Ever since I can remember, I’ve always known I was going to get breast cancer. It started when I was a child, and has traveled with me with me as I grew. I’m not exactly sure why.

Call it a sixth sense. Or maybe just good old fashion fear. I don’t really know.

When I was a teenager, I remember traveling overseas and going to the Dead Sea. It’s a place that’s know to have holistic powers, because of the elements there, and people come from all over the world to experience it. I remember seeing a woman who had scars from having breast cancer, and thinking, “that will be me one day.”

I was seventeen.

In my adult life, when a cousin of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer, I told her, “It’s not if I get this. It’s when.”

I worried about it.

I’ve struggled a lot with wondering why I’ve had these thoughts during my life, and if, because of these thoughts, I brought it on myself. Does thinking about something cause it to happen? I’ve always been a positive person, and believed that positive thinking will bring about positive events in my life.

I’m sure the same holds true for negative thoughts.

Did the constant thoughts I had about breast cancer, over the course of my life, destine me to get it?

I will never know the answer. And no one can tell me “yes” or “no” for sure. But you won’t convince me it didn’t have something to do with it.

And it doesn’t really matter. I can’t change what happened.

At a party recently, I was talking to someone who always worried about having a heart attack. His father passed away from one a young age, and my friend has carried this fear with him everyday. I was shocked to hear about his recent heart attack, and he was just as surprised to hear that I had gone through breast cancer.

After sharing our stories, that sounded a little too similar in many ways, we concluded that each of our fears had happened. We each got what we worried about. Thankfully, we had survived.

It happened, we beat it, and now we don’t have to worry about it.

To put it simply: I worried about getting breast cancer my whole life, I got it, dealt with it, and it’s over. It’s time to put this fear away. It happened.

I’ve replaced those past thoughts with thoughts of gratitude, peace, and deep appreciation. But now, I’m very aware of what thoughts I allow to go through my head, and I hope you’re too.

Learn from me. Be careful about what goes through your mind. Your thoughts have more power than you think.

Find meaning each day,

Dara