empowering ourselves
I lost my mother to ovarian cancer when I was 10, but it wasn’t until my diagnosis with BRCA1 at 30 that I really started to grapple with how hereditary cancer risk would affect every aspect of my life. From the way the diagnosis impacted my marriage, to when and how to have children, decisions about which potential prophylactic surgeries… And through it all: how to self-advocate and stay connected to my own intuition rather than reacting to other people’s fear.
When you find out that you carry a statistically higher risk of cancer, whether through genetic mutation or other hereditary risk, that information comes carrying an emotional load. After you get through the initial shock, there are so many decisions to make.
Sure, your doctors are supportive. You may have access to all the medical care and options. But what is missing is the emotional support for what it is like to actually make those choices. We often feel isolated, fearful, anxious and uncertain. Over and over again, the doctors tell us, “Here are all your choices. But in the end it’s up to you.”
In my work with clients around hereditary cancer risk, both in my groups as well as in one-on-one, we do the deep dive into your relationship to cancer. Together, we create an intimate space to work through how this diagnosis is affecting your life, your future planning, your relationships, and your connection to your body. We create a safe and respectful container that honors the realities of living with elevated cancer risk, so that you can live a full and empowered life with this diagnosis.
Topics I support clients To explore:
-Understanding what aspects of developmental trauma are impacting your ability to claim the space you need
-Decision making overwhelm—how to pace decisions and claim your agency over what happens next
-Relationship to risk—owning our own tolerance
-Working with uncertainty—differentiating the past from the future
-Grief of who we have lost—a space to tell the stories
-Impact on relationships—conversations with loved ones, how to handle other’s fear
-Fertility preservation and family planning—the emotional and relational considerations
-Financial planning—getting real about what we need, navigating insurance advocacy
-Body image and relationship with our bodies—how this impacts our gender expression, our sexuality, our self love
-How to be with the anxiety and fear—somatic tools, psychoeducation
-Navigating medical systems/self advocacy
-Staying connected to our own inner voice through it all
Below is an example of a flyer for one of my support groups:
“A love note to my body
First of all,
I want to say
thank you,
for the heart you kept beating
even when it was broken,
for every answer you gave me in my gut,
for loving me back
even when I didn’t know how to love you,
for every time you recovered when I pushed you past our limits
for today,
for waking up.”
Join a Group
Fill out this form to inquire about the next start date of my 8 and 12 week Hereditary Cancer Risk support groups: