What makes you feel more alive? What fills your heart and makes you feel like you are living your life’s purpose?
You see, we often put off the things that truly ignite our soul. We feel like that is a luxury that we can indulge in when we have more time. We don’t see it as important. When we get all of the things on our to-do lists done, then we can get to it. And you know how that goes. We never will actually have the time; we need to make the time and make these things a priority.
But for some reason, we deprioritize these things. But what if I told you that what makes you feel more alive is your highest purpose? What if that is the reason why you are here?
Twelve years before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my mother was at age 48. It was such a scary time for our family. Breast cancer didn’t run in our family, and we didn’t know many people who had it.
A few months before my mom’s diagnosis, I had started working for a small recruiting firm on the shoreline in Connecticut. The owners were an older couple who were in the office every day. I gravitated towards the wife, whose name was Georgia. She was snarky and sweet at the same time, and she was full of wisdom about life. As a young woman, I found her to be kind of a mother figure to me. She also was a stage 4 breast cancer survivor.
I was amazed at how this woman lived dealing with a terminal illness for so long. She was so filled with humor and gratitude, and it was so inspiring to me. She was determined to live the best life she could with stage 4 cancer as she could – and she did. For 19 years.
Georgia emphasized how important it was to be your number one health advocate. She was so passionate about it, and truly loved helping others.
When my mom got the devastating news that she had cancer, Georgia became such an amazing resource for our family. She connected us with her medical oncologist at Yale who ended up being such an incredible doctor for my mom. He was a great consultant for me, too, years later when I was living across the country and had been diagnosed with it, too.
Who Georgia was to us, taught us both how important it is to be your best health advocate and to ask the difficult, uncomfortable questions. She did so much for us in that respect and it is so difficult for me to even think about how different our experience would have been without her in our lives. Always remember, that somebody, somewhere is depending on you to do what you have been called to do.
