Which One Is Yours? I Need Your Help Before I Go Any Further
From the Sunday Self-Care Chronicles | 4/26/26
Hey there friend,
Good news! My foot is fine. I took a couple of days of being a little more careful on the cobblestones and it sorted itself out — which, honestly, was the best possible outcome when I'd already walked multiple miles on a questionable anklebecause my husband really wanted his photos.
In all honesty by day three, I had sort of forgotten all about it in the moment. But here's the thing that did stick with me– it wasn't the lesson to watch where I was walking or wear better shoes.
It was how un-scared I was.
Not because it didn't hurt, and not because I was certain nothing was seriously wrong – but because I knew enough to assess it, knew what to do about it, and trusted myself to handle it.
Being a massage therapist means having a certain baseline of body literacy that kicks in when something goes sideways. And that knowledge — that context — is what kept a twisted ankle from becoming a spiral.
It made me think about you. And about what it actually feels like to live in a body after breast cancer.
Because here's what I know from years of working with survivors, and from my own experience: the fear isn't always about the big things.
It's the quieter stuff.
The hesitation before a long flight.
The moment you reach for something overhead and feel that pull and wonder what it means.
The way certain clothes fit now — or don't — and what that does to you before you even walk out the door.
The uncertainty of when to involve your doctor about something everyone else easily dismisses.
It's the low-level vigilance that just never quite turns off.
And I want to be clear — you don't have to be traveling for any of this to land. This is just daily life.
Moving through your day in a body that has been through something enormous, and trying to feel at home in it again.
That's what I keep coming back to, here and everywhere: the difference between surviving and actually living isn't a perfect body or zero symptoms.
It's having enough understanding of your own body that you can handle what comes up — with less fear, more confidence, and a little more ease.
It's what I've created for myself, and what I want for you too.
Which is why I meant it when I said this time in Italy is a working sabbatical.
I may be away from my table but since we've been here I've been actively working on the Body Empowerment Program — a guided survivorship pathway built around the three areas I hear about most from the women I work with.
And before I go any further, I want to hear from you.
Which of these feels most pressing in your life right now?
→ How you think and feel about your body
→ Scars, tightness, and tissue changes
→ Lymphedema risk and lymphatic health
There's no wrong answer — and your response genuinely shapes what I build and how I sequence it. Just click here to shoot me an email with the one that feels most like yours.
If you want to be among the first to know when the program is ready, you can get on the list here.
→ Join the early interest list
Alright back to walking, working, eating, and drinking my way through Florence.
Until next Sunday, I'm always in this with you.
Love, Amy
P.S. If you're still finding your footing in life after a breast cancer diagnosis — recently or not so recently — my free self-care starter kit, The Survivorship Starting Point, was made exactly for you.