"For years, I had been teaching people about radical acceptance - not rejecting pain, but recognising pain as a part of reality right now, and learning how to live with it. Even though I initially questioned "why me?" I immediately shifted to "what now?" Cancer was happening , and it was one of the challenges I was going to have to deal with. I was going to get through this journey coming from a place of peace and gratitude, rather than fear."
"When I was diagnosed, I was afraid of letting my team down. I didn't want them to carry a burden that wasn't their own, or to panic about the future. At one of the first Monday team meetings in January, I was honest - I told my team about the cancer and all the uncertainty that felt very uncomfortable. Every subsequent week, I gave them updates and shared my fears"
Stephanie Essenfeld, a 33-year-old psychotherapist and business owner in Miami, was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer in January 2025. She applied radical acceptance, shifting from asking 'why me?' to asking 'what now?', and chose to face treatment with peace and gratitude. Over six months, relationships with her husband and daughters strengthened and friends and family provided strong support. She improved leadership by being transparent with employees, sharing her diagnosis, weekly updates, and fears to prevent undue burden and panic. She continued organizing retreats and conferences focused on assertiveness and boundaries while navigating uncertainty.
Read at Business Insider
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]