About Me
Hi, I'm Leslie Socol.
I am a wife of 27 years, a mom to five amazing children, a mother in law to two, a grandmother of two sweet little boys and a stage 3 colon cancer survivor.
I was diagnosed in August of 2017. I had surgery to remove a tennis ball size tumor and a foot of my colon. I survived six months of chemotherapy which I completed in March of 2018. I was 60 pounds heavier than when I began and stuck on my couch for TWO years feeling sad, lonely, and completely paralyzed with thoughts of now what? What if my cancer comes back? What if I never feel joy again. No one understands…… I was 100% sure all these beliefs were true and I was sitting on my couch letting life pass me by…. I had earned the right to stay there as long as I wanted. It was my truth and I was sticking with it.
And then by some miracle of Facebook I was introduced to a life coach…. I was skeptical to say the least! This woman wanted me to believe that I was the cause of my own misery… That I was choosing thoughts that were allowing me to give myself the permission I needed to swim in my river of misery… What ??? This woman had to be crazy, right? WRONG!!!!! She was actually 100% correct and although I fought it tooth and nail the truth was slowly revealed to me…
The only thing that was true was that I had survived Stage 3 colon cancer and had gone through 6 months, 12 rounds, of chemotherapy… the rest , well it was all a great story I was eager to make my truth. The day I was willing to consider that it was possible for me to change my thoughts was the day my life changed in ways that I had never imagined possible. That’s all I had to do, change my thoughts. Because when I changed my thoughts, I changed my feelings about my thoughts which gave me the power to take different actions which then allowed me to create the most beautiful and fulfilling life I could imagine. Dare I say an even better than the life I had pre cancer… It sounds easy , just change my thoughts… nope, it was some of the hardest most painful work I have ever done. It required stripping back layers of beliefs about me and my life that I had created and stories I had told myself and then had to decide if they were serving me. Were they bringing me joy. The answer was no they were not and so the work began.
Which brings me to the here and now. I have lost 55 of those 60 pounds I gained. Sold the home we built 16 years ago to move to the city to allow my husband to have a 16 minute commute each way instead of an hour and a half each way that has given us the gift of time together. I enrolled in The Life Coach School and successfully became a certified life coach coach. What I learned on my journey of self discovery is that I was not alone with these post cancer beliefs and feelings. That the mourning my old life and resisting my new one was not something special to me. That in fact it is an overwhelmingly real response to having survived any cancer. I was able to see that through my own thought work I had gained the ability and desire to help others experiencing the very same post cancer uncertainty. I wanted to help everyone get out of their river of misery. No one, not you, me or your loved one needs to spend one more minute believing they can not create a new, and amazing life after cancer.
I am passionate in my belief that no one needs to struggle to find their joy and meaning in life after cancer.
That all the amazing possibilities of your life before cancer still exist and are just waiting for you to be open to it all. I know this to be the truth because coaching is what helped me save myself from thoughts that were not only not serving me but were holding me down in a place, I longed to be free from. I created new thoughts that generated new feelings of Joy with my family, the belief that I could lose weight after treatment and an all around overreaching belief that I deserved happiness. I deserve to embrace every day and make it my best for the simple reason I am alive.
Working with me will give you the freedom to explore where you are, where you want to be and how can you get there. We will bridge the gap of uncertainty and create an unwavering belief in all the possibilities, together, in a judgement free, honest and excepting place where I will hold space for everything you are and everything you are becoming. My job as a coach will never be to tell you what to do. Or that you are right or wrong or even that your thoughts are valid or not. My job as your coach will be to gently and directly guide you in the process of unpacking all the limiting beliefs you have been holding on to like they are a life line and help you see there are other thoughts and beliefs you can actively choose to allow you to lean in to your best life. Not only will your relationship with yourself get so much better but all the relationships in your life will benefit once you are free to believe.
The only thing that was true was that I had survived Stage 3 colon cancer and had Gone through 6 months, 12 rounds, of chemotherapy… the rest , well it was all a great story I was eager to make my truth. The day I was willing to consider that it was possible for me to change my thoughts was the day my life changed in ways that I had never imagined possible. That’s all I had to do, change my thoughts. Because when I changed my thoughts, I changed my feelings about my thoughts which gave me the power to take different actions which then allowed me to create the most beautiful and fulfilling life I could imagine. Dare I say an even better than the life I had pre cancer… It sounds easy , just change my thoughts… nope, it was some of the hardest most painful work I have ever done. It required stripping back layers of beliefs about me and my life that I had created and stories I had told myself and then had to decide if they were serving me. Were they bringing me joy. The answer was no they were not and so the work began.