RECLAIMING YOUR POWER With Ryn Sloane

Howard, hello. It's Howard brown. It's the

Shining Brightly Show. Welcome back. Oh my god. By raving fans,

I'm so excited today I have an amazing, amazing guest and story

to tell you. Ryn Sloane, welcome. How are you?

Thank you. I'm good. How are you?

I'm awesome. Oh, God, for those of you that are

listening, I have to describe she's got Mandalorians and what

is behind you.

These are the things that bring me joy. These are my

Funko Pops, my quirky little a lot of Batman, Joker. Harley

Quinn, those are my favorites. And Deadpool, those are my

favorites, a little bit of transformers that I grew up

with, Nightmare Before Christmas, of course. And you've

got to have Snowball from pets, because he's the best

I got it. And you have your pink ribbon for breast

cancer awareness. I love it. So thank you for sharing that for

those that are watching will be able to watch on YouTube or see

this. It's, it's an amazing studio set. So I just want to

tell you how to describe that for the listening and the

viewing audience as well. So let me tell you a little bit about

and I were introduced. Big shout out to Gail Katz, right? And

she's the best. She's She's a mentor and friend to me, and I

know she is to you, but let me tell you about Ryn a little bit,

because she is incredible. So Ryn Sloane, with an e, okay, is

not just a breast cancer survivor. She is a warrior and a

thriver. She was diagnosed at the young age of 38 with

invasive ductal carcinoma, e3, slash, PR positive. Her too, and

she fought through a double mastectomy, expanders and

implant reconstruction. It is just brutal and life changing

and tested every ounce of her willpower, but she has emerged

stronger through raw self expression and learning how to

progress deep into the emotional impact of cancer. Ren avoided

the common traps of PTSD and depression when she saw this

massive gap in support for cancer survivors and maybe even

trauma survivors of lots of things, she embraced her purpose

to guide others through the darkness of survivorship. So the

light, which we I call shining brightly, Ren has developed the

Sloan healing method. It's a full human approach to address

mind, body and soul healing. And this transformative work not

only helps clients heal the invisible scars of cancer, but

empowers cancer warriors to remove the fear and skin

society. She teaches them how to live beyond cancer, no matter

their stage or diagnosis. And I tell you that we are in such

alignment because it is beautiful, because that's how

you take people from darkness to lift up yourself, and then go

lift up others, and that is shining brightly, and that's why

you're here, because we're going to talk about that much more.

But before we do that, I want to ask you a question, how do you

shine brightly each day?

That's a great question. My most favorite thing

that I do every single day is take a pause and look at what

I'm grateful for. And every day, I try to find three different

things, but I do it in a way. It's not like a checklist, it's

a feeling.

I didn't do that so important. Yeah, neither did

I, by the way, I look in the mirror every morning, and I

actually say a mantra that to I am grateful, I am blessed, and I

am damn lucky to be alive. Let's go make this a great day. Let's

go make this a great day, and we do that by choosing kindness and

joy and healing and gratitude and not choosing hate and all

that stuff. So that's chapter one in my book. So we just

covered that. So thank you. All right. Well, let's dig in a

little bit, because your story is incredible, and you are so

courageous. The word that when I met you, was like, this is a

woman of courage and a person of courage. And I just in such

respect and awe of you as I am most cancer patients in

treatment and in survivorship. So give me a little more

background. Take us through, you know, the journey.

Oh yeah. So I was, I was 38 I was visiting family in

my hometown of Toronto in September 2018 and for some

weird reason that day after my shower, I felt a lump like I

never did a self check, but prior, and I just was like, let

me just check this. And had a lump. And I was like, Oh my God,

it was just one of those sinking feelings. And then you can't

tell anybody, because you don't really know what you found. So

it was a really long trip. I was in my head the entire time, and

it was really challenging. And within six weeks I was

diagnosed. And in that six week period I was diagnosed. And

biopsies and tests and double mastectomy, it was like, really

fast, and I kind of describe it as a tornado, being inside of a

tornado. You know, it happens so fast, and you're just you're in

shock, and it doesn't seem real, and is this really happening?

And you're hanging on for dear life, and your whole life is up

in the air, and everything's fine around you. And yeah, it

was a ride, and it was, it was a really tough one, and that was

not my first health battle. I had many prior from when I was

pregnant with my son at 38 so basically my entire 30s was

health trauma, really preparing me for for what I do now. Um,

but, yeah, a lot of, a lot of health trauma, body trauma, and

breast cancer, like that. One really knocked me down. Really

knocked me down. I was, when I was diagnosed, I was at my

physically strongest I had ever been. Um, I'm a little person,

so to me, to be strong is important, because otherwise you

get bullied, right? So it was always like, very mindful of

that, and that was a big part of my identity. And I went from my

strongest to literally a month after my mastectomy. I was 99

pounds and scrawny and couldn't stand up straight at that time,

and I was devastated, really devastated. And for about 30

seconds, I had the same thoughts that we all have as to, why is

this happening? What did I do? Why me? And decided, no, I'm not

playing this game. I decided, all right, one of us is going

down. Let's go like because I got a five year old and I'm not

ready, and so I decided, all right, it's time to fight, and

we'll see which one of us goes down. And I had my sights way

ahead, even though I was in a lot of a dark tunnel for a long

time, I just kept my sights very forward, and every single day,

would just keep seeing where I'm going, what's the goal, and just

whatever I could do that day to get a step closer to it is

really what kept me going.

I want to say thank you for that introduction,

because it you know, we all when I was diagnosed now twice, I was

analog and 23 and a half years old, and then 50 for the colon

rectal cancer stage three and the metastatic stage four. And

everyone deals with it a little bit differently, but I say that

we all get knocked down in health and in life and in

business and finance and relationships, and we have to

get back up again. But it is absolutely very complex. It's

ABC soup of a whole new language. You're learning a

whole new language of oncology and cancer that you don't

understand you were not trained for, and where to go for help,

where to go for support. And quite frankly, I call that

walking in darkness and that shock, that denial, that fear,

that anger is all justified. No one has to tell you how to

handle it. You handle it the way you want to handle it. I always

say, and I know you say, just don't handle it alone. Don't

walk alone. Don't walk alone. And that's that's the key to

both of our our coaching and our teaching and our premises is

that if you can build your Calvary, build your support

infrastructure, and if you can't people like you and I build it

with you and for you, and that's what we do. That's what we do to

do that. So tell me about where you found the strength and to

figure this out. I mean, because you said you took about five

seconds, but I'm sure it's longer, but you this happened

very quick, very, very quickly to you, and you had body changes

that, you know, really, where you're curable, that's, you

know, the woman's breast, that's part of you. And you had to have

reconstruction. And that's, I don't even how you, you know,

emotionally, can deal with that, but you had to,

I did, but to be honest with you, so I had those

previous health challenges, right, going through pregnancy,

and then with my son, and he was an emergency, and then my body

was all messed up, and I had a hernia, and, like, founded a

head end of me, like it was a mess. It was a mess, and so I

think that kind of helped prep me, but I feel like my situation

was a little bit different with the breast cancer, because I had

this conversation with my my breast surgeon, I remember

originally the plan was a lumpectomy, because where they

found the lump and it was small enough they felt very confident

they could just go in and remove it, and that would be that. But

after more tests, they ended up finding actually a second lump

on the same side. And so she called me and said, it's an

automatic mastectomy. And I said to her, great, like, if, if

we're looking at that, we're going to. Do the full thing like

I'm not playing games. I don't and I really like to say that

this is such a personal choice, and there's not a right answer,

it's the answer that you're you feel comfortable making. And for

me, it was just an instant take them both. I don't want to think

about this again. I don't want to worry about this again. And

and the night before my surgery, I kind of went into the

bathroom, I took a picture, kind of said, Thank you so much for

being with me for 38 years. I love you, but I'm sorry you have

to go because I need to. I'm trying to save my life. I, like,

literally did that, and I never done any kind of ritual or

anything like that prior. And so for me, I wasn't devastated to

lose that body part. And at the same time, I also my brain

didn't know what a mastectomy meant. It wasn't until about a

year ago, I'm coming up to six years in survivorship, and it

wasn't until about a year ago, a year and a half ago, that I

heard a mastectomy is an amputation, and when I heard

that, it took me a few days to process it, because I was like,

whoa. And once I did process it, so many things finally made

sense to my brain. And I think that's really important, because

we don't talk about it in those terms, but when we do talk about

it, all of a sudden, it makes sense to us as people that are

not medically trained. We don't speak medical terms. A

mastectomy, to my brain, means nothing, right? But when I say

amputation, now I understand okay, like I get stuck between

doors, sometimes I walk into things, sometimes, because I

don't have that sensation when now I understand where before it

was like, what? Why? Like, why does this happen? It didn't make

sense. So I looked at it honestly. I don't stomach

medical stuff. Well, I get very nauseous and Wheezy and queasy

and all the things. But when I was finally able to see what I

looked like with the expanders in after the mastectomy, and I

could take the tape off the incision. So that was the first

surgery. It took me a long time to do that, I decided I earned

these scars like these are battle wounds. So my mentality

was very different. I didn't feel like I lost a sexual part

of me because I was like, You know what I'm fighting here.

This is, this is okay. Like, I don't, I don't know how to

formulate the words properly around this. It's always tricky

to me because it's a very touchy subject, but I took it as more

of a warrior's kind of like I went to battle, and now I have

these triumph wounds, like, that's how I decided to look at

it, versus I lost something. But

it's very personal. I appreciate people

that keep their their their cancer diagnosis, treatment or

survivorship, very private. You and I are very public. And

whether you call yourself a badass or a warrior or it's on a

journey, I respect that. If you don't, I respect that too, but

it it changes you. It changes you. And when I had a 4% chance

of living from stage four metastatic colorectal cancer and

colon cancer specifically, your priorities change your life.

Clock changes, you know, I just want to see my daughter graduate

high school, I was asking for a couple of years to walk across

that stage and get that diploma, and she did, and then walk

across the stage and get her college diploma. And now that

she's a TV reporter on Missoula, Montana with a boyfriend, at the

right time, I will walk her down the aisle. And the goals get

bigger, and the life clock is now gets to be expanded, and

that's not always for everyone and how you deal with this. But

now I want to change subjects a little bit, because thank you

for sharing very deep, personal part of you, but I want to talk

about healing, and that the approach to healing that you

have, the ashes of courage community you have built. And

then lastly, you know, we'll talk about survivorship, but

let's talk about ashes of courage and your approach to

healing first.

So, yeah, ashes of courage is my free support

community that I built with a dear friend of mine, Candice

Doucette, who's also a she's a breast cancer fighter, stage

four, NBC, incredible human. We were very, very intentional with

this support group. And so when I went through breast cancer, I

didn't have a support group. I felt very out of place because I

was 38 all the pamphlets, all the posters, all this stuff in

the clinic, it was much older women, and I thought, okay,

something's wrong with me, like it wasn't common to be a young

person going through breast cancer, and it wasn't portrayed

that way either. So I didn't go looking for a support group,

because I didn't want to be the baby in the group. I didn't feel

like. Yes. So I had basically one or two people, and that was

it. And I do not recommend that. I don't so I wanted to build a

support community that felt very safe to people, no matter where

they are in their cancer journey, what their diagnosis

is, what kind of cancer it is doesn't matter. I wanted them to

be able to land somewhere where they felt safe, where they felt

seen and understood. And I also am very big none of my

communities or spaces or when you come into my world, there is

no judgment. We leave that at the door because it's not

helpful. So ashes of courage is a new support community. We just

launched it this year, and we have some incredible humans,

people from many different kinds of cancer, and every month, we

get to connect with each other directly over zoom, like you and

I are doing right now, which has been a really special event we

all look forward to every every year, every month, and we get to

know each other on a different level than you would if it's

just through chatting. It's been, it's been a beautiful

experience to be honest with you, to be able to build that so

people can come in and just be who they are and just let down

their guards and say, you know, I'm having a bad day, and we can

be there for them and help them through that, you know, or

celebrate something that could happen too.

Yeah, I really appreciate that you've invited

me in and I participated. And I think that just the group has

real honesty, authenticity, but its approach is really, really

nice, because you can celebrate the big and small victories, and

you can celebrate, you know, some really hard stuff that

people are still going through at this stage and things like

that. And I think that it's important to have that outlet.

You have to have people on your team that are willing to hear

you and guide you and support you, because it's a it's a tough

walk alone, and it's dark, and when people can share a bit of

light and pick you up that day, that can mean everything from

not wanting to get out of bed that day, and it's different for

Everybody. Side effects are different, the emotional trauma,

the physical trauma, the financial toxicity, how you're

dealing with relationships, with kids, with other family members,

work, co workers. Boy, I've just seen the gambit, and I know you

have too, as well. So I love this program. Tell me about it's

called heal, bravely, your survivorship, because I know the

numbers, all right, 18 million people living with cancer,

growing to 30 million by the end of 2030 people are living with

cancer. They're living with all the effects of it, and they're

trying to put, as I call it, Humpty, Dumpty back together

again, put their lives back together, emotionally,

physically, financially, in relationships and more. So tell

me about that program.

Yeah, heal bravely is basically teaching somebody

how to put themselves back together again, how to reclaim

their lives, how to find hope and joy again. And basically

what I call it is learning how to heal the invisible scars,

because they're pretty big, from cancer, and I learned going

through all of my health challenges, I have a really

unique, fun sometimes, and really effective approach to do

it. And it's, it's not, it's not really a standard approach,

which I'm kind proud of, because I like to kind of go on my own

path. But it's it's a healing program. It's a 12 month healing

program. And I literally walk side by side with each person

that comes in. And my invitation is to come in as the messy human

that you are, put everything on the table, and together we're

going to sort it. We don't do just the good stuff for just the

bad stuff. We do all of it because that's how we heal. We

gotta look at everything. We're gonna process it little by

little. I'm gonna teach you a lot of stuff that's gonna help

basically change your life. But we start with cancer, and by the

end of it, I really need to take, like, a before and after

photo. I was saying this to a client of mine the other day,

who's been with me for almost six months, because literally,

somebody's physical face changes. It's like wild to see

how they literally evolve to become a different version of

themselves, and I get to witness it, and it's such an honor and a

joy to watch that

It's transformative it sounds like

there's so many people that need that help, and know that someone

who needs that help as well. You use the term called scanxiety.

Now I know what that is. Tell people what scanxiety is.

Scanxiety is that awful fear that develops from

having to go to a doctor's appointment, a follow up, a

scan. And waiting for test results, like all of it. And as

you know, I think it's a cancer community term that we've kind

of dubbed it scanxiety, but it's anxiety. It's anxiety around

anything, basically medical or waiting for information. You

know, that kind of thing,

stress. It is stressful. It is stress. It is

it is stress. So I am dealing with that stress because

sometimes you're waiting for bad news or the shoe to drop, or,

you know, we live by our scans and our test results and our

doctor's appointments that actually propel us. And in what

we call surveillance mode of survivorship, it's a quarterly

visit to basically check to see where things are at. And if you

progress, that's bad news. If you say stable, that's typically

good news. And if you regress or you stay, no evidence of disease

at this time, you are grateful. But those appointments that they

bring on that so thank you for sharing that as well. Well,

we actually tackle that though. Okay, anxiety and

fear are biggies, and I can tell you, most people, when they come

into my world, in that program, within about six to eight weeks,

we've dealt with it and there's no more scanxiety.

Wow, wow, wow, wow. Listen, I know that this is

we have so much more to dig in, but this is a tease. I want

people to contact you, so let's put on our sunglasses. Yeah, no,

absolutely. We're going to put our sunglasses. We are going to

shine brightly together. This is the shining brightly spotlight

on, on rinse, long. Tell people how best to get in touch with

you, to learn about your community, your programs, and

then leave me with some inspiration to close off the

show.

Yeah, I can be found on Facebook or Instagram at Ryn

Sloane with an E at the end. Or you can visit my website,

rynsloane.com with an E again, I forget what I told you was going

to be my inspiration.

I think you had a quote of inspiration.

I forget what it was. Did you write it down? I

didn't read it. I

didn't, it's okay. But did you something about a

folder or something? I can't remember. I did not write it

down. But

no, but I would go, Oh, I trust in the unfolding of

my life. That is actually one of the beliefs that I work on. I do

belief work every day, and that's currently one of my beliefs.

Say it again.

I believe in the unfolding of my life.

I love it. Thank you that I just wanted people to

hear it because it's that's we've did remember it. So chemo

brain or not, we both figured it out. So thank you. Well You have

been listening or watching the shining brightly podcast show

with the incredible Rin Sloan, thank you. You can get a hold of

me and see this show on 24 channels via captivate.fm and

get in touch with me. Shinybritely.com Learn about my

book. Hire me to speak and facilitate your next fundraiser

or your show, and learn about my advocacy work in cancer

screening, cancer treatment and cancer survivorship, along with

Ren and others, and then also my advocacy work in interfaith

relations, getting to know the other, choosing not to hate as

well of what I'm all about. And just remember I also I got to

thank my people that made me look good today as well. So my

publisher, free frontage publishing, read the spirit

magazine podcast, finishing team from amplifyou up in British

Columbia, Canada, and also diamond moments magazine, thank

you for your support and sponsorship and making me look

good. Now, if we choose to shine brightly every day, sometimes we

can't, but if we do for ourselves and then lift up

others in our communities and neighborhoods and even around

the world, okay, we will become a force multiplier for good and

positive change, and yes, the world does become a better

place. Thank you. Ryn, thank you. Health Health Health health

to you and to everyone you support. Thank you.

Thank you too, applause.