EP 42 Cancer as a path to awakening with Ali Williams

When I met Ali online eight years ago, she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and had started a blog called Raw and Completely Beautiful. She now calls herself a Cancer Sage and has written a book called The Glorious Responsibility of Happiness. Ali's experience with cancer did not start when she was diagnosed, though. She lost both her mum and grandmother in the same year, at the tender age of sixteen. In this episode, Ali shared how being the strong one (she had to be there for her younger sister) can sometimes be really hard because everyone counts on you to help others. And you end up comforting the people who don't know what to say to you. So Ali and I talked about what would have been helpful to do instead. I mentioned the Susan Silk's Ring Theory which helps people understand how to behave when someone is in a crisis and some sort of guidelines of who it's ok to share your feelings with and who it's not ok to do so. You can check the principles of this theory here. Ali had a spiritual experience after having her two boys. Her sister had gone to a psychic who told her she would have another child and that it would be a girl. That didn't seem likely to Ali, as she was in a difficult relationship. And yet not long after, she saw a light on a family photo and knew that what the psychic had said was true. Somehow, she fell back in love with her husband and had a baby girl. This piqued her curiosity and she started reading books about past lives. Ali is trained as a coach and therapist, and recently finished her training as a reiki master, so we talked briefly about what reiki is. We then talked about an emotional scale that Ali offers in her book. Ali now help people understand that their levels of happiness do not depend on other people or circumstances but on themselves. This pursuit of happiness is not, however, about avoiding big feelings about challenges. It's about feeling all the feels and yet trusting, and understanding that nothing stays the same, not even hardships. Happiness relies on that little bit of faith. She curates a Facebook community to help people do that called The Self Love Project. Our happiness relies on being able to harvest the smallest moments of joy: the glorious colours of a sunset, the sun on our face, the smell of oranges. We also need to understand that when we are feeling overwhelmed, that reaching out to other people (the right kind of people) is a strength, not a weakness. And what also helps is to realise that we are not alone in our experience. Ultimately, it is about choice. And knowing that we have that choice. Ali shared that when she was diagnosed with cancer, she had a curious feeling that she was going to be ok. She believes that getting cancer freed her from the fear she was constantly living in before the cancer. Ali concluded our interview by sharing how she believes that cancer opened the door to her path to awakening. You can find Ali on IG here  and on FB here. You can also find out more about what she does on her website www.alijwilliams.com