lichota

What if the unraveling of your life was also the beginning of your becoming?

RISING ABOVE: Our Transformational Journey to Wholeness After Breast Cancer is a sacred gathering of voices from young women who faced breast cancer at a time when life was just beginning to unfold-when they were falling in love, building careers, becoming mothers, and discovering their truths. The diagnosis didn’t wait. It struck early, shattering timelines and rewriting dreams. But within that breaking open, something deeper awakened.

This anthology arises from that awakening.

Led by Gillian Lichota, founder of the iRise Above Foundation, these stories are not only about illness-they are about illumination. They address the rawness of grief, the complexity of motherhood, the reckoning with trauma, and the radical act of reclaiming one’s voice. Through writing, these women transform suffering into story, pain into purpose, and fear into fierce embodiment.

This is more than just a collection of survival stories-it is a collective remembering, a sacred resurrection, and a testament to the alchemy of becoming. It invites you to meet yourself in the mirror of their courage and to ask:  Who am I now? What am I here to rise into?

This book is for anyone standing in the wreckage of the unexpected, who yearns to start anew, not as they once were-but as they’re becoming: shining, renewed, and complete.