Leisha I have been sitting with something growing inside me, and I have chosen not to call it a disease. I will not give it that word, because I understand how language shapes perception, and I am not willing to hand over that kind of power. What is happening in my body feels more like a process, something unfolding, something responding to a story that has been building over time.
This is not something that arrived suddenly or without context. When I look honestly, I can see that it carries history within it. It is not only physical. It is emotional, relational, environmental, and deeply personal. There is a part of me that has been observing it quietly, not rushing to define it, not rushing to fight it, but instead allowing space to understand what it represents.
The emotional layer is impossible to ignore. Separation has marked me in ways that reach far beyond the surface. The distance from my daughter and my granddaughter is not something that lives only in thought. It lives in the body, in the chest, in the tissue, in the places where connection once felt whole and uninterrupted. This kind of separation is not simply absence. It is a lived experience that continues to echo, even in silence.
When I view this through the lens of German New Medicine, it begins to make sense in a way that is not rooted in fear. The breast is deeply connected to nurturing, protection, and the instinct to care for those we love. It is connected to the role of holding, feeding, and being close. When that bond is disrupted, when there is loss or distance that cannot be resolved, the body does not ignore it. The body responds in the only way it knows how.
This response is not an attack. It is an adaptation. It is a biological attempt to process something that was too large to move through at the time it occurred. When I look at it this way, I do not see something working against me. I see something that formed during a moment, or a series of moments, where the emotional weight could not be fully integrated.
There is also the layer of where I come from, and I cannot ignore it as I reflect on my life. I grew up in a small town on Lake Ontario, living between two nuclear plants, Darlington and Pickering. At the time, it was simply part of the landscape, something normalized, something that was not questioned deeply. Now, as I look back, I allow myself to consider that environment as part of the picture.
I do not claim to have definitive answers about its impact, but I recognize that our bodies are shaped by the environments we live in. The soil, the water, the air, and the exposures we experience over time all become part of our internal terrain. Just as the microbial life in soil determines the health of a plant, the environment influences the condition of the human body in ways we are still learning to understand.
At the same time, I cannot ignore the broader reality that surrounds all of us. We are living in a time where one in three people will face this experience in some form, and that number continues to rise. This is no longer rare. It is no longer an exception. It has become woven into the fabric of modern life.
This leads me to question the narrative we have been given. What if this is not simply a breakdown of the body. What if it is also a process. What if the body, in its intelligence, is doing something that we have been taught to misunderstand. I am not dismissing the physical reality of what is happening, but I am also not willing to see it only as something that has gone wrong.
There is a part of me that understands this as a form of transformation. It is not comfortable, and it is not easy, but it carries purpose. Something within me is being asked to change. I am being asked to look at my relationships, my emotional landscape, and the patterns I have carried for years, and to recognize how those patterns have been held within my body.
This is not a passive experience. I am not sitting back and waiting for something to happen. I am participating in the process. I am observing what my body is showing me, and I am listening instead of silencing. I am allowing space for change, even when that change feels uncertain and requires more of me than I expected.
What I am experiencing does not feel like the end of something. It feels like a turning point. It feels like an invitation to become more aligned, more aware, and more honest with myself. Through that, it also feels like an opportunity to deepen the way I show up for others.
The mission does not stop here. If anything, it becomes clearer. I continue forward, allowing change where it is needed, but staying rooted in what I know to be true. I do not abandon the work. I do not step away from the connection to soil, to food, to the microbial world, and to the understanding that health is something cultivated rather than imposed.
Just like the soil, the body moves through cycles. There are seasons where things break down so that something new can emerge. I recognize that I am in one of those seasons now. I am not resisting it. I am moving through it with awareness, with intention, and with a willingness to see what it is here to show me.
