An exercise I did, one that I now encourage everyone to try, was sitting down with my résumé. Not just the polished, bullet-pointed version that outlines my career accomplishments, education, certifications, and volunteer roles. But the full picture. I laid out everything that shaped me professionally—my training, leadership roles, community work. And then I layered on top of that all of my personal life experiences. The messy, complicated, often painful pieces: illness, loss, uncertainty, joy, fear, growth. The whole truth of who I am.

For me, a major part of that personal layer was the trajectory of an illness that had become tightly interwoven into my life. It began quietly, then persistently. There were years of unanswered questions, confusing symptoms, countless tests, half-hearted diagnoses meant to reassure but offering no clarity. Then came the treatments, some helpful, many not. What struck me as I layered this onto my professional life was how separate I had kept these two worlds. But when I finally saw them side by side, I realized: I am not two people. I am not “professional me” and “personal me.” I am one person. One whole being. And all of these experiences, no matter where they occurred, shaped how I show up in the world.

This realization became a cornerstone of how I lead today. My belief that “people are people” isn’t just a philosophy—it’s lived experience. I understand deeply now that the parts of us we hide still live within us and influence every interaction, every decision, every ounce of how we lead and connect.

For a long time, I didn’t talk about my illness. Not with friends. Not with family. Certainly not at work. I didn’t want to be pitied. I didn’t want to be questioned. And I didn’t know how to express what I needed, especially when I didn’t know myself. People naturally want to help when you tell them you’re struggling. Their desire to support is real and beautiful. But what I often found was that the suggestions, however well-intended, didn’t help. They often made me feel more isolated, more misunderstood. I didn’t want to have to say, over and over, “That’s kind, but that won’t help.” So I chose silence.

I also feared what people might think. I worried they’d question how I managed the things I did while dealing with something invisible. They might wonder why I was volunteering, taking on new projects, going back to school, all while struggling with a disease that made everyday tasks, like walking up stairs, painful.

Take, for example, when my daughter was young and I introduced her to Girl Guides. None of the other extracurricular activities had really clicked with her, dance, gymnastics, martial arts, soccer. So I thought, why not Guides? I had fond memories from my own childhood. It gave me friendships, skills, confidence, and exposure to experiences I might never have had otherwise. When she joined, I got involved too. First by volunteering at a meeting or two. Then at weekend camps. Eventually, I became a Brownie leader myself.

It met so many needs at once: I was spending time with my daughter, contributing to my community, role-modeling the values I wanted to pass on. It brought me joy and purpose. But had people known the extent of what I was going through with my health, they probably would’ve said, “Why are you doing more? Why would you add to your plate when your body is already at its limit?”

They would’ve said it out of love. They would’ve wanted to protect me. But what they might not have understood is that volunteering wasn’t draining me, it was saving me. It gave me a sense of normalcy and identity at a time when I felt like I was losing control over my own body.

Only recently did I come across a definition of work-life balance that finally made sense to me. It said that true balance isn’t just about blending work and life in neat proportions, or having perfect accommodations, it’s about making space for joy. It’s about doing the things that make you feel alive, connected, and whole. That was exactly what I was doing, even if I couldn’t articulate it back then.

Looking back, I realize that keeping everything hidden served a purpose, it protected me. It protected my relationships. It allowed me to continue doing the things that made me feel like me. But it also cost me something. I lost opportunities to be seen. To ask for what I needed. To build deeper understanding with the people around me. It took me years to learn how to express my needs in a way others could hear, and it started, quietly and patiently, with my husband.

As my illness progressed, some of those joyful activities became harder to sustain. Girl Guide camps, for instance, started to take a toll on my body. But even then, I pushed through. Some might call it stubbornness, and maybe it was. But I just didn’t want to give up the parts of life that filled me with purpose and joy.

This experience, this blending of what I was doing and what I was surviving, taught me something critical. That authenticity, leadership, and connection all come from the same place: wholeness. We don’t have to compartmentalize to survive. In fact, our strength comes from integrating all the parts of our story and allowing them to shape who we are, at home, at work, and in the world.