Some things you can’t learn in a classroom.
From the Sunday Self-Care Chronicles | 7/6/25
This week’s Sunday Self-Care Chronicles explores why lived experience matters—and how it sets certain kinds of care apart.
This week’s issue touches on:
✨ The difference between intellectual, witnessed, and lived experience when it comes to breast cancer.
✨ Why most practitioners—no matter how skilled—can’t fully get it without having been through it.
✨ How personal experience shapes the way I support clients, both practically and emotionally.
Read the full email below - and if something speaks to you please feel free to comment, share, or reach out!
Hey friend,
There’s something I want to say out loud today, even if it’s a little blunt:
No one who hasn’t had breast cancer can truly know what it’s like to have breast cancer.
Not your oncologist.
Not your physical therapist.
Not your mental health counselor.
Not your oncology massage or lymphedema specialist.
Not even your well-meaning best friend or partner or mom.
Do you know how I know? Because I too have been on both sides of those three words: “you have cancer.”
Honestly before my own diagnosis, I thought I knew a lot about living with a cancer experience.
I’d studied, trained, and spent years supporting people going through various diagnoses and treatment protocols.
But there are some things you just can’t know until you knowthem.
The truth is there’s a difference between:
intellectual knowledge (what you’ve read or been taught),
witnessed experience (what you’ve seen others go through),
and lived experience (what’s been in your body, your bones, your breath).
And that difference changes everything.
It’s the reason why I hold space the way I do.
Why I can speak to both the science and the soul of recovery.
Why I don't flinch when you say the thing you’re afraid is “too much.”
It’s also what sets my work apart.
Because most practitioners—no matter how talented, educated, or compassionate—don’t know what it’s like to live in a post-cancer body.
They haven’t navigated scanxiety or scar tissue. They haven’t sat in a post-op bra wondering if their body will ever feel like home again.
I have.
And that shared experience?
It creates a kind of shorthand. A kind of trust.
So if you’ve ever felt like the people trying to help you just don’t get it…
You’re not wrong.
But I want you to know: some of us do.
And we’re building something different here.
I’m not wishing cancer on anybody and I do value and appreciate the professionals who serve our community even without their own experience in it.
I also know that having lived it makes me a better professionaland no one can dispute that.
💭 Something to consider:
What's one thing you WISH your professional care team members knew about the lived experience of cancer that they just can't get on their own without having lived it themselves? What would you tell them about this one thing to help them try to understand?
💌 I’d love to hear from you:
I’d love to know what this brings up for you— hit reply and tell me if you agree or not.
And now you know why every week I say… I’m always in this with you.
ps. If you could use someone in your corner who can help you feel seen and heard from lived experience while also offering professional guidance then I invite you to check out my services and self-care resources to see if any of them feel like a good fit.
pps. If you liked this week's email please consider forwarding it to a friend or sharing this version on your socials.