A trip in January to the high country again and I felt like I kind of hit Ctrl + F5 and refreshed the page in amongst the granite mountains.

“Soon I’ll be back in the strong powerful granite lands with my body intact and pretty much back to normal with another smile like the one in my photo”.

Those were my words I wrote in story 2 of Sourcing Strength entitled The Summit Run, and yes I am happy to say those thoughts turned into reality.

The January before this in 2018, I had been diagnosed with a rare type of breast cancer but for some reason I felt I’d be alright with this. I decided to kick back for the year like I had a broken leg and extreme morning sickness and then after twelve months I’d be back to normal, or at least mostly normal.  So now after that heavy duty year and constant running to keep my stamina levels up, I managed to make it to the top of Australia again to close that loop.

Sure, I didn’t run the 22 km this time but that’s partly because I learnt some difficult lessons during the year. One of them is about the hated words of “listen to your body”. Gees did I hate that line. People spewed it on me all the time, mostly wise health care people. And did I suffer when I ignored them!

Nor did I reach the summit solo. The main photo shows me and my husband on top of Mt Kosciuszko which is symbolic really as he helped me so so much during the year. Our kids reached the summit too. They gave me strength throughout the year in a myriad of ways so it felt right that we all ascended the mountain this year together as one.

So many people within my life strengthened me up and if you are one of them, you too are in that photo standing with me up top of Mt Kosciuszko. Quite often, the tiniest action or few words from someone (that probably they were not even conscious of) translated into giving me a kind of power that fueled me along just at the right time. My ancestors gave me strength too and you can read how in my Story 1 How my ancestors gave me strength– Sourcing Strength.

The granite lands imbued their energetic vibe into me once again and I selected another small piece of rock to take home with me in case I feel the need for a booster during this next year. When looking at my new second rock, it feels great because it reminds me that I really have completed that past year, it is over and I managed to do it just how I had planned to. These happy reminders happen at unexpected moments. For instance, the other day while waiting for our kids to arrive home on the school bus, I was chatting to a neighbor.

He asked, “So how is all the cancer stuff going?”

I said, “What cancer stuff? That was last year”.

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Stories in this series of Sourcing Strength are; The Summit Run and The Summit Run, Closing the Loop.

You can read more stories in my series about Encounters with Wild Animals such as a Great White Shark, horses, snakes, whales, rock possums, bull buffalo and spiders

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