Surviving cancer and lessons about life, birth, motherhood and being a doula

In this conversation with Charlotte Squires she share her personal story with receiving a stage four cancer diagnosis at the age of 23. Charlotte talks about what life was like immediately before she found out she had cancer, what the healing and recovery process looked like, how willing she was to go into the depths and breadth of the human experience, to feel the anger and the grief, and the sadness and the loss, and how that ultimately opened her up to more joy and light and love.

You’ll hear us discuss:

• The advocating and health bias Charlotte experience in getting diagnosed
• How Charlotte felt about her diagnosis and what it was like to share with others
• How Charlotte's thinking shifted to accepting and her spirituality grew
• Charlotte's holistic approach to healing that she called in
• How the year after treatment was the hardest year of Charlotte's life
• How Charlotte's cancer experience prepared her for motherhood and opened the door to her being The Living Doula

MEET CHARLOTTE SQUIRES

A Mother, doula, space holder, educator and meaning maker. She is a talented nurturer who has dedicated her life to supporting, uplifting and cheering on women in many different arenas. She is based on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria however works with women and families from all over the world.

" I never thought I could die. I  didn't feel that was true for me. the further I moved into the feeling, I realised I had to feel the fear of death. The further into the healing that I went the more okay I became with death because I realised if what was to happen, then I'd reached a point of acceptance. I felt this  affinity with my light of what was inside of me."

Connect with Charlotte via Instagram @thelivingdoula
Website: https://www.thelivingdoula.com/

Connect with Rachael Rose

Instagram: @the_rachael_rose
Website www.rachaelrose.com.au

"If I can trust my body to heal, I'm going to be able to trust my body to grow and birth my child. in many ways I'd already started the preparation in healing, in recovery."

Full Transcript attached
Music by Edwina Masson 'The Feminine Spitfire'

Transcript

Surviving cancer and lessons about life, birth, motherhood and being a doula 

Rachael Rose: today I speak with Charlotte of the living doula. Charlotte is a mother doula, space holder, educator, and meaning maker. She's a talented nurturer who has dedicated her life to supporting, uplifting, and cheering on women in many different arenas. She's based on the Mornington Peninsula In Victoria, however, works with women and families from all over the world, from preconception to postpartum.

This episode details Charlotte's personal story with receiving a stage four cancer diagnosis at the age of 23. Charlotte talks about what life was like immediately before. She found out she had cancer, what the healing and recovery process looked like, how willing she [00:02:00] was to go into the depths and breadth of the human experience, and to feel all the feelings, to feel the anger and the grief, and the sadness and the loss, and how that ultimately opened her up to more joy and light and love.

And life. It is why she is now the living doula. Her cancer experience has influenced her whole life, her birth, her motherhood experiences, and she holds on to those lessons today and she offers. Them to us. And I know I got a lot out of this conversation and felt such deep admiration and respect, , for the underworld journey that Charlotte has gone on and sometimes continues to be [00:03:00] on when it comes to her life and the work that she's doing in the world.

Enjoy. Welcome Charlotte to the show. Today.

Charlotte Squires: Thanks for having me, Rachael. I'm really looking forward to today's conversation as well.

Rachael Rose: I was going through some of your Instagram posts and their. Not from when you had cancer. Most of them were three or four years later. But the way that you talk about your experience just blew my mind. I think there was one quote, it said, cancer was the most terribly wrapped gift I have ever received, and I really mean it.

And so I'd love to dive into what you actually mean by that today. first with what did life look like for you before you received your diagnosis?

Charlotte Squires: Oh, it's so interesting to [00:04:00] revisit this time look back at who I was back then. I was. 23 and life was so busy and full. I am from a big family and at that point in time my sister owned a business with her God sister and all my siblings, my partner, my brother-in-law, we all worked under this one roof.

And so next door to the cafe we owned a little shop. Me and the girls owned a little shop that was like a, this wear store or a lifestyle store. So I was working in there full-time doing the most building community and relationships with the people who lived very in, in very near confines to those businesses.

They were very much a part of the community. So I was, . So busy and so, mo motivated and passionate about, Being successful. I think that was very important to me back then. And I remember being completely and totally in love with my partner Jack. [00:05:00] We'd been together I think for about maybe four years by this point.

So we've been together since our late teens and yeah, we were just completely in love and obsessed with each other and socializing constantly. And we lived above the cafe as well. So our whole lives were this harm of this building we lived within. We just had energy pulsing around us all the time.

We'd go to sleep and we would hear people down on the deck downstairs enjoying their dinner, and then we'd wake up to the sound of the coffee machine going. It was like never ending people and energy around us. I lived with my sister and her partner as well at the time. So four of us up there, best friends I had a really beautiful group of girlfriends that I had met in my youth working days and they were very much around me.

And yeah, it was just, it was a beautiful life, but there was also lots of sacrifices that I was making in regards to how devoted I was to that [00:06:00] business and it being successful and the stress of having a brick and mortar business and the rent and the money and the build and all of that stuff.

And I think looking back, that was really stressful and overwhelming to my system. And definitely a very I don't think I truly understood how much that was kind of weighing down on me back then. It was very intense and. And at the same time, I think there was also a part of like beautiful youth and naivety that was just like, oh, well this is just what life is and, oh, well, we'll get through it.

It will be fine. 

Rachael Rose: That energy of maiden and

Charlotte Squires: completely. Yes, 

Rachael Rose: partying 

Charlotte Squires: much so. 

Rachael Rose: fun and, but it also sounds like you're highly responsible for business entity as well, which isn't so much in the maiden. That's more in the mother phase of 

Charlotte Squires: Mm. 

Rachael Rose: So what happened next?[00:07:00] 

Charlotte Squires: So I noticed that I couldn't keep up with this life. I began to notice that I was on a trip with my brother and my partner. We were in New York for two weeks together. I'd left the business in capable hands of, my business partners and some staff members. And I was like, I'm gonna go meet the boys for a couple weeks cuz they were going on this big whirlwind adventure.

And I was like, I'm gonna go meet them in their trip. And it was the first time my partner and I, Jack, had ever spent any long time apart and I was very much not looking forward to that. So I was like, I'm gonna go meet him. And while we were over there, this is a really big deal also for me to go on the plane independently and find my way around a different country, to get to them.

Obviously I was meeting them, but it was this really big deal. And I remember we were shopping one day in this, beautiful shop in New York and. I just kept feeling like something wasn't right in my body. I just, and I remember really digging into the left side of my neck, massaging my shoulders almost, and just feeling [00:08:00] this lump.

And I was like, oh, what's that? And I kept digging and it wasn't painful or anything, but I just kept digging and I made Jack dig and he was like, oh, it's nothing. Your lymph nodes are probably up from Trav. Like being on the plane let's, you know when you get ho, let's just enjoy the holiday when you go home.

Go get it. If they don't go down, go obviously go get it checked. And the whole time I was there, I just felt itchy and uncomfortable. And yeah, I really, it's like once I was away, I started to realize that my body had been, was communicating with me and I could kind of, listen a little bit closer. And it's also, I think when you're away, sometimes you. Have this ability to zone in and almost notice what's not quite right and also more heightened sense of like, your normal supports aren't there. And so you kind of, I think I was on high alert going, what's going on here? And like, do I need to act fast or, anyway, that was my first clue.

And at this point in time, after [00:09:00] the two week holiday was over, I got home, I booked into for the GP and I went and they were just like, you're fine. Every, like, you're fine. I think your lymph nodes are just up. The doctor wasn't too concerned. And I was like, okay, sure. They're like, you're working very hard.

You're, your iron levels are low. You need to just look after yourself. I was like, yep, okay. That makes out, that checks out because I've been working so hard and all of the above, my busy life. Anyway, so life went on and we were busy planning. I was made of honor for my sister's wedding.

We were busy planning that. We had, as I was explaining before, we had such a busy and fun social life, and I just started to notice that I couldn't keep up with my younger siblings. I couldn't keep up with my older siblings. I just couldn't keep up with my friends Jack. And I was beginning to kind of feel like this burden or dead weight in the, in regards to like how tired I was and how I just wasn't enjoying this lifestyle anymore.

I just really was like, this is exhausting for me. And I noticed, started to notice [00:10:00] that in my, emotional capacity as well. Like, I'm not looking forward to going out or I'm not looking forward to the be most basic of things that, would've normally got me excited. Even around the business or just friends', birthdays, all that stuff just wasn't really tickling my fancy at all.

And. So I booked in for the GP again, and by this stage I'd actually lost quite a bit of weight. And so people kept just commenting on how good I looked. They're like, you look amazing, you look great. And I was like, I wish I felt it. And to be honest, I was working out cause I had my sister's wedding coming up.

Like I, it was the first time I'd ever been seeing a personal trainer and I was eating pretty clean, but at the same time I was like, shouldn't I be feeling great after taking this much care of myself? Like that's what you get promised. It's like, if you do this, you feel amazing and you just leap out of bed.

And I was not leaping out of bed. I was really, fatigued. And so I booked him for the doctor again and the doctor said the same thing, you look amazing, you look great, you've lost weight. Well done. It was just this kind of, you look the [00:11:00] part, so don't kind of almost worry about what's going on, elsewhere.

You just need to care. You just need to take better care of yourself. But I am taking care of myself. So I was just very confusing. And next thing. The wedding happens. It's all wonderful. I remember I had lots of interstate family coming up to me just commenting on how great I looked, and I just remember that day being so I didn't even feel present.

I felt like I wanted to be there so bad, but I was so conscious of being the best maid of honor that it ever existed in the world. And so not wanting to let my fatigue or how exhausted and drained I was show up, but I just could not wait for the reception to be over. By the end of that day, I was like, I just need to get home and get to bed.

I remember, , everyone was drinking and having the best time and I just remember being like, I can't even have another, , that doesn't appeal to me at all. I just need to get home. And I remember waving my sister off and being like, I went back to the room and shoved everything in a bag and just got in [00:12:00] the car and wanted to get home and.

There was a few moments like that where I was like, why am I so rushing to get out of these joyful moments? And just, I didn't feel present anywhere at that point in time. And I think really it's cuz my body wasn't allowing me to, it was so exhausted and just was like I'm not gonna gently nudged you anymore.

Like it's screaming. I like something's not right. And for a long time I think I shook that thought off. I was like no. Like everything is fine. But we're looking almost like now at like nine months now from when I first found that lump and being turned away from the doctor twice. So, this like disease is obviously progressing over this time.

The next thing was I wanted to get a few more answers. I was really starting to get more concerned now and my mom sat me down. I remember where I was sitting at my shop and she was like, listen, At 23, 24, I had two children and I was running a business. She was like, I was a hairdresser, I [00:13:00] was on my feet all day and I wasn't this tired.

There is something wrong, like this is not right. And I was like, okay. And it was something about someone who cared about me so much that validating that this was not okay for me to feel this tired. Really made me go right. I'm gonna fight for some answers. I wanna know more. And so I went back to this GP one more time and I had rashes down my arms and legs and, swollen lymph nodes and so tired and lost all this weight.

At this point it's like 10, 15% of my body weight, gone. Which in a really short amount of time. And again, you look great. Everything should be fine. Your white blood cell count is up but just takes some antibiotics and, I think you're just fighting something else.

And then I was like, you know what? I'm getting a second opinion now. This is getting a bit too dismissive. And so I went and saw an old family doctor and he was truly just turned the ship around. It still took a very long time for me to get diagnosed cause I was gonna see specialists. And that journey was very hard.

I've had a lot of fear zone and a lot of people have been [00:14:00] like, I'm sure it's all f gonna be fine. I'm sure it's gonna be fine. People around me were just so optimistic that everything was gonna be fine. But I, if I was really honest and the people who would really sit with me and hold me and that fear and that, concern that I was having, I would've told them, I'm quite worried.

I feel like something's not okay. I don't know what it is, but I just feel worried. And I know that either way, whatever comes of this testing, I know that there's a journey to recovery or healing because. Whether it's autoimmune stuff, whether it's cancer, which I kind of knew in the back of my mind that there were some symptoms that were, could be cancerous.

I was like, either way, I know that there's gonna be a recovery on the other side of this, whatever answer I get. And so I'd already come to terms with the fact that there was something, untoward happening. I just needed to get the answers. And so there was a level of acceptance. By the time I'd had a, I ended up having a little tissue biopsy and a little surgery to [00:15:00] take it out.

And that was ultimately what got the results that, gave me an answer. And to be honest, when they diagnosed me, the biggest feeling that I felt was relief because I was like, finally, I have an answer. Someone is telling me that, yes, what you have experiencing is not healthy. That's not wellness, that is not normal.

There is something wrong. And it allowed me to be like, Now that I have that, like that knowledge, I can start doing something with that. I can start acting on that. And up until that point, for that 12, 14 months, I just felt in a washing machine, like, oh, this is my life now. This is what I have to deal with.

This is what my body and my body performs. And that was very hard to live with and live through. And yeah, that second that I had that information, I was like, okay. Okay.

Rachael Rose: I think it speaks to also the weight and health bias [00:16:00] in the health system like on appearances. Okay, you are slimmer and therefore you are healthier and yet you are telling people. And also, there's lots of anecdotes and statistics that back this up to that women's experiences of pain are listened to less and there's more gaslighting for women's experiences in their bodies.

You think about women who have endometriosis and how much they have to fight to get a diagnosis. Yeah, seeing a lot of that in your story here too.

Charlotte Squires: Definitely, and it has made me feel very passionate about, especially young women. After that I never went to an appointment alone. I said, Jack, you come with me. Listen, or my mom, come listen to what they're saying because I'm not, I. I, I want to be listened to and really understood. And that intuition that I was experiencing was, that was what was being doubted.

That was what was not being [00:17:00] listened to or respected. Me saying, I can feel something's not wrong. Like not okay was treated like that hypochondriac, you're overreacting, everything's fine. I'm like, no. And when I, that, that confirmation of like, yes, you were right. You, that intuition that you felt was spot on was most definitely fire in my belly moving forward in my life.

And what I do now is like, you can't tell me that's not real, because I knew, and it was very validating, very incredibly powerful to have that moment in my life where I was like, yes, you were right. You knew your body, you knew what was going on. And for that to have happened at 23, on the brink of turning 24 was a massive.

Massive moment for me. It also changed then how I moved through the experience of trusting my gut, my intuition, not letting any care providers near me that I didn't feel like they really listened to me or saw me as me and what I valued and how I wanted [00:18:00] to, cuz I, I already knew that I wanted to approach it differently than to how most people probably would.

So I was like, I'm only having people in that team who will respect that and encourage that. It, it definitely, yeah, it informs the way I moved after that.

Rachael Rose: So what did and healing look like for you?

Charlotte Squires: I guess starting at that very beginning moment, like I said, it felt like that turning moment once I was diagnosed the hardest parts for me were telling the people I loved. And I think that's because it ultimately led to me having to feel it and feel the fear and feel the worry. And that then led to the bravery and the courage of like, we're walking into the unknown.

We don't know what's on the other side of this, but we've got each other. We've got, a community that's backing us and supporting [00:19:00] us, and we've got a lot to live for. And I say we, because honestly, it didn't just feel like it was happening to me when I looked around and the people that were there, I was very aware that like it was mom's daughter and Jack's partners, And maybe that was part of me still being the carer and the nurturer that I had always been.

But it was also, I. A way of me keeping it in perspective and allowing us all to have our concerns and hurt in the experience. There had been a lot like happening in my family or like the five years prior to me being diagnosed, and I think it felt really intense for all of us to kind of be kicked again.

It was like, oh, okay, yes, we've got [00:20:00] this. We've done that so we can do this. And I did feel that. I was like, we can do this. My first words were after I was diagnosed, I was like, mom, I can do this. I can do this. It's okay. I've got this. And it was just this knowing I'm gonna be okay. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I'm gonna survive this.

Like I did. Never really thought that like I could die. I really didn't feel that was true for me. But the further I moved into the feeling, The further I realized that I had to feel the fear of the death. The further into the healing that I went was the more okay. I became with death because I realized that my body was just, if that was what was to happen, then I reached a point of acceptance.

I was like, that's okay. If that happens, I will be sad. I don't want that to be my life. But I reached this point where I was like, I'm not, like my [00:21:00] life or my spirit doesn't die. I felt this like affinity with my light or what was inside of me that was like, my physical body is just that. It's just this hair.

Like, that's the tangible part of me. But there's more and I will, and it sounds so, out here kind of thinking, but that's where I got to and to reach that at 23, 24, like it didn't, it's it. It felt insane. And at the same time it felt like, oh, okay, this is just, this is, I've reached the, this point of pinnacle of I'm gonna use, we enlightenment.

And I don't think I'm in like an enlightened soul, but at that point in my life, it felt like this. Oh, okay. I have acceptance around that. That's just life. This is gonna ha if that happens, it's gonna happen. It's okay. And once I reached that, it was like I could keep moving. I could just keep rolling. It didn't keep me down and it didn't keep me stuck.

I just got to keep, as things would come up. I think it was the [00:22:00] first time in my life where I'd ever allowed myself to truly feel my emotions. I think up until that point, I had always mastered the way, a way of moving around it or not truly allowing myself or not truly giving myself the space to go.

You're allowed to have that, you're allowed to feel that. You're allowed to be upset or hurt. And it was like in this big diagnosis, it was like, you're allowed all your feelings, you're allowed it now. And I just took it and went. And it's not because the world said I was allowed it, or in some ways the world does, allow people to have their feelings when it's awful stuff, and things that we all agree that are awful.

And cancer's one of those things that we all agree are shitty to happen to people. But it was the fact that I was allowing myself to have those feelings. And so I felt the hurt, I felt the anger, and I felt the sadness. And then I also felt myself as I allowed these darker feelings or, or what we've deem as darker [00:23:00] to be felt and to be heard.

I then felt myself laughing defects and, telling people how much I loved them. And it was like, woof. I haven't. Felt the love like that. I think in many ways I was almost too scared to love to the depths that I really was in love with people or how much I really love them. Because the minute that you love is the minute that you are truly open to that vulnerability of being hurt.

And so I think up until that point, I was just holding everything so tightly together. So scared to love, so scared to feel the joy because what if it all gets taken away and I'm not shitting you? I felt like that from probably the age of like nine or 10. And I also distinctly remember the moment that I like began to become aware of sickness was around the same age.

And so for me to have the manifestation of sickness and[00:24:00] this experience in life that, you know, as I you spread before, like that I looked at as a gift. Once I'd experienced it, it was because. For, 10, 13 years, whatever it was, I was living in this fierce estate or sickness of holding it all together, and then I had exactly that experience that actually cracked me wide open and allowed me to live more authentically.

Rachael Rose: You talk a lot about how it. Connected you to the human experience, which is the depth and breadth of feeling pain and joy.

I your own words back to you and you said, I walked into the fire and I came out forever. Change scars of the mental and physical challenge fade, but the lessons and the strength only deepen and become clearer as I go.

am forever humbled by my past and in awe of the joy that has followed that darkness. 

Ooh, so beautiful. So [00:25:00] practically, did you undergo, what sort of treatment did you undergo?

Charlotte Squires: So I did chemotherapy for six months. So it was 12 rounds of chemo over a six month period. So every two weeks I would head into the chemo day unit around pretty close to my house, which was fortunate for me. And head in spend a few hours. I'd have about four bags of chemo and intravenously, and then would head home and kind of brace for impact from the side effects.

I also did a pretty strict regime of a health protocol outside of that was not encouraged or advised by my doctors or medical professional team. But I did it alongside kind of more holistic practitioner. He was a GP as well, and this is where I found this magic, teamwork that happened between that doctor and my hematologist who [00:26:00] they worked together, which is very rare and uncommon, but I was just, I really feel like I called the right people in to support me through that time.

And these two men worked, beautifully together and with me and respected my experience. So I juice four times a day and I did ate very clean, like no sugar, no alcohol, no coffee, no very limited dairy, very limited gluten at that time. And not that they're bad things, it was just because my system was so overloaded with the chemo.

I was just keeping everything very clean and fresh and it was the first time ever I had ever had the ability to have discipline ever. It was a very. Beautiful time for me to almost, like, I talk a lot about like, keeping promises with ourselves is like ultimately where we build this trust with ourself.

And from the minute I was diagnosed, I think I had a brandy and dry that night to take the edge off, which is like our classic family drink. And then two squares of chocolate. And the next day I did it was [00:27:00] done like, okay, boom, clean eating, and it was this very easy decision for me. And then on the spiritual and mental side of like, what did I do and how did I keep that part of me?

Well, I really stopped listening to the news. I stopped no negative. Like movies or television or anything that forced me to heighten. My nervous system was allowed in. It's crazy cuz this was all very intuitive. I didn't actually know why I didn't want to do that. It was just all of a sudden I became hyper aware of what was not making me feel good and nothing that made me feel shit was allowed in.

So even relationships wise, like if there were any friendships, they were kind of just around, but they weren't really nourishing me or whatever. It was very clear to me who was safe for me to be around and who was not safe for me to be around. No stories about people dying from cancer were allowed to be told to me.

I understand that everyone has a story that you know is sad and I hate that has happened for you, but that's not what I need to be around right now. [00:28:00] And so all of a sudden I was able to hold very easy boundaries. Like, I'm so sorry about that person, but I don't need to listen to that right now.

Or I would tell my family, they became my guards. Like they would, be like, listen, I heard, I heard this. This is the outcome. Do you wanna hear the story? I'd be like, yes or no, and I really trusted and allowed that to happen for the first time as well. I allowed people to care for me, and then I was also studying Buddhism at the time, so I was chanting daily. I, so I had a faith-based practice at that point in time as well, which was really nourishing and something that I leaned on heavily through that time. And then also I think the biggest, most beautiful therapy was what I talked about before.

It's just like allowing myself to feel so daily, I would just give myself space to grieve, cry, feel what I needed to feel. And I talked a lot, so I communicated a lot with the people around me. And so looking at my care from that holistic perspective that they're kind of all the angles that I went in at 

Rachael Rose: And did you stop working?

Charlotte Squires: I did stop working.

Yes. So, [00:29:00] we decided that financially it kind of didn't make sense for me to stop working, but it was too risky with my close emo de succession periods of like, if I didn't have enough immunity to go back in the, like in the fortnight you can't do chemo, so I had to have like immunotherapy stuff that happened.

I've lost so much of the terminology and stuff, but basically I would have to have injections between those times to boost my immunity and. We just decided that if I was to get sick and delay my treatment, it would set everything back even further, and we decided that wasn't a risk that I felt comfortable taking.

So being customer facing wasn't, the best idea. In saying that though, I definitely did steal parts of the business behind, running social media, buying things like that for the shop. I still did that, but it was a lot lighter duties than I had done previously.

Rachael Rose: So another thing you wrote about, which I found really interesting and can relate it back to motherhood as well, is you [00:30:00] spoke about the year after having chemo actually being the hardest year ever. Not so much the year of recovery, it was the year after. And you said you were dealing with severe anxiety.

You had to rebuild your confidence and relearn who you were. There was less support, resources, and more, oh, you are better now, aka. Expectations to get back to life. Except I had just shape shifted. I was no longer the girl I was before cancer. I had new values, new boundaries, new desires, and a new way of expressing myself go backwards.

How do I move forward? And I mean, that's just describing mares essence there, isn't it? And it's also describing what happens to mothers [00:31:00] after kind of the first six weeks of having a baby, when that's where your peak support happens. And then it kind of peters off and you find yourself maybe at the eight to nine month mark of having a baby and sleep goes to shit and nobody's really around.

And you're reconfigure like who you are as a woman and a mother and I just thought that was really interesting how you went through that before you became a mother through your cancer experience.

Charlotte Squires: Honestly, Rachael, the further and deeper I get into my mothering, the more like the deeper respect I have for that. Initial experience that almost, I mean, obviously I didn't become a mother, so I couldn't call it matress, but it was a deep maturation within my womanhood that happened in that experience.

And there have been such [00:32:00] strange synergies and similarities between those two experiences. And I wonder, if it is because of the, it's, it is just synonymous with that hero's journey. We must go down in order before we come back up and you know who we are. We can't not be changed from the, these things that ask us to do that shape shifting and ask us to become who we really are.

And in many ways, I have felt that mothering and my illness or that, that journey to wellness, they both asked me to remember who I was or who I de who I truly am. And I remember there was this moment, When I couldn't go out with my girlfriends and I was at home and I was tending to my body. I was caring for myself and I was upset and I was crying and mom sitting there with me, and my mom's the mother of six, and she sat there and she was like, I know this feeling. I know.

I don't know what [00:33:00] it feels like to be sick. She's like, but I know this feeling. I remember I just had my, your eldest sister and I was young and all my friends had gone out. And I just remember this feeling and there was, and I kept being like, yeah, I see how that makes sense. And I knew I wanted to be a mom and a lot of my, passion about or motivation to get better and to recover well.

And the reason that I did adhere such a strict like health regime through chemo was so that I could have children as quickly as possible after that. And so, I really appreciated mom, lacking my experience at that time to motherhood or, that abil like that. The importance of caring for yourself or caring for that child or nurturing something that was important and, missing out on things or, choosing something over another.

I honestly did, in that first year of me mothering my son, I really found so much solace in the [00:34:00] quietness and the healing and the recovery. And I was like, oh, I know this. I've done this. I can do this. And also there was more acceptance around me, changing around me becoming different again. And in also a lot of ways I got to practice my values again and reassess and realign to them again in that mothering that cancer had asked me to do.

And I found, That I could be even stronger in those boundaries and stronger in those values because again, I had this, external motivation of like, whether it was my health, which obviously it's internal, but there was this like, I've got to get better. It was this, hyper fixation on, I've gotta get to this point to heal and recover.

And then with a newborn baby, obviously there's so much like focus and external focus on this child. And I've had to lean on a lot lately because my two children are four and two. And [00:35:00] I have probably gone through another heroes journey since having my daughter and gone very dark and deep and birthed another version of myself that I had not met yet.

And that was this more darker the dark lilith within me or that this more dark representation and. I have actually been reflecting so much on my cancer experience and how much lightness I experienced through that darkness. And it was a lot of, because I guess I was focusing on, getting better and healing and recovery and I saw all the beauty in the world that I had been missing cuz I was blocking myself from all of that.

And then I had my daughter, seven years later and it was another invitation into exploring that breadth and breadth of, the human experience. And it pushed me even further into my darkness and my shadows. And I had to again, lean on that [00:36:00] knowledge, like trusting the process. It's all gonna be okay.

Like whatever comes out of this is gonna will land and you will find yourself again. But I have felt that there have been times lately in the last couple of years that. It has been harder to do that, to find that. And I think a lot of that is maybe because in mothering it is harder to care for yourself to, push back against all those expectations and those just the basic human needs of choosing yours over your child's, that conundrum that we find ourselves in daily of often minute to minute.

And it, so in many ways that has been harder, to do as well.

Rachael Rose: Yeah. Like not just yourself, you're responsible for anymore, and the limited time to carve out. And then I know you've had a run of your children having own bouts of sickness, and how that bring up anything for you in terms of [00:37:00] sickness and wellness they're experiencing ill health?

Charlotte Squires: Yes. A lot. The first time my son got sick, it was like my whole world felt like it was falling apart. I remember saying to my partner, I was like, when I was sick. I had control. And when they get sick, it feels like, and often small children are like the worst patients you've ever met, like, I would drink, eat garlic clothes.

I would do all the things like I would, I don't care. I'll do it if it means I'll get better or it means I'll be well. And small children don't wanna hear any of that. I found that incredibly challenging and felt like that, yeah, there was a lot of trust that I still had to find in the body and in an, in the ability to heal without you having to do something, without you having to help it along.

And that's why birth, I guess, was such an [00:38:00] incredible initiation into me trusting my body in that way. And I have to keep choosing that trust a lot, especially when we've had, bouts and bouts of sickness. I do find myself catastrophizing and kind of, going to the worst case scenario with my children's health and wellbeing sometimes.

And I also have complete understanding and compassion for that. And going, of course you would go there because you've been there and your worst fears became true one time. So it's only normal for you to think the worst. And part of my practice now is like thinking the worst. Allowing myself to think the worst and going, it's okay.

Go there. Sometimes when we hold back, it actually just keeps us in this like stagnant fear zone. Whereas sometimes when I just go to like the worst place ever, I go, oh, okay. So if that was to happen do. , I find that for my brain that actually helps. It's like [00:39:00] a, just giving myself permission to go there rather than holding back and yeah, keeping myself in this loop.

It's like, yeah. 

Rachael Rose: Or 

Charlotte Squires: Yeah. Yeah. So I often just go straight there, feel it, and go, okay. And I do use my experience as an example to go, no matter what, we'll get through it. I can do it, we can do it. We've done it before, we can do it again. And that might sound really more, but to some people. But for me, that just makes life keep moving, allowing myself to go there and to trust that I can handle it and that we can do it.

Not because I want to or not because I would ever wish that upon myself or my children ever again. But because there's this trust that what is meant to be will be for us and that. I will be able to put one foot in front of the other no matter what. And cancer really did show me that I can [00:40:00] keep putting one foot in front of the 

other.

And that sometimes you just gotta sit in it, and feel it. And that's proper bit of a theme happening there.

Rachael Rose: That's pretty much everything I try to avoid in life.

Charlotte Squires: Yes. 

Rachael Rose: why I have addictions, and that's why I go through loops and loops of, that keep me stuck because like many other humans, I wanna avoid the feelings and going there can be really hard. So with having an experience where I'm just gonna use the language, things go wrong, and 

Charlotte Squires: Mm-hmm. 

Rachael Rose: not be how you describe it, but things go wrong in your body or your body betrays you in a sense, you call it a gift, but there would've been times where you're like, oh, my body's betraying me.

How do you then prepare for pregnancy and giving birth? Like, what was your relationship like with your body?

Charlotte Squires: This is, I guess [00:41:00] everything that question encapsulates how I live my life now because that was truly the whole experience was like, if I can trust my body to do this, I'm gonna be able to trust my body to grow and birth my child. And so in many ways I'd already started the preparation in healing or in recovery.

And I was really fortunate that my body responded very quickly to chemo. And by the time I had my second PET scan it already had showed that. My body had pretty much gotten rid of, 90% of the cancer with the help of that chemo and everything that I was doing.

But I feel like a lot of the work that I did in that spiritual sense as well, supported me to, get better as well. I remember I was doing this very deep meditation in the bath one day, and I feel like I, that was the day I remember cancer leaving my 

body, and it was the next week that I had the PET scan that revealed that was true.

And so, that [00:42:00] trust was built in all the ways along with that journey too, that experience was so validating again because it was like, oh, this trust that I'm building with my body and trusting that it will heal and that it was gonna find its way back to wellness was this big old experiment.

But I could also feel my trust. Getting stronger as we went along. If that maybe hadn't been proven through that time, maybe my journey through childbirth and pregnancy would've been a little bit harder. But I did have that as very confirming experience. It was like, yes, your body and you are working together.

You guys are working as a team. Even though, yes, there was definitely a sense of betrayal at the very beginning. I actually felt that the biggest sense of betrayal came when I had a miscarriage after I had recovered from cancer. It completely knocked me for six. And when I talk about that hardest year of my life was kind of after [00:43:00] hemo and after I had been, was better, it, that was when I really had to lean on that deep kind of faith and that deep I don't I don't even know what you would call it.

It was just this, keep going. You are strong. You can handle whatever's gonna come your way. And when that happened, I remember just feeling, allowing myself to feel how hurt I felt and how betrayed. And after that, I would say that was when that ability to, when I felt pregnant again after that's when I was like, right, my body and I are working together.

It was like this, okay, we're back on the same team again. We're working together again. But that miscarriage definitely led me to question everything that was happening in my body through pregnancy. Is this okay? Is this okay? Is this all right? I just wanted to be pregnant and have a baby so much. I just wanted to be a mom.

And again, when you want something so bad and you love something so [00:44:00] much, That opens you up to that vulnerability, it opens you up to be hurt when it can be taken away. And I knew that I was going to be a mom and I trusted it, but I, again, I just didn't know how I was gonna get there. And I didn't know if multiple miscarriages or multiple losses were in my future.

I didn't know. I just had to keep, knowing that I was showing up and that it was all, whatever was gonna happen was gonna be okay. But that learning, that confidence and that trust, so much of it is just, do I have the capacity to trust? Do I have the capacity to lean all the way in here and know that if it's not what I want, that's gonna be okay.

And that there's something, this is part of the plan or this is part of the way that I need to get there. And even, as when I work with clients now, it's like when we are preparing for birth, It's that unknown. We don't know what's gonna happen in that window of time of like [00:45:00] when labor begins and our child is born, we don't know what's gonna happen.

And this finding comfort within that unknown is ultimately what I found in the experiences that led me to having children is, knowing that actually nothing, we don't know anything. The day that I got diagnosed, I did not know what I was walking into that day. Do you know what I mean? My whole life got flipped on its head.

And the same way with birthing my son. I didn't know how it was gonna go down. I didn't know how my body was gonna react in that moment or in those moments, long moments actually, if you really wanna know. But there was, I just had to find like, what, however, this is gonna be, I will be okay. We will be okay. And that doesn't sound that poetic, but it, that felt poetic to me. It feels poetic to me in my 

Rachael Rose: Feels poetic to me. In terms of practicalities, did you have to freeze your eggs or what happened before [00:46:00] chemo? I.

Charlotte Squires: I did have to freeze my eggs before chemo, not because it was guaranteed that I would not be able to, fall pregnant without support. It, with this particular type of chemo, they were like, it's highly likely that you'll be able to fall pregnant on your own. But as I mentioned before, like my motivation to live was to be a mother.

I was like, I don't wanna live if the life I've imagined for myself doesn't exist. And so I, I wasn't going to do it because of the financial aspect of it. And then, I spoke with my partner and my mom and we talked about it and she said, if you are gonna spend the next six months worried about whether or not you are gonna be able to fall pregnant after this, I think having an insurance policy for you to be able to just do what you need to do and welcome the chemotherapy openly is gonna be the best case scenario.

So I think you should do it. And I, the minute she [00:47:00] said that, it just landed for me. It's like, yeah, I don't need to be worried about this too. There's enough going on. I need that backup plan that either way, whatever happens, however I respond to this, drug I'm going to on the other side of this, like the life that I want is there at least more available to me.

And so I did decide to freeze eggs. We could have done embryos cuz obviously I had a long-term partner there. That was a really emotional and also very beautiful moment too, of doing the egg harvesting because, Jack and I did it together and, we set alarms and timers together to get up and do the, egg like we have to all these different injections at the right time and everything in order to, have it prepared for the surgery and all those conversations were so powerful and so big.

We'd already decided that we were gonna start trying for children in the testing process before I was diagnosed. And then when I was diagnosed, I felt like it was like a huge setback. And interestingly enough, we still felt pregnant with Rupert, the same timeline and we had planned.

I just, we'd beat cancer at the same that window [00:48:00] of time and

it's so interesting. So that's why me, it's like, you set out, you make a, build a vision and then you just trust the journey. You trust the process and how you're gonna get there. You don't know, might not be what you planned, for us it worked out like, oh, this is exactly where we need to be and this is where we plan to be.

How beautiful, But yeah, we decided to freeze our eggs and up until only recently, I have defrosted my eggs and they're no longer frozen. We had about 12 retrieved, which was really great. And it wasn't so much the danger of not having eggs or not being able to, fall pregnant.

It was that I was more at risk to go into early onset menopause from the chemo. And they were like, listen, everything's in your corner. Your mom had her last child at 41. You've got a huge egg count. Like it's likely that you'll be fine. But I wanted to do that for my mind more than anything.

And unfortunately I never needed to use those eggs. We did for pre conceive, without support. So that was really a beautiful moment as well for me to build that trust with my body as well. [00:49:00] Okay. You can do what I need you to do, or what I'm asking you to do, 

Rachael Rose: Yeah, so you are called the Living Doula. That's your beautiful business name, you've written that you embody all, you learn as the living doula. A common thread as humans is birth, life, illness, death, and most of all, love Surviving cancer led me to becoming a doula. It held the door open so I could see and understand the new parts of myself. My grief birthed my joy. Can you tell us a bit about your business and how you work with other women and what the living doula means for you?

Charlotte Squires: Get emotion. I feel as though [00:50:00] what I do now is actually what I always have wanted to do, but I don't ever think that I felt pre all of what I've just told you. I don't ever think that I felt worthy enough to embrace what I was here to do in the world, and so my grief definitely birthed my joy because it gave me the permission to live my goddamn life. Don't hold back, don't wait. Life is for living on my first year after remission. I had like a little party with my friends and I chanted life as for living like all night cuz I just was like, we're here now. , let's just do what we do, so the work that I do in the world is so much about allowing [00:51:00] ourselves more grace, more compassion.

The reason that I love to work with women so deeply is because, I really believe that , mothers especially have , they send such incredible ripple out into the world through their families. And so the way I've experienced that and in my family with my, in my partnership is like when I'm good, often the partnership and the family are well and it's really, I've got a beautiful partner who values that so much and supports it so deeply.

And so I really love the idea that when I get to work with a mother, I often get to work with a partner, and then I often get to work with the kids. And it's like this whole, nucleus that I get to like work with. And I just love allowing other people to see that their mess is beautiful and that, , they're not waiting through the mud for nothing.

That there's so much goodness and reflection back to them of [00:52:00] like how, what an incredible human being they are. And people often say, oh, thank you so much. I'm like, no, thank you, because you are the one who's like, walked into this conversation or been open to it, or, I just, I love, that's what I'm here to do, to just work and support and allow them to see 

that what they are is enough, that they're worthy, not because they've had to do something to be, to get that to that. And I feel so grateful that I'm allowed to do this, and not even that I've allowed myself to live this authentically, that I've allowed to myself to live in alignment to who I really am.

Because for so long I kept myself small and not truly able to see that my imperfections were what made me wonderful made [00:53:00] me human, made me relatable, made me, when I say relatable, it's like the relatable, like, I'm so grateful. People share their stories and I get to see myself in them.

And, I hope that people maybe feel that today feeling, What I'm talking about, like that's just what I'm here for.

That all that connection, 

Rachael Rose: what do you feel when you witness a birth?

Charlotte Squires: Oh, feel high on life and I feel in awe of whoever has just birthed another human being more often. And I feel like this is good and normal and beautiful, that this person is now in the world. And I feel very moved that I get to witness that in however that unfolds to witness somebody joining someone's family [00:54:00] and people's hearts expanding right in front of me.

That is like the essence of life to me. That raw, unfiltered love that happens in a birth space when no one cares about anything other than being in that moment, it's, yeah, that's why I'm the living doula, the life in the in between

Is so beautiful. So beautiful.

Rachael Rose: Charlotte, thank you so much for sharing your story today. Is there anything you'd like to add before we finish up? Any message you'd like to give to the listeners?

Charlotte Squires: Yes. Thank you for listening and being, letting me be human. I don't feel like this is the most perfect conversation, but I love that it has just been me allowing myself to. Be emotional and reflect back on this very pivotal point in my life. So thank you for listening[00:55:00] with an open 

heart. 

Rachael Rose: you so much.