Shedding your “treatment self” so that you can move beyond active treatment.

My last treatment is behind me. Two weeks ago, I sat in the infusion chair for one final session of targeted therapy aimed at the HER2 protein receptors on my cancer. Fourteen months since my diagnosis and the last thirteen months spent in treatment for Triple+ breast cancer.

There is this assumption that once treatment ends, everything just goes back to normal. How life was before cancer derailed it. Everyone around you is ready for that, and they assume that you are as well. The chapter of active treatment closes, you celebrate being “done,” and pick up where you left off. But that has not yet proven true for me.

I do want to acknowledge that my life never stopped while in active treatment, it continued moving forward throughout this last year. I still had to be a mom, showing up every day for my two young children. I continued to work and to teach yoga. And as I put my mastectomy recovery, chemo, and radiation in the rearview mirror in April, the mid-point of treatment, I slowly began adding more back into my life as I thought I could handle it.

So even though life continued on all around me, the reality of who I was shifted dramatically throughout the year and the truth is, there is no going back to normal; because what once was normal is no longer my current reality. The end of treatment is not a finish line. It feels more like a transition period. I have moved from active treatment into this quieter space where there are no more appointments or visits to the infusion center, but I do not feel fully healed and who I am on this side of things has not been fully integrated.

For the first week after treatment ended, I found myself in a very challenging place. After spending fourteen months holding it all together, meeting each moment, staying positive, and doing everything I could to support my healing, October 9th arrived. I left the infusion chair, and it was as if I deflated. Energetically, I crashed. I spent the week sleeping, feeling unmotivated and burnt out, unable to access that spark of joy I thought I would feel at the end of treatment.

And then last Sunday I attended Survive and Thrive at my yoga studio, a monthly sound bath, meditation, and Reiki healing event that has been an anchor for me throughout this journey. It was the intentional pause I needed to sit with myself, be quiet, and see what wanted to surface.

What came up for me almost immediately was that I needed to somatically shed “treatment Ashley.” For a year, I have been diligent in learning everything I needed to about my cancer, my treatments, my hormones, and how to holistically support my body so that it could heal. I have learned many valuable lessons that I will integrate into my life moving forward – being more intentional with my time, more protective of my boundaries, and more supportive of my immune system. But I also yearn to feel as free and light as I did before cancer entered the picture. To not feel that I need to be so vigilant around my health.

There is a push and pull between wanting to protect my health with awareness and not wanting that awareness to define me. As has been true throughout this whole process, some days I can give myself grace and soften into the cyclical reality of healing, and some days it proves harder to do that.

This lifequake has rearranged me in ways I am still learning to understand. What has been taken from me in the cancer process has created spaces that are ripe for new practices, new ways of moving through the world, and an opportunity to choose what I want to fill the spaces up with. But integration takes time. It cannot be rushed. Healing is not about returning to who I was before cancer, but about meeting who I am now, with grace and curiosity.

I have not yet had a chance to take a break and schedule time away by myself to bless and release “treatment Ashley”, but it is in the works. A weekend away where I can focus on myself and work on letting go of the last year. An intentional pause to create ritual or ceremony to mark the ending of one phase and the beginning of the next. But until then, I have committed to doing something each day that is nourishing. Attend a restorative yoga class, be in nature, meditate. A practice that has been hugely supportive throughout this journey is to take a moment to slow down, place my hand over my heart, take a long, steady breath, and repeat to myself, I am safe. I am safe. I am safe. This simple act reminds my body that this new version of me is welcome and I am doing everything I can to take care of and protect it.

Every experience, no matter how challenging, shapes who we are and offers an opportunity to reflect on what still serves us and what we are ready to let go. When we allow ourselves to shed what has fulfilled its purpose, we make space for what comes next. This is not an overnight process. Some days it is easy to feel inspired by growth, while other days it can feel uncertain and overwhelming. Yet this is the authentic process of being human. The transformation of my life since I found the lump in June 2024 has been one that at times has tested me, but has also allowed me to peel back layers to meet a softer, wiser, more grounded version of myself.