Sexy After Breast Cancer

Book excerpt: With Sexy After Breast Cancer: A Guide to Making Lifestyle Changes for Healing, author and model Jocelyn Binder invites others to not only be a breast cancer survivor but to be a breast cancer thriver. The two-time breast cancer survivor invites readers to trace her journey from diagnosis to taking control of her health and to being completely cancer-free. The interactive journal coupled with the confessional-style writing Jocelyn presents was designed to make the reader feel like they have a friend and confidant in every step of their journey. Beginning with an introduction that chronicles her seven years of research, healing, and studying of both Western and Eastern medicines, Binder invites readers into practices that have worked for her. Throughout each chapter, Binder walks readers through every facet of her journey that allowed her to heal her mind and body. The book features chapters both on changing external factors and internal factors, with specific examples from Binder's own life that allowed her to see progress being made in her own recovery. Chapters focus on topics such as how to change your environment, set intentions, be your own advocate, choose your doctor carefully, choose your treatment carefully, learn how to say no for the betterment of your health, mind dietary factors that affect your health, and look for supplements that have helped Binder. One of the most important aspects of this book is managing stress in your life, something the exercises and writing specifically cater to. By being introspective and channeling your energy inward, Binder encourages people to make changes that feel right to them, not to blindly follow the advice of others. At the end of the day, Binder is a believer that everyone's journey is different, and only them can make the lifestyle changes necessary to heal. The encouragement to take control of your health is empowering to others and a key factor that allowed Binder to heal on her own terms, in a way that made all the difference in her prognosis. Perhaps the key element of this book is Binder's attention to how meditation and yoga have impacted her health and mental wellness as a whole. By taking the time to calm her inner chaos, it allowed her body the space to heal. Throughout Sexy After Breast Cancer, the author shows that beauty comes from the inside while also sharing some seriously helpful beauty tips to those who want to feel confident about their appearance when cancer tries to rob them of what physical things bring them peace. Writer Jocelyn Binder has one mission for this book--to inspire and empower women to take control of their health and their relationships not only their cancer but to themselves. As Binder states, "If only one woman heals after applying my book's concepts to make changes in her life, it will be a huge success to me."