Reclaiming Self: A Holistic Journey with Cancer
When Alice Grasset faced breast cancer at 40, her world was upended, leaving a corporate career to co-found the Yapura Wellness Center in North Carolina. This personal and professional collision led to the creation of 'Sparkles of Grace' – a holistic program guiding women through the emotional and physical labyrinth of cancer recovery emphasizing the power of yoga, meditation, and coaching in managing treatment side effects and fears of recurrence.
In intimately recounting her own cancer journey, Alice gives voice to the physical, emotional, and spiritual struggles that connect rather than divide those facing this disease. Her story highlights the broader human experience of cancer and exemplifies how a supportive community can transform adversity into purpose.
This is not a story of one woman’s ordeal in isolation, but rather a testament to the shared truths of the cancer path along a road that does not need to be lonely.
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Podcast Transcript
Pat:
Fill To Capacity, where heart, grit and irreverent humor collide. A podcast for people to stubborn, to quit and to creative not to make a difference. Hi, I'm Pat Benincasa and welcome back to . Hey, you're listening to the very first episode of the New Year, so, as we kick off this exciting new journey, I want to wish you a happy and healthy New Year, and let's do this together! Today's episode "Reclaiming Self A Holistic Journey with Cancer. My guest is Alice Grisset, and she discovered guided meditation on French Public Radio at age 10 and has done it ever since. With an MBA and Veterinary Medicine degrees from France, she took a leap of faith in Raleigh, North Carolina, leaving her corporate pharmaceuticals job to start Yapura Wellness Center with her husband, Carlos. When she was there, she worked with several clients recovering from breast cancer. But at age 40, facing her own breast cancer battle, Alice's personal and professional worlds collided, leading to profound insights and her creating Sparkles of Grace, a holistic program to help women with breast cancer gain clarity, ease treatment side effects and reconnect with: "who you are deep inside and find harmony in mind, body, emotion and spirit. End of quote. Well, welcome Alice, it's so wonderful to have you here.
Alice:
Thank you, Pat. It's great to be here with you today.
Pat:
Before we go any further, during my conversation with Alice, she may pronounce some words differently, as English is her second language. When necessary, I will occasionally repeat these words with the more common English pronunciation. This is such an important topic and I want to make sure everyone is able to follow. Okay, let's get back to Alice. So why don't we start? Will you tell our listeners what is Sparkles of Grace?
Alice:
Sparkles of Grace is an initiative that I launched last year to be able to help women recovering from breast cancer. So, as you mentioned in the introduction, I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 40 years old, and something that I did very quickly in my journey was to turn to yoga, meditation and coaching. So I wanted to take responsibility for my own care. You know, of course, the doctors were doing their job, the surgeons, the oncologists but I wanted to be also responsible for my own care. So I was already practicing yoga and meditation, but I decided to intensify my practice and I started to work with one of my teachers, who is a coach, and so she also helped me through coaching during that time. But what I realized is that once the treatment is over, you're supposed to go back to your new normal, and it's a very, very challenging time. Yes, because you are still feeling the side effects of the treatment. You've changed physically, you've changed mentally, you've changed emotionally. A lot of the women say that you feel like you just grew 10 years older and just you know, like very, very quickly, you feel that your body has really grown older and you also have the fear of recurrence. So it's a really challenging time, but at the same time, I think this transition is an opportunity for self-reflection. Okay, it's an opportunity to look at your life and see how you want to live your life moving forward.
Pat:
We're going to go deeper with what you're talking about. But let's go back. When someone gets the news that they have breast cancer, how do they get past the shock? How do they step beyond their fears?
Alice:
I mean, it's a very, very challenging news when you hear that you have cancer and there's a lot of unknowns, so you need to go through a number of steps before you really understand your diagnosis and to understand what the treatment is going to be. So I think for every woman who are going through cancer, this first week, months, are really, really challenging and there's a lot of fear associated with that. So that's why, in my experience, the yoga and the meditation and the coaching were so helpful, because it was helping me calm down, you know, really to be more in peace and also to reconnect with my body, because you have the feeling that suddenly your body belongs to the doctors, but with the practice of yoga and with the practice of meditation, I was able to reconnect with myself. So for me, that was really my safe haven where I was able to go back. Something also which is really really important for women going through cancer and people going through cancer in general is your network, is your support group, so the people around you are going to help you through those difficult times. It's definitely a very challenging time.
Pat:
Well then, you've segued into my next question. Now, from your personal experience, how has your relationship with your body evolved since your breast cancer diagnosis?
Alice:
Yeah, so it feels. You know, when you hear that you have cancer, that your body has betrayed you a little bit, that it didn't do the job that it was supposed to do. But that's where I really love the yoga and the meditation practice, because it's all about feeling the sensations in the body. So to me it's like to reestablish the connection between more the cognitive function and the body. And I must say that probably I was not taking very good care of my body before, right. So I was in a corporate job, I was working long hours, I was not always very careful about what I was eating, I was not sleeping enough, not exercising enough, so maybe I betrayed my body right. So maybe it's the other way around. So I think through that cancer journey I was able, through those practices of yoga and meditation, to reestablish that connection, to reestablish this communication with my body.
Pat:
Well, you started to talk about it at the beginning. When going through cancer treatment, you're closely monitored by a team of healthcare professionals. So when it's over, when that's completed, what kind of adjustment happens? I mean, do you feel like you've regained your independence or do you feel like you've been abandoned? What goes on in your mind?
Alice:
Yeah, it's a very good question. Indeed, when you're going through treatment, you know exactly where you're supposed to go for your next visit. You know which medication you're supposed to take. I mean, everything is very well defined by the medical team, but when you're being told your treatment, the primary phase of your treatment is over. I'm going to see you in six months and nine months whatever is the next time for the visit you'll buy yourself, and you still have the side effects. Some people struggle with neuropathy, some people struggle because they gain a lot of weight. I mean, there's a number of things in terms of side effects. Plus, people expect you to go back to your life and be as active as you were, but you're still extremely tired. Sometimes you still have to take medication for a long time after the primary phase of the treatment, and you have this little thing that comes into your mind, which is the fear of recurrence. And so it has a name. It's called the Damocles Syndrome. So it's a well known syndrome. I mean, they don't tell you that in advance, but it's a well known syndrome that people who go through cancer who were in remission. They may very well develop strong anxiety and strong fear of recurrence. And it has nothing to do with your stage of cancer, it has nothing to do with your prognosis, but part of that population of cancer survivors may develop very strong fear of recurrence. And the way it manifests I mean the way it manifested for me is that any kind of little pain that I was having in my body. I was panicking, maybe that was a cancer returning, maybe, you know, I would be sick again, and that's very, very challenging. And to be able to manage that fear and to be able to move forward in life with that fear, it's something challenging and this is where I want to help women.
Pat:
So basically, I was going to ask you in my next question how are you able to create or rediscover a normal life after finishing cancer treatments? You're talking about it and it sounds like you had to go through some some deep digging into your mind and heart about fear, like, oh my God, is it going to come back? Wait, what is this ache I'm feeling? How do you go from feeling all of that that just seems normal, alice, that you would worry about all of it? Is normal possible coming out of that, and what does normal look like to you?
Alice:
Yeah. So the first step I think in that process is to build a safe space. So when you are going through cancer, you're going into the fight or flight mode, right, you are in survival, you're doing everything to survive, but your nervous system cannot stay in that stage. You need to go back to a space where you can relax, where your nervous system can calm down. So that's really the first step in the process. And then I think it's very important to reflect on the cancer journey, to understand what we've learned through that experience, what were the silver linings, and really to process all the emotions associated with it. If we just push them away and say, no, I'm going forward with my life and I forget about all these emotions, they're still there and they may come back. And I think it's in a way, the fear of recurrence, is this emotion that I have not been correctly processed that are coming back. The third step in the process for me is about looking at our life moving forward and how do we want to use our time. So life is a gift and it's so important to look at. Am I using my time in the best way possible? Is what am I doing relevant to my values and really understanding what brings me joy. So all these little things which enables you to look forward again and to enjoy life, and I think sometimes we have the word cancer of survivors, but we can also be cancer thrivers right and enjoying the life even more and to make it even better.
Pat: 14:36
You know, it seems like you're touching on two important points. One is, as you were speaking, I had the image of someone trying to stay in present moment. And the richness of the now. Yes, Because when we go into future we can get worked up with what ifs. And then if we think about how healthy we were in our past, that's a sinkhole for like, worry, like, oh my gosh, I'm not that now. So it sounds like present moment and learning to appreciate that moment. But with that is this notion of gratitude.
Alice:
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I really like the way you describe it, you know, like this feeling of anxiety that cancer survivors may develop. I mean, it's very, it's, it's challenging, you know, to stop that, that thinking pattern. But we make ourself suffer twice, right, we suffer for something which is not there, and if it was, unfortunately, if something would come back, we would suffer again. So we sort of make ourself suffer twice when it's not necessary. But, like you're saying, being in the present moment, being in our body, enjoying what surrounds us, enjoying our life, that's the best way, you know, to deal with the fear. That's the most powerful thing that we can do.
Pat:
So I'd like to shift gears here for a moment. Karen Kenahan she's a certified nurse practitioner at Northwestern Medical Group said, quote breast cancer doesn't have to be your identity. So let's talk about how loved ones, work colleagues and friends treat someone with cancer. Like, how do you get them to see you and not the cancer?
Alice:
Yeah, that's a good question. I think, when you tell your friends and your colleagues that you have cancer, it just makes them think about their own fear. So very often we get reaction, people that don't want to talk about it. They want to switch subject very quickly and you know, the cancer word is still coming with so much negative thoughts and emotions and so I think probably many patients and cancer survivors, because they don't want to make their family worried, they don't want people to be upset, we keep that inside right, and that could be, you know, negative for our treatment because they get, these emotions if we hold them inside of us they could lead to more stress. So something which my experience is very helpful if you don't have a supportive network, if you don't have people who are willing and able to listen to you fully, is to work with the support group. So I teach yoga for a group of cancer patients here in Raleigh and it's amazing how people like to connect. People like to be able to share their stories, to share about their diagnostic, their treatment, and they support each other in the best way possible. So you know, it's before class or after class. It's not per se a support group where structured as a support group, but this little moment where they can support each other, it's really wonderful to see. Yeah, so I would really invite cancer patients and survivors, if they feel they don't get that support in their families for whatever reason, to look into support group. I think it's really helpful.
Pat:
So let's flip this. What do you say to listeners who have friends or loved ones going through cancer? They may not know how to act. Like you were saying just a moment ago, people react from their own discomfort and fears about cancer. So what do you say to those folks who have friends and loved ones going through cancer? How are they to be?
Alice:
So, really, the most important thing to help somebody who's going through cancer is to be present and to listen. So it's to be able to create that space where the cancer patients or survivor can really express themselves, express their emotion, and to be able to receive these emotions, to receive whatever they're going through, with compassion and with all the love that you have for your friend or for your family member, and something as well, I think, which is important, is to ask them what they need. So, yeah, so sometimes you know, there's some personalities where people try to do a lot you know they're going to start bringing you meals, or you know, but first ask the person, ask the cancer patient, what they truly need, because it may be something completely different. So listen to them and ask them what they need. It's going to be different depending on the person. Somebody yes, they will want you to come and give them, you know, some nice food. Some people will want you to come with them to their chemotherapy or their radiation session. Some people will want to go and just have a nice coffee or go for a little walk. That's going to be different. So don't impose it on the person. Just ask them. Ask them what they need and listen to them. They're going through a lot, so they need that space to be able to express themselves. We know that sharing either with your diary, either with a journal or with somebody that to be able to share and to externalize what's going on it helps a lot in terms of stress reduction and anxiety management. So when you listen to your friend, to your loved one, you're helping them feel better. So just you know, it's just listening and having that space.
Pat:
Alice what I love about what you just said is that a cancer journey is very personal. One size does not fit all, and so I love how you really reinforce that notion. You know each person is different. They may need something that's very, very different, and so that sensitivity to what that person needs is really a wonderful reminder for all of us that cancer is a very personal journey?
Alice:
Yes, absolutely, and people react in a very different way, and that has to be respected. Can?
Pat:
you describe a transformative moment with a client as they navigated breast cancer recovery.
Alice:
Yes, the example that come to mind is with a lady who was a small business owner and she had to go through her cancer treatments, so all her business activities were, you know, it was very difficult for her to continue to work at the same time and she her business really had some issues. And so we worked together looking at what she could do, you know, at work, how she could work differently, how she can free some time for herself, for self-care, so that she could do also activities that she had never given herself the time to do. So there are several things that she wanted to do in terms of art and, you know, busy life. She never had the time to do it, but after her work she started to do this thing that she wanted so much to do. And we also worked on the definition of success, you know, because you can very well have different definition of what success is, professionally or personally. So we worked also on that and we worked together in order to find a better balance. So her business is back on track, so she's still making progress with her business and in her life she's doing things that she never had there, you know, taking the time to do. So that's, I think, a lovely thing.
Pat:
Oh, that's wonderful, yes, yes. So when people go through chemo, several chemo treatments, chemotherapy, it really takes a toll on the body. There's nausea, there's exhaustion. What role does exercise have for people in active cancer treatment?
Alice:
Yeah, that's a very good question. Thank you, pat, for asking. It's super, super important to continue to exercise. The American Cancer Society actually recommends between 150 minutes to 320 minutes of moderate exercise per week. Of course, when you are going through chemotherapy there's probably some time where it's going to be more challenging, but as long as you can do it, it's really important to exercise. Exercising is going to help you manage the side effects and it has been shown that exercising is reducing the risk of cancer recurrence and, in addition, when we exercise it also helps to reduce the risk of developing other conditions. So exercising is definitely the best thing that people can do to contribute to their own health or they're going through treatment. I love yoga so much for cancer patients and survivors because it's an activity that is gentle but at the same time it gives you enough cardiovascular activation and strength building building all of strength so that it helps meet those objectives in terms of exercising. So yoga helps with keeping the bones strong, because chemotherapy can make your density of the bone is impacted. So yoga helps keeping the bones strong. It helps with keeping the strength, the balance, the flexibility. It helps to stimulate the immune system. It helps with improving sleep and also to reduce anxiety and stress. It has a number of positive effects and at the same time it's gentle on the body, so not over-exerting the body.
Pat:
So would you talk about the importance of self-compassion in the healing process?
Alice:
I think it's where the work on the emotion is so important, because with cancer, we can have emotions like shame or guilt coming and we need to be able to process those emotions and to be able to build a space where we can receive them with compassion, remembering that we are human and we're going through something which is very hard, very difficult. It's normal that there are days we are down, that we don't have to be every day trying to be the little soldier. It's absolutely normal to have days where we are down and to accept it and to embrace it and to embrace our emotions, embrace the sensations and being present to ourselves. I like when you said earlier being present. It's being present in the moment and being present to ourselves and what we're going through.
Pat:
You know, it does bring up an issue how do we live the fullness of life, whether going through cancer or not going through cancer? Sometimes people want to treat life like Alucard I want a little of this, I want a little of that, but I don't want this. And life doesn't give us the choice of Alucard. It's just, it's there, it just happens. And so this notion of self-compassion is also permission to live the fullness of this experience, which means, I'm sure there are days you're scared out of your mind, or there are days when you just want to cry. Other days you want to just celebrate the sunrise, the beauty of whatever it is. There is this whole gamut of feeling, and I think self-compassion is that permission to feel all of this.
Alice:
Absolutely, and so when I work with women, we also practice mindfulness, meditation, and a lot of what you're describing is about non-judgment, so being able to accept whatever is present in the moment without judging, without saying that it's right or wrong, just accepting what is, and so I fully agree with you. That's yeah. I think mindfulness is the way that helps us embrace life fully and enjoy everything, because a life comes hot out of silence.
Pat:
It's like being a haven for health.
Alice:
Take us a step outside, of our beauty for this environment. Learn to embrace them somebody and try to -- by that person anybody and the only thing that's out there is self-compassion. T hey really need to be comfortable with their doctors, with the team, so that they really feel that they get the best support. I would also tell them to don't hesitate to reach out to friends and family that they're going to need the support. So building that network of support is going to be really important. And then sometimes something as simple as going into nature and looking at the beautiful sunset, or going to the beach or watching a beautiful flower, taking a deep breath right and then letting go. They're going to go through it. You know they have the strength within them, but they have to also to reconnect and respect who they are.
Pat:
Oh, that's beautiful. So as we wrap up, I have to say, alice, your story goes straight to the heart of moving from survivor to guiding and your holistic coaching emphasis for self-care. The strength of community, I think, gives others navigating similar paths the courage to discover and respect their own process. And you know, your ability to turn a personal trial into a collective treasure is the kind of alchemy that gives hope and direction, that even in our darkest moments we can find a light to guide others. Thank you so much for being here today.
Alice:
Thank you, Pat. It was a pleasure talking to you today.
Pat:
And thank you listeners. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please subscribe to fill to capacity wherever you listen to podcasts, and thank you for joining us. Bye.
