Living for my family and working to support us is all I had the capacity to do. And then there was that second degree I had begun chasing.

I didn’t even have the time to get the little lump checked that I began to notice in the late summer of 2017. I just kept going because my daughters needed me and I needed to pay the bills. I wanted to be a stellar performer on the job. I kept busy because I didn’t want to think about how empty I was feeling as my marriage of 17 years was coming to an end.

Finally taking the time to get checked right before the Thanksgiving holiday of 2017, I received the diagnosis that halted my world and kept it suspended for months with all the doctors visits, tests and treatments to come. To make matters worse, what doctors originally shared was stage I, turned out to be stage III after surgery.

Soon I had more time than I imagined to spend with myself. I found myself staring at me in the mirror more now than I ever did before.

Alone with my thoughts like: “Will I make it through this?” “What about my daughters?” “Where are my friends?” “Why did this happen to me?” and “I’m barely the recommended age for mammograms” —  and the list went on.

Everything now was forcing me to focus on me. I had to love myself enough to let go of life as I knew it and love me.

Love me?

I wasn’t quite sure of what that really meant because somehow I always thought love was supposed to come from somewhere or somebody else. But during my treatments, I came to realize I could love myself more. I could love the me that was hairless, weak and scared just as much as I could love the me who is fierce, strong and driven.

My current situation made everything but my health as tiny as a speck of dust. So I began learning how to really love myself. I asked myself things like: What do you like? What do you want to do? Where would you like to go?

I became more present. I listened more intently to the people who wanted to be in my space. I allowed those friends and family to be my kisses of encouragement to keep me progressing when all I wanted to do was isolate myself at times. I began to pay more attention to what I was eating, understanding food is just as important for healing as medicine.

As I am working through the aftermath of this disease, I’m learning to do what I have coined as “S.E.L.F. Love.” This simply means to decrease stress, exercise, laugh and love, and feed yourself good food. I’m using this acronym to remind myself that I have to love myself everyday. I’m loving myself enough to live my best life – far from perfect – but I’m doing the things that I want to do.

You should too!