Ep.36 What Cancer Taught Me About Life & Love with Lauren Mahon

0:28I found a lump by accident. Rather than putting energy into finding someone that will fill this void in my life, I have created a life that is so abundant in love. It's friends, it's family, it's the way I love myself, it's my work. You're pushing on this door that won't bloody open, but there's a window ajar. What are you doing?

0:56hey guys and welcome back to working hard hardly working the podcast today I'm speaking to Lauren Marne this was one of my favorite conversations I have ever ever ever had not just on the podcast but ever had which is a big big claim because this girl chats a lot so if you're speaking to me and you're having a great conversation you know that really says something so I cannot wait for you to listen to this episode Lauren has obviously done a lot of work within the cancer space raising awareness talking about the reality of life with cancer but on top of that what we talked about before the episode is that how a lot of what she talks about now is around cancer and there's so much more to her than her diagnosis and her life since then and we just had the most amazing chat around everything from mindset to manifestation to living a better life to being able to work out your life's trajectory with kind of being able to follow the path of your life and really get the most out of it and it was just such a good chat as always if you do please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to this on and also please feel free to rate the podcast only if you want to rate it five stars please don't feel free to rate it if you'd like to rate it one star and as always I hope you have a wonderful day but before you have a wonderful day we are going to do a breast examination you should be doing this regularly but we're going to do guided today so think of this as a guided meditation but instead we are examining your breast because it is very important to do so so if you could get in front of the mirror and get them out preferably be in a private space if not whatever floats your boat so I'm going to lead you through this this is from the NHS website and we are going to go through this together.

2:37So look at your breasts and feel each breast and armpit up to your collarbone. You might find this easiest to do in the shower or bath by running a soapy hand over each breast and up under each armpit. So I will give you a break to get in the bath if you'd like to do this. You can pause this now, run your bath and get soapy. You can also look at your breasts in the mirror. Look with your arms by your side and also with them raised. What you're looking for is a change in the size, outline or shape of your breast, a change in the look or feel of the skin or your breast, for example puckering or dimpling, a rash or redness, a new lump, swelling, thickening or bumpy area in one breast or armpit that was not there before, a discharge of fluid from your nipples, any change in nipple position, for example your nipple being pulled or pointing differently, a rash, eczema-like, crusting, scaling or itchy skin or redness on or around your nipple, and any discomfort or pain in one breast that does not go away.

3:35Now we have done this, you know what you're looking for, you should be doing this regularly, just do it in the shower. Make sure you get checked if you see anything unusual or any of those symptoms and as always enjoy this episode. A huge thank you to Lauren Mahon for coming on. As I said such a good chat, I feel like this was kind of life-changing for me and was kind of therapy for me so I hope you really enjoy it and as I said as always have a lovely day.

3:59Lauren Mahn is creator of the online community Girl vs Cancer and host of You, Me and the Big C. She launched her social media community with the aim of raising awareness and driving support towards women with cancer. After being diagnosed with breast cancer at 31, Lauren has used this to drive important conversations about cancer and share the reality of her experience with the disease. In March 2018, Lauren's BBC podcast You, Me and the Big C was born with a focus on sharing Lauren's cancer journey and experience in a positive light. Having originally co-hosted with Deborah James and Rachel Bland, who both sadly passed away in 2018 and 2022 respectively, she is now the show's sole surviving host.

4:39The podcast ensures that there is a platform for important conversations on body positivity, sex and masturbation, as well as of course their experience with cancer. She has also been an advocate for charity, designing and selling TITTEES, raising£60 ,000 for cancer research and in 2019 she was awarded the Triumph Award at the Stylist Remarkable Women Awards for prevailing in the face of adversity. Thanks so much for joining me, I'm very excited to have you today. I want to get straight into things because I want to talk to you a lot more than just about your diagnosis and kind of the story of that so if you can kind of set the scene give us a little bit of background on your general story how you got to where you are today that'd be super helpful I am now approaching the ripe old age of 38 looking good though don't worry about it and when I was 31 out of nowhere I got breast cancer and I was at the point in my life where like I kind of just moved out of home properly was moving in with friends I felt like you know your early 30s you're really starting to form yourself as a person I had my first job in social media I've done digital marketing for years really loved it and out of nowhere like just this diagnosis no family history or anything and it completely shook my world as you can imagine but the most amazing thing about it was you know you go through something so traumatic but I kind of harnessed all of the skill sets I had beforehand so like all the creative elements blogging influencer marketing social media to create this online community girl versus cancer which now is a charity come on amazing I was sick and I was young and I really struggled to find women like me to talk to and that's me as a white cis het woman but everything was elderly and clinical and cold and like didn't speak to me and I felt very isolated so I and also people like they give the head tilt yeah they're like oh my god you've got cancer and it did my head in so I thought let me talk about my cancer in my way in the hope that another girl like me will find me and we'll go oh that's more like me yes um and it just ended up blossoming into this wonderful community yeah um and then also along came the podcast do me in the big sea which I'm so proud of with myself Rachel Bland and Dame Deborah James and we created that again to have a conversation around cancer to change the dialogue because everything we hear you know if you think of an advert on telly you think of cancer you think of sad piano music in the background piano music really forlorn like bald scary and we weren't that and I think we were kind of fed up of this narrative around the disease and all it does is hinder people from getting checked makes people feel isolated when they've got it it's gone on to do amazing things so now you know I'm five years cancer free I am a founder of a charity I run my own business my own personal brand um I do a lot of advocacy work I'm a dog mum I live on my own and yeah I do the podcast you mean the big C which is coming to an end and it's just a very yeah I look back at the last five years five years is a big milestone right isn't it of course and uh yeah that's kind of where I'm at now I'm just at this real big turning point in my life really so right before the diagnosis as you said completely unexpected no family history wasn't something that you were kind of particularly looking out for what stage were you at in your life at that time so you were 31 yes and thinking um and you'd what kind of for the past few years been like for you partying man yeah oh my god good that's what we like to hear it's drugs and dick i'm not gonna lie that was it a little bit of work thrown in i really enjoy that yes that's me vaves I used to say I operated a legs open heart closed policy I'd been very much burned in the past and I was just living my life and I just think you know I was always kind of I'm a very social butterfly and I just feel like I kind of started coming into my own in my late 20s felt more confident I was going out more finding my feet um and again in work like I was part of that era of digital so my first job straight out of uni I was interning and then got a job at fire trap okay which is now like the mike ashley brand but back then it was cool yeah as in like one of the first events i ever worked on lady gaga performed oh my god unreal i know it was big so i loved that job but it was traditional marketing and then the website launched and i went into digital marketing yeah and it was it was me one guy who did customer service and the econ manager that was it really i did the marketing so i did like all the banners and all that jazz it was so small so I really started in digital when digital started and worked my way through so just before I got sick I found my niche yeah I loved doing social media I loved influencer marketing what I find really great about that in the way that you describe that is that I think we have like I mean I know that we have such a problem in society with like turning 30 like this whole thing of it being like it's the way we like look at it and talk about it is this like completely artificial like decline and it's like no okay if you're assuming that you know you might have come out of uni or school like a decade before you have that 10 years to kind of like like one of the best pieces of advice someone gave on the podcast was essentially just being like you're essentially training yourself and finding out what you like on other people's money like you're being you're in a job you're getting training you're working with people like you're finding this all out on other people's money and you can basically use it as a playground to do that to chop and change careers to try I think new things, all of this.

10:11There is no world in which we'd expect in the first like 10 years of that for that to be, I don't know, like well underway in your career. Yeah, yeah. And I love the way that you say that actually coming to that point. And I don't know if that's in hindsight or how you felt at the time, but really being like, oh, I'm starting to really know my shit now. I'm starting to know what direction I want to go in. And I'm really good at this. Like this is my niche. Yeah. Do you know what? I had to say I never thought I was any good at anything. when before I was poorly genuinely I was I felt I haven't I still do have imposter syndrome but in a different way I just felt like I knew what I liked so I'd go for it but what I now know is the way that my brain works and how I am as a person I thought I was this type of person I didn't think I was creative I thought I was quite logical and da da da and actually I now know that I'm a very creative brain you know I was always the kid at school who would do the maths working out and I'd get the right answer but they'd be like you've worked out the wrong way I'm like what right okay so I always went into jobs and then I'd find around the six month to a year point I'd get very bored very quickly because I was having to do all those like reporting bits yeah this bit and I couldn't yeah I just couldn't because I like give me the numbers and I know what I'm like yeah cool I can learn from that but actually working the numbers out and doing that stuff hell no so I would always think I was crap at my job and I'd always think like I'd get bored and I'd put things off and I'd get into trouble.

11:33So it took a lot of learning in that time. But it was good because I started to figure out, okay, the reason why I don't like this is because it's too analytical. Okay, I need to move into something more creative. Let's try this. I even went freelance randomly for a year because I hated my old job. Quit it, went off travelling at 26. And yeah, I just started to really figure out in that way. But it was a lot of trial and error. And it was very uncertain and very unstable, I would say. yeah I'd say it wasn't until I got sick and started to do my own thing that I actually felt confident in my skill set I guess a little bit in hindsight you feel like that was the point that you were coming to this like culminating point of really understanding what you wanted to do and all of that and around the time of the diagnosis and we won't spend too much time on this um but just in terms of kind of how what led to your diagnosis would you mind talking about that just yeah I mean I found a lump by accident and I'll be perfectly honest I've got a lot of time I was pleasuring myself and I grabbed my breast in ecstasy and there was a lump I wasn't checking my boobs right yeah I have small breasts I didn't think I'd have to worry I thought I'd notice if anything changed yeah and I didn't even think about breast cancer I thought breast cancer meant you had to have breasts and I've never had a relationship with my chest because it's so small um so it was a shock so I thought it was a cyst I've had cysts in my ovaries for years like I didn't think anything of it but when it didn't go away my best friend um and I were in a tent in glastonbury was so funny and um a bit worse for wear and i went feel this so she felt it she went that's big i went it is isn't it it's sore yeah i need to get that check mate if you just go and get a check it's probably assist so when i came back from glastonbury i just moved house so i didn't have a gp so i went to a walking clinic in a hospital near me and i said look can you just check this i've got a lump it's not going away so sort it out basically and they felt it they went yeah it's a significant lump but you're young no family history we're not worried you need to be referred by a GP and I'm like well I'm in a hospital you know just scan me now like this is long when I did get referred eventually it was like three months later it's because really yeah because I just didn't because I'd left that place and he said you need it so if they say you don't need to be concerned it's the doctor like you're they're the ones you're and I was in the hospital and I didn't have a GP at that point and I wasn't rushing to get one like it was the middle of summer I just moved in with a new group of friends I was having the best time ever like the last thing I wanted to be doing was going to the doctors like worrying about something and I genuinely didn't think it would be cancer like why would it be so I went off and it was only my mum at the end of July beginning of August like have you had that checked again I was like no she went Lauren go and get it done please she was like just write it off then and I was like all right cool and by then luckily I could go and register and I have to say again my the receptionists at my GP were phenomenal I literally stood there gave them the form to register they said we'll give you a call in two weeks for triage and what they do to get you booked in properly and I said I've actually found a lump and they registered me on the spot I was in yeah in the GP three days later and another three days later was in the breast clinic and I had biopsies and everything done that day so within two weeks I was diagnosed as much as it was short now knowing what I know about cancer in the work that I do that period of time a lot could have changed sure and that's what scares me because I'm like that could have been a very different picture because I've just gone off and left it and that's what I think looking back now the frustration of how the structure of the NHS can sometimes work or certain trusts of the NHS work is that I was in the hospital presenting with a lump three months before and I was diagnosed in the same hospital when actually I could have got diagnosis there and then and just gone straight in and maybe would have avoided chemo or something you know it does make a difference yeah of course and in that time in that kind of space of two weeks that you had you know the biopsy and then got the diagnosis I assume once you'd kind of had that biopsy I assume you probably weren't really thinking about it no opposite actually because of the consultant right so she felt it she was like yeah let's go and check it and the thing is they know what they're looking at they do it every day and when I was on that table and they were ultrasounding it like they would just chat you're all really cool and everything and then all of a sudden like the radiologist or radiographer I'll never get it right called the consultant over and was like what do you think to this and they were looking and they said well biopsy it and I was like okay and then I went back to see the oncology consultant who was like the initial person who checked you yeah you sit in a corridor everyone who's had a biopsy or a scan and they found something that they want to check they will go back and see the consultant so I went in and she said okay so we found something suspicious we biopsied it we will be back in contact with you um next week come into the clinic bring someone with you if it's cancer we'll start talking about and I was like right so the second they start being yeah and it's the way to like bring someone with you and I was like but what if it's not cancer yeah then I just wasted someone's day and she just went have you had a trauma to the breast and I said not that I'm aware of she went we'll see you in a week and bring someone with you and I'm she was telling me without telling me they know what they know so for the whole week I was telling my friends and family I was like I think I've got cancer and they were like no yeah and I was really hoping they were wrong but I knew it I did so I just I mean it was carnival I was out partying for that week I was like enjoying myself because I had a hunch it might not be like that for a while so yeah yeah and then you got a call you came back in you got the diagnosis yes what was your immediate mindset in that moment I thought I was gonna die yeah and then when they told me I wasn't I was like what do you mean that's what cancer does right and then they asked me if I wanted kids and I was like hang on a minute I can't take this all in do you want kids I've got cancer I don't know like I've never texted back in ages like what are you talking about and they that was the kind of stuff that really drew me to start doing girl versus cancer because there was all these things you think of cancer and you just think death and being bald for a while that's what you're shown you don't think of all the nuances so then it was like my work my home my like my friendships relationships sex fertility all these things all of a sudden you're just like oh yeah they they will be impacted as well and I was having to navigate that and I'm sure in terms of the resources that are out there because the picture of cancer is older and it's kind of portrayed in that way I'm sure when you then pop on google and say I've been asked if I want kids today yeah because I've just got a diagnosis probably a lot of people because statistically it's going to be older diagnoses they're past that point yeah yeah so I can imagine there wasn't that much out there to no and that's why I spoke so openly about it and I was really lucky that they we had time because of the stage my cancer was at to do the egg retrievals I've got I will say I've got nine eggs on ice yeah I'm so grateful for that but that that time was so strange because I just felt like I adulted very hard within 24 hours they I mean there's nothing like trauma to grow you up in a second very quickly and nothing like trauma that could kill like something that could actually end your life yeah and I think that was the moment mate where I kind of was like right all of a sudden those weeks between diagnosis and chemotherapy starting were when I really just kind of sat there and I was like I have been wasting so much of my life I have been numb to it through drugs and drink and sex I've not been allowing myself real connection I've been doubting myself in work I've been comfortably numb I was waiting for life to happen to me that's what I was doing I was 31 I was like I will all work out in the end and all of a sudden I was like but what if the end is sooner than I think it is and I haven't actually made any real effort to progress my life in the way that I want what do I actually want and it really does shake you up in that respect and I think you know if I would say anything is a gift out of something so traumatic is that it has made me a better person it's made me live fuller it's made me take risks it's made me love harder I would not have been doing that if it hadn't been for being the illness I don't think I would have I think it would take me to my like mid-40s for me to find that about myself and people always do say that you see those kind of like twitter threads where it's like someone on their you know dead end they're saying like oh these are the 10 things and you read them over and over and you're like yeah sure yeah I'm working for this promotion so actually like I'm not going to see any friends and I'm not going to spend time in my relationship or I've had trauma and therefore like I'm not going to open up to anyone or whatever it might be what were the like immediate biggest things that you I guess changed in that way I mean your mindset i'm sure was taken up fully by survival and you know getting through the next the next few months the next year and everything but i can imagine there were some irreversible changes literally in that moment in terms of the way you you know look around when you're outside and all of all of that i call it the fuck it button and i think you like all of a sudden you're just like i need to tell people i love them i what i need to book this trip i need to do i've realized now that my trauma response is doing so in everything in life like if something bad happens I do I'll throw myself into something whether it be a relationship whether I'll be partying whether it be work I do and what happened was when I got sick I was like I need to do something and I think it was distraction almost so like the next day I remember my friends my really like best friends Sejal and Becca like Becca lived around the corner from my mum and I was a back at my mum's because it was all a lot and Sejal came to see me and we were walking through the park and I said to my mum I wasn't checking my boobs young women aren't checking the boobs I'm going to make t-shirts I'm going to do this I'm going to do that I'm going to get all the influencers because I worked in influencer marketing to like promote them and we're going to raise money and we're going to raise awareness and they were like yeah yeah yeah when I started chemo and I spent a lot of time at home and you'd be on steroids for like three days mate you don't sleep you're on steroids you're like must be like a pill in the club you know like yeah can't stop won't stop so my mum would wake up in the morning at like at 3am go toilet she's like what are you doing get off your laptop what are you doing like you should be resting I'm like I can't rest I'm on steroids mother but I channeled all of that into girl versus cancer and you know that's what I mean by all my skill sets came to together to help other people and in a way that I never could have predicted before I got sick so like all of a sudden it's like everything I knew about marketing everything I knew about social media my aesthetic eye I love photography I love talking and writing so it all felt so natural it wasn't like oh I really sat and strategized this like I literally just did what felt natural in the moment and all I wanted to do was help other women who might find themselves in my situation in the future I never thought about it being a long-term career I wanted to just make a difference and I just wanted to survive this and you know it just kept growing and moving and every single time I like challenged myself and thought I wonder if I could get into like a big brand and make t-shirts I wonder if I could get this person to come into the campaign I wonder if I could get volunteers things I would never ask for help for what have I got to lose am I gonna die if someone says no no so I just went let's give it a go and the minute I stopped putting things off and the minute I stopped doubting whether it would happen things happen and I'm sure you can relate to that in terms of your business like have backing yourself and going don't ask don't get is my big motto in life I'm like I'm just gonna ask people can think I'm cheeky I don't care yeah I'm doing it for a good cause so I will always ask the question if it's a no it's a no I don't take it personally yeah I think I did before I got sick I took it very personally so let's talk about those biggest mindset shifts that you had and like the the biggest I guess changes in the way you see life the way you live life I guess the biggest one then from what you've said is that kind of like fuck it what's the worst that can happen like just go all in yeah live what would you say the other things that you kind of really learned were I think it's a big takeaway for me you're the master of your own destiny not the victim of your circumstance and I think a lot of people will sit and go life's tough and I can't do this I can't I can't and it's like whoa I think people think going for things in life and shifting things and going for big dreams that you want is this big moment and everything falls into place it's not it's tiny little actions every single day over a really long time but you can get there and so that's for me was the big mindset shift it's like I'm looking where I am now you mean the big C's coming to an end my community is now a charity that's six years of work that is six years of just following my gut instinct and you know I know that if you do anything with integrity and that lights you up and you follow that breadcrumb mate you're gonna be all right yeah it's it's I think saying yes and going down past that you're uh you force yourself down a road you shouldn't be going down and if you just stop for a minute and go that door's closed that's closed for a reason so what is opening up for you how do you pivot because I really believe life finds a way yeah and if you actually follow your instinct in your gut and make those small decisions prime example right last year I moved in on my own I was in a point last year this time last year but I didn't know what my living situation would be both my flatmates were moving out I was mentally in a very very bad way I now know was a bad state of like almost like psychosis I was so anxious and unwell that it sent me loops I hadn't been looking after myself properly and I was terrified I was like oh my god I I don't want to leave this home I've made it so nice I need to get new flatmates but then the thought of having strangers in my home was like oh yeah and all of a sudden like this opportunity opened up one of my best friends had this home in layton and she was moving out to move to lisbon and she was like do you want to take over the tenancy i'm renting it off a friend there's no deposit it's affordable it's 200 pound more than i was paying right but what because of my mindset then because i was in a bad way i was like it's 200 pound more i can't afford it i i've got all this furniture won't fit in the house all of these reasons to not because i was so stuck and stubborn and forcing myself to stay in a situation and the minute i woke up like four days later bolt upright bed on the monday i was like what am i doing sell the furniture if it's too much to pay in rent ask for a reduction ask if you could do it yeah so i asked the question she could afford she said yeah i can take you down 200 pounds i said can i like move all your furniture out make sure i can bring mine in so i can make it really my home can i repaint yes and then i was like all right so then i made the decision and when i tell you i made that decision everything started to click in my life and you it made me just realize like there's these key moments where nothing is moving like you're pushing on this door that won't bloody open but there's a window ajar what are you doing yeah yeah and that was that's been a big mindset shift for me as well because the cancer thing threw my world as I knew it into disarray and pulled the rug so I had to kind of re-evaluate all my plans so what it's taught me is that life is gonna yeah go way different as long as you follow your true north as long as you take a beat and go okay rather than seeing like trauma or things not working out bad breakups work like losing your job as moments of crisis see them as moments of opportunity and I'm the biggest hype girl of everyone in my life I buzz off the people around me I love to see them thrive anything I can do to support that I'm in yeah and I just but the way my mind will talk to me about the things that I do so yesterday I had some amazing meetings about Girl vs Cancer things that I have been dreaming about for the last year are all starting to happen yes it's overwhelming but it's overwhelming with opportunity I'm more than capable of handling this if I do it in the right way I genuinely have to sit there sometimes and be like yes it's overwhelming but the only reason I ever feel stressed with overwhelm is because I put the pressure on myself to do it all do it all now do it on my own I went into having cancer never run a business never run a charity never put myself in the public eye so vulnerably I am learning on the job so why am I putting this pressure on myself to know what it's like to hire a team to know how to go out and get donations and funding to know these things I all of a sudden last year went it's not my job to know all these things it's my job to be me and then to get people who know what the fuck they're doing and work with me to be we can make a bigger difference and the minute I had that mindset shift and go these like these amazing things have happened I've had a stressful day but it's a stressful day because all of this has come at once I know anything I don't know when it like changed for me and when I started being such a not like a Debbie Downer because I'm quite like a positive person but when I did consistently start telling myself that my life was not hard but it was incredibly stressful it's like sure but you know when someone said when someone's like yeah how are you and it's like yeah yeah I'm busy and they're like if they reply like oh great amazing busy's good and you're like yeah you know what it is it is like why am I telling myself like with all of this opportunity I've got with like work with seeing friends with all of this like why am I telling myself this is saturated with like bad stressful things yeah sure it's stressful and it's stressful because it's pushing you and it's putting you out of your comfort zone and it's maybe get you know and sure there are times where you've overfilled it but you've overfilled it because you've been overfilled with opportunity and like all of that just being able to tell yourself like I'm trying so hard this year like classic new year new me like more new year new like mindset just like stop telling yourself you're tired stop telling yourself you're exhausted stop telling yourself your day's been stressful yeah start telling yourself like yeah it's been a good day like had a few tough meetings but like you know I get those meetings because I get those meetings yeah exactly amazing I'm one of those I love like moon cycles and all this stuff like today is Friday the 13th and I've had messages from mates today yeah like oh Friday the 13th and I'm like no but Friday the 13th my nan used to say is a lucky day and then really weirdly it popped up on my feed like this wonderful author and like witch um Lisa Lister she's amazing her book which actually changed my life and like made me as a woman like really understand myself a lot more but she had put up today that the reason why Friday the 13th is was seen as like bad is patriarchal because it was claimed as the witch's number because there's 13 moon cycles in the year and it's so they've always seen the 13 is like a really powerful potent number and I thought oh my god that's so weird that's popped up because my nan always said it was a lucky day I didn't understand why she and another person have said in um like on their social medias or like on podcasts start seeing your life as your soul mate your life wants what's what's best for you so if you imagine your life as your best mate and actually like when things happen like you said things work out for me if one day you know like you said like you miss a train and you can't go somewhere it's finding what else presents itself that day and maybe that's what you needed without realizing it's like surrender into the process of your life rather than fighting against it you start seeing your life as your soulmate which is always easy to do every day but when I'm having days where I'm like tense I'm like okay breathe and I start seeing my life as my soulmate like my life wants what's best for me it doesn't work that how I want but maybe my life wants different so today's meant to be a chill day I'm taking it as a chill day it just makes it easier to manage yeah as a human especially when you're I think when you say you're have stressful days I would look at you and go I see stress but it's probably more pressure because of the job that you do than stress and it's also like the difficult thing is like you're not trying to do by getting into this mindset is like cancel the fact that you can have trauma and stress and overwork and burnout and like a horrible thing happened to you and all of these things like it's probably not helpful someone being like but aren't you glad that happened for your like career you're like literally imagine the shit i've gone through like oh but like you'll have a bad day and they go but at least you're here and it's like so i can't be pissed off ever again so i'm never allowed to like have a shit fit but you know what i will be be honest so my really lovely friend dame deb died last year and she died like at 40 so young so full of life like even to the very end and one thing she said and she said it in a eulogy and she said it to us and i i'm living by it at the moment is that she said if you wallow and if you're like wallowing even if it's like sadness for me or anything you're doing you're not living like giving me justice you're wasting like she would have given anything like precious time for one more second one more minute one more hour one more day to do and live so when I have days where I am overwhelmed and stressed I allow myself to have that moment process it feel it be like tomorrow's a new day and then like come back at life again because I do think about that a lot I'm like I don't want to waste time unnecessarily wallowing it's okay to have down days and be stressed and stuff but you can stay in those moments and I think I learned that it's okay to be afraid and traumatized and go through sadness but it's almost like you have to make a plan to get out of the hole yeah and it's also like when it's not about promoting suppression like none of this is about suppressing your emotions it's about feeling your emotions and being able to process them in order to be able to move on and like yes that doesn't mean that something isn't going to be like hugely traumatic and horrible and you wish it had never happened yeah but it's about being like okay but it happened turn this into something good because like when you start thinking of that like my life just works out for me it's like you do just start shifting that in terms of the way of like that doesn't mean that that wasn't a horror like someone did something terrible to me or like you know never taking that away and never taking away the blame from other people and like all of these terrible things that can happen but also being able to be like but in order for me to be able to like still make the most of my life or my day or my week or whatever it might be like what can I do to turn this into a positive yeah and it's like and also it's the surrendering like sometimes you're going to be so beaten up by life that you're not going to want to and it's like if you're feeling that you need to take to bed early if you're feeling that you need some time if you're feeling like you need therapy if you're feeling like I need a break I need to go away if you're feeling like you need help with the kids or the dog in my case like do it ask for the help because I know firsthand the state that I ended up in beginning of last year and the end of the year before was because I didn't do that was because every time something bad happened I would do something whether that would get me getting back with an ex or throwing myself into work I wasn't allowing myself space to grieve to process to heal something so traumatic happens it doesn't it's not just like oh I did a week's worth of therapy I'm fine it's years of embedded trauma then that will like other things will happen in the process you know like just because one bad thing happens and that doesn't mean it'll never happen again and so my dear friend Syma who's not with us anymore she was one of the most incredible women I've ever met in that when she was dying she was fully in her death so she surrendered to the process she wanted to feel all of the emotions she wanted to understand what was happening to her body to her brain she was very articulate with it and rather than fighting against it she went with it and I learned so much from that and she's always just said like sometimes you just need to surrender and that's what I've done like that's my big learning in um like the last five years it isn't surrendering oh I just give up and throw my hands up it's surrendering to wherever you've been taken like this is the journey that just let go see where like meet your body meet your life meet your brain where it is yeah where is this and then once you've settled and landed then you're in a place to make decisions and I think that's when you make the right ones because you're not acting off of too much emotion like my decisions are always made with the heart always heart-led yeah but I have to try and use my head in terms of is this the right decision now or whatever yeah but reacting off of the back of an emotion like a knee jerk is never the right move and I used to be terrible at that yeah and I think it is like uh I don't know I think we have this assumption that we know ourselves well and therefore we always know what's best for us yeah and I actually think we need to at the very least know the areas that we don't know well so I don't know when I need to slow down I don't know when I need to say no rather than say yes I don't know all of these and I'm training myself better and I'm noticing patterns it's like well you're self-aware that's the start mate right well it's probably like but you know I'll see an opportunity and I'll be like I don't know whether I'm self sabotaging by saying yes or no and you start to notice patterns it's like you're probably saying yes really quickly and then it's wrong or you're probably saying no because it's a fear of it or because it's like you're telling yourself you need to slow down but you don't actually you're kind of fine like all of this and so I think this like process of like learning yourself and even like it sounds so stupid but like even taking notes of like don't make a decision on a bad day or like don't do this or don't do this and like actually understanding where you don't know yourself yeah and where you're probably never going to know yourself so say if you as you say you're a doer so something bad happens to you you distract yourself by doing more yeah understanding like okay maybe after something bad happens you don't decide something for 24 hours afterwards or like whatever it might be and just like writing like an instruction manual for yourself like it sounds so stupid so I read a book and I cannot for the life of me remember what it's called now but I read it in Mexico beginning of last year when I was in a bit of a bad way my friend recommended it and it's amazing it is about divine timing and giving over to the divine and just go in yeah sure right if you and there were so many things in my life that I was like a real like crunch point and I couldn't figure it out I couldn't figure it out I was like what's the right decision what's what should i do next and rather than making the decision like they advised in the book to make they call it the god box but i'm not religious so i just like called it the box and i would write on a post-it like whatever it's like dear universe or dear divine i'm struggling with this please help me find the right conclusion at the right time in the right way for the greater good of all because you don't want to call in something that could be damaging to other people right when you're being like oh i hope this relationship lasts forever and you're like yeah exactly bye um so i i wrote it all and i fold it up and i put it in the box and almost the action of doing it is that you're coming back to it later already yeah once again tiktok i scroll past a lot of the things that are more like about not spirituality i would say that i'm quite like a spiritual person in terms of like understanding myself and like the world and all of those things i'll probably have a once a week i'll have a mindless scroll yeah the rest of the time i know it's bad for me because i think it's relaxing me and it's actually stimulating my brain oversimulating we just need to go on there so we can keep up to date with the kids well exactly exactly no I like that one I'll be using that um but essentially there was this one thing which was like and I was having a bit of a tough time and it was essentially like today is the best day to manifest and it said like write a diary entry as if you are this date in 2023 so you're writing a diary entry you're being like this was really shit last year but this is really good I'm so glad I have this like all of this like you are writing yourself in the future and I used to do this with professional bios so you know how you have like a professional bio that it's like grace beverly is this isn't this i used to write my professional bio in the future so it's like she's had this isn't this things i hadn't got yeah but it's like putting yourself yeah i've done the same thing it's great it's a really really good exercise and i did this thing where i wrote a diary entry in the year in advance and it had things about my work about my personal life about my home about financials like all of these different things and i wrote it and like i didn't know that i wanted half of those things and I wasn't able to kind of like cement exactly what I wanted until I wrote down that diary entry and I ended up writing like four pages on your own roll like yeah exactly like it probably took me like an hour um and I wrote it and then I found it the other day and I read it and like so much of it had happened and I was like I don't think I even know knew that I wanted that before that point and I'm not even a person who like regularly manifests or regularly does any of those things it doesn't you know it doesn't feed me in the same way as it does some people but like I did that and I was like huh like even just as a method of goal setting it's so hard to understand what you really want and sometimes you just need to sit there and write a few like a literal future diary entry people think like manifestation and stuff is this idea that like you write down I want this and it comes to you it's not it's like getting really clear about what's important to you and what you'd like to call into your life because then without realizing in it almost you start to make decisions and gravitate towards those things and also what's really good about it is you will end up gravitating towards the things that you put in there and then what's so nice about it if it's not going to work out it doesn't work out and then that's ticked off your list it's not ruminating anymore and because I've got so many friends I had a conversation with my mate yesterday she's wanted to do this literary podcast for ages you know I'm talking about I'm not naming you um and she is like I need to do this pitch I'm not even talking about it for two years yeah I was like do you know what babe she's like I've got imposter syndrome I'm like make the pitch go out and do it start doing it if in six months it's not working out you've ticked it off your list it's done it doesn't take up any more space but at the minute it's a thing that you've not done and now you're thinking about it all the time and beating yourself up i'm shit i've not done this i've not done this it's such a drain of energy and it comes from a lack mindset it's like there's more than enough for everyone in this world put out what you want to put out yeah but do it because you want to do it and love it not because you want to be like splashed all over a magazine yeah I also feel like with those imposter syndrome things it's like do you know what no one's going to care if you don't do this like the only person who's going to care if you don't do this is yourself because you're sitting there and you're not doing this and I completely understand imposter syndrome I think a lot of it comes from I'm the queen of it but yeah and it's like a lot of it comes from terrible things in terms of like not seeing ourselves in positions like that and like as you know as women or as a minority or whatever it might be like but I will say as well when you're stopping yourself doing something because of self-doubt like at the end of the day at the end of this week if you've said you're going to do something and you haven't done it no one else gives a fuck yeah it's only you yeah it's true you're not doing that for another thing I thought was really interesting in terms of that like manifesting thing so me and my friend a while ago were basically saying because we haven't like grown up around a lot of like I don't know I'd say like romantic love like seeing it really like work out whatever it might be and so we were both saying that we're kind of like quite naysayers in terms of being like does it really you know like is it you know like sure it's great but like is it you know all of it yeah exactly like all of these things and we were like do you know what we're never gonna have a healthy relationship in the way that we see what we want or like know what we want to go for if we aren't able to like see ourselves in that position yeah and it wasn't even necessarily that we like wanted that at that time but it was kind of just being like we actually have no tangible vision in our head of what that would look like yeah and therefore how on earth are we expected to like say go on a date and think it's a good date and you know maybe get into a relationship with someone down the line whatever if we don't know what good looks like and we don't know what we would be going for and literally we were like we need to sit down and we need to literally write like what does this look like because we're so we've been so like not surrounded by it that we actually have no vision of like what does it look like you know like like you said on tiktok and instagram and stuff there's all these things about green flags red flags all these things it's actually overwhelming like we've been throwing at us like what a good relationship looks like yeah i always think that's really really interesting especially when looking at social media and it's like you're fed this like we are we think we're moving forwards in a lot of progressive ways which we are in certain senses but actually in terms of enforcing traditional um kind of views of like relationships in terms of what's good what's bad I think we're actually like and judging other people's relationships that's not your business no not at all were you dating at the time that you got your diagnosis I was shagging yeah I was I was shagging and yeah I to be honest I've been like burned and I think I will always say like when it comes to romantic love and relationships that's my Achilles healing life everything else in life I can work towards I work hard for I'm comfortable with and I accept I really struggle with the element of bringing someone else in who can have an impact on my heart and that's just from being burned but who hasn't been burned and I think when I got told I had cancer I went oh my god I don't want to die and the because I looked at me I went I've not got married I had kids I just was like oh my god I didn't know I want those didn't know I wanted those things and actually what's been really wonderful um over the last five years is challenging my relationships with that because I've never felt like I have to be a mum yeah I've always felt like I'd love a family feels different because that doesn't necessarily mean I would give birth but that family unit I love and but I do did always know that I wanted to find a part that I want to spend the rest of my life with I'm not religious it's not like this thing but I just knew that I wanted to I think it's I'm a torian right I love stability and I'm very like loving and loyal so for me that feels safe but I think growing up you have you panic you're never going to find it and you're like so you go for the wrong people and out of desperation date the wrong people and when I got sick I'd said that to myself so what do you do when you realize oh my god I have been closing off my heart to the world I need to make myself vulnerable if I'm to love again I know I'll apply for first dates so I actually applied for it before I got sick it's the only logical conclusion so yeah I did I applied for it before I got sick they called me back when I was in chemo I explained to them I was sick and they were like do you still want to come on it I mean really bad due diligence I was like absolutely not I look like a potato never gonna happen and they said well we love your application please reapply um when you're ready to so when I was on the mend and my head going back and I was feeling more like myself I applied and I got on instantly like I did the application I was like did my interview in September and in October I was been flown to Napoli where they filmed the hotel and it was this big moment because I think in my head where I'd gotten cancer free where I'd um started having this conversation on a podcast I'd gone back to work everything was moving in the right direction I'd almost convinced myself this was the moment I'm gonna find the love of my life it's happening now God has taken the wheel I've not chosen him they've chosen for me la la whereas actually if I went on it now I would take it with such a big pinch of salt and have a laugh but I went on it and then I got matched with someone that I know and it was when he walked through the door what are the chances of that I know well see this is me again like the little romantic head so he walked in and my heart sank so I was like he doesn't fancy me like this is such a waste of time it's never gonna happen but then because my life had completely changed I was like who'd say he doesn't fancy you yeah who's to say which is the right mindset to go into it with but so I kind of went all right and I I did say to him at the start of the date which they didn't show I said to him I said what should we do should we have a mate date or a date date because we knew each other and I didn't want to make myself vulnerable yeah if it was then like if there was no chance if there was no chance and he put his hand on my side he went let's see what happens so I was like I am in yeah so I fully opened myself up yeah and I said yes and he said no and then when he walked out the room I burst into tears it's on national television I cried over a boy we've all got the same friends it was probably the most vulnerable and open I've been in terms of my heart ever and I took a lot of learnings from it and it really hurt me him saying no because I thought as a friend you could have just said yeah he was moving away the week after I had no idea he didn't tell me so I was like you could have just told me that you could have said let's have a mate date we would have had the best time ever like I just felt like mugged off and made a fool of and embarrassed and I think that has a lot of similar traits to being cheated on or you know someone breaking up with you and going out with your friend like all the things that happened to me in the past that made me hardened yeah and it was on your it was a series of things for you in your life that had led up to this moment so perhaps like in that moment he didn't know that it would have like such gravity no idea and but for which i think is but like for you in that moment it's been like you'd reapplied you'd gone out there i assume i mean from what you said it sounds like it was the first time in a while you were being like i'm putting myself out there like i'm doing all of this that's such gravity for you in terms of a like then just being like no but then knowing so they filmed it the year before it aired so for that whole year not knowing what the edit was going to be for the whole year not knowing oh my god i have cried in that room that I like what are they going to do and the thing is with it did you contact them about it like did you say we'd been talking about it like we still are in contact now like I love him to pieces I think he did me dirty on that show but I know it wouldn't have been intentional because I know he's got a good heart so and I do feel bad because he got a lot of stick afterwards um but what happened was I went on that show I made myself vulnerable off of the back of that my like old management but my first management saw me and contacted me massive agency that like loads of things opened up for me and it started this snowball effect the podcast everything and it did change my life and actually it just kind of almost like a payoff like I put my heart out there and I gave myself over and then I kind of got noticed for that and people went that's really brave yeah and people can relate to this girl and things started to happen so it kind of made me realize like yeah I didn't get romantic love but I got the love of so many people watching that could relate to me yeah but it was another one of those things of like everything just works out for me yeah I thought in that moment that what I needed was romantic love yeah what I needed was exactly what ended up happening like you know say okay say if he had said yes yeah and then also had gone away the next week sure he could have done that to save face and it would have been like probably especially as you knew each other but you then I assume wouldn't have come out of your shell in the same way on on tv you probably then wouldn't have been contacted in the same way because it wouldn't have made such a moment like all of the not that you wouldn't have been anywhere and it was amazing but like as in like it would just have been a different moment it was over two episodes they like cliffhanged it and everything so it was and also what was so weird is that the episode aired the night before rachel my other podcast co-host died so it was this perfect media a storm I I was struggling with but it just kind of the way everything happened was so surreal but I now know it was probably one of the most formative weeks of my adult life other than diagnosis other things but it changed a lot and and then in terms of like dating I have made myself vulnerable but I think what happened is I got to a certain point where you want it so much that it is bad for you and I I'm not an apps now or anything because I just find they don't really work for me I don't do things half-assed never have and I don't think I ever will because if I do it means my heart's not in it and so when I go on the apps it's like I really want to meet someone and I'm updating these people who aren't right for me and clinging on to things that don't work for me and I know it my inner self is going this is not it this is not it and now I'm in this place where actually rather than putting energy into finding someone that will fill this void in my life I have created a life that is so abundant in love and it's not necessarily romantic love it's friends it's family it's my dog it's my home it's the way I love myself it's my work it's so much greater than that that I know like people ask me about dating and I'm like I know and I can't explain it to people but it's here I know the relationship I'm into being is going to happen yeah I am not going to go and spend energy trying to make it happen because everything else in my life I've surrendered to yeah and actually the best thing I've done is made a life that anyone who comes in now would add value to and actually I've made life that I don't want to risk so if someone comes in and they treat me badly and they make my world wobble now they're out yeah which I think as well like as in looking at how that's that's having like meant to happen in the way that like yeah sure you could have been in a relationship at the time I could be in a relationship now you could yeah like I think this is so important like what I often tell like we all have friends who like put a lot a lot a lot of emphasis on and often end up getting back with the wrong people and like all of this like it's such a natural thing but being able to say being like look around you could be in a relationship right now do you know how empowering it is knowing that you are choosing not to be in a relationship and you think you couldn't you could go on an app tomorrow find someone who's also in a place like you and really wants a relationship and isn't right for you and is a bit I don't know a bit manipulative like any of these things and you can do it you can do that but you are choosing not to and I think that's really really important to remember especially in a point where like it is so frustrating to be in a point where you want a relationship and you are not finding one like of course it is like it is torture in a way because you're like I'm ready for this and all of that but in that time for you to have built a life where you were not a half to come into a relationship and make a whole like you are 100 % and anything on top of that would bring your life to 200 % or an addition or whatever I just think I wanted some I think for so long like my idea of a relationship with someone that made me feel a certain way and I've managed to make myself feel that way all on my own so actually having someone to share this amazing ride called life with would be brilliant but I don't want a person to share it with I want the person to share it with and I'm very open to dating I'm very open to the right person but I've I've done the apps they don't work for me so rather than I would rather just not date anyone and then meet someone randomly and then date them and that may not work out and they may not date anyone again for a year I am fine with that yeah I absolutely 100 % know that by me choosing making this decision it's leading me to the right person in the right way yeah and I I just I'm really excited you can tell when I talk about it I'm I'm really excited for that moment because I know it won't be forced and I know it will be good and your relationships are hard.

52:25You'll come at the right time. But it will be easy and I just you know especially like I'm sure you can relate to this when you're someone who has built a life for themselves or a success on their own and have a lot going like I'm a busy woman the amount of men I've dated I do not know how to be with me because I have a profile and people know who I am and I work really hard and I do all these things and I'm not. and they're not going to be your main concentration like you you believe in you know like you love love and you're going to really spend it you know you want to spend a lot of time with them and you're really going to care about them but they are not going to be your entire world yes and that challenges some views of dating especially as a woman especially when you care that much about your work like there will be more men out there who think that that's probably not what they want to go for than it is the opposite and also you added on the layer with me grace where i have had cancer and there will be people i had my ex-boyfriend turn around to me like you're gonna die he was when we were dating for the first three months i didn't know where i stood with him at all i was like is he seeing other people is he not we're spending a lot of time together but i don't speak to him the week he was acting away and i was like right i just need to be brave and ask the question and i said to him um like he doesn't drink and we were walking past the pub i went can we just go in here like grab a coke or something else we want to talk to you and i sat down i was like i'm really nervous so just let me get out and he went has your cancer come back not am i being a prick has your cancer come back so this is the kind of thing and plus the fact as well like i don't know if i said no no it hasn't so that has been ruminating in his head he was going out with a girl who'd had cancer so he's probably thinking oh is the cancer going to come back so it's all these things in my head i'm like what are you and then you know i the added layer of you know pregnancy might not be as straightforward for me as other people that's if i choose to have children i still don't know if i want to be a maternal mother my ideal right now is meet a divorced wonderful man who's got a young child that i can yeah be a step-mom to because i'm great with kids do i want to procreate mine i don't know yeah so it's finding as well i've got that layer so i might find the right guy but we might want totally different lives i think even in you saying like my perfect person now like has had a previous significant relationship had a kid all of that I don't think you would have thought that like five years ago because you would have seen like the traditional view of like I want this relationship so much for you to be able to be like for someone else that might be like oh you know that's not for me you know exactly that that is exactly what would fit with your life and you know how powerful that is like the fact that you know that but also as well it's like I've got my niece my nephew I've got all my friends children like I adore the way I love them I can't describe so why wouldn't I love on someone else's child that way it's just that I've lost so much of my life to an illness and to grief and death I'm now in my late 40s and it's like if I get to like 42 43 do I then want to have a child I don't know that could that could change we could be talking again when I'm 43 and I've got a litter of children do you know what I mean all nine of them but the thing is for me right now I am so much more open to that possibility of a relationship in that way and I think what it does it allows me to have a relationship and grow and love and develop this bond with someone without it being this tick-tock of a body clock like actually it could be for me it's like meeting someone again in my mid-20s I've had five years pretty much like of figuring things out and it's a blessing and a curse like I genuinely feel I'm at the point now Grace where you know I'm stepping back from the podcast I'm five years cancer free um I'm living on my own I love my career everything that's happening now I'm making decisions for a future which I didn't before I was so cancer heavy I'm very content and happy in a way I've never felt and I'm really really excited about the future and I just feel like I feel like the last five years have led up to this and I think if I have met anyone in the last five years I wouldn't have been able to sustain a relationship because I'm not the girl I was.

56:11It was probably going to be the wrong relationship as well because it was based on wanting to sustain a relationship rather than wanting to you know create the right thing. And I have this saying I've always said it dust settles not me and but the thing is I now realize that I wasn't settled I was still all up in the air so I'm just really excited now for like this kind of new part of my life and what that holds and I've kind of got ideas about what that looks like I've got my own personal website so to kind of go back to my blogging era but obviously a lot more fully formed and profesh um new website launching this year so it means I can write again and create content long form that isn't all about algorithms can't wait starting with my own podcasts that have nothing to do with cancer like looking at doing documentaries and all of these things that I never thought I'd have the option to do five years ago I'm now leaning into this new life I've created for myself and I'm really excited by that and you know that's why when I I went and talked to my old school and people like did you always know it's what you wanted to do and I said no I found myself here and I think we need to really hit that home to young people it's good to have an idea of what you want to be but the plan is going to change lean into it don't fight it and you will never like your life will just happen for you in ways that are so magic i've got this whole book in me that i'm gonna pitch this year and it's around grief and death and our relationship with it because it's something i've really had to face and i've done i've had health anxiety since i was 16 i was convinced i was gonna die young from 16 and then got cancer at 31 right do you imagine what that does to your head yeah and then i've had to bury a lot of my friends and i have this thing about getting to 40 i'm so scared i will die at 40 because i've had a lot of people die at 40 so it's like this challenge to get past it and do it and I and I know I just like no I will be but I've also got very comfortable with the fact that just say I do I know that I will go to sleep having made the mark that I want in this world having lived the life I'm proud of and that has been the big game changer because I used to be so scared to die that I wasn't living and now I live in case I die you're amazing that's honestly I feel like I've had like a...

58:14I'll give you a check. Thank you so much. Honestly, thank you so much. You've been absolutely incredible. This has been one of my favourite podcasts I've ever recorded, honestly. I needed this. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jade. No, my pleasure.