Kintzugi—Finding Beauty in Brokenness: An Interview with Grief Therapist and Cancer Survivor, Harriet Cabelly

Join us on this episode of Everything Cancer as we welcome the insightful and genuine Harriet Cabelly, a grief therapist, positive psychology coach, cancer thriver, speaker, and author. Harriet shares her profound journey from being a school social worker to her true calling in grief therapy. She candidly discusses her own experiences with grief, from dealing with her daughter's disabilities and her own cancer journey.

Harriet emphasizes the importance of intentionality and finding small joys, even during the darkest times. She shares how she used imagery and worked with a creative therapist to navigate her cancer journey. Her creative coping strategies, including making and using inspirational coping cards, provided her with comfort and focus. Harriet relates how the art of Kintzugi—finding beauty in brokenness—offers valuable insights for anyone facing life's challenges. Tune in for an episode filled with wisdom, resilience, and practical advice on navigating grief and finding meaning after trauma.

Harriet’s Website Rebuild Life Now

Harriet’s Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Patient Story on YouTube 

Harriet’s email address Harriet@rebuildlifenow.com

Harriet’s LinkedIn 

Transcript

Everything Cancer (00:03)
So how do you find your work rewarding?

Harriet Cabelly (00:06)
So the connection is extremely deep, very deep. You get to the real essence of a person and what truly matters to them. Because as I said, when in our everyday life we're talking to people, it's chit chat, it's mostly superficial. And when we do have our deeper conversations with our good friends, those are few and far between. But here you're really getting in and you're connecting on this level

is so significant and so meaningful and matters so deeply that I always feel when my clients will say, you know, thank you. Or I got so much out of it or whatever. And I'll say, you know, it's it's both ways. I get a lot out of this as well, because to me, that's the essence of life is the depth of our relationships and being vulnerable and being open. And it doesn't happen.

Usually in our everyday life. I mean you really have to value it and and connect with close friends who value that too in order to have those types of relationships I mean I seek them out but in general You know a lot of people won't go there. They don't want to be vulnerable, know, Brene Brown talks all about gaining the wonderful connections from vulnerability and openness, but It's too hard for a lot of people and in

Everything Cancer (01:19)
Right.

Right.

Harriet Cabelly (01:32)
and getting into grief, just connecting this with grief. I mean, people are just so uncomfortable talking about pain and sadness and any of those things that, you know, go like this, we run from it because we don't know how to do it well. And that's the essence of a person when they're going through difficulties is sadness. It doesn't have to be horrific grief. could just be sadness.

Everything Cancer (01:56)
Right.

Harriet Cabelly (02:01)
A lot of people can't sit with that or be there.

in the way that's needed.

Everything Cancer (02:09)
So what words of wisdom do you have, practical words of wisdom for someone who has been diagnosed with cancer and is experiencing the sadness and this grief for what was and now having to leave, their life is changing now.

Harriet Cabelly (02:34)
is definitely changing. It's changing while you're going through the treatment, which is a very different kind of changing from when you're finished with the treatment and then you're into what I call, not just what I call, what's called rebuilding your life. You rebuild your life after your treatment, literally and figuratively, right? Literally you have to build back your blood count and your hair loss and your weight and all of

Everything Cancer (02:36)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm

Harriet Cabelly (03:00)
the physical manifestations of what was taken away, you're rebuilding, but then you're also rebuilding the quality of your life and reevaluating after going through such a trauma. What's meaningful? Where do I want to go from here? What do I want to do with what I've just been through? Cause why go through something horrible and end up doing nothing with it? I mean, that's the way I always think you go through something awful, do something positive with it, right?

Everything Cancer (03:29)
Mm -hmm. Right.

Harriet Cabelly (03:30)
which is why I want to talk about this and I want to put out there that there's so much to do afterwards and to feel gratitude over that we can't just take it and say, okay, now let me pick up the pieces and resume my life where I left off. Many, many people do that, but then there's the growth, there's the growth through the trauma, which is really, there's a psychological term, it's called post -traumatic growth.

where you grow through your hardship.

Everything Cancer (04:02)
and you have personal experience with this.

Harriet Cabelly (04:06)
Yeah, well, having a daughter with disabilities and having come through my amazing therapy and really taking that and I perceive growing tremendously through that. now this. And my cancer diagnosis. Yes. And feeling like, what am I going to do with this now? What am I going to do? So my

Everything Cancer (04:20)
your cancer diagnosis.

Harriet Cabelly (04:36)
my path and I am when I do my meditation in the morning I speak to God and I say show me the path towards doing good with what I've been through. I've been given a renewal of life, a gift of life as I perceive it to be and now I want to do something with it. Show me what to do. Guide me towards paying it back. That's what I say. I want to pay it back and pay it forward.

Everything Cancer (05:05)
I watched the YouTube video and I'll include the link in the show notes for today. The patient experience YouTube video you sent me. And one of the lines that really hit me that you said from there is, we are a lot bigger than our diagnosis and our illness.

Harriet Cabelly (05:26)
Right, so when I was going through that, through my treatment, which was really rough, at some point, when I felt like I was really drowning, maybe around cycle three or four, and I had stopped working for the first three or four rounds of chemo. And maybe at five, I said, I think I need to start.

going, seeing some clients, just a few, because that's when that concept came to me. I felt like I need to give myself the bigger picture that, okay, yes, I'm sick and yes, I'm going through this horror, but I also have the rest of me still here, meaning my love of this and my love of that and my interest in work and my meaningful this and that

Everything Cancer (06:16)
Mm -hmm.

Harriet Cabelly (06:26)
I kind of pushed myself and said, I think I can take on a couple of clients to feel like, yeah, I have another aspect of my life that I can take part in. Because I was doing things. I was forcing myself to do, my husband and call it Sunday Funday. We would go out Sundays, even if it was for two hours, and always go to beautiful places, nature places, parks, by the ocean, wherever was pretty.

And we, I walk as much as I could walk. And then we would just sit and take pictures and just, and that it's very important to me. And I'm very connected to nature and walking and hiking. And, and I, I always did that to infuse beauty into my week or sometimes pieces of my day. I'd be watering my plants because I wanted to hold onto the things that bring me joy.

Everything Cancer (07:23)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Harriet Cabelly (07:24)
because that's uplifting. And then you get outside of your head of anxiety and sickness and what's going to be, you you have to have something bigger than that. And that was my bigger. And then it became taking on a couple of clients because that's again, opening me more than just my day to day sickness and side effects and

Everything Cancer (07:49)
Wow, I love that. And a lot of people do say being at work is very helpful because it gives them a sense of purpose. gets their mind off things. And like you're saying, it doesn't let the cancer define you. You are bigger than your illness and your cancer and your side effects. And it gives you a sense

Harriet Cabelly (07:59)
Definitely.

Exactly.

Right, but when you're really sick and suffering from side effects, there's nothing else you can do physically. just can't. Unless maybe you get into a mindset that says, me take on little things that could help me cope better and get me off of just me.

Everything Cancer (08:32)
I love the concept of bringing bits of beauty into your life. Anybody can do that. They can go to a park that's near their home. If they don't have a car, there is still a way to do that, to get respite from what is happening. Or put on a YouTube video about the ocean or the stars just to take that in. That's actually practicing a form of mindfulness.

Harriet Cabelly (08:46)
Definitely.

Right.

Yes. Or bring the beauty into your house if you're not going out. Buy the flowers, the sunflowers with the big heads and water some plants and just step outside and see the sky because the expanse of the sky is like, whoa, we're just little creatures compared to this expanse. So you don't even have to go too far, but you have to be intentional about saying.

Everything Cancer (09:27)
Mm -hmm.

Harriet Cabelly (09:29)
I want to do this. I want to see something pretty. I want to bring that into my day. It's being mindful, definitely, and intentional.

Everything Cancer (09:39)
I love that. I think a lot of people are gonna take a lot away from this conversation. And I think it's probably a good idea to just mark it in your calendar to do something that day when you're finding yourself in a deep part or a dark part of your life to remind you to do this so that you don't forget and you take care of yourself through that.

Harriet Cabelly (09:59)
right.

Definitely. Yes.

Everything Cancer (10:06)
Yeah. So how besides you mentioned that you were in a really dark, deep heart. How did you get yourself out of that?

Harriet Cabelly (10:16)
you're talking about during my cancer. I created these cards that I ended up pulling my coping cards.

Everything Cancer (10:17)
Yes, string your cancer.

Harriet Cabelly (10:27)
So I also study and I work in the area, I'll get to the coping cards back in a second. I just want to say that I work in the area of positive psychology and I studied it and I have a good friend, Eve, and she would say to me, Harriet, why don't you use some of the tools that you teach your clients from your positive psychology?

And that's what I really was doing a lot by being mindful and intentional and trying to bring in these bits of joy and beauty. That's all pieces of how do we enrich our lives? And we have to be intentional about it, not just when we're sick, but in general, what do we connect to? What are our values? Anyway, so somehow I started doing this and I don't even know how, and I made these cards with, I love quotes and I love pictures.

So I would think of something and then if it really moved me, I would put it on a, you know, find a picture or if I had my own and then write something about it if it wasn't a quote and laminate it. And these became what I call my copy cards. So I'm just going to show you two. cause this one I would take to the hospital with me during my, I had these lumbar treatments, every cycle, which were not pleasant. And I would hold.

Everything Cancer (11:46)
No.

Harriet Cabelly (11:47)
I would hold the card and I remember the first time one of the technicians said to me, what is that? And I said, that's my little coping card. And he was looking at it. was like, that's really cool. Maybe other people should carry these. So this says it's a picture of a sunrise when we were out in Bryce years ago. And I put here renewal and hope. And then on the back, I wrote my intention.

My intention is for the sunrise to support me in hope and optimism to meet each new day. So this was like a bit of inspiration for me.

Everything Cancer (12:26)
How comforting was that to have with you when you had... Yeah!

Harriet Cabelly (12:30)
It was, it was for me when I took, it was because I would really look at the picture and I closed my eyes while they were doing what they had to do. And I would just try to breathe and I would just focus on this. I mean, I have to say I didn't do it all the time, but I created a lot of cards at home and even the process of creating them. And I didn't take all of them with me, but even the process of creating them. And I had a really good creative arts therapist.

Everything Cancer (12:44)
I'm

Harriet Cabelly (12:58)
who I was working with during my, what I call my cancer journey. And we did some of these together, because she loved this idea. So here's my, I don't wanna say my famous one, but something that really defined how I cope through my treatment, which was, I had this image of me, I was like a horse with blinders. just, I didn't look out, I didn't look at anything online. I didn't go ask, I didn't go to a support group. Someone said to me, this one had what you had. Why don't you speak to them?

No, I didn't do any of that. I was like this. I just put one foot in front of the other, did what I had to do, and that's how I culled. So I had this visual. So I found a horse with blinders. And I said, like a horse with blinders, keeping the straight path, putting one foot in front of the other. And I said on the back, my intention is to be grateful.

Everything Cancer (13:41)
Hahaha

Harriet Cabelly (13:55)
for this aspect of myself that has served me well. In other words, this was how I coped. I didn't go, even though I'm a therapist, I didn't go into the feeling mode and I feel this and I feel that. I think I was so numb that I really didn't feel very much. I I felt at certain points when specific things came up and in general, I did not. This was my MO. So I put it to a card and I wrote about it and like I left.

when I look at it and it was fun doing

Everything Cancer (14:27)
But you didn't ignore things. You addressed them through your creative therapist. Yes. And right. And I am sure you were involved in the decisions of your care, or at least in discussions with your physician or your husband was. And so you were involved in that. didn't completely just put it off to the side. But

Harriet Cabelly (14:35)
Yes. Yes, I did.

Everything Cancer (14:54)
That coping mechanism of putting one foot in front of the other, that is a very effective coping mechanism of just one step at a time.

Harriet Cabelly (15:05)
Yes, and I wouldn't allow myself to think about, I gonna survive to the fifth round? Because I lost a ton of weight and what if my body succumbs and what if I don't make it? And I would put up like a mental stop sign. Some of these are tools. I would put up a mental stop sign in my head to stop myself from thinking about round four and round five because it's like,

Everything Cancer (15:17)
Mm -hmm.

Harriet Cabelly (15:30)
I can't go there. That creates too much anxiety. Because what is anxiety? Anxiety is worry about the future. So I would really be intentional about stopping myself and saying, I'm only focusing right now on this round. This is the round I'm in. This is the round of treatment I'm focusing on each day. But again, it's being very intentional and having a mindset to say, I can't let myself go there because I'll lose it.

Everything Cancer (15:58)
Right. But when you think about the other card that you just showed us with the sunrise on it, that is very analogous to one step at a time because it's one day at a time. It's each sunrise. I mean, but really.

Harriet Cabelly (16:08)
Yeah, that's neat. That's cool. I didn't even think about that. I didn't even think about that. It is very good. Thank you. I didn't even think of it. It's analogous to one day at a time because every day we have a sunrise and a sunset.

Everything Cancer (16:17)
You're welcome.

Right, right. mean, that's immediately as soon as you start talking about one step at a time and you couldn't go there and you just couldn't think that far ahead.

that one day at time immediately came to mind with you using the sunrise image. that is a, that for the really tough times, I think dealing with one thing at a time, one day at a time, one step at a time is very helpful going through those times to help you deal with them and look where you are now and how vibrant you are.

Harriet Cabelly (16:59)
Yeah, thank God.

Everything Cancer (17:00)
Yes, yes. And you stayed in the moment and you found bits of joy even in those darkest days, right?

Harriet Cabelly (17:09)
Definitely. And again, that was very intentional to put myself into those places to bring in, you know, what what mattered to me in my day.

Yeah, like I said, even if it was watering plants or sitting out on my deck, if I was laying down, well, why would I, why should I lay down in my house? I have a beautiful deck. Let me lay down. Even that was an intentional choice, an intentional decision. Cause it's like, I could just lay on my couch and I'd say, wait a second. It's a beautiful day. I'm going to lay outside. So, you know what I'm saying? Even that was like making a decision.

Everything Cancer (17:31)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Harriet Cabelly (17:45)
Which also is important because when you go through such a crisis medically, so much is out of your control. It's just whisked away. So whatever bits and pieces of control we have, it like, okay, that feels good. That's right. I could sit out. Why am I sitting in? My doctor didn't tell me I had to sit in, you know, something like that.

Everything Cancer (18:06)
Right? You grasp control through working with a creative therapist, through making your coping cards, through making decisions on how you were going to get through each day. You grasp control. You didn't just go along for the ride. You were very intentional about a lot of things.

Harriet Cabelly (18:18)
Yes.

Yes, exactly. Right. And trying to be intentional and proactive where you can be so that you can enhance your minute, hour, day, whatever it is. Not just letting it all, you I got to lay here. Well, actually, you don't have to lay on this couch. can lay over there with the sun on you.

Everything Cancer (18:31)
Mm -hmm.

Right, right, right. So young adults face a challenge when they're diagnosed and oftentimes they're diagnosed late in their cancer because it's off because they are young. It's often attributed to other issues. People are oftentimes providers like you're too young to have cancer. And so it can be very devastating to young adults.

Oftentimes they're either planning families, or entering college or in college or starting a career. so there is oftentimes their dreams are derailed then. Usually they do bounce back in different ways, but going through that derailment is really tough.

this is your area of specialty, what practical pieces of advice do you have for them and what is a good way for them to reach out?

Harriet Cabelly (19:45)
Practical advice is, it's gonna sound funny, it's letting yourself feel those feelings of derailment. That's a great word. Derailment and loss, because that is horrific loss, because it's really the loss at a new beginning of your life, right? Expectations and dreams that suddenly stopped.

And you have to feel it and you have to really acknowledge that because that is true grief. And maybe after some of those feelings have really been worked through to try for bits and pieces of a dream that you could incorporate into your day. I mean, this, this may sound silly, but let's say someone's a horseback rider and they can't go horseback riding.

So maybe you could take a visit to a stable and just look at the horses or pet the horses or take pictures of the horses. It's almost like doing any little bits that can still connect you to what matters to you. Now, sometimes that's more painful. It could be more painful to go and say, well, I can't stand here. This is horrible. It's in my face that I can't even ride.

Let's say I'm using a silly example, but it's concrete. So it could be more painful. So you have to, you have to judge and see where you're at with it. But there's a great quote. I love this quote. It's by Voltaire. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, which basically is if we can have it all, if we can have what we really set out for, and we're so derailed, is there any, any, any little bits?

that we could bring in or hold on to still. And that's challenging. So it's really releasing, really feeling those emotions and seeing if there's anything that would bring us closer to what we're losing that wouldn't hurt as much to focus on. Does that make sense?

Everything Cancer (22:05)
my gosh, yes, and that quote sums up so much in so few words.

Harriet Cabelly (22:12)
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If we can't have exactly the way we want it, can we still have something?

Everything Cancer (22:25)
That

Harriet Cabelly (22:25)
But you gotta grieve, you gotta feel that loss first. You're not ready to just jump right into this because for young people to feel that, to experience that is awful.

Everything Cancer (22:29)
Mm -hmm.

And it sounds like them reaching out to someone such as you might be really helpful.

Harriet Cabelly (22:44)
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I work with a lot of people in their 20s and 30s. Some reason I get more women than men, but a lot of young women. And yeah, I think it's helpful.

I think in general cancer, just to put this in, is just in such epidemic proportions that it's almost like every day I'm hearing someone else who's diagnosed, who's not necessarily close to me, but in, you know, I know the name, and it's like, something's going on here. Something is going on with this, I'm gonna call it an epidemic of cancer. I don't know. It's not getting any better with all the money being funded, but that's a whole other story. I don't wanna go there.

But it's very disturbing to me all the young people now getting being

Everything Cancer (23:35)
Yeah, there are a lot of young people now and it is disturbing and right. think there's there are a lot of potential causes, but that's another another topic for another time. So something a lot of people do deal with that you very directly talked about is anxiety.

Harriet Cabelly (23:44)
Yeah, that's another key decision.

Yeah, and that's a very real thing because when it's time for PET scans, which for me is every six months, I, God willing, will have my last one in November if all goes well. My regimen was every six months for two years. Everyone's different. yeah, it's, scanxiety I think is a newly created word, right? Combining anxiety with scans. So of course, how could you not be anxious when you know the time is coming to look in your body and see.

Are you okay or is something growing? I mean, it's terrifying. So again, what do you do? You allow yourself to feel it. It's normal and natural. And you do what you can to calm yourself down ahead of time, whether it's jogging or listening to music, but just normalizing that this is very real.

Everything Cancer (24:47)
Yes. Well, I think because one of the other things you talked about was, and we can go into this in a minute, is having an X over your head. And why are we so anxious about having the scans when we all know that our time is going to come and we all know that we're mortal? I think the other element that's added is you've already been through treatment. You've already been through that dark time and you know how challenging it is. And so if the scan comes back positive,

Harriet Cabelly (25:12)
rights.

Everything Cancer (25:16)
then you're going to be faced potentially with having, depending on at what stage you're caught at or what the treatment is for the recurrence, potentially facing that again. And do you really have it in you to do that? You know, right? It is.

Harriet Cabelly (25:34)
Right, so the whole thing is terrifying. That word, recurrence, that word, recurrence is terrifying.

Everything Cancer (25:41)
Right. so it does say why, mean, that in of itself says why it's so important to catch recurrence early, but still, I, it has to be very anxiety provoking because of where you've already been.

Harriet Cabelly (26:00)
Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. It's probably because where you've already been, because like you said, we all have an endpoint, right? So it's not cancer, it'll be something else, but we're all gonna die at some point. What makes, and sometimes I try to think about that, so what makes this so different? But I think it's what you said, the fear of going through something like that again, the recurrence that it could be even worse or spread.

and it's like almost like once you've had

Like again, we don't delude ourselves that we're gonna live forever. We're all gonna get something, but it's almost like once you've had it, it's like, it's more real. I don't know how else to say it becomes more real. Like, this is it, or it could be it. And that's the X sitting on

Everything Cancer (26:53)
That's the X. But also you're very aware of the amount of energy and commitment and how much it takes out of you to go through that treatment. It's a lot. It's a huge journey. And so the recurrence leads to that as well. It's not just mortality. is.

Do you have it in you to go through this again? So I think that's where so much of the anxiety comes from. It's just not, it's not just the mortality. It is the whole pathway to it if recurrence happens.

Harriet Cabelly (27:27)
Yes, yes, that's well said. You're right. It's not just the mortality, it's the pathway through it. Yes, very right.

Everything Cancer (27:37)
So I hear it over and over again with the support group I facilitate. We do rounds with what's your news. Well, one of the main topics that comes up is I have a scan coming up or my scan results came back. And you hear the, you just hear the collective tension when someone says my results came back.

and then you wait for them to say what the results were and there's this this heavy air and once they say what the results are everybody lets out of breath because at least we're going to wrap our head around what it is and you're just waiting to hear which which side the line is it going to land on. I can't imagine it's but I'm glad you're having your last PET scan.

Harriet Cabelly (28:33)
Yeah, you know, that's a double -edged sword too, I realize, because on the one hand, who the heck wants that PET scan? First of all, it's a lot of radiation, and second of all, who wants to go through that emotionally? On the other hand, it's kind of a reassurance that every few months, something's gonna look into your body and see is that all is okay or not. And once they're done, it's like, now nothing's gonna look in there to see.

Everything Cancer (29:01)
Hahaha

Harriet Cabelly (29:01)
And what if I forbid something, you know, I start feeling something later and then it's caught too late. So it's almost like, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's the yin and yang to not having them anymore, which is okay, great. And, but I don't have that security anymore coming up to see.

Everything Cancer (29:20)
One of the other things you mentioned in your YouTube video and I've had other survivors mentioned in interviews is you mentioned before you were diagnosed you often had stomach issues and you just went to your interventional or I'm sorry integrative physician you dealt with them it was fine but now when you have a stomach issue panic arises.

Harriet Cabelly (29:43)
100 % and I'm going through something now as well with my stomach. So I I'm gonna be doing a stool test Yeah, and So that's I think that's just gonna be lifelong I think I have to accept that's gonna be for the rest of my life because I've always had a sensitive gut You know how some everyone has that I call it the weak link Some people get migraines some people get pain and some people have stomach stuff and I always had you know, like irritable bowel

Everything Cancer (29:58)
Right.

Harriet Cabelly (30:11)
I had a bout with ulcers many, years ago. So I call it, that's my weak link. So that's what I just, I just accept that I'm always going to have the fear that when I start having any, any episodic stomach stuff, it's like,

Everything Cancer (30:27)
Right. I had a breast cancer survivor say to me, I get a rash under my arm and I go from zero to 60 in about five seconds. And I have to call my friends who will talk me off a ledge and say, call your doctor on Monday, take a deep breath and call your doctor on Monday. But she said, and it's 20 years out, but she said it still happens. So it's, it's, it's pervasive. It's there and you. Right.

Harriet Cabelly (30:55)
It's very real because it points to a horrific trauma that once was and could be again.

Everything Cancer (31:04)
Right, exactly. So Harriet, you had said that you ran support groups yourself, you ran groups, you also are a therapist. Can you share with us the value? And you used a therapist yourself, a creative therapist.

Harriet Cabelly (31:23)
I call her a creative arts therapist, yes.

Everything Cancer (31:25)
Creative Arts Therapist, can you share with our audience the value of taking care of your spirit and the psychological piece of you through support groups and through therapy?

Harriet Cabelly (31:40)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's very important. And I think that was a big piece of what was missing in my treatment.

And when I asked my oncologist about it, she said, you know, it's just you reach out as needed. We don't have anything ongoing. They had to let all these people go during COVID, whatever. It was not an integral part of treatment. And talk about change. mean, if I was 20 years younger, I think I would look to, you know, change that. that's just, you got to work through an organization. It's a system change to really have that as an integral component of whatever your treatment is, chemo, radiation that you have ongoing

psychological support, handholding, whatever you want to call it, a coach, someone to walk that path with you every step of the way.

It's a big missing piece. So for me personally, I knew I wanted some kind of support. I didn't want a support group, even though I've led them. I hadn't led cancer groups per se, but I've led support groups for divorced, for parents with children with disabilities. And to me it was, I don't really want to sit in a group and hear everyone else's horrific stories. I wouldn't find that, you you kind of have to know yourself a little bit. So.

I also didn't want the typical run of the mill. Do I really need just a therapist to talk about how I'm feeling? I don't want that either. And somehow I found this amazing person through a website called Tiny Buddha. And she had written a guest blog post and she spoke about three components, mindfulness, nature, mindfulness, nature, and meditation.

And she wrote such a beautiful piece and she said she's a youngie and she's an art therapist or, her area is art, but she's also trained in Jungian, you know, call young Jungian theory. She doesn't, she's not licensed mental health. She's licensed art artists and art therapists, but she does this work. And I contacted her. And he has, worked together. We just stopped a couple of months ago for two years. And I would say she really enhanced and brought me through my, my treatment. She was then.

Fantastic exactly what I was looking for something different very different than the typical, you know I'm gonna talk about your feelings and it was I'm not an artist. I can't even draw a person I draw stick figures, but as I learned we can be creative in many ways It's not just how we draw so we did tons of if I could if I can even show like like something like this There is a Japanese concept called kintsugi where

Everything Cancer (34:02)
You

Harriet Cabelly (34:19)
when pottery is broken, they put it back together by this process called kintsugi, which is gold lacquer put into the breaks of pottery and making a new hole. So that's like a life philosophy of kintsugi. You can look it up, K -I -N -T -Z -U -G -I, where we may be broken.

but there's new beauty in brokenness, right? Depending on how you look at it and how you want to rebuild yourself. So with her, her name is Elizabeth, we made this kind of like a bracelet out of clay and you bake the clay. And then we, I cracked it in a couple of places. And then I put the gold lacquer on some of these cracks to create out of the brokenness comes new beauty. So that's just an example of what we did together.

Everything Cancer (35:19)
I think that's a great way to close this interview. What do you think?

Harriet Cabelly (35:24)
Great,

Everything Cancer (35:26)
I so appreciate your time, Harriet. I think every second of this conversation is going to be valuable in some way to our listeners. I think so. It has been delightful for me to meet you. I hope I get to meet you in person.

Harriet Cabelly (35:35)
I hope people get a takeaway.

I hope so too. Yes, thank you. Thank

Everything Cancer (35:45)
Okay, thank you.