June 19, 2025 • 26 mins
In the first-ever episode of This One Day, Nathalie Brewer opens up about her raw and transformative experience of living with cancer and multiple metastases over the past nine years. From a life of creative freedom, world travel, and artistic exploration, to the unexpected shift into the quiet routines of single parenthood in Melbourne, she reflects on the powerful contrast between those two lives. Nathalie shares how facing death can bring us closer to life, and how this awareness can shape the way we live each day. The episode concludes with a 5-minute guided meditation designed to help you open your heart to the possibility and power in this one day.
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S1 (00:08):
Hello and welcome to This One Day, a podcast designed
and spoken by me, Nathalie Brewer, your host. I'm so
excited that you are here. I'm so excited that I
am here! It has taken a nine year journey with
cancer for me to come into a life worth dying for,
(00:31):
and that's what I want to share with you how
to do that, how to be that, how to live
that in every day of your life so we can
all live this one glorious life that we've been given together.
So I know that you're probably curious about who I am,
so I thought I'd give a five minute intro to
how I've become who I am.
(00:52):
So it started, of course, when I was born, 1979.
I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. The
dark suburbs, the vibrant suburbs, the ones that really teach
you resilience. And then I got out of there when
I was 18 and went to Canberra and did a
uni degree in psychology, and then an honours degree over
in Darwin. And then I just flew from there into
(01:15):
the universe, into the world, on the planet. I hitchhiked
around Europe and I just really disappeared into the world
for five years, and I learnt how to play guitar,
and I taught myself how to connect with community. I
lived in squats and farms, and I helped out all
over different parts of the Middle East. I went into
(01:37):
India and ashrams and meditated for long periods of time,
and I was so utterly concerned with the idea of
God and spirituality, and I had no idea really how
to reckon with that. And so I was on a
ferverent search.
The 20s of my life really delivered me into this
(01:58):
creative power, and I did a lot of creative work workshops,
in communities where I was living. Just lots of offering
of creation and art and music, and I guess it
all came into a place where I discovered that words
and writing came through me quite easily, and so I started
(02:21):
doing slam poetry. So think of yourself going around Europe
and having not much money, and if you can play
the guitar and write a decent song, you might delve
into busking, which is what I did. But I wasn't
a very strong guitarist. So instead I wrote words and
I performed words and I slammed words. I'd get up
(02:42):
and speak on the corner of of streets, and I'd
get up in restaurants and on the side of a
hill at a festival and just start espousing motivational poetry
and selling these little books that I had printed in India.
This part of me that that is evangelist, the the
(03:06):
part of me that rhythmically wants to speak in the
pulse of what we are, which is creation. And I
kind of learned to tap into that. And after doing that,
for years, I learned the power and the beauty of
connecting with people. But needing to do that first with
the power of connecting with oneself. Because if you don't
do that first, it's extremely hard to connect with others.
(03:28):
I came back to Australia and discovered there was a
real need in this country for speaking out about bullying
in schools. So I used my psychology degree to go
into schools and talk to teachers about how to create
whole school approaches to wellbeing, specifically around kids being mean
(03:49):
to each other. Growing up from the back suburbs of
the western suburbs of Sydney, I was exposed to quite
a lot of instances where children hadn't learnt and didn't
value how to be kind. And so I spent the
first ten years of my career doing that, delivering programmes
(04:10):
with theatre in education, public speaking and the slam poetry.
it delivered me into also a company that I started
called Yellow Lantern, and that's teaching kids how to speak
with their whole heart, specifically how to do public speaking
and believe in themselves. And I did that for another
13 years also whilst becoming a single mother.
(04:33):
Becoming a single mum was never the plan. I guess
we don't plan the hard things, do we? And being
a single mother when I was 30 years old was
was one of the most delightful and hard things I've
ever done. And I made some decisions, such as living
out in the far eastern parts of Melbourne. I wanted
(04:55):
a tree change and so I lived in the Dandenongs
and whilst that was beautiful, 24. I was isolated and
I didn't really know how to build the community here
back in Australia that I was so used to building
on the spontaneity path which was travelling around the world.
(05:15):
I really struggled to do that here in our home country,
really struggled to reach out to people who had busy
lives and families who were nuclear. And, you know, I
was a single mother artist with my own company, fiercely
independent and a real gypsy spirit. And I thought that
was enough to carry. And it was it wasn't really.
(05:36):
It was a constant effort. And to, you know, to
find that community and to feel like I had a
sense of belonging. And I suppose there was some habits
that I got into.
And this is the beginning of the story as to
how this one day has come about, and the early
days of being a single mother. In the Dandenongs I
(05:57):
became a bit of a hermit, And whilst I did
reach out and I did do wonderful things with my
daughter and tried hard, I felt isolated and completely alone.
It was sometimes a trial to take my child to
the supermarket. She was neurodiverse and she is doing beautifully,
but she had a real struggle in her early years
(06:20):
with just regulating herself, and so I had to be
there for her to do that all the time, every day,
morning till night. And there was no switch off button.
So I guess in that way I, for the first
time in my life, became completely unregulated as well. So
I started eating poorly because I was just I didn't
want to go to the supermarket. It was too hard.
(06:42):
I would give a lot of the good food that
I cooked at home to her, and I'd eat lots
of toast and drink lots of tea. And I got
into some bad habits with my with my eating and
overdoing that and being on retrograde, low key sort of
stress and not really not finding my groove. I developed
long term inflammation, I suppose, and stress in my body.
(07:04):
I had inherited, unfortunately, my father's genes. My fathers side of the family has had
breast cancer and bowel cancer all the way through his
lineage going back a few generations. I first noticed it
when I felt there was something wrong with my bowels.
My daughter was about five years old, and I took
(07:26):
myself off for a colonoscopy. And and we discovered a
five centimeter tumor hiding out in there, obstructing the bowels
and causing me a few problems. And, that was the beginning.
It was a bowel cancer diagnosis. And to be honest,
I was, uh, domestic. Instead of getting it, um, removed
(07:49):
straight away. I actually decided to go and have a
bit of a lifestyle retreat. So I went out to
the Ian Gawler Centre, which used to operate out in the
Yarra Valley, and I learnt how and why potentially cancer
was in my body. It was a lifestyle retreat. And
so I delved into instant, reconnection with meditation and really
(08:11):
healthy eating and removing toxins from my environment and really
getting my attitude in the right space, but also doing
a deep emotional work. I also did trauma work from
early childhood, you name it, I researched it, I did
mistletoe therapy, I was doing fasting, I was doing juicing.
I was looking into travelling to different parts of the world,
(08:33):
like Mexico, to have a look at different things that
I can do. I was definitely also looking here in
Australia at the normal mode of healing, you know, surgery
and and chemotherapy. Nothing was off the table. Initially, after 2
or 3 weeks of really, really trying to figure out
what was going on with my body and wanting to
(08:54):
get a relationship with that tumour before I got it
cut out, because I felt like it was an opportunity
I decided to do the operation and I did. They
removed the tumour, but they were surprised to see that
it had shrunk by by almost half just in two
and a half weeks. Isn't that extraordinary? Just by the
massive changes that I made straight away. Even just the
(09:17):
choice to move out of the Dandenongs was made straight away.
I looked at my life and I thought, what is
not working? And I didn't need to know why anymore.
I didn't need to sit in a situation where I
feel isolated and alone and try and convince myself that
I was doing something wrong, and therefore, if I could
only get this right, then everything would be better. I
(09:37):
think when there's an accumulation of things that aren't just
quite feeling right in your life, you get to a
point where it doesn't matter what the reason is anymore,
and you just say to yourself, "not this", just not this.
And you change it. And I really believe that cancer
is something that knocks on your door with a big
(09:58):
fat envelope. And the envelope is full of all the reason
you've given yourself not to live the greatest possible life
that you've got. And there's all these reasons that you've
accumulated as to why you're not doing it. And the
envelope gets delivered and and you just burn it down.
(10:22):
You're just like "this big fat envelope is is something
that I have been focusing on for way too long.
And I just want to, you know, release myself of
the burden of having all of these letters that I've
given myself that haven't worked".
So how do you redo the script? How do you
drop all those letters, all those reminders, all those excuses?
(10:43):
And how do you just hold one precious life that
you have with no reasons not to do it? And
and I think I realized early on that that was
one of the big messages of cancer. So after that surgery,
I was renewed, to be honest, because it wasn't the
surgery that, by the way, was successful, it removed the
(11:07):
cancer and there was no nothing in the lymph nodes.
And they said that it should all be fine and
it should go away. And it did. Actually the bowel
cancer was resolved and that one surgery. And so I
did that. But that wasn't the change that I felt.
It was the shock of having cancer that literally like
a life line line shocked me into a different way
(11:27):
of being in life. And I made instant plans to
move house, instant plans to get myself into a different
situation where I felt alive and connected.
Then four weeks later, I was reaching down in the
shower to grab the soap that I had dropped, and
after I grabbed the soap, my right hand lifted and
(11:49):
went straight to the breast to feel a bump that
I all of a sudden became aware of that I'd
never felt there before. And and I thought, oh, this
is interesting. Surely it can't be a whole nother different
type of cancer? I took myself off to the doctor
and we ordered all the tests, and it came back
that it was breast cancer. And it is highly unusual
(12:12):
for a human being to have two separate types of
cancer that aren't related. It wasn't a metastases, it was two separate types,
bowel cancer and breast cancer in my body. And the breast cancer
had a different effect. It felt more serious. It didn't
it didn't feel like a bowel cancer that we got early,
(12:33):
that we could just get chopped out and I could
do a few lifestyle changes and away we go. The
breast cancer felt like a reckoning, felt like a longer journey.
And I went straight into healing mode. I had already
moved house by that stage. I felt I was really
quick moving.
I found myself back in Melbourne, the Metropolitan, and I
(12:59):
loved it, took my daughter to a brand new primary
school in the inner north, and I had more friends
around the area and more opportunities for creative expression and
the business that I wanted to grow. Or potentially, I
was thinking of even changing that, and there was lots
of things opening up at the same time. I was
(13:21):
closer to the hospital at the Austin and the The Olivia
Newton-John Wellness Center. And and that's where I started to
ponder whether I go straight into treatment or not. I
had had some success with the bowel cancer of making
some rapid changes. I wondered if I could do the
same with the breast? And so I took a back
(13:42):
step from my business and I launched myself into health
vibrant health.
It was a full time job. My daughter was at
school and as soon as I dropped her off, I
was juicing, I was meditating, I was mistle toeing still.
I was researching. I was doing blood tests and getting
(14:04):
blood sent off to Germany. I was looking at all
the latest research and what we can do to slow
down the growth and reverse the growth of breast tumors.
I can't even list all the things here that I
had done. And they're not kind of not important, except
they were all things that I was dedicating myself and
diving into. Similar to how I travelled around the world
(14:24):
diving into spirituality. And I did that for 8 or
9 months and every three months I got tested again
to see if I'd made any progress. And whilst the
growth of the tumours, (there were two of them actually
in my right breast), was slow, they were still growing.
(14:45):
And so I had to put chemotherapy on the table,
which is what I did, and also a double mastectomy,
which is what I did. And that was in 2018.
And after that surgery. Unfortunately, it didn't go well and
I thought I would lose the breast multiple times. I got an infection
(15:09):
and the implants that were put in had to be taken
out in one of the breasts, and it didn't heal.
So I was back into ICU with a really serious infection.
And this just kept on going for a while.
I decided to document that with some beautiful photography from
a friend's photography studio. And I was just really interested
(15:32):
in what changes were happening within me on a psychological level,
because it's almost like life was sped up, but also
on hold at the same time. Nothing was going to
put me on a cancer free train, you know, it
had left the station and I was on the train
(15:54):
of trying to heal and reckon with life and reckon
with death.
I wasn't very concerned about the idea of dying. To
be honest, in the early days I was filled with
hope and optimism. And of course, I was a mother
(16:14):
needing to make sure that I'd given my daughter the
best possible chance of having a mother. And so I
guess the story of having breast cancer is the one
that has been the ongoing one over the past nine years.
(16:35):
And yeah, it, it it had metastasized. And then I'd
gotten into remission and then another metastases and then another
surgery and then another metastases to the lymph nodes and
then radiation. And then at least three different rounds or
four different rounds of chemo. And then of course Covid.
(16:57):
I came into remission actually, just before Covid I came
out of remission because I was chronic inflammation through my body,
through the vaccination, actually, which prompted another cancer to return.
And look, it's a long journey and it's been in
and out. And I got to the point where I
had reached a stage 4 diagnosis and the cancer had
(17:20):
spread to my lungs and my spine and certain dots
and lymph nodes and, and the doctor said, "look, this
is the beginning of the big fight. And it's the
statistics are not looking in your favour any longer now
that it has reached those vital organs and the bones".
(17:42):
That's when I had to reckon with death. And that
was in 2021. And I guess that changed everything. That
stage 4 diagnosis was the beginning of what I thought
(18:03):
may be the end, and so I had to look
at the possibility of death, which I did. And I
would love to talk to you about death.
I feel like this podcast, 'this one day', this introduction,
this journey of my childhood, my brief, soiree into into
a big life in my 20s of traveling and spirituality
(18:27):
and parenting and isolation and living in Melbourne and and
reaching out to a different life. You know, it all
culminated two years ago into this stage 4 diagnosis where
I had to reckon with death. And there is so
many more chapters to talk to you about, and I
(18:48):
promise you that it is leading to something that is
fundamental and crucial to the way that we all live,
and also to the way that we all think about
the life that we have. And I promise that this
podcast is not only going to explore death, but ultimately
(19:09):
this podcast is about living fiercely open to life, because
I think having cancer and having a fierce, bold approach
to life like I have has delivered me into a few simple
and profound realisations about what it means to truly, truly
(19:29):
live with life force itself. And practicing 'living' is one
of the best antidotes to a chronic disease. But not
only that, but to the monotony of living.
I know what it feels like to go through life
not really truly living, because I have also gone through
life with the opposite extreme (of being on the edge
(19:53):
of absolutely living in the universe, throwing myself to it
like a child travelling, creating, being, exploring) but then also
at the other end, coming into deep detachment and the
pain of living where where you've cut yourself off, you
(20:14):
don't quite know how to reach out or when your
life becomes very small. You know the size of a
house and one child, and the day that you're in,
feels like it gets repeated, you know? And we do that.
I suppose we have these really important obligations and we
can get lost on the way. We can lose our self,
(20:36):
our sense of identity, and we can lose even our
health through so many choices, little tiny choices that we
make on the way. And likewise the antidote, the antithesis,
is to make so many little choices that are life giving.
'This one day' is about making one choice every day
(20:59):
to live as close as you can to your pure essence,
to your life, to your wide open heart, and to heal.
And it doesn't matter if you have a cold or
a chronic illness or a life that's not quite right,
that's not quite 'this', you know. Just not this. There
(21:21):
are elements within all of our lives and all of
our days that don't quite feel like this isn't there.
And so this podcast is a reminder and a practice
and a coming home into a voice, which I'd like
to provide for you as often as I can to
(21:43):
help you get inside this day. I'm really looking forward
to every podcast that we're going to spend together, this
listening time that you're giving me and and the heart
based words that I promise to give you. Let's see
where this continues.
Hey, thanks for joining me in this very first episode.
(22:03):
And let's make a practice of a life worth dying for.
And to finish our time together, I thought we could
end with a short 3 to 5 minute meditation, and
we're going to do an open eye meditation. Because if
we're living truly in this one day, we want to
do it with our eyes wide open.
(22:25):
MEDITATION
or running or resting, let's just soften our gaze as
much as you feel comfortable. As much as this moment
will allow, and take our attention to our heart and
imagine inside the center of your heart is an opening bud,
(22:45):
like a flower. And as we breathe in, the petals
open and as we breathe out, the petals close, Breathing
in to open, breathing out as they quiver closed and
(23:06):
continuing a breath like this for another few more breaths.
And on your next inhalation, opening that flower as wide
(23:29):
as it can go. Opening to the sun, imagining the
sun touching every single molecule and just breathing it open,
allowing it to stay open, your heart open to all
the elements around you. All the elements of this day.
And imagine the pollen of this flower lifting off the
(23:54):
flower and floating away from your body until the pollen
of your beautiful flower essence is all around you. Around
your body. Dusting your energetic field. And imagine as though
(24:14):
you can smell this fragrance of this flower. To breathe
in and breathe out. This wide open flower. Of this
life force that was birthed in your heart.
Now spreading the fragrance all around your body. Imagine as
(24:36):
though this fragrance can permeate away from the body, filling
the entire space that you're in. Every single corner. Every
single area filling the space you're in. And now imagine
(25:01):
as though this essence of this flower can be sent
throughout your entire day, permeating and touching everyone that you
haven't yet met, or every thought that you haven't yet thought,
or every instant that you haven't yet lived. This beautiful
fragrance entering everywhere and sweetening your entire day.
(25:45):
And ending this meditation with a slight smile at the
corner of your lips. And as you smile, you're sending
this smile forward. So even before people greet you or
before your own thoughts meet you today, they can sense
this beautiful essence that you are and the smile that
(26:05):
you send before you. To end the meditation, you might
like to close your eyes just for a second. Smiling
in the face and then opening the eyes. Awakening to
the potential of this one big beautiful day. There are
still moments left in this day, no matter what time
(26:26):
it is that you are listening to this meditation. So
what thoughts can you have? What actions can you do
to make this day count on the beautiful garden of
your entire life? See you next time.
Hello and welcome to This One Day, a podcast designed
and spoken by me, Nathalie Brewer, your host. I'm so
excited that you are here. I'm so excited that I
am here! It has taken a nine year journey with
cancer for me to come into a life worth dying for,
(00:31):
and that's what I want to share with you how
to do that, how to be that, how to live
that in every day of your life so we can
all live this one glorious life that we've been given together.
So I know that you're probably curious about who I am,
so I thought I'd give a five minute intro to
how I've become who I am.
(00:52):
So it started, of course, when I was born, 1979.
I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. The
dark suburbs, the vibrant suburbs, the ones that really teach
you resilience. And then I got out of there when
I was 18 and went to Canberra and did a
uni degree in psychology, and then an honours degree over
in Darwin. And then I just flew from there into
(01:15):
the universe, into the world, on the planet. I hitchhiked
around Europe and I just really disappeared into the world
for five years, and I learnt how to play guitar,
and I taught myself how to connect with community. I
lived in squats and farms, and I helped out all
over different parts of the Middle East. I went into
(01:37):
India and ashrams and meditated for long periods of time,
and I was so utterly concerned with the idea of
God and spirituality, and I had no idea really how
to reckon with that. And so I was on a
ferverent search.
The 20s of my life really delivered me into this
(01:58):
creative power, and I did a lot of creative work workshops,
in communities where I was living. Just lots of offering
of creation and art and music, and I guess it
all came into a place where I discovered that words
and writing came through me quite easily, and so I started
(02:21):
doing slam poetry. So think of yourself going around Europe
and having not much money, and if you can play
the guitar and write a decent song, you might delve
into busking, which is what I did. But I wasn't
a very strong guitarist. So instead I wrote words and
I performed words and I slammed words. I'd get up
(02:42):
and speak on the corner of of streets, and I'd
get up in restaurants and on the side of a
hill at a festival and just start espousing motivational poetry
and selling these little books that I had printed in India.
This part of me that that is evangelist, the the
(03:06):
part of me that rhythmically wants to speak in the
pulse of what we are, which is creation. And I
kind of learned to tap into that. And after doing that,
for years, I learned the power and the beauty of
connecting with people. But needing to do that first with
the power of connecting with oneself. Because if you don't
do that first, it's extremely hard to connect with others.
(03:28):
I came back to Australia and discovered there was a
real need in this country for speaking out about bullying
in schools. So I used my psychology degree to go
into schools and talk to teachers about how to create
whole school approaches to wellbeing, specifically around kids being mean
(03:49):
to each other. Growing up from the back suburbs of
the western suburbs of Sydney, I was exposed to quite
a lot of instances where children hadn't learnt and didn't
value how to be kind. And so I spent the
first ten years of my career doing that, delivering programmes
(04:10):
with theatre in education, public speaking and the slam poetry.
it delivered me into also a company that I started
called Yellow Lantern, and that's teaching kids how to speak
with their whole heart, specifically how to do public speaking
and believe in themselves. And I did that for another
13 years also whilst becoming a single mother.
(04:33):
Becoming a single mum was never the plan. I guess
we don't plan the hard things, do we? And being
a single mother when I was 30 years old was
was one of the most delightful and hard things I've
ever done. And I made some decisions, such as living
out in the far eastern parts of Melbourne. I wanted
(04:55):
a tree change and so I lived in the Dandenongs
and whilst that was beautiful, 24. I was isolated and
I didn't really know how to build the community here
back in Australia that I was so used to building
on the spontaneity path which was travelling around the world.
(05:15):
I really struggled to do that here in our home country,
really struggled to reach out to people who had busy
lives and families who were nuclear. And, you know, I
was a single mother artist with my own company, fiercely
independent and a real gypsy spirit. And I thought that
was enough to carry. And it was it wasn't really.
(05:36):
It was a constant effort. And to, you know, to
find that community and to feel like I had a
sense of belonging. And I suppose there was some habits
that I got into.
And this is the beginning of the story as to
how this one day has come about, and the early
days of being a single mother. In the Dandenongs I
(05:57):
became a bit of a hermit, And whilst I did
reach out and I did do wonderful things with my
daughter and tried hard, I felt isolated and completely alone.
It was sometimes a trial to take my child to
the supermarket. She was neurodiverse and she is doing beautifully,
but she had a real struggle in her early years
(06:20):
with just regulating herself, and so I had to be
there for her to do that all the time, every day,
morning till night. And there was no switch off button.
So I guess in that way I, for the first
time in my life, became completely unregulated as well. So
I started eating poorly because I was just I didn't
want to go to the supermarket. It was too hard.
(06:42):
I would give a lot of the good food that
I cooked at home to her, and I'd eat lots
of toast and drink lots of tea. And I got
into some bad habits with my with my eating and
overdoing that and being on retrograde, low key sort of
stress and not really not finding my groove. I developed
long term inflammation, I suppose, and stress in my body.
(07:04):
I had inherited, unfortunately, my father's genes. My fathers side of the family has had
breast cancer and bowel cancer all the way through his
lineage going back a few generations. I first noticed it
when I felt there was something wrong with my bowels.
My daughter was about five years old, and I took
(07:26):
myself off for a colonoscopy. And and we discovered a
five centimeter tumor hiding out in there, obstructing the bowels
and causing me a few problems. And, that was the beginning.
It was a bowel cancer diagnosis. And to be honest,
I was, uh, domestic. Instead of getting it, um, removed
(07:49):
straight away. I actually decided to go and have a
bit of a lifestyle retreat. So I went out to
the Ian Gawler Centre, which used to operate out in the
Yarra Valley, and I learnt how and why potentially cancer
was in my body. It was a lifestyle retreat. And
so I delved into instant, reconnection with meditation and really
(08:11):
healthy eating and removing toxins from my environment and really
getting my attitude in the right space, but also doing
a deep emotional work. I also did trauma work from
early childhood, you name it, I researched it, I did
mistletoe therapy, I was doing fasting, I was doing juicing.
I was looking into travelling to different parts of the world,
(08:33):
like Mexico, to have a look at different things that
I can do. I was definitely also looking here in
Australia at the normal mode of healing, you know, surgery
and and chemotherapy. Nothing was off the table. Initially, after 2
or 3 weeks of really, really trying to figure out
what was going on with my body and wanting to
(08:54):
get a relationship with that tumour before I got it
cut out, because I felt like it was an opportunity
I decided to do the operation and I did. They
removed the tumour, but they were surprised to see that
it had shrunk by by almost half just in two
and a half weeks. Isn't that extraordinary? Just by the
massive changes that I made straight away. Even just the
(09:17):
choice to move out of the Dandenongs was made straight away.
I looked at my life and I thought, what is
not working? And I didn't need to know why anymore.
I didn't need to sit in a situation where I
feel isolated and alone and try and convince myself that
I was doing something wrong, and therefore, if I could
only get this right, then everything would be better. I
(09:37):
think when there's an accumulation of things that aren't just
quite feeling right in your life, you get to a
point where it doesn't matter what the reason is anymore,
and you just say to yourself, "not this", just not this.
And you change it. And I really believe that cancer
is something that knocks on your door with a big
(09:58):
fat envelope. And the envelope is full of all the reason
you've given yourself not to live the greatest possible life
that you've got. And there's all these reasons that you've
accumulated as to why you're not doing it. And the
envelope gets delivered and and you just burn it down.
(10:22):
You're just like "this big fat envelope is is something
that I have been focusing on for way too long.
And I just want to, you know, release myself of
the burden of having all of these letters that I've
given myself that haven't worked".
So how do you redo the script? How do you
drop all those letters, all those reminders, all those excuses?
(10:43):
And how do you just hold one precious life that
you have with no reasons not to do it? And
and I think I realized early on that that was
one of the big messages of cancer. So after that surgery,
I was renewed, to be honest, because it wasn't the
surgery that, by the way, was successful, it removed the
(11:07):
cancer and there was no nothing in the lymph nodes.
And they said that it should all be fine and
it should go away. And it did. Actually the bowel
cancer was resolved and that one surgery. And so I
did that. But that wasn't the change that I felt.
It was the shock of having cancer that literally like
a life line line shocked me into a different way
(11:27):
of being in life. And I made instant plans to
move house, instant plans to get myself into a different
situation where I felt alive and connected.
Then four weeks later, I was reaching down in the
shower to grab the soap that I had dropped, and
after I grabbed the soap, my right hand lifted and
(11:49):
went straight to the breast to feel a bump that
I all of a sudden became aware of that I'd
never felt there before. And and I thought, oh, this
is interesting. Surely it can't be a whole nother different
type of cancer? I took myself off to the doctor
and we ordered all the tests, and it came back
that it was breast cancer. And it is highly unusual
(12:12):
for a human being to have two separate types of
cancer that aren't related. It wasn't a metastases, it was two separate types,
bowel cancer and breast cancer in my body. And the breast cancer
had a different effect. It felt more serious. It didn't
it didn't feel like a bowel cancer that we got early,
(12:33):
that we could just get chopped out and I could
do a few lifestyle changes and away we go. The
breast cancer felt like a reckoning, felt like a longer journey.
And I went straight into healing mode. I had already
moved house by that stage. I felt I was really
quick moving.
I found myself back in Melbourne, the Metropolitan, and I
(12:59):
loved it, took my daughter to a brand new primary
school in the inner north, and I had more friends
around the area and more opportunities for creative expression and
the business that I wanted to grow. Or potentially, I
was thinking of even changing that, and there was lots
of things opening up at the same time. I was
(13:21):
closer to the hospital at the Austin and the The Olivia
Newton-John Wellness Center. And and that's where I started to
ponder whether I go straight into treatment or not. I
had had some success with the bowel cancer of making
some rapid changes. I wondered if I could do the
same with the breast? And so I took a back
(13:42):
step from my business and I launched myself into health
vibrant health.
It was a full time job. My daughter was at
school and as soon as I dropped her off, I
was juicing, I was meditating, I was mistle toeing still.
I was researching. I was doing blood tests and getting
(14:04):
blood sent off to Germany. I was looking at all
the latest research and what we can do to slow
down the growth and reverse the growth of breast tumors.
I can't even list all the things here that I
had done. And they're not kind of not important, except
they were all things that I was dedicating myself and
diving into. Similar to how I travelled around the world
(14:24):
diving into spirituality. And I did that for 8 or
9 months and every three months I got tested again
to see if I'd made any progress. And whilst the
growth of the tumours, (there were two of them actually
in my right breast), was slow, they were still growing.
(14:45):
And so I had to put chemotherapy on the table,
which is what I did, and also a double mastectomy,
which is what I did. And that was in 2018.
And after that surgery. Unfortunately, it didn't go well and
I thought I would lose the breast multiple times. I got an infection
(15:09):
and the implants that were put in had to be taken
out in one of the breasts, and it didn't heal.
So I was back into ICU with a really serious infection.
And this just kept on going for a while.
I decided to document that with some beautiful photography from
a friend's photography studio. And I was just really interested
(15:32):
in what changes were happening within me on a psychological level,
because it's almost like life was sped up, but also
on hold at the same time. Nothing was going to
put me on a cancer free train, you know, it
had left the station and I was on the train
(15:54):
of trying to heal and reckon with life and reckon
with death.
I wasn't very concerned about the idea of dying. To
be honest, in the early days I was filled with
hope and optimism. And of course, I was a mother
(16:14):
needing to make sure that I'd given my daughter the
best possible chance of having a mother. And so I
guess the story of having breast cancer is the one
that has been the ongoing one over the past nine years.
(16:35):
And yeah, it, it it had metastasized. And then I'd
gotten into remission and then another metastases and then another
surgery and then another metastases to the lymph nodes and
then radiation. And then at least three different rounds or
four different rounds of chemo. And then of course Covid.
(16:57):
I came into remission actually, just before Covid I came
out of remission because I was chronic inflammation through my body,
through the vaccination, actually, which prompted another cancer to return.
And look, it's a long journey and it's been in
and out. And I got to the point where I
had reached a stage 4 diagnosis and the cancer had
(17:20):
spread to my lungs and my spine and certain dots
and lymph nodes and, and the doctor said, "look, this
is the beginning of the big fight. And it's the
statistics are not looking in your favour any longer now
that it has reached those vital organs and the bones".
(17:42):
That's when I had to reckon with death. And that
was in 2021. And I guess that changed everything. That
stage 4 diagnosis was the beginning of what I thought
(18:03):
may be the end, and so I had to look
at the possibility of death, which I did. And I
would love to talk to you about death.
I feel like this podcast, 'this one day', this introduction,
this journey of my childhood, my brief, soiree into into
a big life in my 20s of traveling and spirituality
(18:27):
and parenting and isolation and living in Melbourne and and
reaching out to a different life. You know, it all
culminated two years ago into this stage 4 diagnosis where
I had to reckon with death. And there is so
many more chapters to talk to you about, and I
(18:48):
promise you that it is leading to something that is
fundamental and crucial to the way that we all live,
and also to the way that we all think about
the life that we have. And I promise that this
podcast is not only going to explore death, but ultimately
(19:09):
this podcast is about living fiercely open to life, because
I think having cancer and having a fierce, bold approach
to life like I have has delivered me into a few simple
and profound realisations about what it means to truly, truly
(19:29):
live with life force itself. And practicing 'living' is one
of the best antidotes to a chronic disease. But not
only that, but to the monotony of living.
I know what it feels like to go through life
not really truly living, because I have also gone through
life with the opposite extreme (of being on the edge
(19:53):
of absolutely living in the universe, throwing myself to it
like a child travelling, creating, being, exploring) but then also
at the other end, coming into deep detachment and the
pain of living where where you've cut yourself off, you
(20:14):
don't quite know how to reach out or when your
life becomes very small. You know the size of a
house and one child, and the day that you're in,
feels like it gets repeated, you know? And we do that.
I suppose we have these really important obligations and we
can get lost on the way. We can lose our self,
(20:36):
our sense of identity, and we can lose even our
health through so many choices, little tiny choices that we
make on the way. And likewise the antidote, the antithesis,
is to make so many little choices that are life giving.
'This one day' is about making one choice every day
(20:59):
to live as close as you can to your pure essence,
to your life, to your wide open heart, and to heal.
And it doesn't matter if you have a cold or
a chronic illness or a life that's not quite right,
that's not quite 'this', you know. Just not this. There
(21:21):
are elements within all of our lives and all of
our days that don't quite feel like this isn't there.
And so this podcast is a reminder and a practice
and a coming home into a voice, which I'd like
to provide for you as often as I can to
(21:43):
help you get inside this day. I'm really looking forward
to every podcast that we're going to spend together, this
listening time that you're giving me and and the heart
based words that I promise to give you. Let's see
where this continues.
Hey, thanks for joining me in this very first episode.
(22:03):
And let's make a practice of a life worth dying for.
And to finish our time together, I thought we could
end with a short 3 to 5 minute meditation, and
we're going to do an open eye meditation. Because if
we're living truly in this one day, we want to
do it with our eyes wide open.
(22:25):
MEDITATION
or running or resting, let's just soften our gaze as
much as you feel comfortable. As much as this moment
will allow, and take our attention to our heart and
imagine inside the center of your heart is an opening bud,
(22:45):
like a flower. And as we breathe in, the petals
open and as we breathe out, the petals close, Breathing
in to open, breathing out as they quiver closed and
(23:06):
continuing a breath like this for another few more breaths.
And on your next inhalation, opening that flower as wide
(23:29):
as it can go. Opening to the sun, imagining the
sun touching every single molecule and just breathing it open,
allowing it to stay open, your heart open to all
the elements around you. All the elements of this day.
And imagine the pollen of this flower lifting off the
(23:54):
flower and floating away from your body until the pollen
of your beautiful flower essence is all around you. Around
your body. Dusting your energetic field. And imagine as though
(24:14):
you can smell this fragrance of this flower. To breathe
in and breathe out. This wide open flower. Of this
life force that was birthed in your heart.
Now spreading the fragrance all around your body. Imagine as
(24:36):
though this fragrance can permeate away from the body, filling
the entire space that you're in. Every single corner. Every
single area filling the space you're in. And now imagine
(25:01):
as though this essence of this flower can be sent
throughout your entire day, permeating and touching everyone that you
haven't yet met, or every thought that you haven't yet thought,
or every instant that you haven't yet lived. This beautiful
fragrance entering everywhere and sweetening your entire day.
(25:45):
And ending this meditation with a slight smile at the
corner of your lips. And as you smile, you're sending
this smile forward. So even before people greet you or
before your own thoughts meet you today, they can sense
this beautiful essence that you are and the smile that
(26:05):
you send before you. To end the meditation, you might
like to close your eyes just for a second. Smiling
in the face and then opening the eyes. Awakening to
the potential of this one big beautiful day. There are
still moments left in this day, no matter what time
(26:26):
it is that you are listening to this meditation. So
what thoughts can you have? What actions can you do
to make this day count on the beautiful garden of
your entire life? See you next time.
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