So...What's Your Cancer?

"You have cancer," is the dreaded sentence. The sentence that makes you slow down and re-evaluate your priorities. The sentence that reminds you why you want to be alive and what is worth living for. 

I used to have more hobbies & interests than I could keep up with.

Gardening, paper-making, guitar, yoga, dance, crochet, reading fiction, writing fiction, awesome TV shows + movies, cooking, baking, juggling, painting, drawing, board & card games, Spanish language, sewing dresses, ice skating, Women for Women Int., creating interesting varieties of popcorn & homebrewed tea, spiritual exploration, meditation, letter writing, collecting postcards, poetry....

Then I discovered my passion for photography and it took over like the lovechild of blackberry bushes & ivy. I was giving it fertilizer 24/7. After two years, my passion has become a cancer — an uncontrolled cell of my life that divided & spread until it squashed out every other part, consuming all my time, energy and attention. 

In "Crazy Sexy Diet", wellness guru Kris Carr writes,

"So...what's your cancer? Are you overweight, depressed? Do you have heart disease or diabetes? Is your cholesterol too high? How about regret, procrastination, or maybe even a crazy (not-so-sexy) divorce? What the shit pickle happens to be doesn't really matter; it's what you do with it that will transform your life..."

Kris planted this seed in my head and maybe saved my life. The workaholic track I was on was leading me headfirst into malnutrition, physical decay and divorce. Diagnosing this workaholic lifestyle as a "cancer" helped me approach my little "work-life-balance problem" in a new way, take it more seriously, and combat it more strategically.

Three weeks later I feel like a new me. I have green smoothie stuck in my teeth, dirt from the garden all over my knees, the highest score in family Rummy so far this summer, a new hot pink glass water bottle, a handful of letters to drop in the postbox, an AWESOME new recipe for plant-based Alfredo sauce, a newly designed bedroom (that's a soporific sanctuary if I do say so myself), AND I'm REALLY EXCITED to see Miggy in less than 2 weeks (after 10 months apart!) and take a week off work to go on our "Better-Late-Than-Never Honeymoon"!

So I ask you now... do you have a cancer in your life right now? 

What are you doing about it?