I’m currently four months post-cancer treatment and four months into trying to put the pieces of my life back together.
I wanted to be really honest in this journal entry because, at the end of the day, one of the promises I’ve made to myself is to be authentic in every aspect of my life. To share the highs, the wins, the exciting moments, but also the moments that feel heavy, confusing, or simply human.
From the outside, my life might look fairly relaxed right now. Focused on recovery. Focused on rebuilding. Focused on slowly gaining momentum again after a difficult season.
But the reality is that life is still crazy busy.
I’m raising two young children, building businesses, managing a household, navigating recovery, trying to regain my strength, and putting a lot of energy into becoming the healthiest version of myself. There are always things to do, ideas to work on, goals to chase, meals to cook, washing to fold, and little people who need me.
Since treatment ended, I’ve been pushing forward with everything I have.
Part of that has come from excitement. After spending so long in survival mode, I’ve been eager to get back to life. Eager to rebuild. Eager to feel productive again.
But while I’ve been trying to move forward, my body has quietly been trying to recalibrate.
Recently, I got my cycle back, which is wonderful news. It feels like another sign that my body is healing.
At the same time, it’s been almost two years since I’ve had a normal cycle. Between pregnancy, breastfeeding, cancer, and then treatment sending me into temporary medically induced menopause, my body has been through a lot.
And if I’m being completely honest, I don’t think it quite knows what to do with itself yet.
Today is day two of my cycle, and I am exhausted and not the kind of tired that a coffee fixes.
The kind of exhaustion that sits deep in your body and asks you to slow down.
Today brought me to a bit of a halt.
I found myself looking at everything on my plate and thinking, can I really be doing all of this right now?
I’m only a few months out from chemotherapy, yet I’m trying to juggle multiple areas of my life and improve all of them at once. Recovery. Motherhood. Work. Fitness. Business. Home life. Personal growth.
At some point during the day, I finally decided to listen.
I was home with both of my toddlers and I had this simple thought:
“You know what? My body needs me today.”
It needs time, patience, rest. So, the work, content, emails and the endlist list of things I think I should be doing can wait.
So that’s what I did… I stopped!
I put down the pressure for a day and chose to simply be with my children.
And what followed was actually quite beautiful.
We played. We laughed. We embraced the mess. We moved through the day without rushing from one thing to the next. I wasn’t trying to fit my children into a schedule squeezed between work tasks, cleaning, training sessions, content creation, and everything else.
I was just present.
And I felt this huge sense of relief. Almost like my body was saying, “Thank you.”
It reminded me that life doesn’t always need to be optimised. Not every day needs to be productive, and not every moment needs to be used efficiently.
Sometimes life is simply meant to be lived.
I think many of us need that reminder from time to time.
We can absolutely have goals. We can build businesses, pursue big dreams, improve our health, work towards financial freedom, and create lives we’re proud of.
But we also need to hear ourselves along the way, and we need to recognise when our body is asking for rest. We need to acknowledge when we’re carrying more than we realise.
And we need to understand that taking a step back doesn’t mean we’re moving backwards.
If you’re anything like me, you probably love being busy. You thrive when you have goals and things to work towards.
I know I do.
But one of the biggest lessons I’m learning in this rebuilding season is that rest and recovery aren’t separate from growth.
They’re part of it.
Sometimes the most productive thing we can do is slow down long enough to appreciate where we are, how far we’ve come, and what we need in this moment.
Today, that looked like putting aside the to-do list and spending quality time with my children. And honestly, I think that’s exactly what I needed.
If this resonates with you in any way, Mettle was created with these moments in mind.
Not to help you do more, but to help you reconnect with yourself.
