Make happiness the priority

It all starts with you

For thirty years, I lived under the assumption that my value as a person only came from what I did for others, not who I was.

When metastatic breast cancer invaded my work-focused world, I quickly discovered that everything I had believed and relied upon to that point was either irrelevant or pure fantasy.

My life had been dedicated to making other people successful and happy. I trusted that this was my purpose in life, that the people I worked for and helped would look after me in turn, and that there’d be plenty of time down the track for me to chase my own dreams. Then suddenly, out of the blue, I was forced to walk away from my responsibilities as a CEO, and abandon both my voluntary roles with the bilateral chamber of commerce I’d founded and the law firm I’d helped set up and run. For the first time in my life, I had to focus on myself. It was literally a life or death situation.

In June this year, I will achieve the 5-year cancer-versary that only 1 in 5 people with Stage IV breast cancer are expected to make – statistically speaking. I never did like statistics, so it’s no great surprise that I’m not only still alive and kicking, but am actually living my very best life right now. Why? Because for the first time in my 50 years on this planet, I truly believe I am worth the time and effort it takes to be happy, and I am ready to share the philosophy I’ve adopted since learning I won’t be alive long enough to become a wrinkly old woman (which was the only thing that had held me back from getting this awesome tattoo on my arm!)…

MAKE THE MOST OF TODAY!!!

This is me, Carla aka “Carcoura” – four and a half years into treatment for Stage IV cancer, living my best life (on a seriously awesome holiday cruising around Europe in October 2019!)

My Pegasus tattoo (the winged horse represents the extraordinary woman I had just laid to rest when I got this done – my beautiful mother – and the leaves are symbolic of me being in my “autumnal” years thanks to my cancer diagnosis)

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
– Abraham Lincoln

Happiness

Whether dealing with illness, a career change, a difficult break-up, grief, anxiety or clinical depression, there’s never a better time to stop and shift your focus to happiness than NOW. I hope you find something here to lighten your load and open your heart if not your mind. Smile, laugh, breathe. You deserve to be happy.

Well-being

While I am a self-confessed pilates addict, I’m no health and fitness guru! With this admission, I hope you don’t mind me sharing some of the tips and hacks I’ve used for my own well-being (even though I’m not exactly an authority, just a person who has explored a heap of different things to keep me happy and relatively pain-free through my experience with cancer).