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Today I have the lovely Sophie Woodcock on to discuss her experience with cancer.  Sophie is a great personal friend of mine, animal advocate, and cancer warrior, as well as one of my clients.  Today we discuss the emotional and mental impact of a diagnosis and what friends and family can do to help.

In our experience, we have found that about half of your friends will disappear when they hear your diagnosis.  The other half will be terrified and run for the hills, but others will step up in unexpected ways.  Since we are both animal rescue activists, we have found that animals are great listeners, supporters, and friends when it comes to being stuck at home with illness.

Sophie's advice for accelerating physical and emotional wealth is mindfulness based healing.  When faced with a scary diagnosis, it's important to acknowledge how you feel about it and make peace with how you feel.  It's okay to feel the sadness, but it's also okay to feel happiness.  The bad days make the good days that much better.

I asked Sophie, "What would be the top three things that people could do to help you once you've got a diagnosis?"

1. Be there. You don't have to talk about cancer, just be there and watch a movie, or go for a drive, invite them on walks.  It makes it worse to not be invited.
2. Don't be scared of the word Cancer.  It's just a word. I'm having an ankle operation that is going to be far more debilitating for me than my cancer has been, but it doesn't terrify people.
3. Include people in your life who are dealing with illness, disability, heart issues, cancer, or mental health concerns.  Let them be the judge of what they are and aren't capable of.

I titled this, "it's only cancer." And I know a few of you probably thought, Oh, she must be mad because you know, cancer is such a scary thing. But if we've learned anything from this episode, it's that it is just a label as with any other medical label, it's a diagnosis. It's a name. It's not your life. And Sophie and I've talked about this at length, that the person who has the cancer is still the person, they are not the cancer. Treat them as the person that you knew before they got the diagnosis.

Having this diagnosis has given Sophie the permission to enjoy every day and really go after the items on her bucket list, like the trip to Kenya that she took last year, rather than waiting until retirement.

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Connect with Magic:
A Magical Life Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amagicallifepodcast/
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholisticnaturalhealth/
Online: https://wholisticnaturalhealth.com.au
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