Suleika Jaouad

Thank you.

But above all else, my focus was on surviving.

And, spoiler alert, I did survive.

Yeah.

Thanks to an army of supportive humans, I'm not just still here, I am cured of my cancer.

Thank you.

So when you go through a traumatic experience like this, people treat you differently.

They start telling you how much of an inspiration you are.

They say you're a warrior.

They call you a hero, someone who's lived the mythical hero's journey, who's endured impossible trials and, against the odds, lived to tell the tale, returning better and braver for what you've been through.

And this definitely lines up with my experience.

Cancer totally transformed my life.

I left the hospital knowing exactly who I was and what I wanted to do in the world.

And now every day, as the sun rises, I drink a big glass of celery juice, and I follow this up with 90 minutes of yoga.

Then I write down 50 things I'm grateful for onto a scroll of paper that I fold into an origami crane and send sailing out my window.

Are you seriously believing any of this?

I don't do any of these things.

I hate yoga, and I have no idea how to fold an origami crane.

The truth is that for me, the hardest part of my cancer experience began once the cancer was gone.

That heroic journey of the survivor we see in movies and watch play out on Instagram, it's a myth.