We have all experienced ailments and injuries, periods in our lives that we made unhealthy food choices, didn’t exercise, were unwell or depressed. To some degree, we all have snapshots in time that we can look back on as being times that our bodies were not running at their optimal levels. This is where blockages can occur, we get stuck, and because it is difficult to recognize that there is a problem, and if you do, it may be even more difficult to ask for help, we windup falling deeper and harder into our rut.

Ruts are inevitable, but the good news is that every rut also has a bottom. Maybe your bottom was when you tore a ligament and spent a sports season on the sidelines rather than on the field. Maybe your bottom was when you found out firsthand was the “freshman 15” was during your first year of university. Or maybe you got sick, and you found your bottom at the doctors office, on your living room couch or in the chemotherapy treatment chair if you had CANcer.

From my experience in the chemotherapy chair, you have to become acquainted with the bottom in order to be able to realize the top. It is like an internal calibration mechanism – an instinctual way of realizing your range of strengths, weaknesses, emotions and courage. My time in the chair forced me to grow in ways that I may never had known possible if it were not for my CANcer experience.

Although my cancer year was not all terrible, depressing or difficult, I suppose I would say it was in a way a “health bottom” for myself. I was technically sick and I sought treatment for my ailment, which effectively made my body more damaged before making it better. And isn’t it interesting that I could also honestly say that my cancer year was probably my most health-full year, when viewed from a different perspective? After realizing this bottom, I made the decision to take my journey of health, wellness and healing into my own hands, and I made some BIG dietary, spiritual and mental changes.

The conundrum is that my most technically unhealthy period of my life thus far, can also be identified as the exact opposite. And in reality, the later would not have been realized without the former. I hit the bottom and shot to the top. I guess this is proof that your state of health, state of wellness, state of BEING is up to YOU – not always just what you are told. You have the ability to treat your diagnosis, injury or ailment as a catalyst to redirect your current health and wellness journey. Unfortunately, we cannot change or ignore scans, tests or science, but we can use them to our advantage to seek our highest and healthiest state of being. We can use them to seek out our best self.  Our happiest self. Our most radiant self.

With Love,

Tessa