I had breast cancer, and I’ve been silent about it for all kinds of convoluted reasons. I believed that if I handled it the way I handled everything else—by going to the “right” doctors with the “right” information, having the cancer removed, treating it with the correct balance of Western and holistic medicine—then I could put it behind me as fast as possible. Whoosh. Get rid of this sucker and wipe it off my oh-so-full life plate.

I did just that. And few knew.

I didn’t tell my client when I broke away from a business conference call to receive the results of my biopsy. When I stood in front of my students, wrapped in tightly packed bandages, lecturing for five hours the day after my surgery, I didn’t say a word.

I feared that if I spoke the word “cancer” aloud, people would think less of me. That they’d see me as sick. That they’d believe it would get the best of me, or that I would be distracted from my life’s mission—forced to prioritize my existence around a disease that can silently creep into any of our lives.

But this isn’t really about cancer.

This is about silence.

This is about the things we keep unspeakable until we decide to give them a voice.

Silence gives destructive things power. And by holding onto that silence, we let those things destroy us. No one else knows; only we feel it gnawing away at our spirit, our life force.

All of us have silent challenges. They don’t have to be named cancer. Maybe it’s the abuse you endured as a child but never had the ability to speak about. Or an injustice you witnessed but didn’t have the strength to call out.

In my childhood home, everything was always “okay.” If something wasn’t okay, it wasn’t spoken about—certainly not publicly.

When I was seventeen, I didn’t speak about the assault I endured. For years, I carried my own unspoken truths. Things I didn’t dare share because I feared what others would think. Would they believe me? Would they blame me? Would they see me differently? These questions silenced me for years.

It took me a long time to understand that silence doesn’t protect us. It only isolates us.

I once heard an incredible talk by Ash Beckham called “Coming Out of the Closet.” She spoke beautifully about how everyone has a closet. Everyone has something they struggle to overcome—something they fear. And one day, they muster up the courage to take the leap. To have the difficult conversation. To finally put a voice to whatever it is.

Cancer is silent. It doesn’t announce its arrival. We don’t always know what it’s doing to our bodies or when it will leave us.

My friend didn’t feel well one day and went to see her doctor. After some tests and a trip to the ER, she learned she had spots all over her liver. It was metastasized breast cancer. Thirteen days later, she was gone.

The cancer was silent.

My beautiful lifelong friend Stuart thought his headaches were caused by dust from his home remodel. One evening at dinner, without warning, he lost his entire meal. Not long after, he learned he had a brain tumor. After a ferocious yet graceful fight, he passed from metastasized brain cancer that had spread to his liver.

The cancer was silent.

My high school friend Jeff had a razor-sharp sense of humor. Our parents were close, but we didn’t see each other often. One day, I ran into him in college—or was it Jeff? I didn’t recognize him. It pains me to this day that I didn’t know he was silently battling leukemia. Jeff died. And had I known, what would I have done?

I think one of the reasons I didn’t talk about my own fight with cancer is because I didn’t want people to meet me and think, There’s Victoria, she has cancer.

I wanted them to see Victoria—the woman filled with love and kindness. The woman who is smart and funny. The one who’s fun to be around. I didn’t want cancer to be my label. I wanted them to see my smile, my heart, my eyes—not an illness.

People say cancer survivors are heroes, and that’s true. Every triumph should be celebrated heroically. But I believe the real heroism lies in speaking the unspeakable. In finding the courage to voice our struggles. Because when we empower ourselves against the things that challenge us, we become heroes—not just to others, but to ourselves.

Our challenges shape how we live and how we move through the world.

Andrew Solomon speaks about how our life stories build meaning. Some challenges we are born into—our gender, our race, a disability. Some happen to us—cancer, rape, a natural disaster.

Every morning, my daughter flexes her fingers to see if they will bend. Although this is a part of her identity, she refuses to let it define her. She and her incredible husband choose to climb the joint-numbing Himalayas and dive into the ocean’s depths. She is my hero.

Fearlessly speak your challenge. Break the silence.

It need not define us, but acknowledging it allows us to claim the fullness of ourselves. To quote Andrew Solomon’s perspective, it’s not “I am here, but I have cancer,” but rather, “I have cancer, and I am here.”

No matter what we silently struggle with, we can put a voice to it, wrap our arms around it, and refuse to let it define us. We can seek solutions, gain perspective, create meaning, and keep moving forward toward our dreams.

My entire life, I have been driven to create change. To make a difference in the world. To act from a place of love and kindness.

I used to believe it was my responsibility to “save the world.” A daunting, impossible task. But I realized that change doesn’t have to come in sweeping gestures. It happens in the way we speak to a stranger, the way we listen to someone who needs to be heard. It happens in the small moments—a ride given to someone without transportation, a meal shared with a person who has been forgotten, a quiet presence beside a friend in pain.

This reminds me of one of my favorite stories—the Starfish Story.

A young man is walking along the ocean and sees a beach covered in thousands of starfish, washed ashore. Further down, he notices an old man picking them up, one by one, and gently tossing each back into the sea.

“Why are you throwing them into the ocean?” the young man asks.

“Because the sun is up and the tide is going out,” the old man replies. “If I don’t, they’ll die.”

The young man looks at the endless miles of beach. “But there are so many! You can’t possibly save them all. Even if you worked all day, it wouldn’t make a difference.”

The old man listens, then bends down, picks up another starfish, and throws it into the sea.

“It made a difference to that one.”

By breaking my silence about cancer, I unshackle myself.

I had cancer. I am Victoria.

Today, I break my silence. I step into the fullness of my life.

I no longer allow my struggles, my fears, or my pain to remain unspeakable. I choose to give them voice and to embrace the power of my story.

If I have an opportunity to make a difference—no matter how small—I will seize it. Just as the old man on the beach saved a starfish by tossing it back into the ocean, by sharing my story, I hope to make a difference—even if it's just for one person. If I have the opportunity to help, to heal, to inspire, I will take it. Because breaking the silence, sharing our stories, and taking action is where true transformation begins.