Question time!
“How did your cancer diagnosis change your diet? How do you eat differently now?”
This video has been sitting in my camera roll for a while... I wasn’t going to post it on my timeline because, believe it or not, people attempt to shame me more for my cancer than anything else in my life. I’ve been contemplating if I have the energy to unpack fears projected onto me… well, here I am today.
People constantly try to strap me with their fear of their own mortality, trying to pinpoint everything I did wrong to cause my cancer.
My story is rarely met with authentic compassion. I’m instead seen as a physiological puzzle that has no soul, so others can protect their own fragile human form with belief structures on where I went wrong.
But alas, here I am as it’s a good lesson that cancer isn’t just about food.
I know.
Having it dialed in to one cause makes you feel the safest of safe, but unfortunately it’s not that simple.
Cancer isn’t just about food. It isn’t just about chemicals. It isn’t just about genetics. It isn’t just about any one thing. It’s generally a constellation of causes unique to the individual. This is also why we will never find a cure that works for 100% of the time in 100% of people diagnosed.
It’s not that clear cut and never will be.
Cancer forces you to endure physical and emotional pain that most people cannot empathize with even if they try. There are moments of hurt and defeat juxtaposed with those of love and possibility.
My divorce from a physically abusive man and separation from everything I knew and loved—all in an instant—was tragic, emotionally devastating, scary as fuck, and seemed to go on forever.
I lived life in a constant state of fight-or-flight. Worst of all, I was a fragment of my true self during this time, an alien within my skin.
Despite having amazing support from the few friends I let in on my personal life (introvert forever and always), I picked up some shitty coping mechanisms during this time. Wine, martinis, men, and impulsive spirals were my thing.
You can never get enough of something that almost works, right?
I was a scared lost girl.
I think most people would be fine living like I was living, and in fact many are fine. Telling themselves they are living their best life. I was a single, relatively naïve, California-blonde living in New York City, and I learned a lot of lessons quick-like about that lifestyle and how the city operates on a transactional soulless plane of existence.
I’m not that girl though. I’ve always wanted more out of life and can only pretend to be brainless when I’m mainlining ethanol, you know the legal way people get fucked up and blot their Higher Self out.
I knew that I needed a strict diet and lifestyle to be healthy—a past decade of life told me that after my MS diagnosis when I went blind due to optic nerve inflammation. My body has preferences. It is what it is. I did eat relatively the same diet. But imminent survival was the only thing on my mind in that phase. I had to move quick. Or rather, I felt I did. Health was the least of my worries when it had formerly been my obsession for years.
So, although my diet didn’t really change, the thing that did was the intense stress from fearing for my life (constant death threats paired with my own impulsive decision making). The amount of stress I was constantly under causes immunosuppression. I coped with those hard emotions via ethanol which also causes immunosuppression.
I’m not worried about my cancer coming back at all. I shifted my lifestyle dramatically to one that honors my Higher Self. I’m on a mission in that regard and I am obsessed with that now. I refuse to let too much unnecessary stress in my life. I picked a phenomenal life partner who makes me feel like I’m in eternal ecstasy. I protect my peace like my human form depends on it—because it does. All else is irrelevant if that isn’t dialed in.
My food, although I do think it’s pivotal to quality of life, that wasn’t my issue.
I’ll do a video on neuroimmunology at some point too. It’s basically what was the driving factor behind my cancer. I had my entire oncogene sequence done and I have zero germline mutations, which is quite remarkable. So, my cancer was definitely lifestyle related. I run extensive labs on myself including exotic ones and have for years. All biomarkers looked perfectly perfect leading up to my diagnosis, during treatment, and after.
You can find the accompanying video here.
This question is from a series of Q & A's I do on Instagram! If you want to see more like this, head over there for updates.