"Becoming" by Tara Warner" --The Mental Battle of Breast Cancer: An Oncology Nurse’s Story of Healing.

For more than twenty years, Tara Warner has stood at the bedside of people facing cancer.

As an oncology nurse, she’s walked thousands of patients through diagnosis, treatment, fear, and hope — always reminding them that the mental battle is at least fifty percent of the fight.

But everything shifted when Tara crossed the line from caregiver to patient… when she herself was diagnosed with breast cancer.

In that moment, she saw what the system doesn’t have time to hold — the emotional fallout, the identity loss, the quiet unraveling that happens when life splits in two. Bodies are treated. Diseases are managed. But the mind and spirit are often left to carry the weight alone.

What followed wasn’t just illness — it was awakening.

In her Story Crafting piece, Becoming, Tara shares a life shaped by eruption and rebuilding — storms, loss, and the moment she made a powerful decision:
“I will not rebuild what broke me.”

Not the patterns.
 Not the silence.
 Not the version of life that required her to disappear to survive.

This is a story about choosing a new blueprint.
 About becoming truer instead of tougher.
 About honoring the mind and spirit with the same urgency we give the body.

This is Tara’s rise.