So there' s this idea we hear all the time, take care of yourself, eat well, sleep well, move your body, all the things we know that we should do. And for a long time, I understood that concept. Sorry, just hitting point now. But if I'm really honest, I understood it intellectually, probably not emotionally or didn't realise just how important your health is, which I know that sounds a bit dumb. But because when your health is fine, it just sits quietly in the background of your life. It's like oxygen. It's just, you know, it just happens. You don't wake up each day thinking, wow, I can breathe today. How lucky am I? You know, maybe some people do. I know I definitely didn't, you know, taking that for granted even. You know, but you just breathe. And before everything had changed for me, self-care felt like something that improved your life. But at the same time, it's like I didn't have time for it and I felt it was selfish. But, you know, it can help you reduce stress. It helps you feel better. It can make you more productive. And, you know, all of that is certainly true. Things like moving your body, eating well, getting enough sleep, spending time with people that you love, taking moments down to slow your mind, they can all help regulate your nervous system and they can also build resilience. And they can also make life feel a little bit more manageable. But here's what I fully didn't grasp back then, that self-care wasn't just about optimising life. It was about protecting something far more fragile than we realise because once your health is compromised, everything can change. Your energy can change. Your mindset can change. Your capacity can change depending on what you're What issue you have, like for me, secondary cancer is huge. Like I didn't have that, you know, risk before until now. You know, things that used to feel so small can suddenly feel enormous. And things you never thought about become the centre of your world or the things that you didn't think would even happen to you, like cancer, like some illness, right? All of a sudden, that's the center of your world. And you don't care about being more productive. You don't care about ticking off your to-do list. What you probably care about is just getting through the day and managing any symptoms that you have and holding yourself together physically and mentally as best as you can. And here's the part that probably hit me the hardest. It can be incredibly hard to get your health back. It's not always a quick fix. It's not always linear. There are so many subjective opinions out there. Who do you listen to? And sometimes you don't get back to the version of you that existed before. Maybe that's okay too. Maybe you don't need to get back to that person. You have to meet a new version of yourself. And we take our health for granted in the same way we take calm days for granted before a storm. we assume it's just going to be there until it's not and then suddenly everything you thought that mattered has to rearrange itself and self-care isn't just face masks and time off and treating yourself, which totally cool to do those as well. I know I definitely do the face mask thing. I'm getting better with the treats and the time off. But it's also listening when your body whispers so it doesn't have to scream and that is something I was really bad at doing. My body would be screaming times three and I still wouldn't listen to it until I was literally knocked on my ass. um you know saying no before you hit that burnout or it doesn't even have to be burnout just before you hit a wall resting before you're forced to stop choosing what actually matters not just what's urgent it's less about indulgence and it's more about um preservation and i want to touch on something that does come up a fair bit. And I mentioned it before, and it's the difference between self-care and selfishness. Because I think, especially now, I see this so clearly. Self-care is taking care of yourself so you can show up for your life and the people around you that you might need to care for. it's setting boundaries so you don't break yourself trying to hold everything together and it's protecting your energy your health and your capacity selfishness is taking without regard for others it's ignoring impact it's putting yourself first at the expense of everybody else because if I'm not healthy, I can't take care of my kids. And that's easy said than done. I can completely appreciate all of that. But self-care still holds empathy. Selfishness doesn't. And here's the truth. When your health is impacted, you have to prioritise yourself at times. I was literally at the hospital every single day and sometimes twice a day. And I had to. And that took me time away from my kids and it was all in the school holidays. And it's not because you don't care about others, but it's because you physically cannot pull from something that is empty. And, you know, I've spoken about this before, but balance used to look like doing everything. And now balance looks more like knowing what your limits are and it's respecting them and it's not negotiating with them just to keep other people comfortable. So to wrap up, that's probably a bit of doom and gloom. Sorry, it wasn't meant to be. But if your health is good right now, please don't wait for a diagnosis or burnout or breaking point to start treating it like it matters because your health isn't just part of your life. It's the foundation that your whole life sits on. And once that foundation starts to crack, you realise very quickly how hard it is to rebuild. And if you take anything from this episode, please let it be this. Do not wait until your body forces you to care. Please start now. And since I had been sharing my journey, I've been very slack with posting videos. I will do my best to catch up this long weekend because it's the day before the Friday. But so many people have reached out, men, women, I'm getting my overdue checks and I've got my check done and you know, there is something there. But you know, it's nothing to worry about. It's, you know, it's non-cancerous or whatever the situation is. So many people have come to me saying that they're getting all their checks done and, you know, things are getting found and thankfully there's been nothing serious so far and men are getting their checks as well. you hear people all the time you know getting cancer or getting really unwell or something and sometimes that still isn't a motivator to get um something checked but um you know and i definitely wasn't for me i've known people that have gotten cancer before and i'm like oh that's really unlucky you know like i it i didn't was i felt you know helpless to try and you know take that away from them for me it wasn't enough to go get checked and the only things that got checked were my eyes teeth and my skin um because my grandma died from skin cancer though that was it and yet my auntie had breast cancer i didn't know i had a cousin that had cervical cancer as well until i got my cervical cancer she had it like in her You know, that still wasn't enough for me to get done. But very... very happy that there are so many people that have reached out saying they have been getting their checks done um and you know that's really great to to see so um you know i can't force people to get checks done but what i can do is create awareness and share the story that i've had to go through which i very easily could have avoided having to go through this whole process if i was just up to date with my checks um i no longer blame myself for getting the cancer but definitely didn't have to get to this stage had i been more diligent with my checks and um i definitely will be getting everything checked as much as i possibly can um from here on in because i don't want to have to go through this again i don't want my kids to have to go through this again either So please share this with your community because I think it's really important that our health needs to stop taking a backseat and we need to start making improvements, even if it's small improvements. You know, small improvements do add up and they're probably more sustainable making those small improvements and going, you know, gung-ho and then losing momentum. So if you're listening to this, I was going to say happy Easter, but when you listen to this, it's probably past Easter. So I hope you had a good Easter. And I'm just trying to get ahead of some podcasts, that's all. So, yeah, thanks again for tuning in. Remember to subscribe so you don't miss anything and please take care of yourself. I'll catch you next time. Bye.
