To the whole, complicated, beautiful you — Happy International Women's Day
From the Sunday Self-Care Chronicles | 3/8/26
This week's Sunday Self-Care Chronicles honors International Women's Day by celebrating the parts of womanhood that don't fit neatly into a symbol — especially after breast cancer.
This week’s issue touches on:
✨ A story about a networking event, a pink ribbon, and four words I said out loud that I don't regret
✨ Why we celebrate women's strength loudly — and go quiet about everything else
✨ An invitation to be seen as the whole, complicated, beautiful woman you are
✨ Something I've been working on for a long time that I'm finally ready to share
Read the full email below - and if something speaks to you please feel free to comment, share, or reach out!
Hello Beautiful!
Today is International Women's Day.
And I've been sitting with what that actually means — not the hashtags, not the cute graphics, not the "empowered women empower women" mugs — but the real, honest, sometimes messy truth of what it means to move through the world in a woman's body.
Especially one that has been through what yours has been through.
I'll tell you a story.
A few years ago I was at a networking event for women entrepreneurs.
We were going around the room introducing ourselves — the usual thing. I was tired that day, a little on edge, and in the middle of introducing myself as an oncology massage therapist serving the breast cancer community, a woman at a nearby table lit up and yelled out:
"Where's your pink ribbon?!"
Big smile. Total enthusiasm. Meant so well.
My response?
"I fucking HATE pink."
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I felt so bad. I think I mumbled an apology. I tried to get back to what I actually wanted to say.
But that moment has never left me — because in about three seconds, everything I am got collapsed into a color — into a diagnosis.
Not the years of training.
Not the clients I've walked alongside and lost.
Not the grief I carry from being the 5th generation of women in my family to have breast cancer.
Just... where's your ribbon?
And here's what I want to say on International Women's Day:
We do this to women all the time.
We celebrate loudly what fits neatly into a symbol.
The strength.
The resilience.
The survivor story with the tidy ending.
But what we talk about less — what gets quietly set aside in the name of "moving forward" — are the parts that don't fit.
The grief.
The confusion.
The way your body can feel like a stranger.
The desires that went quiet.
The intimacy that got complicated.
The sense of loss that doesn't have a clean name.
Those parts are real too.
And they deserve to be honored just as much as the strength.
So today, I don't just want to celebrate what you've survived.
I want to celebrate all of you — including the parts that are still figuring it out.
The parts that are tender.
The parts that are quietly asking for more.
You are not just your resilience.
You are not just your ribbon.
You are the whole, complicated, beautiful, still-becoming version of yourself.
And that is worth celebrating.
—
Speaking of honoring the whole woman — I have something I've been working on for a long time that I'm finally ready to share with all of you.
It's about the parts of the breast cancer experience that rarely get talked about openly. The intimate ones. The ones that affect your body, your relationships, your sense of self in ways that go far beyond treatment.
I'll be sharing it with you very soon — this week, in fact. I think it's going to mean a lot to many of you.
Stay close. 💛
With so much love on this day and every day.
I'm always in this with you…
P.S. I took last Sunday off — sometimes the best self-care is knowing when to close the laptop. Thanks for still being here. 💛