The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

167 ⎸ Living a Happy & Balanced Life with Sharon Hefetz

• Serena Shoup, CPA • Episode 167

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In this interview episode, I’m catching up with Sharon Hefetz, who has an incredible story to share about her journey with multiple myeloma. She opens up about how she turned to self-care, mindfulness, and intentional living to navigate her diagnosis and achieve remission. Plus, we've got a special giveaway for you, so check out the show notes for all the details!

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • importance of paying attention to your health & advocating for yourself
  • Sharon's approach to her treatment & healing journey
  • Sharon's work as the Mindset Mama Coach
  • Sharon’s "Living a Happy and Balanced Mama Life" journal & and its significance


Resources mentioned in this episode:


Meet Sharon Hefetz:

As a dedicated mother, entrepreneur, author, and Mindset Coach with over a decade of experience, Sharon empowers women and busy mothers to reconnect with their authentic selves.

In August of 2023, she was diagnosed with ultra high-risk Multiple Myeloma. This diagnosis underscored the immense value of the principles she’d been teaching. Every lesson on resilience, inner strength, and positive thinking prepared her for this personal battle. She realized the profound importance of self-love and how absent it was in her life. Genuine self-love transformed her approach to this challenge, emphasizing the need to truly listen to and act upon your intuition.


Connect with Sharon
🔗 Linktree: linktr.ee/sharonhefetzcoach


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Serena Shoup:

Welcome back to the Ambitious Bookkeeper podcast, and welcome back, Sharon! I'm so excited to have you back on the podcast. I was trying to look at our, the last time we recorded and I can't find it, so we'll have to link that episode in the show notes, but welcome back!

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Hi, so good to be back. I'm so excited to be here again. How are

Serena Shoup:

awesome. I'm doing well, I'm doing well. So last time, I had you on, we talked a little bit about self care and all that kind of stuff, which you're still, would you like to share an update?

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Yeah. So basically last time we spoke, that was right around like a difference of a week or two. from when I got diagnosed with cancer. I got diagnosed with multiple myeloma. I wasn't sure I was able to do that podcast recording. Remember, I don't know if you remember

Serena Shoup:

Yeah.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

and we winged it. We went through it. we're almost celebrating my first year cancerversary. So it's been a long time actually.

Serena Shoup:

Yeah.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

last time I came on, I came as the mindset mama coach, that I do. And I can tell you that through this journey, it just enhanced everything I do because in order to heal and, recover. I needed to go through all the steps that I teach women myself. so it was a crazy journey. It was just, wild. Honestly, you don't, you don't know how in one day you think everything's fine and something just comes up and surprises you and shifts your whole around.

Serena Shoup:

Yeah.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

I remember it was just a lot of weight loss. and pain and things that I was used to, not the weight loss. I wasn't used to living with that, but I was used to living with, you know, after being a mom, things from birth and okay, my hips kind of hurt. It's probably from birth and my joints are kind of this and it's probably, we're used to not paying attention to so many different, things that go on with us. As parents. As mothers, and especially for those mompreneurs out there that are trying to hustle the world together. there is no time to pay attention to a scratch on your leg or a little pain in the knee or in the joints or a headache. You just take a pill and move on with your day.

Serena Shoup:

when those symptoms start to pile on like very slowly.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

right,

Serena Shoup:

And then we're also age, everyone's aging, right?

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

right,

Serena Shoup:

what age you are, you're aging. So you just chalk it up to that.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

exactly. You talk it up to, ah, it's the age, ah, it's the, whatever it is, like. And suddenly that weight loss, which was something that I did not have, I thought I was manifesting it, you know, I was like really focused on being healthy. I was doing all my manifestation works and suddenly I was like, wow, I lost a pound. That is amazing. I didn't even have effort. And then I lost another, and then I lost two, three, and then from week to week, I just Ended up losing close to 25 pounds, I think, within two and a half months.

Serena Shoup:

Did you even have that much to lose?

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Oh, I did. Oh, I did.

Serena Shoup:

I met you at the end of that, so.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Yeah. No, you met me. And now I am 20 pounds less than what you met me a year ago. So it's, yeah. So I guess I had more to take off, but, and you know, from, from one meeting with the doctor to the next, which was in a week difference, I lost three pounds. So it was like, It reached a point that I couldn't not like shut my eyes anymore and not pay attention. And I want to say a very important thing to everyone that's listening now. The reason I went to the doctor was not bravo, how amazing, great thing you caught it on time. No, I went to the doctor. Because my parents, I'm a 45 year old woman, but my parents were on my case and forced me to go. My parents and my sister were really like, you got to check this out. And I did it to quiet them. And Another amazing epiphany that I had and luck or synchronicity or however you want to call it, a week before that second appointment that I had with my doctor, a friend spoke to me and she said, look, I know you and whatever the doctor is going to say, you're going to be like, Oh, okay. And be nice and everything. I am preparing you now. You must be your own advocate. You have to be your own advocate. And I went there into that meeting so prepped and so pumped up to be my own advocate. And when she said, yeah, we did all the testings. I said, no, I want more. I need more. And for the first time I saw my doctor sitting at the computer as if she's cornered. And I was not scaring her, but I saw her scared. I saw her like, I don't know what else to give you. I don't know what else to do. You have an appointment with the hematologist in three weeks. It'll be fine. I said, no, I'm going to the hematologist with all other tests that you can find. That she may give me and I'm not going to wait to do because I need to get it done. Now I've lost three pounds in a half a week since I saw you last. And one, thank God. Thank God. Thank God for that friend that prepped me and thank God for, sending her to that test. That test was what? One of those. check the Kappa light chains in, which is a protein, it's a type of, cancer that I have. it checked that protein in the urine and it was supposed to be between 7 to 11 and the number was on 933. That was the result that I got. And I suddenly start writing her doctor and it's out of her realm. She doesn't answer. And You get a test result like that, and the doctors can't answer you until you move on to the next doctor. I can tell you that Google told me that I have two years to live, and those are things you don't do. So if anyone's listening, do not go to Dr. Google, ever. Never, ever, ever. And when I reached the hematologist, I sent a message to a friend who had a friend that was a hematologist oncologist and she was on her way to see her anyway. Like everything just worked out because if not I would not be here today in this in a freaky scary way because I wrote that that friend. And that doctor that she went to said she needs to be here tomorrow at 9am. And that morning, the next morning, she said, you can't barely wait a week to start treatment. You definitely can't wait three weeks to see a hematologist. And she did biopsy in the moment. And that's it. The rest was history. She said, you know, when we left there, she said, look, to me and my husband, you don't have a diagnosis. I don't have a diagnosis. I want you to leave here knowing that we still have a week or two to see the diagnosis. Of course, when we left there, knowing that it probably is a form of cancer, it broke us down and then my husband snapped out of it and he's like, look, I heard her say, we don't have a diagnosis. Let's live in a bubble until she says, let's live in denial. So we can swallow that frog for a moment. And I said, okay, great. Let's, we shook hands. We're living in denial. And after two days, the denial was over and I had to start treatment right away. I had a week to think about it. That week put that number up to 1300. It was on 1277 or something. So it increased by 30 percent within a week. My cancer at the stage that they found it, it was 95 percent of my bone marrow with four abnormalities. The three of them are at high risk, meaning it'll keep coming back. I still don't know how to live with that part of the diagnosis. I can tell you my journey was, from moving to, I don't know what to do to snapping out of it and taking all the rituals and all the teachings and all the learnings that I had in the past decade. If it's mostly mindset, how to, I knew I needed to fix how I see myself, the world and this diagnosis. I know I needed to, notice the good things in my life because I know that gratitude takes away fear. So I knew I needed to give a lot of gratitude so I wouldn't live in fear. I knew I needed water. And I just recently, a friend read a book about the properties of water and how it's a living thing and how music affects water. The, everything of water. It's, it's unbelievable.

Serena Shoup:

Yeah.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

of the water. So I started doing the sound healing at night with the frequency. Honestly, a little bit before I was diagnosed because me and my husband weren't sleeping. So we put on the 432 Hertz, slept like. a baby. But when I did that, suddenly I had my water and I said, water, absorb this healing frequency and heal me. It was a challenge to fill, to brainwash myself, basically. Every thought I had became intentional. Every moment was trying to focus more and more on the present and what I'm doing at the moment in order to not fear the future and what's coming on to me. And I feel that those Things that I did and staying in that mindfulness and that intentional living in, in the present moment allowed me to take away a lot of those negative feelings and allow my body to heal. I'm, after they told me that they're not sure that I would get clean, and be in remission if I don't do the chemo and the stem cell therapy, transplant, sorry. And I knew that I have a big conflict. With chemotherapy, an inner conflict with, chemotherapy. So my goal was not to do it. And they said, look, we don't know if you're going to be clean within, you can either react very well. I can tell you that within, I told them, look, if there is 1 percent that did it, I'm going to do it too, because I can't do the chemo, I can't do something that I'm conflicted with within six weeks. I was back in the normal range. They didn't believe it. After four weeks, my 1300 number went down to 200. and after six weeks I was within the range, almost within the range of the nine to 11. I think I was on 18 or 19 or something like that. And the doctor said, look, we don't know what you're doing, but whatever you're doing, just keep doing it because it's working. So it's great. And I could tell you it wasn't just that. I had healers and like I did a whole bunch. I'm not going to keep everyone bored with that, but I did a whole bunch of different practices and I didn't know which one worked. So I just did everything and continued and continued.

Serena Shoup:

that's when it makes sense to throw spaghetti at the wall.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Right, exactly.

Serena Shoup:

You don't have time to test things out.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Right. after six months, I, I, I did a deal with the doctor. I was like, look, give me one more cycle. She's like, you need at least six cycles. I said, give me those two more cycles. And if I'm clean, I'm not doing the chemo. And she said, that's the only way I would. not let you do the chemo. And I was completely in remission, which was for them amazing. For me, a victory because I did not need to go through that. I know it's still on the table, but as of now, it's not relevant. So I feel like this journey is a victory and I feel like it enhanced my purpose and an enhanced, um, My journey and the work that I do with women and with mamas. And I also work with women with cancer today. And during the time that I was in treatment and I could not work one on one with women, I created a mama journal, which has a lot of the practices that I did. It's called living a happy and balanced mama life. And I would love it inside. Let me just share a moment what's inside.

Serena Shoup:

Yeah, please.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

So inside you have in the beginning a self assessment and basically you could do the wheel of life and see where you are today. so before you start the journal, you kind of get an evaluation of where you are. after that you have six months. Each month, they're undated and you can choose like to use it for a month, put it down, and then take it whenever you need it. the month, within the month you have, it starts with a blog, and then you have a monthly plan, a weekly plan with to do lists, And then each day has two pages with different prompts and the prompts are basically you have an affirmation for the day. You have a mindfulness activity for the day. the intention, I told you I do everything with intention today. So when I make my coffee, for example, I spell my coffee. I may have even mentioned it in our previous podcast because it's something I've been doing for a long time. I spell my coffee with the intention of the day. So sometimes it will be ease, and sometimes it's patience, and sometimes it's remember to breathe. Whatever it is for that day, and I just put it in my coffee, think about it when I'm mixing it, and while I'm drinking it, I Imagine it being absorbed in my body, in my cells, and walking me through the day. So the first prompt is, what intention will you spell your coffee with today? And then the aha moments of the day, time to pause and reflect, little bit of gratitude, little bit of letting go, different practices that are crucial for us. And I believe that after doing it for a month, It's a way to affirm those habits.

Serena Shoup:

And slowing down.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Right,

Serena Shoup:

I find that's like the hardest thing for a lot of us like high achievers is to take the time to do stuff like that because it sounds and seems like, you know what I mean?

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Exactly! It seems so

Serena Shoup:

have time for this.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Exactly! That's why there's the prompts and that's why you have just A line.

Serena Shoup:

You don't have to think about it as much because it's all laid out for you.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Exactly. The whole thing, it's like a two page thing, but the whole thing is like a five minute process of you paying attention to you.

Serena Shoup:

Yeah,

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

you giving a moment of, okay, how many water cups did you drink today? First day, you're going to say, I have no idea, right? The second day, you're going to be like, Ooh, I think I drank four. Third day, maybe you'll start keeping track. Maybe after that, you'll start getting the habit of paying attention to more water. The things are tiny. They're not, I believe in baby steps into moving into our goals.

Serena Shoup:

me too.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

The idea of how many cups of water is not a big deal. You know, we always feel like we have someone with the whip. Oh, you don't know how many cups of water? And like, how is that? It's such a bad person. I don't know how many cups of water I drink. No, it's a realization. It's an awareness of, Ooh, I don't even know if I gave my body water. Right. We wouldn't say that about our car. Ooh, how long has it been since I gave it gas? Right. We drive

Serena Shoup:

we have a gauge. We don't have a gauge on our body.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

but we do the gauge in our body. Once we drink enough water. We become more aware of that natural gauge that we have. We become more aware of that headache that comes to mark. Hey, you're really dehydrated and not just, Ooh, I have a headache, probably caffeine. I need a little bit of water. You know what I mean? Like we go and just take an Advil basically.

Serena Shoup:

Yeah, I know. I just suffer through it.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

right, right. So it's just like little reminders of, for example, how did you show up for you today? And maybe the first thing you're just going to leave a blank and write a question mark and be like, I have no idea how I showed up for me today. Right. But maybe thinking about that every single day will make you start thinking, how did I show up for me today? Especially all you mamas out there. How did you show up for you today? I want to stress. And say, from the bottom of my heart, we don't need to reach where I've reached in order to start paying attention and taking care of ourselves. I reached a really bad place. I am lucky that I don't have lesions all over my bones. And that I'm still here after a year and I'm still clean. We do not, let me say it again, we don't need to go to extremes in order to start taking care of ourselves. I understand today that it's not a question if I want or don't want. I understand it's a purpose and it's something I have to do. I must do. I want to tell all you mamas, please, Give yourself attention. Please give yourself care. Please pay attention to where you are, what you're doing. Acknowledge yourself. Acknowledge your worth. We go to places sometimes we don't even know what color we like anymore. We don't know what song we like besides listening to Cocomelon at a certain stage in our kid's life, right? Like, a song? What? New song? I know Cocomelon or, you know, there's so many different things that We lose who we are completely. And I'm urged today to tell everyone, please. Pay attention to you. Please give yourself those five minutes to fill out this journal. And yes, it's five minutes. It's five minutes, and it's a moment for you to take care of yourself and to pay attention to your thoughts and to get clarity on where you are and what you still need. And another thing I'm saying, I'm here. If anybody needs to reach out, wants to reach out, I'm here to help. So I'd like to do a giveaway anyway, who anyone who'd like to sign up for that giveaway, can download the Mompreneur's Guide to Mastering Your Inner Dialogue. once you sign that in, mark that you came from, Serena's podcast and You will enter a giveaway and I will send you the person that we raffle off, will receive this journal and I will send it out to you.

Serena Shoup:

yeah. I have a copy of the journal and it's beautiful. I have some questions about it because of I, I know who my audience is too. So I'm like, I'm asking for myself and for my audience.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Yes,

Serena Shoup:

Is the journal something that you recommend Everyone, not everyone that listens, but a good chunk of us who listen are, we'd like a good, you know, instructions and a step by step. So the journal has, it's like also a daily planner, correct? So would you recommend sitting down each morning to fill out the journal or in the evening or both? How is it intended to be used?

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

What I would do is when I get the journal, I would read the beginning, the intro. I put a lot of love in there as well. and it says there's a page that says how to maximize the living, happy and balanced mom working journal. It has, , explanation about the self assessment, about the wheel of life. about the monthly goal setting and the self care ideas and suggestions. The weekly goals that are there, you'll see it has like a more of a to do list. It's not like those planners if you're looking for an appointment book. It's not like that. So it won't, , it's more of you paying attention to, so hopefully what you write there would be in reference to you and not your business. it's your sacred space. In the first page you see it says here, kids don't touch, this

Serena Shoup:

Yeah, I like that. That is something that I've gotten way more like. protective over the things that I buy for myself. I used to just share everything with my kids, my new pens, my highlighters, my markers, and my colored pencils. And now it's like, no, this is mine. I have to give you permission and invite you to like, use my things and write in my notebooks and stuff.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

right. But it's, it's very, it's not, not okay. We feel weird sometimes as moms doing that because we're like, what's it matter? It's a pen or why are we making a big deal? But those things are also setting our kids up for success because our kids need to know these things when they go out into the world world. And our family structure is just. a reflection of what they're going to get outside. So if the way they treat their parents is the way they're going to treat people that are, they need to respect or are in charge of them at work or their bosses or things like that. And the way they treat their siblings is the way they're going to treat their peers, their, their coworkers. And so, yeah, we're setting them up for success. It's a very good thing what you're

Serena Shoup:

Teaching them boundaries.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Yeah.

Serena Shoup:

Not something that I had growing up. And then it's like, if you, if there's no boundaries among your family members in your household, then your kids are going to go out into the world and not have boundaries with anyone else. So,

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

which can hurt them and the others and mostly them. and so, so I would say in the evening and maybe set up the things for the morning.'cause there are prompts there for the morning. I just know that some people are more, I have a friend that does it every morning and I have a friend that does it every evening. So that's why it's hard for me to answer

Serena Shoup:

depends on the person, but it's good for both. Yeah.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

It's good for both. I think because of the fact that they have like. A ha moment of the day, or there's inhale the good s h start t. I don't know if you have kids listening, so what are you grateful for? And exhale the bull, the b s is let it out, and anything you need to empty out and let So you don't move on your day with. So those parts are like, for example, at night, just like mentioning an incident that's stuck with you all day. Like someone cut me off and it really pissed me off. So great. Write that down and make peace with that person. And because when we're making peace with someone, we need to understand that the person doesn't even need to be there. We're making peace with ourself. We're allowing ourself. To let go of something that's frustrating us. We are allowing ourselves to move on. We're allowing ourselves to forgive in order to just understand that that's not what's supposed to rule our world or our day that day.

Serena Shoup:

That lesson took me a really long time to learn that forgiveness doesn't mean that you're absolving someone of what they've done or anything like that. It's, it's more of a release for yourself to be able to move on and move

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

I can tell you my generation, most of us are trauma based. I mean, we've all had traumas in our lives and, and we grew up in a, well, just look at the 78, 1978, 1985 movies. And you'll see really quick. I saw Rocky with my kids the other day and I'm like, Oh my goodness. So there's, there are things that were allowed back then that are not allowed today. And. We are still carrying them and they're not ours and they're not relevant for us and they're controlling our lives and they're putting a stop to ours and the only reason is we're so afraid to forgive and let go because it's not okay. Things that went on, but on the other hand, we're just hurting ourselves. forgiving and let go is just like we, we, we, we can let the people move on. From our lives, basically, and differentiating.

Serena Shoup:

really love about EMDR therapy is it really helps with that process because it it's like it's in your brain and your body and you can just release it without having to really talk about it.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Yes, that's true. That's true. It's, it's an amazing technique. Amazing technique. so there will be a link, I guess, right?

Serena Shoup:

we'll put a link in the show notes to this episode, and the giveaway will begin when this episode goes live. So if you're listening to this, you can grab that link, download the it's a free ebook, correct? And that And then that will give you a lot of amazing insights and information and help in that book, for one. But for two, we'll enter you into the drawing for this journal. Or, of course, you can always buy the journal, and so we'll drop the link to that as well. and Yeah,

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Great.

Serena Shoup:

yeah,

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

thank you so much. And whoever wants to continue and be in touch, there's, , my, uh, Facebook group, HappyBounceMom. and you can find me on Instagram. I'm here to help. Please feel free to reach out with anything. I'd love to help.

Serena Shoup:

thank you so much again for your time. It's always a pleasure chatting with you. This time the audience got to hear our little chat. So yeah, I'm so glad we connected again.

Sharon Banyas Hefetz:

Same here. Take care. Thank you so much for having me.

Serena Shoup:

You're welcome.

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