how Self-Love can heal you.
Beauties --- I am SO thrilled and honored this week to be featuring one of the more incredible humans I know...
Lauren Truelock is a vibrant and glowing force, a warm and hilarious writer, a delicious photographer, mom to a furry and wrinkly baby (her pug, Goose), a newlywed --- and a badass and blessed, in equal measure, 3-year survivor of breast cancer.
She's just embarked on a GORGEOUS venture of love in her new kick-ass cancer-shoe line, Healing Heels, and I couldn't think of anyone better to talk to my Goddess Army about the importance of self-love in having your best life.
In fact, in having LIFE, period.
You know how I feel about Love being the key to everything --- to every happiness, joy and true path --- and it's no accident that it's Love that is at the foundation of healing, as well.
I'll let Lauren tell you why -- she's much better at it than I am...
It was my first day of chemo and I’ll be honest… I was scared.
Make that terrified.
What was it going to feel like? Will it hurt? Will it burn? I had so many things running through my head that I felt like it was literally spinning. All my girlfriends and my amazing husband were sitting around me but all I could see were the bright orange bags of chemo that were about to be pumped inside me.
As the nurse finished my IV my best friend, Sidne, handed me a wrapped box. I was caught off guard because I most definitely wasn’t expecting a present. A few seconds later I opened up a box of spikey, bright blue, glitter covered 5-inch heels. I immediately burst into laughter because they were so ridiculous…and little did I know…exactly what I needed. As I held the shoes in my hand Sidne said…”These are your chemo shoes because in these shoes your going to kick cancer’s butt.”
Which is exactly what I did. I wore those shoes to every treatment and they became my beacon of hope during an otherwise pretty hopeless time. They were something I looked forward to on a day that I dreaded. And more importantly they were my reminder to stay positive. Because little did I know that was the one thing that would make the biggest difference.
I’ve always been a glass half full type of person. I never saw the point in being negative and there was never a situation where I couldn’t find the silver lining. Almost to a fault sometimes. Delayed flight? Extra time for a glass of wine. Took a wrong turn? Sounds like an adventure. I could spin anything because at the end of the day I didn’t want to spend time in an unhappy place. But it wasn’t until my cancer diagnosis that I saw first hand just how powerful that can really be. I was stuck in a place where the glass wasn’t half full…it was empty…and it was up to me to fill it back up.
I could have very easily given up. Decided to unpack and set up camp in a very dark place. But I made the decision to not only survive, but thrive. I decided I could do this and while cancer was my reality at the moment…it would never define me.
That phase in my life shaped who I am today because I saw first hand that there is nothing more important than believing in yourself. In fighting for the life you deserve no matter what stands in your way. And finding happiness in the most unexpected places.
For me it was a pair of shoes.
Something so simple that brought me so much happiness. And we all have that pair of shoes. Maybe they’re buried deep in the back of your closet. But they’re there…somewhere. You just need to pull them out…dust them off…and put them on.