Award-winning artist and Stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor Sandy Duarte opens up about how cancer disrupted every part of her life but ultimately became a profound teacher. She shares the raw, yet beautiful truth of her experience, from the shock of diagnosis to the transformation that followed.

Through deep reflection, Sandy shares how cancer became an awakening and reshaped what it truly means to be alive for her. The insights she gained, many of which are captured in her book (Cancer Ramblings), offer an invitation to live with presence, listen inward, and return to the heart of what matters.

We also explore Sandy’s unique perspective on healing, including the role sound played in her recovery.

With vulnerability and depth, Sandy reminds us that there is meaning and room for growth in all chapters of life.

Whether you are navigating cancer yourself, supporting a loved one, or simply seeking a more intentional way to live, Sandy’s story will leave you feeling grounded, hopeful, and deeply seen.

Mentioned Resources:

CanCare- www.cancare.org

About the Guests:

Sandy Duarte is a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Stage 4 survivor, award-winning actress, writer, yogi am and sound healer. She’s the author of The Cancer Ramblings and also the Program Director for the Global Sound Bath initiative. Sandy uses her voice and story to bring hope, connection, and meaning to others.

Love the podcast? You’ll be moved by the book. The Hope in the Face of Cancer book shares inspiring, real stories from survivors, caregivers, and healthcare heroes. Raw, uplifting, and full of heart—for anyone seeking hope and connection. Get your copy: cancare.org/hopebook.

About Our Host:

Darcie Champagne Wells is the President and CEO of CanCare, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to providing support to the cancer community by pairing cancer patients with survivors. Since joining in November 2020 as the third President & CEO, Darcie has driven significant growth, increasing one-to-one support matches by 45% and healthcare referrals by 66%. In 2022, she initiated the Impact Acceleration Initiative to further expand support for cancer patients and caregivers. Her leadership has earned her recognition as a “Most Admired CEO” and “Woman Who Means Business” by the Houston Business Journal, and national “Fundraiser of the Year” by RAISE. Darcie holds a BS in Business Administration from Louisiana State University and an MBA from the University of Houston.

https://www.cancare.org/

https://www.facebook.com/CanCareInc

https://www.instagram.com/cancare_inc

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Darcie Wells: 00:00:00

Sandy, welcome to hope in the face of cancer,

Darcie Wells: 00:00:02

where we share real stories of courageous people in their

Darcie Wells: 00:00:05

cancer journey. Every once in a while, you meet someone whose

Darcie Wells: 00:00:09

story stops you in your tracks, not because of the hardship

Darcie Wells: 00:00:12

alone, but because of the way they chose to move through it.

Darcie Wells: 00:00:16

Sandy Duarte is an award winning actress, writer, producer, Yogi

Darcie Wells: 00:00:22

and now a sound healing practitioner. She's also a stage

Darcie Wells: 00:00:27

four non Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor who empowers

Darcie Wells: 00:00:30

individuals to find strength and community in their struggles to

Darcie Wells: 00:00:34

find purpose through pain. Her book cancer ramblings from why

Darcie Wells: 00:00:39

to why not, is a raw and reflective collection of

Darcie Wells: 00:00:42

thoughts she wrote during treatment. It's a window into

Darcie Wells: 00:00:46

the emotional, physical and spiritual experience of walking

Darcie Wells: 00:00:49

through cancer and coming out transformed. In this

Darcie Wells: 00:00:53

conversation, Sandy will share her experience of diagnosis,

Darcie Wells: 00:00:57

healing, writing and discovering sound as a powerful tool for

Darcie Wells: 00:01:02

healing. We're so grateful to welcome her to the podcast,

Darcie Wells: 00:01:05

Sandy, thank you for being here and sharing your story with us

Darcie Wells: 00:01:08

today. Oh my gosh, she

Sandy Duarte: 00:01:09

made me emotional at that like I can't start

Sandy Duarte: 00:01:12

crying now.

Darcie Wells: 00:01:15

Darcy, well, and we had to cut out so much

Darcie Wells: 00:01:17

because you've got such an amazing story. So you are

Darcie Wells: 00:01:22

amazing, and we're so honored to have you.

Sandy Duarte: 00:01:24

It's honestly, it's an honor Darcy and to speak

Sandy Duarte: 00:01:27

with you and Julian earlier and thank you for having me. There's

Sandy Duarte: 00:01:30

so many stories out there, so for making time for mine, I

Sandy Duarte: 00:01:34

really appreciate it. Thank you.

Darcie Wells: 00:01:36

Oh, I'm so excited for our audience to get to know

Darcie Wells: 00:01:39

you and to explore your life. So I'd love to start with an

Darcie Wells: 00:01:44

outlook. You know, before cancer, you've got, you're a

Darcie Wells: 00:01:47

multi disciplinary artist. Tell us a little bit about just what

Darcie Wells: 00:01:51

makes you tick in your passions, and so we can get to know you

Sandy Duarte: 00:01:54

better. Oh my gosh. I've always had a passion

Sandy Duarte: 00:01:57

for storytelling. So it kind of, you know, it's, it's got many

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:03

tentacles when it comes to storytelling. You know,

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:05

storytelling isn't linear. It comes in different shapes and

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:08

forms. And so I started off very much like in the fashion

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:12

industry, and then that was extended outside of me, and I

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:16

thought, I want to do something more within me. And then started

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:19

to get into acting, and did some theater and with an incredible

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:25

team in Canada and an incredible playwright, and that got me a

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:28

door Award, which is like the US, you know, the Tony Award,

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:33

and that allowed to get to us, to immigrate here. And along the

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:39

journey, I wanted to do more and deepen my something else that

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:43

was just ticking within me, which was, you know, the the

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:45

wellness arts. I love yoga. I love moving your body and and

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:51

that was always a part of my life, because before you go on

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:53

stage, you got to find that meditators, you know, you got to

Sandy Duarte: 00:02:57

like it. And so it all came together. And I just kind of

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:01

live my life where stay open to what speaks to you and that you

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:05

don't necessarily have to drop one thing to be this thing. They

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:09

can all coexist. It's all information on your journey of

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:12

life. You know, business informs art. Art informs business. So I

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:16

feel like nothing is a waste. And now I'm I'm really just, I

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:21

label myself a creative and wellness artist, because that's

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:24

kind of the world I'm in and and, yeah, that's me in a

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:28

nutshell.

Darcie Wells: 00:03:29

I love it. I love it, and I love how you just go

Darcie Wells: 00:03:32

after new things with with such passion. So number of years ago,

Darcie Wells: 00:03:39

some things started to change in your life, and you had a bit of

Darcie Wells: 00:03:43

an awakening, maybe an unwelcome guest, you know, came to visit.

Darcie Wells: 00:03:47

Tell us a little bit about that. How did you learn of your

Darcie Wells: 00:03:51

diagnosis? Oh my

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:53

gosh, it was. It's the class I never signed up for.

Sandy Duarte: 00:03:58

Like, it's a way of being like, you're gonna this. This is this

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:00

is this is your this, is it? This, was this what you got, you

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:03

know? And the most powerful, transformative thing is when

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:07

you're placed in a position where you have no choice but to

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:10

walk through that fire, you know, there is no it's not

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:14

comfortable. I'm going to go this way, right? It really it.

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:17

When your choice is removed, you have one choice and how you

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:20

choose to guide yourself through it. You can't change the

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:23

circumstance too much, but you gotta go through it. I was

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:26

really surprised. I was living before covid. I was doing a lot

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:30

of the back and forth. So Canada, US, you know, Los

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:34

Angeles, Toronto and so every time I came to the West Coast, I

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:37

would get something bronchial, like a little something in my

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:40

lungs. You know, it's a different climate, East Coast,

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:43

right? It's very different. Someone told me, I'm like, Yeah,

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:45

that makes so much sense. We forget we're on a plane, but

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:48

just because we're on a plane and it's four hours doesn't

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:50

mean, I mean there's, there's still so much drastic difference

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:53

within the lens. And so I was used to kind of having that and

Sandy Duarte: 00:04:58

just take antibiotics and. Anyways, 2023 I got back to Los

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:04

Angeles, June, come about November, I start to get that

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:07

feeling again. I thought, it's that. It's that time of year

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:11

again, the winter in LA and so I didn't take it too serious. But

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:15

my my health start to decline. A lot. Got worse and worse. I

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:18

thought, Okay, this is not good. Got antibiotics. I thought, Man,

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:21

I got really bad pneumonia or something. What's going on? And

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:24

it just, I'm not one that rushes to the doctor. I'm not really.

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:28

I'd like to see what my body does and give it a chance, but

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:31

it really got bad. So by the time December came January,

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:35

towards January, February, I couldn't even really teach

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:38

anymore, because I was so gassed I had no ability, and I was

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:42

getting really weak, so I was declining in my work. And I

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:45

thought, This is not right. Something's not right here. I

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:48

couldn't even move my car. I had a friend having to move the

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:50

steering wheel. I remember that time like I need to go see a

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:54

doctor now. Now my body's screaming at me, so my doctor

Sandy Duarte: 00:05:57

has me go for an MRI. I'm still thinking it's pneumonia,

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:00

bronchitis, a lung thing. And results come back. She gets, I

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:06

get a call, and she's got that voice you hear in the movies.

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:09

And this isn't something. She goes, they want to see you

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:11

again. Okay, fine. I go back second. MRI, same thing. She

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:16

calls me again. This is family doctor, primary. You know this

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:20

stuff. She says, this is beyond me. She goes, You need to go to

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:24

the hospital right now. You have a hot mess. And I'm like,

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:27

really? I'm like, what? So I'm still thinking maybe it's like,

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:31

I'm not thinking cancer at all, right? I'm thinking maybe it's

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:35

just like a growth or something, whatever, you know. So anyway, I

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:39

go to the hospital. I never left. They brought me in, and I

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:42

thought I was going in for a biopsies, a quick in and out. I

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:45

have no idea. I never left. I was two weeks in the most wild

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:51

ride. It invasive. It, you know, invasive, because had to be

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:55

biopsies. All eyes open and and I needed that window, because

Sandy Duarte: 00:06:59

they were doing every test under the sun, and then they went,

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:02

they did the biopsy, the thing through the chest, your eyes are

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:05

open, and you have to wait several days because there's so

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:07

many cancers out there. And then finally, two weeks later, I get

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:12

the diagnosis. My oncologist walks in, one of a team many,

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:17

and just says, Hey, you have cancer. And the first thing I

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:21

said is, I dropped an F bomb. I'm like, what happened? Like,

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:25

literally, I stared at him, like, are you? Wow, drops on

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:30

you. That's and then the journey begins from there. So what

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:36

happened was, the the mask that I had was a huge mass, like 10

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:40

by 15 mats, it collapsed my left lung. That's why, that's why I

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:46

had no lung, and that's why I had all these terrible symptoms

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:49

and sweats and all the stuff and and so, yeah, it wasn't anything

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:53

to do with bronchitis or pneumonia. Was cancer. It's a

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:57

hard dish to be served out of the blue. When you've lived a

Sandy Duarte: 00:07:59

healthy, life, you know, you take care of yourself, you check

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:03

up, you check all the boxes for that stuff. But life has a way,

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:07

you know, of showing you something else.

Darcie Wells: 00:08:09

Yeah, surprise, right, yes. So what does

Darcie Wells: 00:08:14

treatment look like for non Hodgkin's lymphoma? Ah, gosh.

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:19

Well, you know, how do I say this while being

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:23

sensitive to your viewers, cancer is rough. It's not sweet

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:30

trip. But I have a friend who's married to a doctor, and so we

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:36

were talking before that, he goes, let's hope that you have

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:38

these three types of cancers. He's very straight up about it

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:42

as a doctor is, I said, okay, because if they come back and

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:44

you hear one of these three cancers, you kind of got the

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:48

cancer lottery, you know what I mean. So if there was any other

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:52

cancer, it would have been morbid, as my oncology team told

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:55

me, because my it was really in the inside there, in the organs,

Sandy Duarte: 00:08:59

the vital sleek. So when he came back and he says, You have

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:02

lymphoma, I, you know, when they gave me the actual details

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:06

outside of just the cancer, you know, just

Unknown: 00:09:07

like I was, like, just they looked at me like I was

Unknown: 00:09:11

crazy,

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:12

because I knew that I was gonna I just knew

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:14

deep down, I had a really fighting chance, because

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:17

lymphoma is very receptive to chemotherapy and I wouldn't need

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:21

surgery in my case. So my friend the doctor, kind of, you know,

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:27

so I felt that positive hope from hearing Yes, the other who

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:31

knows what my story would have been, yeah, who knows? I'm sure

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:34

your

Darcie Wells: 00:09:35

reaction was quite a surprise to your healthcare

Darcie Wells: 00:09:37

team. Why is she excited? I he said

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:44

it could have been anything else and not that, that

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:46

my not that lymphoma, or those that are suffering through this.

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:49

I mean, I have friends in my life who have lost people to my

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:53

cancer. Sure, nothing's a given or a guarantee, but it's, it's

Sandy Duarte: 00:09:57

the perspective of going, okay, there's a fighting Troy. Chance

Sandy Duarte: 00:10:00

by understanding which dragon Are you slaying. You know?

Darcie Wells: 00:10:04

Yeah, yeah. So it was obviously a shock to you.

Darcie Wells: 00:10:08

You didn't expect to hear the word cancer in all of this. Now

Darcie Wells: 00:10:15

you're at a place where you're hopeful and optimistic, because

Darcie Wells: 00:10:20

you have some insights, uh, you know that this is fightable,

Darcie Wells: 00:10:25

kind of what is your mindset at this stage of the game?

Sandy Duarte: 00:10:33

Well, my mindset at first, let's say the first

Sandy Duarte: 00:10:38

two days, 24 hours. You know, two days, it's, it's, you're

Sandy Duarte: 00:10:45

living in the wondering. You know, the wondering is an abyss.

Sandy Duarte: 00:10:50

It's a bottomless pit of why. And so, you know, eventually I

Sandy Duarte: 00:10:55

had told my family, who's in Canada. I had my sister tell my

Sandy Duarte: 00:10:59

parents, because it was a call I couldn't make, yeah, and it's

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:03

not a call you want to receive as a parent. And my sister lives

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:06

in my hometown and so, and she's in healthcare. She's very

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:09

strong, and she has a mindset for handling these things very

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:13

well. So she broke it to them. So after breaking it to them,

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:16

and sitting in the wondering, in the why, and letting people ask

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:19

me, Why, the nurses, why you do yoga? You're so healthy. How

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:23

does this happen? My mom, why? You know, people asking, why?

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:27

After a little mini moment of that, my mindset shifted, and I

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:31

said, Enough, Wise. I'm not going to live in this abyss,

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:33

this pit of why. I don't give a flying. I don't care about the

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:38

why I'm going to go to why not? I swear I went. I don't care. My

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:42

oncology team came and they were going to lay out the plan. And I

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:46

had five members pulmonary, because my lung was out. So I

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:50

was bringing back the life and of a gone lung and dealing with

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:53

cancer. And I looked at them, and I said, Guys, I'm with the

Sandy Duarte: 00:11:56

finest minds here, all of you, medical, wonderful hospital,

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:00

UCLA minds, a mixed bag of great people. I said you are some of

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:04

the brilliant, most brilliant minds in front of me. I don't

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:07

need to know the details. I don't care about B to Y. Don't

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:12

care you know. All I know is A to Z. I know what it is, and I

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:17

know I'm walking out at the end. You guys take care of the

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:19

middle. You feel it, and I'll take care of the end. So I

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:22

shifted my mind to knowing I'm getting out of here. So you do

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:26

the work, I do the work. Our work is different. It comes

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:30

together. And then I didn't let anybody else ask me, Why

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:33

anymore. There's no more. Why? Could it have been this? Could

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:36

it have been that? Could it been a, you know, something toxic

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:41

could have been undone with why, if you live too much in a why

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:45

you can't find solutions? Your mind and your body can't repair

Sandy Duarte: 00:12:48

itself to find solutions. So ask yourself, why not? Why not?

Darcie Wells: 00:12:53

Me? What was that turning point? Because, you

Darcie Wells: 00:12:57

know, you started out in this place, in a very different

Darcie Wells: 00:13:01

place, and you kind of had that light bulb moment you flipped

Darcie Wells: 00:13:04

the switch. What was the trigger for you changing your mindset?

Darcie Wells: 00:13:09

And you just like, it's like, one day you just decided I'm

Darcie Wells: 00:13:12

going to think about this differently.

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:14

That's a hard question to answer. Darcy.

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:16

That's what falls in the realm of unanswerable. Yeah. Like, you

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:20

know intuition, whatever you believe in, in the Divine, in

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:28

healthy nudges in, in knowing that I am the captain of my ship

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:33

now and now, I have to navigate myself forward powerfully,

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:38

because if I don't take charge of this, because the mind, to

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:41

me, is much more challenging than cancer. My battle with

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:45

cancer was one thing. No, I battle with the mind going

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:48

through this journey. It's a whole other beast. And why I

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:53

started to, divinely, start writing, and I had to have

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:56

strong faith and meditation. I have a spot that I go to

Sandy Duarte: 00:13:59

regularly. When I was discharged from my in betweens, I'd go to

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:02

my meditation gardens and self realization by an incredible

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:07

yogi, Paramahansa, Yogananda. I had to tap into nature, to the

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:11

divine. I had to work with my cellular life. I had to keep my

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:15

mind strong. Was it easy? Absolutely not. It was the most

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:19

scary moments you want to cry. It's scary, but you have to

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:24

carry yourself. You have to keep realizing I am the boss. I need

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:28

to navigate this whole thing forward, you know? So I don't

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:33

have an answer. It was really It happened in a moment where I

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:36

knew, all right, let's do it. Time to get on. Yeah, because

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:42

this isn't my story, I knew it wasn't my story. I said I'm not

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:46

done yet. I have more borrowed time. I just knew it. And this

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:50

isn't to say that. Listen, there's so many opposite

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:53

endings. So I'm trying to be sensitive thought that sometimes

Sandy Duarte: 00:14:57

it's not that way. Okay? But I had a choice. I see the door

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:02

over there. How am I going to walk to that door? Am I going to

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:06

walk and look around, enjoy the view, get to the door, put my

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:10

hand on the doorknob, or am I going to crawl? Drag my knees,

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:16

drag my and get to and then maybe I crawl up the door and

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:20

maybe it opens, maybe it closes, whether that door opened or not,

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:25

for my survival, I had a choice how I'm going to get there on

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:29

this borrowed time. Yeah, so I had to choose to vibrate my

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:33

highest light. That's the only way I can, I can tell you, yeah,

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:37

it was a very important decision, and it's not easy for

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:40

everybody, and we're all different personalities and

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:43

mindsets, and that's why I'm sensitive to that, and that's

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:46

why I wrote the book for myself in the hardest hours, but to

Sandy Duarte: 00:15:49

help those that perhaps are a different type of person

Darcie Wells: 00:15:52

than me, you know? Yeah, absolutely. So this book

Darcie Wells: 00:15:58

called cancer ramblings, I love the title, thank you. Really

Darcie Wells: 00:16:02

started out as your personal journal right during

Darcie Wells: 00:16:07

chemotherapy. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:12

I love telling the story a lot of people and

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:15

friends are telling me, is it probably you've interviewed so

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:18

many people. Darcy, probably, you know, it's spoken to a lot

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:21

of people who write, you know, during so there's nothing you

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:24

know revolutionary about what I'm doing. But I had a lot of

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:28

people tell me, you should write. You should, you know what

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:30

I'm like, I don't want to write about it. Who needs another

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:32

cancer book? Who needs another cancer story? There's so many

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:35

cancer stories, and I'm not a writer. And so, yeah, I didn't,

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:40

I didn't care to do that. The only writing I did was like my

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:42

affirmations and the rituals that I did for my own mind and

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:45

stuff. Anyways, one day, I'm going for a walk, as I do, to

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:49

get my steps in my floor, my fifth floor, and I take my chemo

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:52

friend. She's got the nice shoes, the wheels, she's going

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:55

with me, and we get our steps, you know, the nurses know. There

Sandy Duarte: 00:16:58

she goes, the speed runner, you know. And and I started getting

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:02

these downloads, these these downloads, these nudges, these

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:05

titles coming. And I'm arguing with whoever you want to meet

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:09

with, whether it's the divine, whether with yourself. And I'm

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:13

like, No, I'm not writing a book. What? Like, you know? I'm

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:16

like, no, like, you know. And then titles, and then terrible

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:20

titles, no. And if I'm going to write a book, not that title,

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:22

like, that's what. And it was like this thing in my head, if

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:25

you can imagine. And then finally, cancer ramblings

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:30

landed, and I went, huh, we're writing a book.

Darcie Wells: 00:17:35

Wow. So

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:37

cancer ramblings was the permission started with

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:39

the title and the inception of the cover, because it gave me

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:43

permission to be sloppy, to not have to fall into, let's say, a

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:48

proper box of what a writer is, or writer knows it gave me to

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:52

permission to be messy, honest and to just write so so it's

Sandy Duarte: 00:17:56

like the nudge said, Here you go. Permission granted, and that

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:00

inspired me. And then I just would write. I would write in

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:04

the darkest hours. I would write in the weakest times, the

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:06

strongest times. I just put it out there. So it was done in

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:10

real time from the beginning until I hear the word that I'm

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:14

doing okay in that first sign when you step into remission.

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:17

That's the story of that book. Yeah. And I look back and I

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:21

still read it, I still grab it because I need reminders now and

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:25

then I go, wow. Sometimes you don't even realize the person

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:28

who wrote the book, because we're different versions of

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:31

ourself in this life, you know? And if you stay open to every

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:35

sort of experience of life, good or bad, you're going to be

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:40

surprised looking back, right where would we be without these

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:43

hardships? So I look back and that cancer year was the

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:46

greatest gift to me. I don't know where I would be right now,

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:50

as an artist, a human if I was in deepened by that gift. You

Sandy Duarte: 00:18:56

know, my father hates it when I say that, but I swear to you

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:01

that I cherish cancer as this relationship I had that had to

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:06

leave, but it granted me the most incredible teaching. The

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:11

teacher of pain served me very

Darcie Wells: 00:19:15

well. You know,

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:18

yeah, I danced with her. I allowed her a little

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:22

bit, but then she had to go. We had to part ways, you know.

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:26

Yeah, so, how

Darcie Wells: 00:19:27

did it change you?

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:32

Ah, you have

Darcie Wells: 00:19:39

no it's real. I appreciate that. I

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:46

don't think I'll ever stop crying about my

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:49

teacher cancer. She's incredible. Any pain can be a

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:55

great source of teaching. Doesn't have to be. Cancer could

Sandy Duarte: 00:19:58

be anything, any sort of. Boss can teach you, if you lean into

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:02

the teaching and lean less into the emotional state and judgment

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:06

of it. Um, cancer, she taught me how to see life more, even more

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:12

macro. So the little things that I like to call, and I have a

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:15

friend calls it, I love it, like the nonsense, you know, just

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:19

kind of fades away more you, you and I'm still a work in

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:22

progress. We never, kind of get there. It's, it's constantly

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:26

neat. It's a constant state of Growth. You know, we never stop

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:30

till the end, if we're alive right till the end. That

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:33

sentence makes sense, but it really deepened my, my ability

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:38

to see life more macro. So the it puts you in a much more

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:43

forgiving state of being for self and for others, and it

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:47

gives you such great compassion for your own temple. And it

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:51

deepened a lot of self, love and and time with yourself. You you

Sandy Duarte: 00:20:59

extend it to others in a different way, and it gave me a

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:02

lot of compassion, not that I was missing any of those things

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:05

before, but it deepens you in a different way. Yeah. And I'm

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:09

still working towards, you know, living a life with emotion but

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:13

detachment, being more okay with the with the with the subtle and

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:17

sometimes not so subtle, nuances of change. Does that make sense?

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:22

Yeah, yeah. It you realize cancer shows you if, if you're

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:27

if you can survive it that Wow. When something happens that

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:32

challenges you, you realize, wow, but I did that surprise.

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:36

He's in perspective. What am I afraid of? What am I afraid of?

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:40

Something happens a person a place to say, what am I really?

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:44

I'm afraid of that. So it gives you the power of perspective,

Sandy Duarte: 00:21:47

truly, yeah,

Darcie Wells: 00:21:50

what do you hope that someone picking up your

Darcie Wells: 00:21:54

your book and reading your most intimate groans in that time?

Darcie Wells: 00:22:00

What do you hope that they get from that experience?

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:07

It really boils down to love. Yeah, anytime I

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:17

wrote, it was like writing to the light, and as long as I knew

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:21

I could see the face, the light of love, I'd be okay, even

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:26

through the that pit where it was so bad sometimes and so

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:33

scary. If I could see that little palm, those fingertips in

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:38

the dark trying to kind of take me up. I knew I'd be okay. And

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:43

so a lot of times it's it's the trusting in whatever you

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:47

believe. You know, I'm a spiritual person. I'm not

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:49

religious. I pray. I believe in the power of prayer and and love

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:52

and light and the divine and God, whatever you want to call

Sandy Duarte: 00:22:56

don't get hung up on the titles. Feel it from your heart space

Sandy Duarte: 00:23:00

that if somebody can walk away feeling, wow, I'm held, I am I'm

Sandy Duarte: 00:23:05

okay, love Scott me, then I did so it it transcends cancer into

Sandy Duarte: 00:23:12

a sphere of love. So if you can just walk away knowing you are

Sandy Duarte: 00:23:17

loved, then you can light your path and go forward.

Darcie Wells: 00:23:22

That's beautiful. I think it it also gives

Darcie Wells: 00:23:27

permission for people to feel and be honest with their

Darcie Wells: 00:23:31

feelings. Me seeing and reading the rawness the intimacy of what

Darcie Wells: 00:23:39

you've shared in your book, I think it gives others that

Darcie Wells: 00:23:42

permission to feel, to express, to hurt and to know they're not

Darcie Wells: 00:23:50

alone, and to see from from that pain and anguish you experience,

Darcie Wells: 00:23:58

look at what has come from that, you know, look at the healing,

Darcie Wells: 00:24:04

the maturity, just the deeper sense of purpose and meaning of

Darcie Wells: 00:24:13

life, you know, that you have garnered from that experience

Darcie Wells: 00:24:16

really comes through and in Your ramblings, as you call them,

Sandy Duarte: 00:24:21

I mean it the You remind me of a line from my

Sandy Duarte: 00:24:25

book. And I, I always have my my certain passages that are that I

Sandy Duarte: 00:24:31

keep you know available as a reference for myself. And I

Sandy Duarte: 00:24:36

don't know if I can read you a little, a little, please, I'd

Sandy Duarte: 00:24:40

love that. And it's towards the end, and it's, it's rambling

Sandy Duarte: 00:24:43

106, and it's called, when it drops down deep. I'll get to the

Sandy Duarte: 00:24:46

tail end. Oh, it's hard to read you over. It's when it drops

Sandy Duarte: 00:24:53

down deep. You feel yourself in an endless ocean of love, when

Sandy Duarte: 00:24:59

you feel. It deeply you fall into this knowing that can't be

Sandy Duarte: 00:25:03

explained just felt all the rushing and doing become a not

Sandy Duarte: 00:25:09

doing dance in the eternal space of life. What matters now breath

Sandy Duarte: 00:25:16

and honoring its generosity in your living, in your loving. So

Sandy Duarte: 00:25:23

cheers to life, and that's what I feel about it. Thank you for

Sandy Duarte: 00:25:26

your words. So my my job is to honor my life by loving. DP,

Sandy Duarte: 00:25:32

deeper, deep earth, deeply.

Darcie Wells: 00:25:37

Yeah, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. One

Darcie Wells: 00:25:41

of the things that I understand was a key part of your healing

Darcie Wells: 00:25:47

that I would love to explore with you is sound healing. And

Darcie Wells: 00:25:54

this is really something that and to me, was a little a bit

Darcie Wells: 00:25:59

new of our concepts. So I'd love for you to educate our audience

Darcie Wells: 00:26:03

a little bit. First, how did you come to explore this and kind

Darcie Wells: 00:26:08

of, how did you use that in your healing journey?

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:12

Oh, my gosh. Well, you know, a few years ago, I got

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:16

certified in yoga and chanting sound all the things I went for

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:21

an intensive almost month long, at a place called yandara. And

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:25

so I got, I got touched by the yoga and the sound and all the

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:29

stuff and the curtain and all that. Fast forward to cancer,

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:34

and I'm midway through, and I get another one of those weird

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:37

nudges of, you know, telling me I need to get the crystal bowls,

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:41

and I'm like, What? What you know? And I'm not in a place to

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:45

spend money, as you your your viewers, going through cancer,

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:48

whatever. Know, you know, I was unemployed for for 2024, and and

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:53

living off my savings and and fighting cancer. What am I going

Sandy Duarte: 00:26:58

to do? You know? You know, spend money now the bolts. So I had an

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:01

argument, again, with the divine, with whoever, and then I

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:05

finally gave in like the book, and they said, Fine, I'm going

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:09

to buy the bolts, and I'm going to justify it. It's a gift to

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:12

myself, because I'm almost done my chemo around, so towards the

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:15

end, now it's going to be a gift. So when I get home, Amazon

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:19

delivery, I have bowls and I can get along. And my next round, in

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:22

between my chemo, I get to open the boxes and just be a kid.

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:25

Fine. So anyway, one thing leads into another, and I start

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:31

playing and through my cancer and learning and researching and

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:36

getting certified and all that stuff and finding research that

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:40

you know, sound bathing with the bowls, the vibrations, the

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:45

sounds, actually make your cells more receptive to chemotherapy.

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:50

So it's vibration is ancient. It's nothing that, you know,

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:54

I've made up, and there's geniuses that can talk about it

Sandy Duarte: 00:27:56

way better than I can. But I just have this affinity, this

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:00

love, and I start to play as I play, and I one thing led to

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:04

another. Right out of chemotherapy, I started bringing

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:07

it back into my the studios that I was teaching at before cancer,

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:11

and people were inviting me out and hearing about my sound. And

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:14

I don't know if I'm doing it right or wrong, I just play from

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:16

my heart. Yeah. And and then fast forward. Things develop,

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:21

develop, develop. And you know, you meet people like divine

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:25

timing along your your journey, I come across an incredible

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:29

woman, Melissa Rosen, and she experiences my sound bath one

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:33

day and and was very complimentary. And her and I

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:36

became fast friends. She comes up with this vision for the

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:40

global sound bath. And she has a good friend who's ran yoga Expo

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:44

for 12 years, another fine mind and wellness and and technology,

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:49

Sandra trioli and them to approach me, say they want to

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:54

talk to me. I really thought, you know, maybe they want to

Sandy Duarte: 00:28:57

invite me to just play some balls. Yeah. Well, no, they,

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:00

they not only invite me, they've offered me the role of sound

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:04

curator and program director on this huge initiative called

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:07

Global sound bath, where we're debuting in Miami in December.

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:11

And it's going to be this hugely quantifiable, scientific,

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:15

artistic healing expression, where it's going to be at four

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:19

days of sound and wellness. And so, you know, from the seed of

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:24

of the the hospital walls and listening to the nudge sound has

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:29

come into my life like a full circle of expression. So I'm

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:32

bringing my theatrical background and my my wellness

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:36

into this world of expression. And I'm really deeply honored

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:39

that they would entrust me. So it's global sound bath.com and

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:43

we're welcoming people, I mean, to come buy a ticket, get on the

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:46

wait list. Come join or if you're a practitioner and you

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:50

are love sound, you know, join us. Check it out. But that's my

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:55

long journey, and it's I look at my bold Darcy, and I just, I

Sandy Duarte: 00:29:59

hope. Told them, they've opened a whole world. For me, they're

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:03

deeply healing on the mind, the cells, everything, and when

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:06

people walk away from my sessions, the most incredible

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:12

thing is when people like, Wow, thank you. I feel so loved. Or I

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:16

feel like I was stuck on something and I got the answer,

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:20

you know, like I had a student tell me I she was stuck on a how

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:24

to edit a film for a long time. She took my session, my class,

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:28

she walked away. She found the answer to her film. I got a

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:31

credit in the end of it. So basically, the power of sound to

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:37

connect you into a deeper love and to open your mind to come

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:41

into the macro sphere, you know. So, yeah, sound is a very

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:46

powerful thing, and I'm happy to to expand upon it, you know. And

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:52

this, this evolution of my life.

Darcie Wells: 00:30:55

No, that's incredible. And, and it was part

Darcie Wells: 00:30:57

of your healing journey as well,

Sandy Duarte: 00:30:59

absolutely, during chemotherapy, right after, and

Sandy Duarte: 00:31:04

just doing it, just just just serving it.

Darcie Wells: 00:31:08

Yeah, I know for everyone's cancer journey is so

Darcie Wells: 00:31:14

individual, but I think something that I can, you know,

Darcie Wells: 00:31:18

really extract from our conversation today, and for you,

Darcie Wells: 00:31:22

sound was a huge role, but it's just finding that outlet you

Darcie Wells: 00:31:29

know that that can give you peace and perspective and

Darcie Wells: 00:31:34

something that you can pour into that is healing for you,

Darcie Wells: 00:31:39

whatever that might be, because it's different for different

Darcie Wells: 00:31:44

people. But I think that's really encouraging

Sandy Duarte: 00:31:48

to explore yes and

Darcie Wells: 00:31:51

to be open to the nudges, to be open doors to and

Darcie Wells: 00:31:55

I love

Sandy Duarte: 00:31:55

that you say that because listen and sound doesn't

Sandy Duarte: 00:31:57

have to be one way either. Just like cancer isn't one way,

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:00

healing, mourning. There's no one way. There's your way, you

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:04

know, and then you can expand on your way by being open to other

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:08

people's guidance and modalities and the wisdom of the world. But

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:11

one thing that helped me as well, coming back to the power

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:14

of sound, is what music makes you feel good. You know so many

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:18

times, you know in the moments that I didn't have my bolts. I

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:21

would literally have my phone, you know, and I would be walking

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:25

with my chemo friend, and I'd have the music, not on my

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:28

earbuds, but actually playing. I'd have, I was very into

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:31

reggae, like, really, like Bob Marley and all sorts of reggae.

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:35

I don't even know the names. I was the reggae girl, like, and

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:38

and Julio Iglesias completely. Full of and I would go, they

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:42

know, there she goes. And and what was nice is I would see

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:45

people in the rooms, cancer patients at different stages, so

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:49

people can't get out of their bed. They'd look over, they'd

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:52

I'd see the big smile. There she goes again. Because as I come

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:54

the sound

Unknown: 00:32:55

comes the music. What a blessing, you know. And I was

Unknown: 00:32:59

like, and

Sandy Duarte: 00:32:59

I knew, in a way, it was my way of championing

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:03

changing the vibration, the sound of the energy of the

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:06

space. Whether you like reggae or not, you feel uplifted. There

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:09

she goes. And I knew it was for me and it was for those in the

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:12

room. You know, no one ever looked irritated. They were

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:15

happy to feel the song. And so whatever you do, you can raise

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:20

your vibrations in many ways, and sometimes it's just that by

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:23

played music. Maybe it's the background jazz, maybe you can

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:27

change the atmosphere of your hospital bed, you know, with

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:31

music, yeah.

Darcie Wells: 00:33:35

Oh, that's great. I love that. I know you have a

Darcie Wells: 00:33:39

lot of work to do, and are so looking forward to this platform

Darcie Wells: 00:33:44

in December. But what else is on Sandy's horizon? You know,

Darcie Wells: 00:33:49

what's I mean, you've done so many amazing things, like, what

Darcie Wells: 00:33:54

are you looking for? What are you dreaming for next?

Sandy Duarte: 00:33:58

You know, it's funny, people have asked me

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:01

that, and what I'm dreaming for is exactly right here. I just

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:06

wore of this. There is no there or that. It's life is pretty

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:11

damn beautiful. Now I want to freeze frame it. I'm doing

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:15

everything I love. You know what I mean? I I've started writing

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:20

my second book, yeah, it's a slower process, because it just

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:25

is. It's, you know, death has a sense of urgency, you know what

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:30

I mean, and life has a sense of slowness. You linger in love,

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:35

right? And in death, there's that urgency to churn things

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:39

out. I don't know how I wrote so fast. Everything that I did in

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:42

that book was me in a keyboard, just writing, no support. So I'm

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:46

enjoying the slow journey of love on this chapter, this

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:51

second book. So I'm writing my next book. Oh, there's a

Sandy Duarte: 00:34:55

hummingbird at my window.

Darcie Wells: 00:34:59

Yeah. That's beautiful.

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:03

And I'm just looking forward to doing more of

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:05

what I'm doing now, and and seeing where this gorgeous

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:08

initiative with global sound bath goes, you know, because we

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:10

have a vision to really take this globally, you know, to

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:13

different cities, and to keep writing and to keep spreading

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:17

love, to keep living a healthy life, to keep finding joy. The

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:21

one thing I do have to look that I have on my 2026 to do. It's my

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:25

only one thing, because I'm so happy in the now it's 2026 I see

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:30

a little dog in my future. Oh, I see myself rescuing a dog. But

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:36

other than that, I'm so I'm just happy to let life unfold as it

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:39

should, and to trust the process. You know, there's a lot

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:42

of suffering if we desire so much we lose in the moment, you

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:46

know. So, yes, be I love to look forward. There are things to

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:51

look forward, but they're balanced in the now. So, yeah,

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:55

just want to keep creating. Darcy. You're spreading love

Sandy Duarte: 00:35:58

light, through wellness, through yoga, through sound, through the

Sandy Duarte: 00:36:01

arts, through my book. I want it to really, this is my book. So

Sandy Duarte: 00:36:07

beautiful. I want it to keep touching people's lives. You

Sandy Duarte: 00:36:11

know, it makes me so happy. So seeing how, seeing how the

Sandy Duarte: 00:36:14

wheels churn and move, that is a joy to see the momentum of of

Sandy Duarte: 00:36:19

life and the seed sprout, then stay open to whatever is next.

Sandy Duarte: 00:36:23

You can't really predict too much. There's only so much you

Sandy Duarte: 00:36:26

can predict.

Darcie Wells: 00:36:28

And I really appreciate you you talking

Darcie Wells: 00:36:30

about, you know, not looking forward so much and just

Darcie Wells: 00:36:33

relishing in in the moment and in the present. I hear that a

Darcie Wells: 00:36:37

lot from cancer survivors that it just it makes the sky bluer

Darcie Wells: 00:36:43

and sound richer and relationships deeper. And so

Darcie Wells: 00:36:49

many people say they didn't truly know what living in the

Darcie Wells: 00:36:52

moment and living in the present meant, until cancer.

Sandy Duarte: 00:36:58

Yeah, it's true. And, again, it's balance. You

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:04

have to have something to work towards. You know, the momentum

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:08

is required, because we all need purpose, right? Something to

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:11

wake up to. So when you find that thing or things that you

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:15

enjoy, wow, I get to wake up and do this, it keeps you going

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:18

forward, because you have a beautiful vision of more of what

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:21

you have now forward. Yes, right, but I'm not lacking in

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:25

anything that I have to see forward for it to give me. I

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:29

just want to continue expanding what I have now and grow it big

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:33

forward. You know, that's what I mean. So keep the vision on the

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:38

forward. You know, envisioning is a powerful practice, and I

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:41

wrote about it in my book, and it's one of the key things that

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:44

got me out. I had two visions, and one of which, when they gave

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:47

me the early diagnosis, I saw myself running on the beach,

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:51

healthy running. That's what I saw. So you have to have a

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:56

beautiful vision of your life, but it has to come from a

Sandy Duarte: 00:37:59

balanced sweetness of I'm happy where I am now. There's nothing

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:03

lacking, and it's in and it removes the suffering, you know,

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:08

yeah, and listen, I'm not perfect. I get moments, and then

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:11

you realize that what's going on, get back into the now.

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:14

Realize that every you are so abundant right now, ask

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:17

yourself, I love Michael Beckwith has a powerful,

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:20

transformative question, and it's as simple as this, how can

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:24

it get better than this? How you ask the universe several times a

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:28

day something good happens? How can I ask right now, I'm sitting

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:32

with Darcy, okay, I'm sitting with you. How can it get better

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:36

than this? How the universe goes gonna give you more of what

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:42

you're enjoying right now, right? That's beautiful, yeah.

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:47

So it's a real joy. So I'm open, open to to all of it that you

Sandy Duarte: 00:38:52

know is an alignment.

Darcie Wells: 00:38:53

So for those who maybe listening to us right now,

Darcie Wells: 00:38:58

who are facing their own diagnosis, what would you want

Darcie Wells: 00:39:02

to say directly to them?

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:08

I just want to say to you that you are loved and

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:13

that just keep leaning on love, because it's not easy and it's

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:19

scary and it's hard, but just keep leaning on love. And

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:27

sometimes it's as simple as repeating the word love. So it's

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:31

a thing called love chance that I write about. And there was

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:35

some dark pockets of of the the journey, where there were no

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:38

words or sentences to string except love. So we're just in

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:42

the middle of the night when you're hit with a paralyzing

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:44

fear of rebuilding your life. Well, how am I going to start

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:48

over like you just repeat love? Feel it in here. So sometimes

Sandy Duarte: 00:39:53

it's it's as simple as love, love, love, love, love. Yeah,

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:00

and that repetition starts to diminish all the other fear

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:04

seeds and stuff. And then you feel good. Then guess what? It

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:08

comes back the mind brings you back that fear and that stuff

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:11

you're feeling in the moment, which is legit. Come back to

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:14

love, love, love. Keep leaning on love and keep some good books

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:19

us of strength close by, and, my gosh, spend as much time as you

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:27

can in nature and know that you're not alone. You know,

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:33

yeah, you are not alone. And I want to say a lot of things to

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:37

you guys, you know, going through it, I want to say a lot,

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:41

but I want to say, envision yourself. What is the vision of

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:44

yourself? My vision was me running on the beach, and then

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:48

the other day, I was running on the beach yourself in your

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:51

healthiest state, so you can support your healing as well

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:54

with the beautiful marriage of science and medicine. So But

Sandy Duarte: 00:40:59

love is a powerful transformer, that word love really helped me

Sandy Duarte: 00:41:04

through the pockets, or you're just alone in your bed, and it

Sandy Duarte: 00:41:08

sucks.

Darcie Wells: 00:41:09

Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for that Sandy.

Darcie Wells: 00:41:13

Thank you for for your just the intimacy of sharing your story

Darcie Wells: 00:41:19

and your message of hope. Today. Can't wait to dig into your book

Darcie Wells: 00:41:24

and encourage others to to do that as well and and thank you

Darcie Wells: 00:41:28

all for joining us for this episode of hope in the face of

Darcie Wells: 00:41:31

cancer. If you or someone you love is facing cancer, CanCare

Darcie Wells: 00:41:36

is here to support you. Visit us@cancare.org to learn more

Darcie Wells: 00:41:41

until next time, remember there is always hope in the face of

Darcie Wells: 00:41:46

cancer.