Shrenik Shah, Patient Ambassador and Moderator of Fridays with Shrenik Live webinar at the Indian Cancer Society, shared a post on LinkedIn:
”People often say ‘move on’ as if it’s a doorway you simply walk through.
But nobody talks about the miles you crawl before you even reach that door.
I’ve heard those two words more times than I can count.
Move on… from the diagnosis.
Move on… from the scars.
Move on… from the fear.
Move on… from the memories that still wake you up at night.
It sounds simple when someone else says it.
But living it? That’s a different story.
When you’re a cancer survivor, ‘moving on’ isn’t an event. It’s a slow, uneven journey that demands courage on the days you have none left.
Some days you walk forward.
Some days you freeze.
Some days the past pulls you back harder than the disease ever did.
People see the stage, the mic, the confidence.
- They don’t see the moments when breathing felt like a battle.
- They don’t see the quiet evenings when your body felt weaker than your will.
- They don’t see the time it took to rebuild a life that cancer once tried to break.
But here’s the truth I’ve learned in these years of rebuilding:
Healing doesn’t follow a timeline. You don’t “move on” because someone tells you to. You move when your heart, finally, gently, lets you put one foot ahead of the other.
And that takes work.
- Work that’s invisible from the outside.
- Work that rewrites your fears.
- Work that teaches you to trust your body again.
- Work that convinces you that your life is still worth dreaming about.
Today, when I stand on stage as a motivational speaker, I don’t speak from strength. I speak from the cracks where the light crawled in. From the long, messy journey of learning how to live again.
If you’re in the middle of your own battle, cancer or otherwise, here’s what I want you to remember:
You are not slow.
You are not weak.
You are not ‘stuck.’
You’re healing.
And healing takes time: sometimes months, sometimes years.
But every quiet step counts.
You don’t have to move on quickly. You just have to keep moving; in your way, in your time, at your pace.
And one day, without even realising it, you’ll look back and see how far you’ve come.”
More posts featuring Shrenik Shah.
