachment to Zack would become so much deeper. At the beginning of our relationship, I thought that Zack liked me way more than I liked him. Boy did I turn out to be wrong. My love for him became all-consuming.

He became my whole world.

I saw him every single day, and I couldn’t imagine life without him. He became my happiness. It got to the point that I had legitimate anxiety attacks when we fought in fear that he would break up with me. There wasn’t a thing that I wouldn’t do for him; I was positive that I was going to marry this boy (I told you I was naïve).

After almost two years together, our relationship began going downhill fast.

There were so many fights about pointless things and so many signs that our love was fading. He started pulling away from me, and I started desperately clinging to him in hope that my love would be able to pull us through. I couldn’t live without him.

I thought that I could make a one-sided relationship work- it had to. On March 30, the inevitable happened. We had a fight, and, long story short, he broke up with me. Drunk. I still remember him walking out of the door and officially out of my life. I completely broke down. My knees buckled, sobs came crashing out, and my heart felt like it shattered. For the next week, I alternated crying and sleeping until I became physically sick. I felt like I didn’t know how to live anymore.

He was a part of every aspect of my life, and I didn’t know how to do anything without him. I’d never experienced a pain this potent. This started my battle with depression.

I stopped being me because I honestly wasn’t sure who I was anymore. I couldn’t find happiness anywhere. I didn’t laugh anymore or enjoy myself. My family voiced their concerns for me almost daily. I tried to find any relief for the emotional pain that I was feeling through alcohol, smoking, boys, or anything that would make me feel okay for at least a second. I was at my lowest point, and I wasn’t sure it would get any better. I couldn’t take it anymore.

Something had to change.

The point where my life changed was a few months later when I put myself in the hands of God. Religion had never been an important part of my life until one night that I was crying and screaming out to God to take away my pain. I was so angry and so hurt that it was all I could feel.

It even hurt to breathe. I knew I couldn’t carry on much longer, so I broke down and called out for salvation from my Father. I will never forget the moment when I felt something rise out of my chest and dissolve. After that, it didn’t hurt to breathe anymore. God took away my pain, and I knew it was my time to rise up and take my life back. I became so adamant that I would be okay again. This was my life, and I’m going to live it.

Gradually, I began to return to my old, confident, fun loving self.

I celebrated little victories like deleting his photos off of my phone or remembering that I hadn’t thought about him that day. Slowly, but surely, I started coming out of my shell. I stopped taking anti-depressants and started being completely independent again. I loved it! Through God, family, and one of the best friends in the world, I made it through. I. Made. It.

Today, I still have the emotional scars. My depression still flares sometimes on the bad days. I push people away because I’m still so scared of becoming “not okay” again. I’m working every day to break down the walls that I built around me. I’m different, more jaded, but I’m strong now. I’m a version of myself that I can say I’m damn proud of. There’s even another guy in the picture now.

I’ve realized that I am my own happiness- no one can take that away from me. I’m still making improvements to become the best “me” I can be. I can honestly say that I’m okay. And that’s the greatest thing I could ever hope for. Against everything that I thought, I’m okay.

(Written by Rebecca Lewis)

Well, we were pregnant again. We had an eighteen month little girl at home, and we were well on our way to having two kids. It was exciting and overwhelming at the same time. I was so, so sick; barely able to keep any food down most days, let alone try to play with my busy toddler. It was happening. There was no turning back for us.

We were so thrilled to be having another baby! We love being parents and had always wanted to have our kids close together. It was so fun to start planning for our new little one.

I was almost 20 weeks, the halfway point in a pregnancy. I was headed in for a regular appointment and was feeling nervous. More than usual.

I headed into my appointment, and my doctor started to look for that special heartbeat. Nothing. He grabbed an ultrasound machine. Still nothing. Our little baby had died. I was all alone and heartbroken.

We went through a crummy induced labor and delivery and found out that our baby was a little boy. It was a terribly sad day for us. Something that we never expected. We never thought that we would lose a baby. No one ever does. Loss is always hard. Always.

There is something unique about losing an unborn baby. It’s not just about the baby being gone. It’s about the future. You’re entire future is different. We spent months planning on having a new baby, and now he was just gone. It felt weird.

We had been planning a big family trip in the summer, during which I would be pregnant. That was different now. I returned all my maternity swimsuits and tried to settle into a life that was different than what we had been planning.

There was also some relief. I was relieved. Having a baby is such a financial responsibility and is extremely stressful. We were struggling at the time, so I did. I felt relieved.

And then I felt guilty. So guilty.

All I wanted was to have that baby with me. But he was gone and there wasn’t a thing that I could do about it.

I was filled with so many terrible feelings. I didn’t even know how to start healing. I found a great deal of support in friends and family who had similar experiences. My personal beliefs and faith in God and His plan helped and gave me strength. My husband stood by me. He was broken too, but together we were able to put our world back together and settle into our new reality.

And I know that I would not have survived without my daughter. She is a joy and being her mom kept me going.

A few months later, after experiencing some issues with sleep deprivation and other personal struggles, I decided to talk to my doctor about the possibility of post-partum depression. After a few conversations with my doctor, we decided to try an anti-depressant to help with my sleep. I am so grateful for the help that I had from medication and helpful doctors. I know that I would not be where I am without this.

From my experiences, I have learned the importance of asking for help from those around you.

People are always willing to listen, more than I ever realized. I also learned that I was stronger than I thought. I wasn’t able to be strong every day, but I did my best to chose to be happy for myself and my family.

Ultimately, I healed and overcame this loss because I of the choices I made every single day. I chose my family. I did not want to be lost in a grey cloud of grief, and I knew that I couldn’t be the best wife and mother if I was constantly lost in my sadness. I chose to be happy.

I put on a smile, even when it hurt the most. I chose to remain positive and to remember that the pain I was experiencing wouldn’t last forever. It was only permanent if I let it be.

(Written by Madilene Lake)

If you had told me in the fall of 2005 that 10 years later I would have voluntarily run four half marathons and a marathon, my 13-year old self would have said “As if” and gone back to texting on her pink RAZR phone, not so silently judging you for suggesting such a ridiculous idea.

At the time, I hated running. I hated how it made me sweaty, hated the hills, and hated the fact that my parents would drag me through the streets of our neighborhood to run “for fun.” Running wasn’t fun.

It was a self-induced death march that I was unfortunate enough to have to endure in the name of family bonding. Well, that’s how I saw it as a moody teenage girl anyways. Which, was when my mom and brother suggested I run cross-country my freshman year of high school, I was skeptical. Why would I purposely want to run long distances multiple days a week? How is running a sport?

But, because I had decided not to cheer and lacrosse try-outs weren’t until the spring, I didn’t have many options for fall sports. So on August 1, 2006, I laced up my running shoes and reported for practice.

Right away I knew cross-country would be like nothing I had ever experienced.

First off, running is hard. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect there to be such an exact, and often painful, science to running hills or timing splits. Second off, and most importantly, I had coaches who believed in me.

Over the next four years, Coaches Cathi Monk and Christine Dahlhauser would teach me to not only have a love for running, but to have a love for myself. These two incredible women pushed me harder than I had ever been pushed.

They didn’t expect greatness, but they did expect that I would put in my greatest effort to be better than I was the day before. Most days I would do my best, but there were definitely practices and races that I just wasn’t feeling it. Each had an incredibly distinct voice and more than once I heard “Madi Lake, what the heck are you doing? I know you can do better than that!” from across the course. At that moment, the very moment I thought I would rather keel over than run harder, I would close my eyes and dig deeper, somehow finding strength that I didn’t even know I had.

They taught me to be a hill seeker, and that the most important moments in life happen on a “hill.”

While most runners hate hills, hills Coach D reminded me, give you the opportunity to prove to yourself (and others) how strong you really are. There is nothing more satisfying than basking in the descent after conquering a particularly steep hill. They taught me that the last .1 is just as important as the first 100 meters. In cross -country, it is the scores of the top seven runners that makes up the team’s final score, with the lowest team score winning the entire meet.

Therefore, even though you were running your own race, you were really running for six other people. You need to finish your race just as strong as it started, no matter how tired, or downtrodden you might feel.

You must always finish the race. You must always fight the good fight.

Finally, they showed me what it was like to be something larger than myself. At the end of my freshman season, Coach Monk handed me a single chain link. “This link represents our team,” she said. “As the newest members, you are our newest links. Right now they are shiny, but with age, they will dull. This is like a team – it’s easy to be excited when things are “shiny” but much harder when they’re dull. We are only as strong as all of us together and although it might be hard, there isn’t anything that can break us.” Being a link can sometimes be hard, but it’s always worth it in the end.

I am a far cry from the girl I was at 13 – instead I am strong, confident, and determined to succeed.

Because of these women, I am a life long runner, and appreciate what running can do for the soul. It is because of Cathi Monk that I know I can push myself without breaking, and that I’m stronger than I think I am.

It is because of Coach D that I have learned the importance of never giving up and to always have faith, no matter the circumstances. It is because of these two women and their wisdom, grace, and strength that I am who I am today, and for that, I could not be more thankful.