One Year Of Healing

A full year of publishing changes you, whether you meant it to or not. I’m celebrating my one-year podcast anniversary with a behind-the-scenes look at how this show started, why it almost didn’t, and what kept me recording even when I felt exposed, uncertain, or simply exhausted. This milestone also lands next to a deeply symbolic moment in my breast cancer survivor journey: having my chemo port removed. It feels like a closing, an opening, and a reminder that healing is never just one thing.

I’m also counting down the four episodes you listened to the most and unpacking why they hit so hard. We revisit ancestral healing and spiritual practices including “Ancestral Energy Medicine” and “limpias,” and the way cultural traditions can bring us back to ourselves without shame. We talk about first generation Latina life and generational healing through cycle breaking, including teen motherhood, strict family expectations, and choosing a different future while still honoring where we come from.

Then we go deeper into naming childhood wounds, people pleasing, fear, control, and the hard decision to get support for mental health when it finally hits home. I also share one of my most vulnerable topics: money. From bankruptcy to abundance mindset, the real work is worthiness, learning to receive, and trusting that being resourceful matters more than pretending you’re fine. If you’ve ever felt like you had to be the strong one, this conversation is for you.

Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What part of your healing are you ready to receive help with?

Episodes Referenced:

Ancestral Energy Medicine: The Sacred Practice of Limpias

Breaking Cycles: A First-Gen Latina's Healing Journey

Naming The Wounds We Carry From Home

From Bankruptcy to Abundance: Healing Your Relationship with Money

Transcript

One Year Milestone And Gratitude

Dora 0:01

Hola, hola mi gente! Welcome to I'm hijita, embracing your races, reclaim your essencia. And this week's episode, we're celebrating something huge. For me, it's such a milestone to turn one year on June 12th, a year ago to believe that I've recorded, and this is episode 59, and there's so much that has happened in this past year. And today we're gonna get into the top four episodes that I recorded, and a little bit behind the scenes as to why I recorded my Amijita, how it came about, and all the things that I've come overcome this past year. So grab your beverage of choice, your cafecito, your tecito, or agüita, water, and let's hop into today's episode. And I just want to appreciate you for if this is your first time here or it's your you've been an OG since the beginning. Thank you so much for your patience and for being there with me and crying with me, laughing and reminiscing on so many things. So let's get into today's episode. Well, to think that it's been a year already is something so incredible. And I'm actually recording this episode a little later than I wanted to. Um, on Friday, on June 12th, I actually had my chemo port taken out. So that I think is very symbolic because I've been on this journey, and you've been on this journey with me. But a year of Aimihita, as I'm sitting here in the closet where it all started, I cannot believe it's been a year of just a roller coaster ride, I can't say the least.

How The Podcast Finally Launched

Dora 2:56

Right. And then until 2024, I think it was May of 2024, I recorded my first trailer, and it just sat there for about a year. And then last year, and I'm not gonna tell you how many programs I paid into to know how to podcast, I actually started listening to podcasts. My first one that I listened to was Latinos for Lunch, and they inspired me to kind of keep going with the podcast, and they're like, Oh yeah, it's super easy. You just get on the mic or get a mic and record, and that's it. Well, it sounds super easy, but it's actually very hard to do. For me, I did not like the sound of my voice at first. It was something I needed to get used to. And then what was my other trip up? I just didn't know if anybody would listen, honestly. Um, I thought I'm just gonna record these things, I'm gonna put it out there, and no one's gonna pay attention. And I'm I'm actually really bad at posting stuff on Instagram. I should probably leverage that a little more. Um, and again, I would beat myself up and I'm like, oh, I don't like this. And then I didn't know what I would talk about. But there's like so many things in my life. Uh little did I know that it was gonna be the most terrifying thing I ever did because there's some episodes that I'm very vulnerable and I share a lot. And my husband, I don't he doesn't listen to them, so I'm yeah, they'll just keep it at that. But we are very open with each other. I know some people, my family, they listen to some of them, but not all of my episodes. I know I have one of my hardcore fans, one of my tias, oh, I love her so much. Big shout out, Mitialupe. Um, yeah, so there's a lot of people that listen to it now, and I think I was in like way more than 10 countries for sure. I have to go back and look at the stats, but there's people that listen from all over the world. So thank you so much for listening, keeping this going. Um, I do this because I want to, and that's and I I I think in the past year I learned that this definitely has been my therapy, especially through the journey that I've been through. And not only as a first generation Latina, but as a breast cancer survivor, going through the motions. I originally started this podcast because I wanted to, one, I wanted to be ready. And you're never gonna be quote unquote ready for anything. It's like parenting, right? You're never gonna be ready to have a child and it's like, oh, here you go. Um, as my mom would say, being a parent or birthing something into this world, you're you birthed it and it's out there, and there's you're still gonna, you're still going to have the linkage, right? The cords. And you're always going to own that piece of, you know, like a baby or a project. It's always gonna be out there. So once you put it out there, it's kind of like no go mech. And I knew that going into this, it was gonna be like a freight train without breaks. And week over week, I've been doing the best to record right on Thursdays. I changed it up to third Fridays, and then today I'm dropping this probably on a Monday. So it's been it, let's just say it's been a journey. But when I started this podcast, I thought I was just creating content. I didn't really think, oh, I'm actually gonna create like a movement or talking about certain subjects, especially because they're a little taboo. Um, again, people know me as the accountant during the day, and that's all I do, but there's a lot of spiritual work that I've done for the past 10 years. And it all started with my life coach. And she taught me that there was way more to this world than the eye can see, like the eye, the oh, right. And spiritual speak spiritual speaking, I was preparing for one of the biggest events of my life, which was the passing of my dad. And that for me was such a sore subject because my dad and I at the end, like the last what, 15 plus years, we didn't really have a great relationship or closeness. And that's where it all kind of kicked off was trying to figure out how to change myself. Because I've always I always have loved self-development. I've always read like John Maxwell, and I followed all the gurus, let's say, for the leadership. And especially in business, I went to school for accounting. That's my jam, numbers. I love it. I love spreadsheets, Excel files. I don't really like to do my own budgeting, but that's something we have to do. But that's where what I didn't realize was that I was documenting through this podcast one of the biggest transformations of my life by far. And apparently there were four conversations that really resonated most with all of you. And we'll get into each one of those shortly. So again, I can't thank you enough for sticking with me. And I cannot believe we're already a year under the belt. And there's and ironically, this is being recorded under the new moon in Gemini, which there's a lot of new beginnings. This is something pivotal for me in my personal life, in my career. So depending on where Gemini is in your house is, because I do follow astrology. So that's something that I'm embarking. I'm also embarking and hosting this I'm gita community on school, which I'm very looking forward to. I haven't really poured much into it because I am going through a process of rebounding from going through chemo and I'm gonna have actually surgery at the end of this month, June 24th. And that's where I was taking time to kind of reminisce and celebrate. And again, bounce back because I did go through a dip. So I have gone through what that means and what that journey has been like through all these other episodes, but I'm kind of cool, it's kind of cool that some of these episodes made it to the top four list. So I'll get into the next. Alrighty.

Limpias And Ancestral Healing Remembered

Dora 9:10

So the first episode that made it to the top of the list was drum roll, please, Ancestral Energy Medicine. So the sacred practice of limpias. And I was I was not surprised because that's something that I've kind of coined with the people that know me is going through the limpias and talking about how I delved into the limpias and found my um shaman friend now and mentor, of course, and showing me how limpias work, but then especially the evil eye, right? The limpia with the huevo, with the egg. And then this all started with my mom and my grandma like doing those when I was little, and I remember the espanto, so like when someone got scared, what the rue, ruda meant, and all these different sacred plants. But the one that fascinated me the most was how to read an egg. That is something pretty cool. I honestly did not know that those were considered spiritual practices, I just thought that was something we did after a birthday party or when someone was feeling sick, like my mom would get an egg, kind of do her thing all over the body, crack it open in a water in water, and then just let it sit there, right? And then if it was white stuff at the top, or if it would bubble and things, that meant okay, we got the evil energy out. And honestly, when I got older, I started Googling some of this stuff, and no one there's no research on this at all, but I know it is like spiritual practices that are done not only in the Mexican culture, like how I grew up, but they're it's all over the world, and sometimes they use other things. Like I was told also if you don't have an egg, because you you you know, those are fragile, right? If you don't have an egg, you can actually do it with the lime, un limon. And I would actually be at work, and sometimes where I would get like these, like I would sense the energy or I would feel happiness. I would actually go downstairs to that cafeteria and ask the girl like someone from the kitchen if they had a lime, and yeah, they did. Um, and I would use that as my sacred practice at work, so I wasn't betting and I was doing these things like even before I knew that was a thing. But then it's like this remembering that I have this intuition that feels so good. Like when I'm doing it on a client and they come and and look for me or scout me out, and I get referrals all the time. I'm able to kind of work with that energy, and I'm able to pick up on that information because I'm claire cognizant, meaning information just comes to me from that person, and then I'm at working on the other clairs, which is claire voyant, which I can see what the other person is seeing. Like I see it as a movie in my mind. Sometimes I also get like sense, like my sense of um, like it happened with someone I want to say two years ago, where I was doing a reading, and it was very new for me. And I was doing the re like a reading, like on the spot, and the person I was feeling like I was gonna break out in hives, and that's how actually the person would react. That was a symptom. And I found it so fascinating. And until I delved deeper, and again with my mentor, um, that's when I started realizing, wow, I have these abilities I did not even know I had, but it feels so normal, like it didn't feel strange. But for the for the time being, and I think I still to some degree live in my spiritual closet. I am not very open on it on social and stuff um yet. But yeah, there's a lot of things that kind of intrigue me. And this episode specifically taught me that healing isn't always about adding something new. Sometimes healing is remembering what was already ours, and that's what I find so beautiful with our culture, with our ancestors. Like they did it a certain way because they vetted certain things, but then again, it's like remembering the practice, but then of course, for me, I love to do my research and understanding why it was or what how it's being used. And some people their their feedback on that this particular episode has been how they remember that their like parents or their like ancestors like their grandmothers or their great-grandmothers would practice like the egg cleansing or some sort of cleansing. And that I find so fascinating, especially once we cross cultures, like in Italy, they they do that too. Um, or they read coffee beans, or they do certain things with certain other things, like in India too. There's a practice on that with the egg. Um, so it's just so fascinating for me to learn and seek these cultures and and learn from the people that I work with on how they implement it. And that's where I I feel like we're reclaiming these cultural practices without shame, as it should.

First Gen Healing And Breaking Cycles

Dora 14:44

Alrighty, and for the second episode that made it to the top was Breaking Cycles, a first gen Latinas Healing Journey. And this one I was surprised. Um, but not really, because this is where I share my story. I get into having my daughter as and and having this teen motherhood, having my daughter at 16, and how I shattered my parents' dreams and everything. And that's where I just get real on being the oldest daughter and how I was breaking barriers. My parents were super strict when I was growing up, and my parents they came from Mexico, and my mom was seven months pregnant when she came over, and I talk about how I had to translate for them. I went to an all uh white school pretty much, and I was like the only Mexican there, and I kind of always felt like Dora the Explorer, like with the machete, just carving my way through the jungle. Like that's how I felt, and that's how I've always kind of lived my life, where I haven't really had this role model to follow. And I feel like that's how I'm breaking these cycles for future generations, such as my kids and even adults, because with my parents, it took my mom a while to trust me that I'm actually I do know what I'm doing. And they always thought, at 16, what the heck are you gonna know? You're a mucosa. You're like just you know, you're a kid. And I get it. Nowadays, when I look at my 15-year-old son, I'm like, yeah, there's no way in hell, like being a parent now to my kid, like, how are they they can barely take care of themselves, much less a baby. So yeah, it's mind-blowing for me now being on this side of the house. Like my mom, she I made her a grandma when she was 36. Goodness gracious. Um, yeah, so definitely carried a lot of family expectations. Um, my parents came from one upping everybody else in their family, so yeah, I get into that. So there's a lot of good juicy stuff that I drop in that episode. But the biggest lesson in this one was breaking cycles isn't about blaming our families, it's about honoring their sacrifices while choosing a different future. And that's what I that's what I did. I chose differently for myself. And as Philly, my husband has always said, if you're gonna go to school and if you're gonna do shit in this world, do it because of you. Don't do it for me, don't do it for anybody else. And if anyone you're gonna do it for, it's gonna be for our daughter. So my kids, my daughter especially, Jocelyn, she's been my motor to keep it going, to go to school and prove to her and everybody in this world that it can be done. And as my favorite quote from Selena is the impossible is always possible. And that's I think one of my also people that I looked up to, even though she's deceased, even though she passed away tragically at 23. Um, I always looked up to her, and I'm like, oh, cool. Like I would love to be obviously not like the singer because I can't sing, um, but the the essence, right? That that that person. And then for me, I'm all about claiming your roots, but I'm also about we need to change it up a bit. Give it your own sasson, give it your own like little flavor, right? Be feisty, don't settle for something just because people tell you you can't do it, and that's all about generational healing. You're changing seven generations back and seven generations forward. And I know for a fact, because people have told me, my story specifically, it's like a hope. It's hope in this world that, and this was even before I went through um my breast cancer journey, just sharing that that story or that origin story, um, how I want obviously Jocelyn grew up, Jocelyn, my daughter, grew up very different than Julian, which is my 15-year-old, and my daughter Jocelyne, she's now 22. And Julian grew up with both parents married with his grandma, so he's definitely very different. And the kid has a lot of potential. And Jocelyn kind of grew up with a different, like I feel like both of the kids, they were only children for respectively. But Julian has always grown up with like adults as well, and he grew up traveling, um, getting to know both sides of the family, like very different. And Philly and I did not know that was important when we first got together. We were all about keeping up the charades of like, oh yeah, we have a family, and we have the the home, and we have this and we have that. And again, I was going off of the like the first few years, I was I was conditioned to just like you know, you need to go and get the the education and you need to go, you know, do these things and check the boxes of getting married and doing all those things. And with Julian, it was a little bit different. Um, it has been very different. Um, and especially going through this breast cancer journey, it's so comforting when your kids comfort you. And I think I get into one of those episodes um later on when I talk about my journey with this cancer, and then with having Jocelyn at such a young age, and I'm gonna get choked up, she's my best friend. Um, she's 22, she's the one that's been taking me to my chemos. I don't regret having her at a very young age. I'm always a believer that God knows why he does things, and having my kids when I had them, and even if I just had one, which which is Jocelyn, I would have been happy because the kid, she obviously we all have things to work on, but both of the kids, they're feeling I did something good. Um, they're very chill kids, but again, it's like they have this sense of maturity and this chill factor that I appreciate, and they correct me all the time, especially when it comes to mom, we can't say that anymore because times have changed. So, yeah, again, I'm learning, and if you approach life with this beginner mindset of I'm here to learn, um, everything's a teachable lesson. That approach in life actually has served me, and I'll share that with you. That it's a it's a learning mindset, the beginner, because we do things and we think they're right, but when you are proved wrong, you're like, oh shoot, like I was doing it like that all this time, and I did not know what I did not know. So don't beat yourself up, and you're not a failure, you're not a loser if you do a mistake. It's actually, as my niece would say. It's you're proving you're human and it's okay. You just dust yourself off and get back up. It's like riding that motor, like that bicycle, and then you ride a motorcycle, and then you drive a car or whatever it is. But you have to learn. It's a learning curve. So, as a good friend of mine would say, take it a step at a time, pasito pasito. Alright, now we're getting into the third top episode.

Childhood Wounds And Asking For Help

Dora 22:26

And this one is naming the wounds we carry from home. So this is where I talk about the childhood wounds that we have. Um, I do get into some stories when I was back when I was a kid, and just when I was recording this episode, I was really thinking about the inner child, the little Dora, that felt the sense of abandonment. So my parents, they worked a lot, and we had um a lot of babysitters, or I felt like it was a revolving door. Um we lived in a trailer park for the first like five years of my life, um, that I remember. And this is talking about the people pleasing that I, you know, trying to live up to my parents' standards, um, expectations, and people pleasing is such a hard thing to one admit, right? Because for me, I I just want everybody to be happy. I'm known as the peacemaker, and I've lived with that with my husband too, like for many, many, many years. Until like about three years ago, I started to speak up my mind, like my mind, like, and actually use my words for the longest time. My throat, I would get a knot in my throat and I would start to cry. And I I don't know if it was this particular episode, but I do talk about when I would call my dad to pick me up from school if I was sick. I couldn't even get a word out because I would choke and I would start crying, like bawling crying. And I don't know why. It was just I knew he would yell at me and me regañaba, so he would just scold me, like it was my fault for getting sick. So the sense of abandonment was real. Like, there's a lot of various things that as a child, especially from the age of zero to seven, that we go through that are imprinted in us. And I get into some of those things in this episode, but having this sense of independence, like I'm parent, I was five years old and I was parenting myself, and I had two, I had two siblings that were younger than me, two and three years younger than me, and I had to take care of them. Um, and that just created a lot. I do touch upon it not not necessarily this episode, but I do in this podcast talk about like going through that child sexual abuse um and how that really framed me to be hyper-vigilant and have this sense of like protection and mothering to my sisters. Like I never wanted anything bad to happen to them. And when I got diagnosed with cancer, that's where I've always had that mindset of like, no, we're gonna, we're gonna have, we're gonna get through this. Whatever it is, we're gonna get through this, and I'm I'm already healed. So I think definitely that mentality has served me for this past year. But then especially when I got diagnosed with cancer at the end of August, um, that's where a whole lot of learning lessons came in. And cancer didn't create new wounds, they it was cancer that actually exposed those wounds that were already there. So I got to work a lot more about on my sense of control because I don't want to admit it, but I am a control freak. I need to know like A to Z what's gonna happen. So that's another thing that I had to overcome, and you can kind of see the progression through all the episodes on how I went from I am challenged with not knowing what's next. And nowadays I'm actually really working on going with the flow and not knowing what's next. Like I'm perfectly fine with that, especially when it comes to work. Um, it's ironic because there's a lot being tied up, let's just say, with a big bow in these last couple weeks, the last month. Um, and there's a project that we've been working on for about over a year that's finally going to go live. So I'm like, woo, celebrating that. And something else that uh I get into is talking about fear and how I'm afraid I was afraid of failing. I was afraid to let people down. Um, I'm afraid of what's up and what's happening next. And especially the last couple months, I've had a lot of anxiety, um, especially with cancer, because it's like, shit, if it's come, if it comes back, like what am I gonna do? Because I've been told, oh, it's within the five years that it can be a reoccurrence. So that has given me anxiety, thus, the fear, and if not being too proud to ask for help. So seeking out mental help was something that I had to overcome. And and like my grandmother says, the psychiatrist is para locals, it's for crazy people, but you don't have to be crazy to have some sort of episode mentally. And over this past year, there was something that happened within our family in a f in a dear, dear person to myself. Um, actually, it was a year ago. Um, that's where I knew that I had to get this podcast going because we don't talk about mental health um until you kind of see it or it hits home. And for me, that particular situation was supposed to be of excitement and of like euphoria, euphoria to some degree, and it wasn't. And having those hard conversations really opened me up to really one, lean into my faith and to my spirituality and whatever that is for everybody, but you know, creating this relationship with God, source, universe, spirit has been fundamental by far. Um, because I feel like once you don't cling on to something, like you don't have an anchor or you have a rock, and that could be a person, that could be a thing, but for me it's God source, spirit. And once you lose that, you start slipping into the darkness, which we all go through that darkness. Um, I've been through it many, many times. And you start questioning everything in your life, and so there was a lot of transitions and transformations that have happened over this past year, and that became one of the greatest lessons of my life was asking for help. That's something that my parents did not do. Um, people that I know struggle with that a lot, myself included, but learning how to receive, like receive the love, the support, cards in the mail, get that outpour from people. It's like that's an art, is to receive.

Money Shame And Rewriting Worthiness

Dora 29:53

Alrighty, and we've come to our fourth episode that made it to the top, which was from bankruptcy to abundance. And this one, I got super vulnerable on this one because money has been my my topic of like I don't like to talk about it. Um, and especially I can't believe I put it out there that I went through bankruptcy, my goodness. Um, but yeah, it's it's been a lot of lessons uh with money, and I'm still going through it with the money because for some reason I didn't feel worthy of having money. And now, based on all the webinars and all the things that I've been through, um, I've uh read books, podcasts, I had schooling on everything, money-wise, and I'm still not that I'm struggling with money, like feeling I don't necessarily struggle with the money, it's just more of like keeping the money, right? Like saving the money because we like to spend the money. So when you have two spenders in the family, that's no bueno, it's not a good thing. So it's been a learning lesson to save, um, and then to spend obviously less than you make, but it was not about the money, it's more about my worthiness, how I have worked on how I deserve all things because we are the kings and queens of this world, and I was blocked for the longest time, so I just talked about learning to receive, right? Well, it's not only like receive money, it's also the love, the support, but knowing that you are resourceful, knowing that you are, if something were to happen, you have the resources within yourself to figure it out. And I think by far that beats the money. Because if you have that, if you know that you're able to do anything, that you put your mind to it, you don't have to worry about the how. That will come. As long as you have the gannas, the willingness, and the effort to put it all out there, everything else will fall into place. And if it's not meant to be right this particular moment when you want it to happen, just be rest assured that God source universe is actually working in your favor to conspire things for it all to pan out even better than you think it is gonna be. So if you have this scarcity mindset where it's like, oh, I'm not good enough, and never nothing ever happens, I'm not the lucky one. You know, if you keep saying those things, you have you are blessing or cursing yourself. So choose wisely, especially with the thoughts that we have in our head. Those that could be a slippery slope. That's super tricky because it depends on how you talk to yourself. You should be the biggest cheerleader for yourself, and so that is how you create abundance in this world for yourself and for others. So when you open it up for you, you're actually opening it up for you and all those around you. So I talk about bankruptcy and how I went through those motions, and I wish I would have known $40,000 was not that big of a deal back then in the day. Um, if somebody would have sat me down and said, you know what, Dora, there's programs out there that you can just like take four or five years, I would have taken that route. But no, I got burned for about seven years. I couldn't do much with my credit and stuff. But you know what? We live and we learn. Um, and if you're in a situation where money is very scarce, which I know that is the situation now with many, many, many families, reach out. Like, reach out to a loved one, reach out to there's hotlines, there's a lot of resources out in the community, especially if you don't have enough to even put food on the table. Like, I'm I've also tapped into resources where you go to a foods pantry or you go to a goodwill and you shop there. Like, there is no shame in the game to shopping and going to a food pantry. And yes, you might be pulling up in your newest car or whatever it is, but yo, if you're going through it, and I've been there too, I've only had $5 in my bank account, and I'm not gonna get paid in like three more days, and I need to put gas in my car. And that is the worst feeling in the world, especially in your gut, is being broke, like beyond broke. But I know there are people in this world that are willing to help you, but if you don't say anything, how is anybody gonna know that you need help? So that's my kind of PSA for the moment. And yeah, it has a lot to do with how you grew up with the money, right? This these money stories we keep telling ourselves, that's definitely something that bites us in the ass eventually. Because if your parents were fighting about the money like mine were, yeah, of course it's gonna create some anxiety around it. So I went to school and I got a full ride scholarship, but I still get went into student loans just to survive and have food on the table. So, yes, there's a lot to consider there. And for me, building this business or building my services, and I've was so afraid to charge any any penny. Like I've always wanted to just do donation-based, but no, you have to be worthy for the work that you put out there, and you need to believe it for yourself first. And so as I build my business and as I go through the motions, and I just want to serve, and that is my end goal, but you also need to be paid adequately for your work, so there is a reciprocal reciprocity that goes on. So the real lesson for me in all this was money was never the thing I was healing. I was actually healing my relationship with receiving, and that definitely manifested with my cancer journey. So that's where I learned that I am resourceful, and the mindset has a lot to do with how you heal physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Like it has all the senses. So I became a millionaire in my body, and you can definitely manifest things, but you have to also be very specific how you want to manifest. So I would follow the new moon and the full moon and the everything moon. And yes, there are different methods to manifest what you want, but it doesn't take away from doing the homework of you working on yourself. So again, when you work on yourself and you do the healing, you're opening the doors for everyone else around you to be able to have that awareness that maybe wow, and have that hope that whoa, we might be able to change and we can pivot from a situation. But touching back on receiving, that has by far been the biggest lesson that I never expected to learn was receiving love. And love does not have currency as trust as well.

Cancer Recovery And Learning To Receive

Dora 37:25

Those are the two things that love and trust are one of the biggest things in my life. And going through my cancer journey, when I got diagnosed, having a bilateral mastectomy, losing my chi-chis, was one of the things most vulnerable things that I went through. Because as every woman, you I mean, we care how I how we look, and I lost my hair with the chemo, um, but having my chichis gone for about a week and having that much pain, like physically, having pain in my body, you don't know what you have until you lose it, right? And I knew I would have reconstruction surgery, but during that phase, like having my mom help out, and then when I was gonna jump in the shower, finally, when I could, and my mom saw me naked, that my mom just couldn't hold it together, and she just she she you can even like see the hurt in her eyes and her demeanor, and I remember she just said, Oh, and she had to turn away and she just started to sob because nobody wants to see anybody go through that situation, right? You don't want to see a loved one go through pain or go through surgery and the recovery of it, especially when I had my reconstruction surgery. I had to learn to receive the love of my mom because my mom, for the longest time, she did not know how to love because she didn't grow up with love, all she grew up with is do-do-do. So getting in touch with that feminine side of being that nurturing mom, like my mom is my mom, right? Like loving in her own way, and she loves through food, that's the way she shows your love, shows love. But for me, going through this experience of accepting that from her, and then also from my sisters, because I do have different relationships with both of them, learning to be accepting of that love, and like I'm kind of laughing because we're very smart asses, like my sisters and I were smart asses, and we give each other a hard time, but it's knowing how to have fun in the tragedy, okay. And for me, I've kind of I've had this positive outlook, but then again, I did get tired of it like this last month. Like, I just needed to crash and burn, like that's all I needed to do. But when I went through that reconstruction, being confined to a recliner and sleeping in a recliner for about a month, my husband was super understanding, but it it was very humbling for me to receive that affection, that patience, because for most of my life, I was a strong one, I've always been a strong one, and I've always been very independent on how I do things, why I do things, driving to and from places, um, navigating all these things. And I've always also been the helper, the one that helps everybody else out. But learning to receive the gifts at your doorstep, or the cookies that came at my doorstep, which was amazing, the flowers, um, the cards, the words, um, the love and support, like on social, but then also people calling and texting, that for me um just cracked me open in a whole different realm. Uh, because the outpour, especially at work, um people love me. I know that I'm adorable, right? But when it comes to those words, the empathy and the sympathy and the everything, when it comes to that feelings and emotions, for me was new, okay? Because I can keep a poker face, but no, that stuff just broke me. It broke me, broke me, broke me because I I feel like I needed to go through that. So, and I needed to go through all this and chemo and everything, to lose my hair, to be able to voice what I really truly feel, for me to have that perspective that we are not guaranteed the tomorrow. Um, anything can change in two seconds, and I've always told my kids that, but for me to actually live it and then see the transformation with my husband as well, um, and be feeling guilty for not reciprocating, like trusting that, okay, this change is gonna stick, uh, it's it's been a learning curve, to say the least. And I've always been the one to figure it out, right? I've always been very comfortable with that. But then when this cancer came into my life, and it said, no, you're not the helper, the giver, or the one that needs to be strong, it was like, no, now it's your turn to receive. And that's where having my family help out, and then having meals also brought to me. Um, and I would, I'm never gonna forget that green posole, so thank you. Thank you to the person that gave that to me. Um, and I got pasta in the mail. Um there was my I also had Panera to feed a family of 10, which was amazing. I mean, it's just been the outpour of like gift cards and DoorDash for about three months. We didn't have to worry about food, and especially my mom, she would come over and cook. But all the prayers, especially. Um, I think if it's a true testimony of what community can do, and especially those healing circles, I am just so eternally grateful for all of that because I sometimes read the news, or when we think about like the news and how people are going through it, it's like, yes, people are going through it, everybody has their ch set of challenges, but when we come together and pray, or we come together and support each other in community, in collective, it definitely moves a lot of hearts and it moves mountains, I would say. Because receiving love. Was harder than surviving the cancer for me. The cancer part has be has been super easy. Um, not to say that it's easy easy, but I've been able to navigate it. But receiving that love and support, that was something that I had to like put to the side my pride and learn to accept what was coming at me and that outpour of love. And again, it would it would bring me to tears. Um I have never seen and I've never really felt before in my life that collective, the the supercharge, and the healing that comes with all those um prayers and love and support. So of course I have a lot of mandas, which is a lot I have a lot of saints to go visit when I go to Mexico one day, um, when I'm through all this. But yeah, we're we're we're getting to the other side because receiving required me to believe I was worthy of support without earning it.

New Projects Community Plans And Closing

Dora 45:07

And that was something that I had to assimilate for so long. So I shared that I got my chemo port taken out on Friday, um, June 12th, which is such a again, such a dual way of closing out this year of I Mihita. So I'm officially done with chemo, which is woohoo, amazing. And I've been working on so many different projects behind the scenes. Um, I worked on my life coach certification, which I was able to get. Um, and I'm excited because I'm building the I Mihita Collective in school. That's where I want to pour in, and that's where I feel like I can build that sense of community. I don't know what it's gonna look like and what it evolves to, but yes, definitely pouring into that and being a little more out there on my social. That's kind of what's to come. And I appreciate everybody that's been on this journey with me. So I'm looking forward to new guests on the podcast. Um, I have a few lined up that I've been interviewing myself to see if they're aligned. Um, and then definitely looking forward to embarking way more healing conversations. And I love to hear from people all over the world. So let me know, hit me up. And you could definitely find me on social and at my website, dorappraxes.com. But I want to be definitely sharing what's relevant. My vulnerability has been something that I've been working on too. And then what is the truth, right? What's my truth? How do I convey everything that I've been going through or my learning lessons in life? And how is that relevant to everybody else in this world? So thank you for sticking with me. And I am so grateful for each and every one of you and all the thoughts and prayers, but then especially being part of this collective that we're embarking. So I appreciate you, and I'm sending you a big hug and a kiss. As always, thank you so much for being part of this podcast. Um, this podcast taught me that vulnerability creates connection, and my cancer journey taught me that receiving love is just as sacred as giving it. So, week by week, I give you my voice, I drop nuggets of wisdom. And if you find this episode and any other episode, and I will be linking the top four down below, share it with someone and leave a review or feel free to contact me. So, sending you so much love, and until next time, um, thank you for embarking in a whole nother year, years to come of I'm a heap. Sending you blessings and gratitude. Talk to you later. Bye.