The end of a lifelong story

But only the beginning of the one that matters most!

CARE check*: What is Life teaching you at the moment?

Who do you follow when your current foundation can no longer support you: the guidance of your inner knowing that is calling you into that inner dark forest or the seducing deals that Denial and Bypassing are sending your ways?

What support do you need to give yourself permission to receive—from yourself, the Universe and those you love—in order to be able to surrender to the necessary descent that precedes every new level of expansion and growth to unfold?

And whether it feels like the most exciting and inspiring lesson OR like the toughest and most unwanted assignment, how can you meet Life halfway—with a strong back, open hands and a trusting heart?

I hope this week’s letter will feel like a vote of confidence for Life and the hidden wonders that we’re meant to unearth, while we journey through the storms and plot twists that we never saw coming.

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In case this letter gets cut in the email, you can click HERE to read the full post now :)

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Hi Care Friend,

How are you? What’s new? How has December been treating you?

What is culminating as this year ends and another one is on the horizon?

What do you already know that you want to leave behind forever when the clock sings its midnight tune on December 31st?

What have you received in 2024 that you’re ready to promise to NEVER let go of?

Even if it feels like the smallest thing, trust that it counts… I do.

I was very excited to walk to my beloved flower shop to reconnect with you after this unexpected break, but that turned out to be too grand of an adventure for my body who’s been through a lot since I last wrote to you.

I made it out of my building and ten steps later, I knew I had to stop. So I retreated back into my apartment and, for the first time, I’m writing to you from the writing desk in my bedroom. Here’s to adapting to what is and shaking yet another one of the habits I thought I relied on to function.

This year had shed light to every inch of my foundations that were either sandy or rotten. It’s been humbling, enlightening, grief-ful, gut wrenching and ultimately… healing and magical.

And it turns out 2024 had one last twist in store from me.

So on November 21st at 5:29pm, my dermatologist called me to let me know that my skin biopsy had come back positive for melanoma. Evidently, I was meant to explore my relationship with cancer from yet another angle.

Cancer has been part of my life experience since I was 4 or so. I discovered that those you love most could die from it when I was 13. I was an—aspiring at first and then certified—oncologist from 2002 to 2020. My father’s now metastatic cancer was first diagnosed in 2007. I helped one of my former patients write her book about going through curable cancer from 2020 till early this year… and so I guess the only experience I hadn’t had with cancer, before turning 40 this January, was one from the inside out.

I had been watching that mole on my leg for a while. I knew it didn’t look right.

In case you don’t know, here are the things to review when determining if a mole needs tending or not—they’re called the ABCDE criteria:

• Is it asymmetrical, with parts of the mole looking very different from the other?

• Are the borders irregular or blurry?

• Is the color uneven?

• Is the diameter larger than 6mm?

• And is it evolving—in size, shape, color or any other way?

When I realized that I could say yes to all five and started wondering if I should send a picture of it to one of my close doctor friends, I knew it was time to book an appointment to see a dermatologist.

I saw her in mid-August.

Between the time when I booked the consult and the day I saw her, it had become crusty and was oozing, so I was pretty sure I would have a biopsy that day. But, as fate would have it, I also got a rash right above it a week before my appointment and ended up unwillingly scratching the mole, which made it look a lot more inoffensive.

She ended up being very reassuring, saying that there were abnormalities, yes, but that they were most probably due to the post-scratch regeneration and that, if it was okay with me, we could simply schedule a three month check up.

I was very surprised and remember wondering how I could have been wrong on this, but I said yes—because she was very encouraging and because I’ve learned to deeply trust my body. I knew that there was no rush. I knew that I was safe no matter what.

And NO, I don’t regret that decision.

At all.

I guess the only experience I hadn’t had with cancer

was one from the inside out.

I don’t regret it because I got to witness the powers of our bodies and immune system in the months that followed. Once the post scratching injury was healed, I kept a close look on this little mole and what I know for sure is that it was healing.

It never became crusty again, and if anything it looked like it was becoming smaller. It was now only two different colors and, on the outside at least, the borders were starting to look more defined.

So I was hopeful when I saw my doctor again on November 15th! Hopeful until I saw her face after one glance at my leg.

Her cheeks lost all colors. She even seemed doubtful that it could be the same mole. After all, I had had no picture of how it looked before the scratch.

This time, there was no discussion we were going to biopsy.

At that moment, I knew what I had known all along. It was cancer. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be melanoma as there are three different kinds, and melanoma is the trickiest one…

It was melanoma.

Now, I still believe and know at the deepest level that my body had started healing, and I even wonder if it was thanks to the scratch! We have proven cases of spontaneous melanoma healing thanks to our magical immune system activation. This is why immunotherapy is a drug of choice in melanoma treatment that is otherwise chemo-resistant. And because I have seen the before and after effect, I trust what my gut is whispering to my heart. It was also pretty consistently evolving before August, but then looked pretty stable—if not like it was shrinking—from September to November.

In any case, I needed to have surgery and we don’t take chances with melanoma. The recommended margins are large and that was a lot of skin to shed for a shin whose skin reserve is already pretty limited.

So I spent the last 12 days confined to my—thank goddess very lovely—apartment, sitting on a chair with my right leg elevated, waiting for my shin to heal, and surrendering to the needs for stillness of my physical body… over the call for movement based relief that my nervous system was SCREAMING for.

It felt like a very big initiation.

I rely heavily on yoga, walking and now dancing to help my nervous system digest and integrate all of my past trauma… and sitting is hard for me on the best of days. So sitting for 12 days after cancer surgery was the last thing I wanted to do! But Life knows best. I really do trust that.

I was too uncomfortable to ground in meditation, and couldn’t find a position that worked to write either. My right hip was in constant pain and obviously so was my shin. (Have I mentioned that I’m allergic to both tylenol and ibuprofen?)

So I just met Life on her own terms, abandoning all agenda for regulation. I surrendered to meeting each day the best I could and to patiently navigate the nights whether Sleep could meet me in my bed or not.

And here’s what I’ve learned—or relearned at an even deeper level:

Life goes on. And if you’re willing to meet the storms without resistance, you’ll be in the perfect space at the perfect time to witness the downpour of rainbows that follow every rainfall.

The moment I stopped trying to feel better, I felt better.

Running away from pain only cuts the root of that pain from the healing source that it needs the most.

The body knows best what she needs to heal—and our job is not to direct the process, but to be the most patient and loving witness and her most humble and dedicated servant. The day modern medicine will catch up with that fact that all so-called ancient medicines have always emphasized, everything will change for the better in a very short time.

The people that truly love us do not love us “only at our best” or “even at our worst”, they just love us. They don’t even notice where we are on that mind-created torturous continuum. They love us in our truth. They love us when we’re in pain and when the inner weather is stormy and grey. They love us when we’re radiating with heart-made sunshine. They love us… and I am a very lucky human who is surrounded by A LOT of unconditional healing love.

Our beliefs drive our experience of Life. The events are just the ingredients we get to use to cook ourselves the most nourishing and delicious hope-inducing meal… or to unconsciously poison ourselves into despair.

There is so much strength to be found in the welcoming and unexpectedly loving embrace of rock bottom.

We get to decide what is a beginning and what is an end.

Courage never feels like courage and true strength has nothing to do with muscling through and pretending that we’re invincible.

Everything is an invitation to deepen our understanding of the sacred purpose of Grief and Anger and of the holy dance of Joy and Love.

We get to define what defines us or not—and then HOW we want to be defined by any event, label or experience.

The cure of any ailment is to bow and surrender to what we LOVE.

There is no telling what good will come from what seems the least empowering, hopeful or desirable.

And that good will ONLY come through the fire lit by our Anger, the water created by our Sorrow, the whirlwind led by our Fear and the mud that our Disappointment grounds us in. That’s what Love needs to turn our wounds into Joy and Magic. That’s how the darkness can give birth to the Light.

The darkness is a nursery of stars.

I couldn’t write to you those past three weeks because I stand by the commitments I made to this platform and community.

I will always share my truth with you and I will never speak from my wounds, only from the healing they offered me.

So it was too soon to share what was happening to me when I knew how profoundly it was changing me but had no idea of WHAT it would change within me.

And I don’t know to which extent I have been transformed yet—of course not, I haven’t even fully registered that it has happened.

BUT I have found my way back into me.

And I am in awe of all the grace, support, tenderness and enchantment that Life had in store for me, while I—literally—sat through this ordeal.

Love turns our wounds into MAGIC and Joy.

I’m so glad to be back and I’m feeling both humbled and excited to be starting this new chapter by your side: the first chapter of this new book of me.

Because when my surgeon and her team finished taking all the stitches out of my leg yesterday, I knew that the last line of The Book of Cancer had been concluded. And now that this story is done, I can put my whole heart and all my energy into my sacred dream:

Singing, Musical theatre, New York and being an advocate of our sparks and dreams in a community of Love.

And as I write those words, Idina Menzel is singing in the background: “it’s time to trust my instincts… close my eyes! AND leap.”

Are you coming with me?

With kindness, love and light—knowing that all three are born in the sacred darkness that we do not need to fear anymore.

leo