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Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:00:00

What if I told you that some of the most common life advice might actually be leading you astray? Bucket Lists this collections of must do experiences we're all supposed to compile and hold onto till the last minute could actually be preventing you from living your best life right now. In this episode, I share a deeply personal story about facing a potentially terminal diagnosis and the surprising clarity it brought me about Bucket lists. You'll discover why I believe that shifting from someday to thinking about intentionally living today might be the key to a more fulfilled life and how you can make this shift too welcome to the Grit show where our focus is growth on purpose. I'm your host Shanna Rodriguez and I'm honored to be part of this community as we journey together with our grit intact to learn more about how to thrive and how to get the most out of life. It means a lot that you are here today. As you listen, I encourage you to think of who may appreciate the tidbits of knowledge we are sharing and to take a moment to pass this along to them. Everyone appreciates a friend that thinks of them and these conversations are meant to be shared and to spark even more connections. Today's episode is something special.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:01:27

It's a fan favorite. The first aired in the summer of 2022, which is a surprisingly long time ago when the GRIT show was just beginning. It's amazing how far this show has come and I'm so grateful that you are here and part of it today. As I shared on our Last episode, number 118, I'm currently on leave from recording while I'm on my breast cancer journey and as such we'll be alternating between re releasing episodes and releasing new episodes that have been pre recorded. My surgery is still a month away, so I have a little time right now filled with medical appointments and setting up my business for this absence. As I shared in our conversation last week, this is also my season of receiving, which is a time of learning for me, not something I've always been good at. I am so grateful for the amazing outpouring that has happened during this period. The amount of support I've received is awe inspiring and the fact we are over 60% of the way to our goal and over $8,000 has come in that is just amazing and means so much to me.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:02:38

It's so valuable to have this money to help cover medical bills and to address the expenses that will be incurring during the three months when I'm not able to work at all. So my gratitude keeps finding new depths and this generosity that keeps showing up and the people that keep showing up. And it's amazing that I'm able to focus on healing and focus on addressing my well being during this time. And I'm immensely grateful for this gift. So thank you and thank you for being part of this journey in whatever way you were able to. It means a lot. It feels especially meaningful to revisit this particular episode right now as I'm on this journey. It is another of my deeply personal stories and it really explores facing uncertainty and finding clarity.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:03:28

It was valuable for me to revisit this as I begin another journey, and these themes of embracing life fully in the present moment rather than postponing joy feels ever irrelevant. And hopefully you will find relevance in that as well. Thank you for walking this journey with me. Now let's Transport back to 2022 and a conversation that continues to resonate Bucket.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:03:54

Lists there's something that most people have do you have one bucket? What's on yours? Swimming in bioluminescent waters? Watching a glacier calving? Seeing the brilliant shades of autumn in New England. Eating at a Michelin starred restaurant. Feeling the spray from Niagara Falls.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:15

Learning to speak another language.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:17

Backpacking and sleeping under the stars. Painting something worthy of hanging on your wall. Seeing a moose in person. Seeing the cherry blossoms over the basin.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:28

In D.C. visiting a European castle.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:32

Rediscovering a relationship that went dormant for 20 years. Writing a novel? Traveling to all 50 states? What about visiting the country where your.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:41

Great grandparents were born?

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:43

Swimming under a waterfall?

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:46

Learning to play soccer?

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:47

Making homemade bread? There are many things you can put onto your bucket list. None of these items I just listed are actually on mine, but not for the reason you might think. They aren't on my bucket list because I don't have a bucket list. I actually don't believe in them. Stick around. I'd love to give you some food for thought on why perhaps you shouldn't have one either.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:05:10

Last week I promised to tell you more about some news last summer that.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:05:14

Rocked my world a bit and had.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:05:16

A surprising lesson about buckets lists.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:05:19

You should feel honored too. What we're talking about today is something I haven't talked about with many of my nearest and dearest friends, which is very strange. I'm a fairly open book. But as the story unfolds, I think you'll understand why it's a story rarely shared. For the sake of time, we are skipping right to the punchline. Last July, immediately following an amazing week in Kauai, I was to have an MRI meant to evaluate if I may have multiple sclerosis due to family history as well as some other questionable symptoms I was experiencing. Fortunately, when I read the results, they led with no imaging suggestive of multiple sclerosis. I was thrilled.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:06:01

However, at the end of the results there was a bunch of garbled words and confusing comments that had to do with five spots that were indeterminate. They were atypical for some random big words and more typical of metastatic disease. You would think since my mother died of metastatic melanoma that I would have instantly known what that meant, but again, there were a lot of big terms being thrown around. So I called my doctor. They got me in by 10am I called at 8am as soon as they opened after reading my results at 7am not long after I got up and having the MRI completed at 6:30pm the night before. All very fast. I'm sure you're not shocked that by 11am I was sobbing in the parking lot in my SUV and wishing my fiance didn't have a job, which meant he was assisting in a surgical room and not able to be disturbed during the day. I had a referral to a neuro oncologist and with my history, symptoms and the results of my mri, it was highly suspected that I had metastatic brain cancer which could only be diagnosed through finding the original cancer elsewhere in my body or by seeing how drastically these spots had metastasized in three to six months.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:07:17

I know I should have been grateful that they weren't going to biopsy my brain, but I was at a loss that they didn't have a clearer and quicker way to give me answers. I mean, in today's age, waiting three to six months to find out is if you had a cancer with a median survival rate of three to six months after diagnosis didn't really add up for me. I had these highly suspicious spots on my brain and no answer for them. Yet it was strange to have this guillotine hanging over me with no knowledge if it was a mirage or not. I, like many of you, perhaps have been a little estranged from my friend. Network through the pandemic an actual diagnosis would have meant mobilizing them and bringing them together and having that support. But this phantom diagnosis, it was a nuisance. It was a confusing complication in the background.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:08:17

I saw very quickly how disorienting and overwhelming it was for the few people closest to me who did know and that I did tell. Why on earth would I destabilize others when there was no action to be Taken, no diagnosis to fight against, no knowledge. If we were really looking at the worst case scenario. And all of the stress and worry might be in vain because I didn't actually have was a complicated three to six months. So why am I sharing all of this with you? Why is it important to now talk about my summer of brain cancer?

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:08:53

I think the biggest reason is that.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:08:56

As overwhelming and as exhausting as it was, one thing stood out to me, and that was that I didn't have a long list of things that I needed to rush and accomplish when my mother was battling her cancer and when she was so sick. We kept planning trips that were getting canceled and we couldn't complete. I remember being in her hospital room when we were supposed to be in Kauai and our friends were there in the house I'd rented, but we weren't because she had taken a turn that meant her doctors would not approve the trip. She never got to see Niagara Falls, she never got to go to Norway. We never got to do all of these things we talked about doing because her illness prevented it. And yet here I was with the health to go wildly do anything I needed to do if I really thought I only had three to six months to live and no need to do anything. I had published my novel, I had traveled to Europe, I had gone to Costa Rica, my Beyonce and I had just come back from an amazing trip to Kauai. I bought the house that I was told was too big for me, that was perfect, that I loved.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:10:22

I took the job to do some incredible, fabulous work, even though they required me to move across the country. I've been to all 50 states. I have loved deeply. I found the love of my life. There was those pieces where I wish I had more time with him, where I wanted to spend every minute with him. And it hurt me to think of him being without me. It hurt me to think of who I was leaving and what I was leaving. But I didn't need anything more because I'd done all of those things.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:10:56

And in the end they came back in September and things looked good, but they were still being little cagey about giving me a clear, clear sign. And then they decided in December that it was actually something they weren't worried about. So I joke that I have freckles on my brain and that's why I have all these symptoms that I have that led them to believe that it was something else. And so in the end, it really was for naught. Like all of the appointments, expenses, stress, and glad I didn't stress out more of my friends with my story of thinking that was the case when we went to Hawaii at the end of June, right before the rule out of metastatic brain cancer. One of my friends had said to me how much she loved that I did that, that my life has so many dips and so many things going on and things happening, but every time I come up for air, I come up for air and I'm going to Hawaii or I'm going to Costa Rica or I'm going to the beach for the day by myself and I'm finding the space and finding the way to take care of myself because I realize that there's going to be another. Another sticky spot. And sometimes you can't even predict them because honestly, there have been a few things that I haven't been able to predict.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:12:24

But, you know, the potential diagnosis of metastatic brain cancer really did not see that coming. And it's even more amusing since I did not have that. So it was just a detour for three to six months of tiptoeing around that potential that was actually never really a threat. When that happens, all you can do is walk away with the benefits you gained. And fortunately, I realized that benefit within the first week. Although it was overwhelming to conceptualize this uncertain future that I couldn't even try to chart out, because I like to chart things out right. The hardest thing for me was the uncertainty of this hanging over me. And I can't imagine adding to that levels of regrets, of friends I had lost touch with, places I'd never gone, of work and potential that I'd never lived up to, ways I wanted to impact the world that I'd never been able to do.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:13:29

Do you remember the list of items at the beginning of the show? Each of those is something I've actually done and I cherish the fact I made them happen. It's not as hard as you might think. Instead of making a list, you decide, is this something I really want to do? If so, why aren't I doing it? If not, why am I wasting my time daydreaming about it? If I'm daydreaming about going to New Zealand, but I hate long plane trips. What is it I really want? Time with a friend who went on that trip without me. Time at a beach I can drive to, time off period. Then whichever of those plan for that, take those first steps. If it's time at the beach, you can drive to find time to take off and do that, make the plans to have the car serviced whatever steps you need, what's standing in your way. Remove the obstacle or accept the obstacle.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:14:26

Stop making it a bucket list. Let go of the things that aren't meant for you that you don't really want, or decide it is what you really want and start moving towards it and get things out of your way so you can get it done. Life throws some curve balls at you. It'll definitely slow you down, but you can't let it stop you. I hope that as you think about this and think about things that you want and that you are striving for that you find the oomph that we don't know about tomorrow. All we have today is, so we have to make the most of it. I'm curious if there's a better way I could have told my story, but I'm here showing up, being authentic, sharing my truth the best I can, and hopefully encouraging you to do the same. I hope you make time for yourself this weekend.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:15:21

If you haven't already, please head on over to our website and join our mailing list so that you can get a copy of our coloring pages.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:15:29

A little something you can do just.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:15:31

For yourself because self care is important. Who knows, while you're doing your coloring you might want to just ruminate a little bit. What brings you joy, what you're thankful for, what you want more of in your life, and if there are things that you want to fit in and prioritize. You don't need a bucket list, you need a just do it list. So go out there and get it done.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:15:59

I value the time we shared together today. Thank you for making time to be here and to continue taking steps towards growth and bringing more ease into your life. I'd love for us to stay connected on Instagram, @shawnapodcasts or @the.grit.show. There's even a link in bio @The.Grit.Ssow where you can send me an email to let me know what you thought. Today's episode Hearing from you helps make the effort that goes into producing these episodes worthwhile. After all, you're why I'm here. And since it's been a while since you've heard this, you are the only one of you that this world has got and that really does mean something. I hope you realize that I'll be back again soon and I hope you're following along or subscribed so that you'll know any be here too.