The "shock" of a rare cancer diagnosis led a Liverpool mum to transform her life and help others.
Laura Rowe, 38, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when doctors removed a mass growing in her neck five years ago. The "stress, upset and worry" of the experience fuelled her fibromyalgia, a long-term condition causing pain throughout the body, which is often triggered by stressful events.
Suffering with other stress-related conditions like chronic migraines and irritable bowel syndrome, the mum of one realised the close link between mental and physical health, she said: "Having cancer is a real scary thing to experience, especially as a parent, so for me, part of my healing journey and my coping mechanism during my cancer treatment was to just learn more about what I was going through and try to understand a bit more about how I can protect my body from this ever happening to me again, if I can."
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Laura, from Mossley Hill, broke with the depression and anxiety of her "high-strung" relationship with stress by improving her personal boundaries, removing herself from toxic friendships and situations, and being kinder to herself. She said: "I practice gratitude every day because I'm alive now, and I didn't know the extent when I first was diagnosed. I'm so thankful that it was only in my thyroid, and it had spread to the other side, but hadn't spread any further.
"So there's a lot of gratitude in my life, and much more karma. I'm a much happier person now because I can see the growth in myself. Looking back at the really stressed-out person that I was, I was so unhappy, and I didn't really know how to protect myself and look after myself in terms of my mental health."
With a background working as an operating department practitioner, Laura is now a global wellness and empowerment coach seeking to help parents struggling to find a moment to care for themselves while raising kids, or office workers stressed by the thought of taking an hour out to visit a gym. She said: "It doesn't have to take all of your time. Healing doesn't have to be as hard as people think."
She runs pop-up wellness and meditation sessions across Liverpool, teaching people a 60-second breathing technique, yoga and other relaxation methods. Sometimes she sees a change in people after only one session, leaving her feeling "emotional".
Laura said: "I have so much joy in my heart because, even if they've just received that tiny slice of calm, or that tiny slice of relief or release in my session - it may have been so brief, but they felt it, so they knew it was possible - I've done what I've set out to do, which is to be able to help someone, even if that's put them on a path to explore these practices more, maybe not even with myself. It's opened them up now to knowing that it's possible to feel another way, to feel a lighter, safer and a happier way."
