Life will always throw us curveballs, especially at the worst possible time. "Like, why couldn't I get a tumor AFTER I had landed my first job post-graduation?" I jokingly thought to myself, in a last-ditch effort to find some normalcy in my situation.

I was 22 and set to graduate from university with a promising future ahead. Then came the diagnosis: a pituitary tumor. The pituitary gland sits at the base of your brain and is referred to as the "master gland" because it signals to the rest of our endocrine glands how many hormones they need to produce.

While relieved to finally have answers to my many distressing hormonal symptoms, I didn't realize this would begin a seven-year healing journey that would transform not just my health, but my entire approach to work and life.

The illness became my constant obsession—something to be fixed as soon as possible. Watching my hair fall out was just the beginning. I threw myself into every possible treatment, riding waves of hope with each new therapy, only to crash into despair when they failed.

Eventually, my health stabilized, but I realized I'd become obsessed with healing at the expense of actually living. My entire identity had become wrapped in being a "sick person getting better." Everything else—career, relationships, joy—fell away.

It wasn't until I discovered meditation, particularly Joe Dispenza's work, that I finally understood: I had been waiting to start living until I was "fully healed." This revelation forced me to confront deep-seated beliefs from childhood that I was still carrying.

The real healing began when I stopped searching outside myself and started looking within. The most profound healing didn't come from fixing what was broken, but from loving what was present.

Breaking Free from Survival Mode

Living in survival mode warps our perception of reality. When this fear is chronically present, it can lead to poor decision-making. As an immigrant who moved from Mexico with my mother at age nine, I was intimately familiar with financial hardship and thus grew up in survival mode.

When the tumor appeared, these survival instincts kicked into overdrive. I couldn't accept my body's limitations, so I tried to force my way through them. I shaved off my falling hair, moved to NYC, and dove into a demanding management consulting role.

Living the dream in the big city, right? Except my health was crumbling. It was a vicious cycle—my lifestyle was causing immense stress, but I needed my job to finance the endless parade of supplements, expensive diets, lab work, and functional medicine treatments. Like many immigrants and children of immigrants, I had glorified the traditional path of upward mobility, even as it was slowly breaking me.

Reflection & Practice: Take inventory of your current lifestyle. Are you constantly operating from a place of fear or survival? Write down three ways your current choices might be prioritizing security over well-being.

Learning to Trust the Process

Sometimes life forces us to stop—through illness, job loss, or other major changes. When COVID-19 hit and I lost my job in New York City, I was forced to break the cycle. This pause, though initially devastating, became a blessing in disguise. Moving back home with my mother provided a safe sanctuary where I could start the journey of true healing and self-discovery.

Through meditation, I learned to calm my racing mind and stop obsessing over my body’s health. I began to practice gratitude for everything I did have and for the opportunity to re-write my story. I leaned into the idea that my worth wasn't tied to my productivity or health status.

Daily Ritual: Create a morning ritual that doesn't revolve around productivity. Start with 10 minutes of meditation, journaling, or simply sitting in silence. Notice how this small act of self-care affects your perspective throughout the day.

Redefining Success on Your Own Terms

True healing began when I stopped forcing myself into someone else's definition of success. This shift led me to pursue a long-held dream of working in Japan— a dream I had studied Japanese for a decade in preparation for, but abandoned when I got sick.

The familiar voices of fear crept in: "How will this look on my resume?" "Why take a pay cut?" "What comes after teaching?" But this time, I had something stronger: trust in myself and in life. Teaching English in Japan was everything and more than I had hoped.

Some of my fears did come true, but I was able to face every challenge with grace because I was finally living in alignment with my authentic self. My creativity ignited and showed me that one can always make the best of what they have and build on from there. Not to mention, I made new expat friends who had also been through many of the same struggles and who were living proof that the juice was worth the squeeze.

Soul Practice: Write down your dream scenario, ignoring practical constraints. Then, list three small steps you could take toward this dream while honoring your current needs and limitations.

The grace you give yourself during challenging periods isn't weakness—it's wisdom. And in that grace, you might just discover a life more beautiful than the one you originally planned.

For those navigating similar challenges, remember:

● Start each day with gratitude—even for the struggles that are teaching you resilience

● Take it one day at a time—healing and growth happen in their own time

● Honor and own your story—including the detours and setbacks

● Connect with a support system—you don't have to navigate this alone