One morning a few years ago, I was in a yoga class that the instructor dedicated to "the pursuit of potential." As she guided us through the practice, she talked about the notion of inviting your best self forward, to live in the possibilities of your own potential. By the time we reached Savasana, I had reached an epiphany.

It occurred to me that my entire life, I had been working to "fix" myself, to correct all that I believed was wrong with me: Every step I took in my quest to be healthier and happier—whether it was running half-marathons, investing in a life coach, or religiously drinking green juice—was motivated by a deep-seated fear that I wasn't good enough as is. I wasn't pursuing my potential; I was trying desperately to feel worthy.

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This thought struck me like a lightning bolt: How happy and healthy will I ever be if I don't love myself?

My epiphany led me to challenge myself to become my own best friend, after years of struggling with eating disorders, drug addiction, and depression. Rather than focusing on the parts of myself I didn't like, I committed to nurturing the parts I did. And this radical concept changed everything for me. (I wrote about the experience in my new book, The Self-Love Experiment.)

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Over the next three years, I had many epiphanies like that first one. These moments of instant clarity were what inspired me to adjust the aspects of my life that were less than fulfilling. Some of my realizations were very personal, but others felt more universal—and a few were so powerful, I wish them for every woman. Below are eight such life-altering lessons:

You aren’t what people say you are

I used to spend so much time worrying about what people thought of me, without ever really asking myself how I felt about them. As a result, I wasted precious time and energy trying to please people who didn’t actually care about me.

I realized all that time and energy could be spent in more valuable ways—like taking care of myself, my family, and my true friends.

The shift for me came when I recognized that what matters most isn't how others view you, but how you view yourself.

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And you aren't the number on the scale

At the end of your life, the weight struggles, the endless food wars you wage in your mind, and the shame and guilt you harbor about your body and habits will have absolutely no relevance. The only thing that will matter is what is in your heart. How you feel is essential to your self-worth; but how you look is not.

Plan B is often better than Plan A

The most freeing moment of your life will be when you let go of the plan you have for yourself, and accept the plan that is unfolding for you.

I spent years hating my body; I thought I needed to change my shape in order to like myself, or be liked. I would occasionally lose the weight, but my inner critic was never satisfied. I eventually realized that my weight wasn’t the issue—my attention on the weight was the problem. That's what was keeping my stuck. 

So I changed my plan. Instead of needing to lose weight to be happy, I learned how to be happy no matter what size my body is.

RELATED: 9 Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

The journey is more important than the goal

Yes, reaching goals is important. But the process of pursuing what you want is just as important. When I stopped obsessing about getting to the elusive “there,” I was able to relax into my present life, and enjoy who I was becoming, every single moment.

Being alone doesn’t mean you are lonely

When you learn to love yourself, you'll see you actually enjoy your own company. And being by yourself doesn't have to feel lonely.

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It will never be all done … ever

The list of things you "need" to do is endless. You will never check off everything. It's called life.

Instead of always focusing on the end results, recognize that your life is always unfolding, so new lessons and opportunities are always occurring. The challenge is to stay present enough to see them, and appreciate them.

Emotional pain shows up to help us know what we need to change

Instead of running from the pain in my life, I decided to try something radically new. I dove headfirst into it, and embraced it. What I took away from the experience is that our emotions are always guiding us, if we let them. When you pay attention to your feelings (especially the scary ones), you learn what needs to be healed.

Look at your own life and be honest: What is not working for you? Then repeat the mantra, “I am willing to live my life in new ways.”

RELATED: 5 Powerful Mantras to Help You Quiet Anxiety, Beat Self-Doubt, Manage Stress, and More

You don’t have to find purpose; it will find you

I used to struggle so much with trying to identify my purpose in life. And in my relentless search, I felt even more stuck. Instead of trying to find the meaning in your life, invest your energy in living it. Follow your curiosity, and honor the pull from your heart. When I first left my corporate job in advertising, I had no idea what I wanted to do next. But I was drawn to writing and traveling, so I followed that instinct, and soon it became my fulfilling career.

Adapted from The Self-Love Experiment: Fifteen Principles for Becoming More Kind, Compassionate, and Accepting of Yourself by Shannon Kaiser, an international life coach and speaker.

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We've said it before, but we'll say it again: Jessamyn Stanley is our body-positivity queen. And her latest Instagram post is the perfect example of why she wears the crown. 

“The greatest g—damn gift I’ve ever received has been learning to be myself," Stanley wrote alongside a shot of her rocking a lavender lingerie set from ThirdLove (which we'll be buying in every color, BTW). 

She went on to say, "I didn’t know I could do it on my own. I always thought I needed help to know myself." We feel you, girl. Realizing your own strength is often the hardest part of the journey to self-love.

RELATED: Jessamyn Stanley's 8-Minute Yoga Flow Is All About Practicing Self-Love

Stanley admits she hasn't always loved her body. In a previous interview with Health, she said, "If I could go back and talk to myself when I was younger—because I used to have horrific body image—I’d tell myself, 'Don’t think about what other people think about you; you think about what you think about you.'"

She also said that part of the reason she loves teaching is because she's breaking yoga stereotypes. "There is this stereotypical idea, this physical picture that comes with it, which is typically a slender, white, traditionally educated, and affluent woman, and if you are not that then you are automatically different."

Yoga isn't about how you look doing it; it's about feeling good in the skin you're in. That's the message Stanley is spreading, and we're so here for it.

“I cannot be contained within a definition,” she said. “I think that it is important for other people to see that and to acknowledge that they don’t have to be contained by a definition either, and they can just be whoever they are."

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New findings have emerged about five tiny moons nestled in and near Saturn’s rings. The closest-ever flybys by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft reveal that the surfaces of these unusual moons are covered with material from the planet’s rings — and from icy particles blasting out of Saturn’s larger moon Enceladus. The work paints a picture of the competing processes shaping these mini-moons.

Maybe running comes easy, each stride pleasant and light. Maybe it comes hard, each step a slog to the finish. Either way, the human body is constantly calibrating, making microscopic adjustments to keep us from falling as we weekend-warrior our way to greatness.

A healthy diet may trigger a better response to a certain kind of melanoma treatment.

How?

New research suggests that a diet that’s full of fibre appears to lead to more diverse intestinal bacteria (microbiome). In turn, a thriving gut microbiome is linked to a stronger response to an immune therapy for the aggressive skin cancer.

Causes most skin cancer deaths

“We found that patients eating a high-fibre diet at the start of therapy were about five times more likely to respond to the anti-PD-1 immunotherapy,” said study author Christine Spencer. She’s a research scientist with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in San Francisco.

Anti-PD-1 immunotherapy helps the immune system recognise cancer cells as dangerous cells that need to be destroyed, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). The cancer drugs Keytruda and Opdivo are examples of this type of immunotherapy.

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer. It only accounts for about 1% of all skin cancers, but is responsible for most skin cancer deaths, the ACS says.

Several recent studies have suggested that a healthy and diverse gut microbiome might improve the response to melanoma immunotherapy treatments, the researchers said. What wasn’t known was how certain diets might improve the microbiome and boost the response to melanoma treatment.

To see what difference diet might make, the researchers collected faecal samples from more than 100 people being treated for melanoma at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston. With these samples, the researchers could learn what types of bacteria people had in their gut microbiome, as well as how diverse the bacteria in the microbiome were.

Effect of high-fibre diet

The investigators then compared these findings to a previously completed diet/supplement survey to see what type of diet was linked to a more robust gut microbiome.

The findings showed that a high-fibre diet – one full of vegetables, fruits and whole grains – was associated with the types of bacteria that had already been linked to a better response to anti-PD-1 therapy.

The researchers also noted that about 40% of the people in the study were taking a probiotic supplement. Probiotics contain live bacteria believed to be helpful to maintaining the balance of the microbiome. However, the researchers found that probiotic use was actually linked to lower diversity of the gut microbiome.

And, a lower diversity of the microbiome has been linked to a poorer response to melanoma immunotherapy, the researchers noted.

The study team also looked at a group of almost 50 patients who had complete information on diet and gut microbiome, and found that those on a high-fibre diet were about five times more likely to respond to anti-PD-1 treatment than people eating a low-fibre diet.

Dr Marcel van den Brink, head of the division of hematologic malignancies at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, said, “This study found a high-fiber diet would lead to better diversity in the gut flora, and greater diversity gave you better outcomes,” at least for anti-PD-1 immunotherapy.

“In clinical medicine, we do a great job of monitoring a lot of parameters. But when it comes to monitoring what people eat and effects of diet, we’re doing a lousy job,” he added.

‘Research is early’

“Patients and family members ask about diet, and we say, ‘Just eat healthy’, and we don’t have much more specific guidelines,” van den Brink explained.

“So, these types of studies are intriguing. Diet may work in a collaborative way with immune therapy. But, we’re not there yet. This was a small study. The research is early,” he noted.

Still, van den Brink said that he suspected – from this study and others, including his own research on the microbiome in blood cancers – that the gut microbiome likely influences the immune system throughout the body, and he thinks the microbiome “will be relevant for most, if not all, immune therapies in cancer”.

Spencer said hers was the first study on diet and melanoma immunotherapy. She agreed more research is needed before doctors can make specific recommendations on diet.

The findings were scheduled for presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, in Atlanta, 29 March to 3 April. Research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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Fetal exposure to tobacco smoke in utero is associated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and cardiac arrhythmias in newborns. In a novel study in rabbits, investigators provide the first evidence linking fetal exposure to nicotine to long-term alterations of the cardiac sodium current. These changes may impair adaptation of the cardiac sodium current to sympathetic tone and prevent awakening from sleep apnea, leading to arrhythmias that could potentially be involved in SIDS. They report their findings in HeartRhythm, the official journal of the Heart Rhythm Society and the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society, published by Elsevier.

The number of prescriptions were dispensed last year exceeded 70 million for the first time.

Researchers hope to be able to predict a seizure before it happens.

An American man has given his girlfriend’s grandmother a new lease of life.

Last month, Cody Corwin (26) from Michigan in the US decided to donate part of his liver to Bernice Ramsey who was diagnosed with a form of liver disease five years ago, People reports.

“I’m speechless! For him to step up and do something for someone I love so much . . . I just love him so much more for it,” Cody’s girlfriend and Bernice’s granddaughter, Shelby Platt (26), said in a recent interview.

“When she got sick I selfishly kept thinking about her missing my wedding. Cody saved her life and I’m forever thankful.”

The grandmother of four has steatohepatitis – a nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, according to the MSD Manual.

Bernice needed a liver transplant but none of her family members was a match.

On discovering that the 71-year-old needed the urgent transplant, Cody, who’s been dating Shelby for three years, didn’t think twice about getting himself tested to see if he’s a match, Good Morning America reports.

“She got really sick and she’s always been one of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever met,” Cody told the morning talk show.

“When I found out no [family member] was a match I called the Cleveland Clinic and found out I was. I felt like it’s something I had to do for her.”

The surgery took place on 25 February at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and Bernice’s liver is now fully functioning. Cody, who hopes to go back to work soon, is recovering well, ABC News reports.

“How do you thank somebody?” Shelby’s mom, Heather, asked.

“For Cody, he had so much to lose. There’s a lot that can go wrong. There’re no guarantees and for him to be so selfless and say, ‘I’ll do this for you’, it just means the world to us.”

Sources: People, Good Morning America, ABC News

^{Images: GoFundMe page}

Robyn Lucas

When Jade October from Kuils River, Cape Town, met her biological dad again after 18 years, she didn’t realise her life would change drastically.

The 19-year-old was diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) in September 2018 after she visited her biological dad, Elroy October, when he was in hospital. Elroy suffered from TB and died from the disease in April of that year.

After experiencing a persistent fever and chronic cough, doctors at Melomed Bellville Private Hospital diagnosed the second-year criminology student with the infectious disease.

On Sunday, 24 March, also world TB day, the ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher completed her last round of medication and is feeling positive about her recovery.

Despite the stigma around the disease, Jade, who recently joined the organisation TBproof, has decided to share her journey with TB to bring awareness to the debilitating disease.

Here’s her story:

“I’m a 19-year-old female, a daughter, sister and partner. I’m also a teacher and student who contracted pulmonary TB.

In April 2018 I lost my biological father, whom I never had contact with for 18 years of my life, to my TB.

In the final stages of his life, I went to visit him at the hospital and this is how I contracted the disease. Because I wasn’t educated about what TB and its symptoms were, I lived with a disease which I had no clue about for months.

Many days I felt weak but I kept pushing. I completed my first semester of studies, I worked two jobs as per usual but deep down I knew something wasn’t right.

My energy levels were low and I had terrible symptoms which only became worse.

In September 2018 due to chronic coughing and three misdiagnoses I was sent by my GP to have an X-ray performed.

The results were handed to me and because of my curiosity I opened it and the closing statement ended in “features highly suspicious for P TB”.

I remember crying for that entire day because of my fear that my life would be taken from me.

I was too ashamed to share my story, not even with those closest to me because I feared the stigma that would be placed on me.

I started my treatment later that month and in the beginning, I took six tablets daily for two months.

It was an unforgettable experience. Many mornings I sobbed because of the struggle I faced to digest the medication, I struggled to eat, I was so weak I slept for hours and hours on end.

Many days I found myself bent over the toilet seat unable to stomach a meal. I just had one thing in mind: to never allow others to see my struggle.

My family was my greatest support system, my partner pushed me to believe that I could conquer my TB.

After two months my medication was reduced to three pills a day. Good and bad days came, there were times my partner would beg me to take just one more bite of my food, so I could gain energy.

This journey left me with two decisions: either you become a victim of your circumstance or you soldier through your battle.

I decided that even if my story just changed the mindset of one person, educated just one person it would be worth sharing.

There’s hope, it’s curable and you can maintain a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

In the words of TB advocate, Dr Zolelwa Sifumba ‘TB makes us all a demographic, as it lives in the air and anyone can breathe it in, so speak your truth as you never know who you could be helping.’

My name is Jade October and I’m a TB survivor.”

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