i made the cover of people magazine!?

me with the magazine!! and thats my little bandaged up head by kim's right knee!! me and a kardashian on a cover together? haha!

"my summer was great, you know... the usual. work time and lake time, oh and i was in south africa's people magazine and i made the cover!"

if i think about it, a person having over a thousand tumors definitely DOES sound unusual. especially if the person looks completely non tumor-ey. but i never thought it would be getting me into magazines. weird huh? ME! HA! so weird.

thank you so much to double vision media for sharing my story and helping raise awareness to this disorder. and thank you south africa people magazine for showing me love and supporting me through this journey by telling my story.

its amazing what happens when you start to be real to yourself, your friends and family. starting this blog has helped me through majorly difficult times. i feel supported not only by my community, but literally from people all over the world. i don't feel alone in this anymore. i don't feel like i have to hide from my fear, but those fears are accepted by every one of you. i grew up hiding from my emotions. not crying because i thought that meant you were allowing yourself to be weaker than your circumstance. but with your help, i am learning that fear is ok. that it doesn't mean that i am weak. so i want to say thank you to all of you as well, your support has opened my eyes to a much more hopeful journey ahead of me.

this week i feel renewed. instead of feeling like a victim, i feel like a true survivor. i feel like i've had battle after battle on top of battles in my life. so in my mind i have had that survival mode thing going on. 'don't be a baby, toughen up, accept the pain.' this mind set completely helped me being a distant runner when i was growing up. oh my gosh, talk about pain! but i loved it. i actually loved the pain, i loved improving. every single race i got a new pr (personal record) which makes me sad in a way because i never got to discover how good i was or could have been before i had to quit all together because of the pain caused by my tumors (didn't know it was tumors at the time though, since i wasn't diagnosed until after high school). i never knew how much strength and endurance i had in me as a runner. i paced myself faster every time, and every time i would improve, but i never hit my peak because i was scared to test my limits. that is exactly how i am in life. maybe that's how most of us are. capable of so much but we don't want to believe in our own greatness. so we don't improve at all. we accept where we are at because it is comfortable. or we only allow small bits of improvement. never fully let go and dive in to what feels 100% authentically US, because what? a million reasons! how will we maintain this greatness? what if we cant handle it? what if you cant handle the pressure that your greatness will bring? well, would you rather handle being your mediocre your whole life and never just completely let your fears go?

one of my top favorite quotes EVER is

"our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. we ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? actually, who are you not to be? you are a child of God. your playing small does not serve the world. there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people wont feel insecure around you. we are all meant to shine, as children do. we were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. its not just in some of us, its in everyone. and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

-Marianne Williamson

this is me to a 'T'. even though i know this quote is totally true, i have so much fear it is ridiculous. but i just cant live my mediocre life, i have to test my boundaries. so slowly but surely i have been 'increasing my pace' as often as i can. re-adjusting my thoughts, daily and even hourly. and as i am making steps towards my dreams, i am tapping into my inner distant runner mindset and telling myself to dig, push, breath!!

i will not turn over on my back and let my circumstances get the best of me and you shouldn't either. take steps towards your dreams and get out of your comfort zone. choose to believe in your own greatness.