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The Space Between is the podcast where strength and vulnerability meet for families navigating life with cancer.
Hosted by Amri Kibbler, a cancer survivor and parent, each episode offers honest stories, expert insights, and heartfelt support for those balancing treatment, caregiving, and parenting - often all at once.
If you're walking this path, you’re not alone. This is your space to feel seen, find connection, and heal.
[00:00:00] Christine Handy: When you take pain and you use it as a source of hope or courage to give to other people, the pain's never wasted. But I think when you hoard the pain and you you're afraid of the vulnerability or you're afraid to show it, then that can be kind of like a prison inside of yourself. And I don't ever want that.
[00:00:18] Christine Handy: I don't ever want to. Be afraid or have too much pride and ego where I'm not willing to share a story of difficulty. Quite honestly, a lot of my story is not, it's not flattering.
[00:00:35] Amri Kibbler: Hi, I am Amri Kibbler, and this is The Space Between. I'm a cancer survivor and a mom, and while those roles don't define me, they have shaped who I am.
[00:00:45] Amri Kibbler: I created this space to share honest stories, expert insights, and meaningful support for families navigating life with cancer. If you're balancing treatment, caregiving, parenting, or just trying to hold it all together, you are not alone. This is your space to connect, to heal, and to feel seen, and I'm so glad that you're here today on The Space Between.
[00:01:07] Amri Kibbler: I'm going to introduce you to my dear friend Christine Handy. Christine is a breast cancer survivor. She has had so many surgeries. She had a completely excavated chest. She is a fashion model. She's walked in New York Fashion Week and in Miami Swim week after having her surgeries with a completely excavated chest.
[00:01:29] Amri Kibbler: She has made it her mission to share her story of resilience, growth, self-confidence, and she's an author and her new film, Hello, Beautiful, is out now, so I'm so excited to introduce you. Let's get into it. Christine, thank you so much for being on. Honestly, I have to tell you that you were really my very first friend who I felt like I.
[00:01:56] Amri Kibbler: Understood me, got me like understood what it was like to be a parent, that I had cancer and I just had cried when I hung up the phone from our first conversation. 'cause it was such a relief to know that I wasn't the only one that was going through so many of these things and like you were so honest with me and so I felt like just so had to bring you on and strike up some of those conversations here.
[00:02:22] Christine Handy: Thank you. Well, it is so important for people not to feel alone in any part of their journey because when we feel alone, we feel less hope. So by sharing stories, we provide hope and courage to other people. I.
[00:02:38] Amri Kibbler: It is true. It's all about hope, and it's all about having some self-confidence and reestablishing your self-worth.
[00:02:46] Amri Kibbler: But before we dive into all the questions that I wanna ask you, your story is so beautiful and so long, but can you just share your story so that everyone's listening knows how much you've gone through so many surgeries, so many things to know that you really know what you're talking about.
[00:03:01] Christine Handy: So I started, um, working as a model when I was 11 years old, and that became kind of my nucleus of everything in my life.
[00:03:10] Christine Handy: I became very externally focused and then when I was 35 years old, I had a colon resection. And ironically, I went into the surgeon before the surgery and I said, listen, this is, I showed him a, well, several pictures of my comp card. A comp card is basically your resume as a model. And I said, I do lingerie.
[00:03:29] Christine Handy: That's my bread and butter. I do bathing suits. I, I'm certain we're doing this laparoscopically to the surgeon and he was like, yeah, no problem. We're gonna do it laparoscopically. We're just gonna take a little bit of your colon out, no problem. So I woke up from that surgery with a cut from my hip to hip and a port in my neck and I, and I was looking up at a blood bag in extreme pain.
[00:03:53] Christine Handy: To make the very long story short, he nicked a vein in one of my bones, and he couldn't find the source of the bleeding well, because I had said to him, be very careful how you cut my stomach. He left the bleeding in there for a very long time 'cause he was trying to find it. Ultimately he couldn't find it.
[00:04:11] Christine Handy: He, in an emergency, he cut me wide open. That was the first brush with one death and two with this idea that maybe I shouldn't be so focused on external everything. Then in 2010, I had a. A torn ligament in my right wrist. Seems kind of benign, no big deal. Turned into a debacle about 12 months of surgeries and casts, which ultimately led to a fully fused right wrist.
[00:04:41] Christine Handy: The scar is predominant and I have no function in my right wrist. I have, I have the use of my right fingers. Then I was in a. A hotel in New York City after my post arm fusion surgery. 'cause I did not live in New York City and I was trying to take a shower. It had my arm outside of the shower because it couldn't get wet.
[00:05:05] Christine Handy: The cast from my fingertips to my shoulder and I was trying to wash my, with a bar of soap and I, I took the soap and I brushed over my left breast and I felt a lump. Five days later, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer and they couldn't even start chemotherapy for a month because it would've destroyed the bone grafts that had just reformed my right arm.
[00:05:33] Christine Handy: So that's just the beginning. Several years later, I had breast implant illness and had a M-R-S-A infection in my chest, had emergency excavation. So really. Three and four mastectomies. I know that sounds ridiculous, but technically if I had four mastectomies, so the list is long, but I am here and I have used every portion of my story to try to help other people, and that's why you and I are talking.
[00:05:58] Amri Kibbler: That is exactly why we're talking and. As a model and as someone who, your bread and butter, your everything was your outside, right? Absolutely. And then being put in three different scenarios, I can't even put my fingers up. Right? Three different scenarios that are literally attacking you from the outside.
[00:06:19] Amri Kibbler: It had such a huge impact on your life and all the things that you've done. Like you're, you're continuously spreading your message of self-confidence and self-love on social media. You have a book. You have a new film that's out, how do you find the energy and the strength to do that? I mean, I feel like I'm exhausted just trying to live life.
[00:06:40] Amri Kibbler: How are you pulling that inner strength to do all the things that you're doing?
[00:06:44] Christine Handy: Well, I feel like it, it's rooted in the despair and the duress, the emotional dress that I was going through after the third really major health debacle. I felt completely defeated. You know, my health was a disaster and I would've.
[00:07:01] Christine Handy: Said that I was a self-proclaimed athlete. I mean, I really thrived in taking care of my body. I worked out, I didn't eat sugar. I was, you know, allergic to a plethora of things and, and it mattered to me what I looked like. And so when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was about to lose my hair to chemotherapy, it was kind of my last straw of.
[00:07:23] Christine Handy: Feeling like I had any value in this world because for so long my value was determined by whether I got the modeling job or whether, you know, I, again, it's, it's self-inflicted. So when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I felt complete emotional paralysis. And my friends, my incredible friends, started to show up for me and they showed me courage.
[00:07:47] Christine Handy: They were relentlessly caring for myself and my family. And I thought to myself in those, those that first couple months of really emotional paralysis, why are they showing up for me? But I am not showing up for myself. And it was this, it was 14 months of chemotherapy. I had 28 rounds of chemotherapy where they showed up every single day.
[00:08:09] Christine Handy: They had a Monday girl, they had a Tuesday girl, they had a Wednesday girl through the whole week. Somebody showed up at my house at eight in the morning and left at five in the afternoon because that's how sick I was. And they knew that if they didn't do that, I would never survive. So as I watched them show up week after week and month after month, they taught me what showing up looks like.
[00:08:29] Christine Handy: And they said to me, when you get your health back, when you get your courage back, when you are put back together and you start to serve the world, then we're, we're giving you the baton. You've watched us show up for you. Now you have to show up and share this with other people. And I wanted to show a different narrative of what friendship looked like.
[00:08:48] Christine Handy: Because if you think about it, back then, in 2000 10, 11, 12, we had all the housewives of, of all the different cities and they were really showcasing. You know, disruptive, disruptive women relationships, and I was absolutely not presented that in my life. I had women that championed for me. I had women that showed up for me and I wanted to show that narrative.
[00:09:11] Christine Handy: So ultimately. That's why I wrote the book, to show that type of friendship, to show what it looks like to show up for people. And by the way, it's not always easy, as you know, it's not always easy. People give up their resources, their time, their energy, their own families to care for yours. But it's a season and they taught me that.
[00:09:30] Christine Handy: And when that season's over, you can give back. It's what we're supposed to do. It's called serving.
[00:09:37] Amri Kibbler: And you mentioned season. I like to think about that word a lot. When you're going through something tough. It's like, okay, this is a season of my life. This is a season where I need to receive from other people.
[00:09:48] Amri Kibbler: And it's really hard to do that if it's not something that you're used to doing. If you're used to being the giver, if you're used to being the one that shows up for other people, it's really hard to be in that circumstance where you're kind of dependent on people to show up for you. But it's also really beautiful and.
[00:10:05] Amri Kibbler: I feel like for me as well, it taught me to love myself more because it's like in our nature to show up and do things for other people, and so it's so hard to reciprocate that, but it makes you start to believe in yourself more and not just like what people can see from your accomplishments, from the things that are on your resume.
[00:10:24] Amri Kibbler: It's like your value just as a human being, just for existing, for loving, for supporting. For being a good person for all of those things is where our real value comes from, and that was a huge learning and growth experience for me too, going through cancer. And I feel like one of the things that I actually really cherish and make it so that even though I hated having cancer, I actually am really happy that it led me to the place that I'm in right now.
[00:10:56] Amri Kibbler: Well, I
[00:10:57] Christine Handy: think that when you take pain and you use it as a source of hope or courage to give to other people, the pain's never wasted. But I think when you hoard the pain and you you're afraid of the vulnerability or you're afraid to show it, then that can be kind of like a prison inside of yourself. And I don't ever want that.
[00:11:16] Christine Handy: I don't ever want to. Be afraid or have too much pride and ego where I'm not willing to share a story of difficulty. Quite honestly, a lot of my story is not, it's not flattering. You know, I talk about coveting things and I talk about false idols a lot because until my diagnosis, those things. I was trying to fill up my loss of identity, my insecurities with material items or modeling jobs to fill some sort of void inside of me.
[00:11:49] Christine Handy: And I can tell you ever since I had breast cancer and all the other illnesses kind of pushed me into a pruning process. Where it came out of that fire as like, no, I'm gonna find serving as a tool, not only to help other people, but continue to help my self-esteem and to nurture my self-worth. It's cannot come from other things I.
[00:12:09] Amri Kibbler: Everything you're saying just it resonates with me so, so much and that's why we're here and having this podcast, because I think it's so powerful in wanting to share and from the other parents that I've met through my journey, there just didn't seem to be enough conversations about how hard it is.
[00:12:26] Amri Kibbler: Like there's a lot of conversations around a lot of the. The actual medical side and physical side, but how do we live? How do we thrive? How do we continue to parent and show up in those spaces when we're still really healing a lot and we're learning so much about ourselves? It's like it can be such a time of growth and discovery, but it's also exhausting.
[00:12:46] Amri Kibbler: So how can we be going through the physical healing, the mental healing? And then also being a parent where you're trying to be a role model and you're trying to show up as your best self and discovering all of that at the same time too. What was your parenting journey like? How old were your kids when you were going through your diagnosis and, and your other medical ambulance too?
[00:13:09] Christine Handy: Well, my kids were young. I, when my had my colon surgery, they were. I think around seven and nine. And I'll never forget, my ex-husband said to me, I, I don't really wanna bring the kids to the hospital. 'cause you have a port in your neck and you have a blood bag above your head. And it was a really lonely process for me because I was in the hospital for 10 days and I didn't have any visitors because my family and my hus, my ex-husband didn't want my kids to.
[00:13:39] Christine Handy: Have to see that reality. I don't know whether that was right or wrong, but when it came to my breast cancer and my kids were 11 and 13, at that point, you know, my kids were, obviously, I was going through 28 rounds of chemo for 15 months. I couldn't shield my kids from that, but they were boys as well, and they don't, they didn't understand the language of fear.
[00:14:02] Christine Handy: They didn't understand the language of. You know, disappointment. And so that what happens is, at least in my situation with my children, fear turns into anger when you can't articulate it. And so my kids got pushed me away very strongly like they did. They wanted to be with their dad, they wanted to be away from me because they were afraid I was gonna die.
[00:14:22] Christine Handy: And from what it looked like, it was very much a possibility. And so after I was so quote unquote, better. It still took me several years. See, here's one of the issues that I think that we should talk about. When you look like you're better when your hair starts to grow back, when you don't have as many medical appointments, people assume you're fine.
[00:14:50] Christine Handy: Now, from a physical standpoint, I was definitely not fine From an emotional standpoint, I was even worse. And so to jump back into. Being a mother full-time, which I think the world expects you to, and I think you want to, I wanted to. I couldn't do it. And so my kids were, I'm sure, disappointed and also disillusioned like, well, my why is my mom not able to drive me to school?
[00:15:17] Christine Handy: She looks like she's healthy. Maybe she doesn't want to, and it wasn't that I didn't want to, like you just said, you're exhausted. Coming out of 28 rounds of chemo and constant arm surgeries and scheduling mastectomies between my arm surgeries. I don't know how to describe. It's a certain level of exhaustion that I've never experienced in my life, and so I just wanted to stay above ground.
[00:15:41] Christine Handy: I was trying to stay above ground so I could be a mother for a longer life, but they didn't understand that. Now they're older. My son Noah, is 24, and my other son Luke, is 26. And I think they're just starting to shift. They're just now adult enough where they can kind of think to themselves, you know what?
[00:16:03] Christine Handy: That, that whole thing that my mom went through, it must have been pretty bad. And especially because they've just now both seen the film. They had never seen it until recently. And the film is very clear about the. Magnitude of pain a woman goes through during chemotherapy. And to see that on screen I think affected them in a way that maybe their tender younger selves couldn't see.
[00:16:34] Christine Handy: And so I'm hoping with the film that not only it shows the reality of cancer for families, for patients, for survivors, for the medical community. 'cause often the medical community doesn't even understand the magnitude, but it also shows it. To, you know, the families that are like, wait, I don't think I totally understand.
[00:16:54] Christine Handy: Because a lot of times we retreat and go into different rooms or so that they don't see the worst of it. And I think it's important to show things like that so families can be more of an anchor for the parent that's going through it.
[00:17:08] Amri Kibbler: It's so important to show and it, it's also so important to have those conversations.
[00:17:12] Amri Kibbler: And I had in some ways a similar story, but I also felt like. Everywhere that I turned for advice, there was none. Like I reached out to professionals at MSK, who is my amazing medical team, but the advice really wasn't what I needed. My kids were almost four and nine when I was diagnosed. They were little, they didn't really understand.
[00:17:38] Amri Kibbler: It was also like in the middle of COVID, so nothing was normal. Everybody was home and. They responded in the same way. My younger one responded in the same way. She was hurt. She didn't understand why I couldn't do those things, and then she became really angry. There was a huge rift in our relationship that I'm just starting to patch up and work through, and it's been, you know, so much work.
[00:18:03] Amri Kibbler: My older daughter also responded in a different way. Angry but more withdrawn and quiet. The younger one, throwing things at me, telling me that she hated me and that I wasn't really sick, and that I just wanted to get attention and. All those things. And it's heartbreaking 'cause they're kids, you know, and they don't know how to address their emotions and you get like such a wide range of things.
[00:18:25] Amri Kibbler: And then my older daughter just like sort of retreated into herself and you know, stayed in her room a lot and also we're still like working through all of those things. But there was no playbook, there was no advice for how to. Work on the relationship outside of like, okay, here's some tips for telling, but it's after.
[00:18:47] Amri Kibbler: 'cause I looked fine colon cancer a lot of times, and. I am so grateful. It's such a blessing, but it's also very hard because people have expectations that you're going to be able to show up and to do things, and you just feel awful. I was so exhausted, so drained, I couldn't eat anything. And then I had colon resection surgery like you did a couple of years ago, so I had an ostomy for.
[00:19:15] Amri Kibbler: Four months and at the time made the decision not to tell my kids because they'd already been through so much and I felt like our relationship was fractured. But then I was trying to hide this thing from them, and so it also made it more awkward. I was like hiding in the bathroom with all of my bag and all of those things, you know?
[00:19:35] Amri Kibbler: And looking back, I would've made a different decision. I would've been more open with them, but. You know, you just don't really know. And, and then after I had the reversal surgery, I couldn't leave the bathroom. I couldn't be more than two minutes away. And they're like, Hey, can you take me to the mall? Can you take me here?
[00:19:53] Amri Kibbler: Like, I wanted to do those things and it was so hard to explain 'cause I hadn't been completely honest with them about what was happening with the surgery and my health and all those things because it was like a little bit awkward to talk about. Bathroom things. And so I found myself in this place where I felt even farther away from them and more lonely.
[00:20:13] Amri Kibbler: And so what you're saying is so right, like the more that we can just share and be honest and open about all these things that. Uh, parents and people are going through on a cancer diagnosis and their recovery path, which it takes years. Like I am five years out from my first diagnosis, two and a half years from my second, and it's just, I still feel like I'm healing every day.
[00:20:39] Amri Kibbler: Like half the time I'm exhausted and can't get outta bed and I'm leg up, and I'm like, why? Why, why, why am I still healing? But it's a really long process.
[00:20:49] Christine Handy: Yeah. Hopefully through storytelling and often through other storytelling, our children can learn. I'll give you a short example. When I was a Victoria's Secret model, when I had a concave chest and I went back to modeling, my sons were like, oh, whatever.
[00:21:07] Christine Handy: That's mom working. But when their friends started to post it on their social media, like. Wow. Your mom's a Victoria Secret model, and she has no chest. They were like, okay, this is cool. And so it's almost like it, you know, kids. They learn from other people versus, you know, if you sit down and have a conversation with your daughters, or I sit down and have a conversation with my sons, it's almost like, it's like peer pressure.
[00:21:32] Christine Handy: They need to hear from other people or other stories.
[00:21:35] Amri Kibbler: I completely agree with you. That happens all the time when my kids' friends think something is cool. Then all of a sudden, yeah. So what was their reaction like when you decided to become so public about your journey and your struggle and sharing?
[00:21:51] Amri Kibbler: What was their reaction like and have they been supportive?
[00:21:54] Christine Handy: I became very public probably in 2016, and I became a, a public speaker, and I went, that's when I really started social media and that's when I published my book, but. They were, uh, in high school and they weren't following me on social media.
[00:22:10] Christine Handy: They were hiding from me on social media because they were getting into their own escapades. So it wasn't really until I went back to modeling after 2020 where they were like, this is interesting. My mom now has a concave chest. And my mom did not go back to modeling after her breast cancer diagnosis.
[00:22:29] Christine Handy: It's been eight years and now she's going back to modeling 'cause she's trying to teach women about self-esteem. Hmm. That's interesting. So then when the movie got picked up and the movie was actually made, they started to kind of hear some stuff about that. But they didn't really, you know, they weren't kind of involved.
[00:22:47] Christine Handy: And, and at that point they were either in college or out of college. So we, they weren't living with me. So they weren't around day to day. And then recently when the movie was semi rerelease, it's on the film festival circuit. When we won the Beverly Hills Film Festival, my sons were there to witness it and they were there to witness the crowd and they were there to witness the impact from the survivors and the community of cancer.
[00:23:13] Christine Handy: And I think they, they got very emotional. And the, the other interesting part about that was when I went to accept the award, I thought in my head what I was gonna say, and I said none of it. One of the first things I said was, well, I started to really get emotional and I said, I didn't have a sick mom, but my kids who are standing behind me here supporting me, they had a sick mom.
[00:23:39] Christine Handy: So for all of the women who have to go through what we've gone through, I'm sorry, because. It's not fair to you and it's also not fair to these kids that we're trying to take care of or the families, but we're doing our best. But it was interesting how that's what came out of my mouth. I, I have no idea why I, it wasn't premeditated, but it was like the reality of, um, I didn't have to go through a sick mom, but my kids did.
[00:24:09] Amri Kibbler: Yeah. And God, I mean, it's gotta be so hard for them to have. A parent that's sick and trying to deal with that emotionally well, and same with
[00:24:20] Christine Handy: all of our, all of our kids. But I think now they've learned enough about what I'm trying to do to understand it's not self-serving. It's not a popularity contest.
[00:24:30] Christine Handy: I'm doing what I'm doing to say to women, you're not alone. And I think that they finally have gotten that. And so what I'm, obviously, I'm trying to mentor a lot of women, but in reality, I'm also showing my kids a very different narrative. Prior to my diagnosis, they learned from me about materialism. They learned from me that what you looked like really was a focus of mine.
[00:24:55] Christine Handy: Those are not good things. Those are not things that I'm proud of that I showed my kids. But if I can show them something different, then maybe I have a second chance at teaching my kids and I'm taking that chance very seriously. And so I think overall we have an opportunity with a diagnosis. And after a diagnosis, when you get healthy to show, at least in my, my situation, to show something different for my kids and model something different.
[00:25:23] Christine Handy: And that's. A new beginning in our own family.
[00:25:28] Amri Kibbler: I teamed up with Stacy Igel and Elyse Ryan to create S.E.A. Waves of Support: healing selenite bracelet sets. You keep one and gift the other to someone facing cancer or life's challenges. A powerful reminder, they're not alone. Learn more at seawavesofsupport.com.
[00:25:44] Amri Kibbler: Oh my gosh. Every time he. You are just saying everything that I feel so much in my heart. I feel like I got a second chance because I was so obsessed with my career and getting to certain benchmarks that I wasn't present with my family and my kids. I was on my phone text messaging and doing things for work most of the time when I was with them and I did a lot of soul searching.
[00:26:08] Amri Kibbler: It gave me the opportunity to really go inward and look at my actions and behavior and think about how I wanted to show up. Like you, everything was about like clothes and all the shiny objects. And I was like, you know what? I want it to, I want things to be more simple. I want it to be about us being together.
[00:26:27] Amri Kibbler: I want it to be about being present. I want it to be about community, which has always been a huge thing for me. But even though as a community builder, I knew how important it was for other women and to share that, I wasn't giving that as much to my own kids. And that's something that's really important that I wanna continue to share.
[00:26:45] Amri Kibbler: And that your message also is so much about that, about. Women stepping up and being there for each other and holding each other up and being a shoulder to cry on, but also a little joke and all those things. It's just, it feeds so much into who we are and it's so beautiful. Well, you
[00:27:03] Christine Handy: know, on to, on top of that, society is very seductive.
[00:27:08] Christine Handy: The shiny objects are very seductive, and what we see, I mean, look at all the billboards around you. What are they showing? They're selling. The message isn't. Faith, courage, hope, friendship. It's, uh, here's a great bag. You should buy the shoes. This is, you know, go to this concert and everything is outside of us and that's what our society promotes.
[00:27:31] Christine Handy: Fine. Uh, it was my decision to focus on that. What we focus on, we literally become, but when you have the time to shift with a diagnosis or an illness, or trauma, or a pause or a divorce, anything. It. It can be a time of introspection where you go, okay, what was I focused on before and what do I wanna focus on if I'm able to survive this?
[00:27:55] Christine Handy: And I think it's an opportunity, like you said, it's a second chance with your family. It's a second chance with your kids, and often it's not a second chance with husbands because there can be enough damage, especially in my situation. Where we weren't able to repair it. But that's not to say that that was the illnesses alone that caused that, but the illnesses disrupt the whole family, which we both know.
[00:28:19] Christine Handy: And it's really hard for the patient, but it's hard for the spouse to also take the responsibility of the the, so the spouse that's ill and reshift their whole. Identity in the relationship. My ex-husband had to take on a whole new job and he had a job and it wasn't that he was ever not a good father.
[00:28:41] Christine Handy: He was a good father, but then he had to be a double dad. Right? I don't dismiss his attempts to really work hard at taking care of our family, but I was also sick for many, many, many years, and that absolutely
[00:28:56] Amri Kibbler: takes a toll. Thank you for sharing that 'cause I did wanna ask you about the impact on your relationship and um, where you are now.
[00:29:06] Christine Handy: We are divorced, but he's a very good friend of mine and we've healed in many, many ways. If something happened to him, I'd be the one, the first one there. I definitely have focused so much on work over the last 10 years that, that gives me very little room for relationships. But I think that at some point when the movie is completely launched, I will have accomplished and done everything that I set out to do, and then I'm gonna retire.
[00:29:35] Christine Handy: Other than speaking, I'm always gonna be, I love to be a keynote speaker and I love to speak in front of audiences. I'm always gonna do that. But the modeling, I'm slowing down the social media. I'm eventually gonna slow down the other things and, and especially the film will be, will be complete. So I'll be able to focus more on.
[00:29:54] Christine Handy: Finding a happily ever after. Right.
[00:29:58] Amri Kibbler: Yes, and I wanna talk about slowing down. I have another podcast that's actually about slowing down because slowing down is so hard for me. It's not part of my DNA. Even though I have tried to make a lot of space, I still find myself wanting to add things in. And so I do like to talk about this a lot, and I try to do so many different things to slow down.
[00:30:19] Amri Kibbler: I do a lot of meditation, I do yoga, I do acupuncture. Try to make sure I take some time every morning before I let myself like start wanting to go, just to check in with myself and my body and to see how I'm feeling. If I need to take some extra rest that day, and I know that you really have been, go, go, go on so many things that you're passionate about because you care about the impact and you care about spreading this message, you care about supporting other women in all of those things.
[00:30:52] Amri Kibbler: But how? Do you slow down or how are you going to slow down? Because it is very hard to do well. So love to hear how you're planning to do it.
[00:31:01] Christine Handy: You know, it's funny that you say that because once I do semi-retire, I think I'm gonna be in the same boat. I, when I get anxious or uncomfortable, I sweep the floor or I vacuum.
[00:31:13] Christine Handy: I don't sit still and peaceful. I'm in motion. So yes, I am, I have of the same DNA. And I will struggle with that, but I think when you pour out repeatedly, I, every setback I've had with, you know, breast implant illness or breast cancer, I, I thought, okay, I'm gonna help people. I'm gonna go on the speaking circuit, I'm gonna show courage.
[00:31:39] Christine Handy: I'm gonna. Teach women about self-esteem. Then I wrote a book, right? Then I did a book tour. Then I lost my chest to implants. So then I went back to modeling. So then I had terrible chemo brain and I couldn't fix it, and so I went back to Harvard and I got a master's degree. Everything was a reaction. I added stuff after with lots of reactive, because I was so focused on, okay, well I can take this issue and, and help other people with that.
[00:32:06] Christine Handy: And now the film. The film is, is a bigger audience. It's a wider net of people to inspire and to give hope. Now, you can't go from doing all of those things, right? I was in full-time school, writing a book, getting a book published, getting signed movie contract, publicly speaking social media, and on and on.
[00:32:25] Christine Handy: No, I'm on the board of three nonprofits. I was on the board of four nonprofits. You don't go from 10 years of constant action to. Leaving the modeling world and being complete with the film and not speaking anymore and knows, you know, not really doing social media, I'm gonna slowly back out of it, but I can tell you that my health is taking a toll right now because you cannot have the activity that I've had and I think, you know, my travel schedule, it's been extraordinary.
[00:32:56] Christine Handy: Yeah. And so I need to find some sort of balance, and I agree with you. It's not gonna go from an extreme to another extreme. It's gonna be a process for me, and I'm gonna have to talk to professionals about it and try to find, try to navigate it to a place where I can be more quiet and be more still.
[00:33:17] Christine Handy: Maybe like you move to the country, I have no idea. But you're right. It's not gonna be that simple, but it's a, it's a goal of mine. It's also a goal of mine to be in partnership with somebody, you know, and, and not be single and live alone and work from home and things like that. So those adjustments will take time and, and they will not be easy, but those are goals.
[00:33:41] Amri Kibbler: One of the things that's been helpful for me is I schedule in my like quiet time and mindfulness things, so it feels like a lot of things that I'm doing and I make sure that I have them in my, my schedule every week that has helped me. Even though there are things that I'm doing for myself and working on myself, it makes me feel better to see those things in my calendar as like a kind of stepping stone too.
[00:34:07] Amri Kibbler: So maybe you can start great idea scheduling. And as you pull out a few things, you're like, okay, and then that's gonna be replaced by me and me and me. And then it is, it's like a slow unraveling and unwinding. It takes a lot of time. I.
[00:34:23] Christine Handy: Well, we can all, we all know we can be addicted to some things, right?
[00:34:26] Christine Handy: We can be addicted to bad things or good things and some things that are good addictions can turn into bad. I'm certainly addicted to work, you know, that's been my, um, an idol for a long time and that will shift. I. And I'm looking forward to that, but it will come with consequences as well. So I definitely think, you know, scheduling time, even getting a massage, like I, I don't, I do very little self-care right now and that has to be added on.
[00:34:53] Christine Handy: I. So I'm, I'm gonna, I'm working towards that,
[00:34:55] Amri Kibbler: definitely scheduling the self-care, but it also helps if you, um, have some people that you like to schedule things in with. Like, I've started making dates like two months ahead of time with women that I really like. I have one on Thursday with a friend of mine.
[00:35:10] Amri Kibbler: We're going to do like a private yoga and breathwork session and have lunch.
[00:35:14] Christine Handy: Oh, I love that. Okay. That's a great tip.
[00:35:17] Amri Kibbler: Yeah. So I'm like, I, three months from now I'll have another one scheduled. But it's baby steps. It's
[00:35:22] Christine Handy: really hard. It is baby steps. And it's funny when people, when I talk about how I shifted from being very, having a lot of false idols and materialistic and, and focused so much externally, and then all of a sudden I'm serving the world and I'm focused on my self-esteem and, and self-care and doing all the introspective work, people are like, I'm trying to do that too, but it doesn't work.
[00:35:45] Christine Handy: And what I forgot to say was it takes months and sometimes years. And the same thing with this. When I shift out of working seven days a week all the time, it's also gonna take a long time. And I don't say it and expect it to be overnight. And I also, but I also wanna say that I recognize that because when you say something and people go, well, if you can just do that, like which a switch a.
[00:36:12] Christine Handy: A clock then, you know, that's so easy for you. It's not,
[00:36:15] Amri Kibbler: no, nothing is easy for anyone. You may see it on social media and it might look easy, but everything takes so much work and time and it's like a compilation of years. I mean, one of the biggest things that has helped me through my healing is meditation.
[00:36:30] Amri Kibbler: I started doing meditation when I was doing chemo, um, with a meditation teacher, and I would. Do hours of meditation instead of, you know, watching TV or doing something else. 'cause I had no attention span. And that is the thing that I've like, kept with me, that has really helped me and been a part of my trying to slow down and integrate mindfulness in.
[00:36:51] Christine Handy: I love that. Yeah. I do, um, spend a fair amount of time in prayer and I have little reminders of, at 1230 every day it sends a reminder. Take a moment to pray. And I take those very seriously. So I have started some of that.
[00:37:07] Amri Kibbler: I do feel like prayer and meditation sometimes are one and the same for me 'cause I'm just talking to the higher power during that time.
[00:37:16] Amri Kibbler: It's like a quiet moment for myself and like my higher self and God and the universe.
[00:37:23] Christine Handy: Yeah,
[00:37:24] Amri Kibbler: and sometimes it's
[00:37:25] Christine Handy: just walking away like I'll, I'll put on my tennis shoes and just take a walk and I'll put my headset on and I'll listen to a podcast to get away from the work. I can't be in front of my screen if I take a walk, so I do do that as well.
[00:37:38] Amri Kibbler: Yes, just getting outside, letting outside and taking a walk is so good. Even like from when I was in treatment, I would still try to go outside when I could and take a walk. Just getting out into nature I think helps. And it also helps with your kids too. Like I started trying to get them going on the walks with me.
[00:37:55] Amri Kibbler: It was like a good activity for us to have some time away from screens to reconnect.
[00:38:02] Christine Handy: Yeah, I agree. Those are great tips.
[00:38:04] Amri Kibbler: I think an important thing for me as far as healing has been learning to be honest, and not being a people pleaser and being like, this person actually is not supportive of me and my life.
[00:38:16] Amri Kibbler: This is a relationship that is draining on me, that is not giving me energy. It's not a reciprocal relationship. And having to edit people out of my life and just not making plans with certain people and. Just being honest with myself, and that was like brutally hard because I, I was, I was raised that you have, you are a nice person.
[00:38:38] Amri Kibbler: You do not hurt anyone's feelings ever. It doesn't matter if you're upset. You don't tell people, you don't tell people the truth. White lies are better than hurting someone's feelings. And so it's, it's like been a really hard thing for me to learn to say no and to value my personal feelings over. Being nice to someone.
[00:38:59] Amri Kibbler: You know, a lot of that has come out of this.
[00:39:01] Christine Handy: So much of what we're talking about is self-esteem and self-worth so much. When my self-esteem was the lowest, I made really bad decisions, whether it was with people or my time or my resources. When my self-esteem became stable and strong, I became a giver of light and hope.
[00:39:24] Christine Handy: And it was, there was no transaction. And so if you spend the time and take inventory of who you're listening to and even your own thoughts, like what are you telling yourself before my cancer diagnosis? I would say terrible things in my head. Like, you're not worth that. You're not worthy of that. Why would they be your friend?
[00:39:44] Christine Handy: You're a bad mom. Why are you sick? Blah, blah, blah. Well, when you take inventory of thoughts like that and you stop them now, again, that's a slow process. But when you stop them and you fill that your own head with different thoughts, I am worthy. I am enough. And it sounds so cliche, but it's so powerful because what you're doing is you're building self-esteem.
[00:40:09] Christine Handy: And when you are struck with trauma, tragedy, illness. Anything, you're gonna need a strong self-esteem because you're gonna need to make good decisions. And one tip that I did, and I don't know if somebody taught me that or I did it myself, I was going through a lot of pictures at the time because I'd just be sitting in bed and I didn't really wanna put on soap operas.
[00:40:28] Christine Handy: So I would just go through photo albums and I would see pictures of myself as a child. And what I did was I took those pictures and I put 'em around my house. And every time I pass one of those pictures of me as a child, I would say to that picture, I'm gonna protect you. And so by the time I was finished with my chemotherapy, which was 15 months, I was strong and I was protecting myself.
[00:40:53] Christine Handy: Versus prior to that, my self-esteem was shattery. You know, I just was not stable. And it was bruised when people would get mad at me or disappointed, or I would disappointed myself. It was like this bruised ego. And when you just let all that go and you're down to nothing and you rebuild your self-esteem, man, you can be unstoppable and it doesn't matter who shows up because you're showing up for yourself.
[00:41:22] Amri Kibbler: I had so much of the same experience. I had such low self-esteem, and from the outside, everyone would've thought that I was full of confidence until I got cancer. You know, I was a magazine editor. I was always in the public eye and I. Was questioning myself all the time. I had so much self doubt. Why would someone wanna be friends with me?
[00:41:45] Amri Kibbler: I'm not good enough. Oh my gosh, what are they saying about me when I walk into this room? All of these crazy thoughts in my head. And you're, you're saying it's a cliche, but it's a cliche because it's so true. And I learned a lot of those things as a kid. I learned that my value was how I looked, and if I wasn't feeling.
[00:42:05] Amri Kibbler: Like I looked totally together then I was still questioning myself. But that's not a real thing. It's not real self-confidence thinking that you're pretty, or thinking that you look good. So you're never ever gonna have that real sense of self-worth. And it wasn't until I got sick, until I had to.
[00:42:20] Amri Kibbler: Question everything and do the same, the introspection and what has value in my life, and do the work to start making all of those changes. And think about like, what do I really wanna be putting out there? What messages do I wanna be sending? What work do I wanna do that really has value to me? And that's what my self worth is, that I wanna do something that's helping people and impacting people.
[00:42:43] Amri Kibbler: And it's a huge shift. Like I've seen myself grow exponentially over the course of the last five years, and it's true, like nothing really gets to me anymore, and it's because I've finally found self-love through a horrible experience.
[00:42:59] Christine Handy: Yeah. I like to call it, there's sand and then there's the big stuff.
[00:43:04] Christine Handy: But a lot of the sand, a lot of the little issues that used to come up in my life, I'm like, Ugh. Like I almost wish I cared about those things again because then I would have not gone through everything I went through. But when you go through trials in life, you have a real opportunity to learn. And that's also an opportunity for our kids to learn.
[00:43:22] Christine Handy: Going back to the family, and we can explain it. Well enough for them to learn from that. Like I could have said to, and I do say to my kids, you know, I taught you wrong for a long time, and I'm trying to undo that. And I'm sorry, like my, my parents never said, I'm sorry to me. But it's so freeing to be able to say to your kid.
[00:43:44] Christine Handy: Man, I wasn't the greatest mom and I'm sorry for that. But I'm really trying right now to do better. And if there's any space in your life that you think I could improve, just tell me that openness, that communication. I think that's very healing, especially when you have moms like us that went through this difficulty with our children because of circumstances we could never control.
[00:44:08] Amri Kibbler: I am gonna steal that from you. The I taught you wrong, I'm, I think it's so powerful apologizing to our kids even when it's happening in the moment and it just really stops that like recurring bad feeling and things that are coming up and you're right, like it, I think it wasn't in our parents' generation to to say that, and there wasn't the level of introspection that happened, but apologizing targets and showing them that, you know what?
[00:44:36] Amri Kibbler: I was wrong. It's okay. We can move forward. And you can be wrong too, and you can still move forward. It's not the end of the world. Like to me, when I was a kid, if I did something wrong, the world was gonna like stop on its access. Like I had to be perfect. Everything had to be done. If you made a mistake, you know it was a huge thing.
[00:44:55] Amri Kibbler: But we make mistakes every day. It's not such a big deal. And teaching our kids, I don't want you to be perfect. I want you to mess up. I want you to learn to fail. I don't want you to be afraid. Afraid to fail. Failing is a huge part of life. It was like a big learning experience for me because failure was not an option in the mindset that I have, and it was another like huge shift that I had.
[00:45:16] Amri Kibbler: You know what? People fail every day and you are entitled to fail, and you're entitled to make mistakes and pick yourself up and apologize and dust yourself off and keep on going and live your life.
[00:45:28] Christine Handy: Well, and especially with girls, I think, um, for your situation, I think that you, by giving yourself grace and speaking openly about giving yourself grace, they learned that and you're teaching them how to build a better self-esteem by not feeling shame and guilt, Hey, I made mistakes.
[00:45:46] Christine Handy: I don't, you know, you don't wanna ever feel shame and guilt that doesn't come from a, a source of anything good, but. F grace and forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and then you show that to them and talk openly about them. That's building their self-esteem, that's teaching them tools that they will need in their life.
[00:46:06] Christine Handy: What an opportunity.
[00:46:08] Amri Kibbler: Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of The Space Between if this show brought you comfort or a sense of community. I'd love for you to subscribe and share it with anyone who might need it too. You can join the conversation on Instagram at The Space Between Underscore Cancer Family and head to amrikibbler.com for more resources designed to support parents navigating cancer.
[00:46:31] Amri Kibbler: Just remember, you're never alone. This podcast is here as a companion on your journey towards healing, growth, and connection.