Find Your Own 'Normal'
- Maria Menounos, 43, has been working hard on her mental and physical health after recently losing her mother to brain cancer. The former E! News TV host had a brain tumor scare of her own in 2017 and had to have surgery.
- Menounos recently filmed a new episode of her podcast Better Together. In it she says clinical psychologist Dr. Shefali Tsabary really got her thinking about the type of lifestyle many people are pressured to live, so she’s speaking up about it.
- Living in gratitude and being thankful for your own life without comparing it to others is one of the healthiest ways to live life to the fullest, experts tell SurvivorNet.
The Greek-American talent, 43, has had her share of some of life’s toughest hardships: She suffered from a traumatic brain tumor surgery in 2017, thankfully benign, and she recently lost her mother from brain cancer earlier this year.
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“Society has programmed us to believe that we must abide by their playbook in order to be happy and to fit in,” she continued, “that if we follow the rules deemed ‘appropriate’ and ‘acceptable,’ we will live a happy/fulfilled life. But how many of us follow the playbook and still end up unhappy?? We are all such different beings, so how does it make sense that one way of life would work for us all? The only "right" way to live is doing what makes YOU happy.”
Menounos points out that she “bucked the system” by marrying 20+ years later than usual, and she also hasn’t been able to “deliver the grandchildren,” though she’s tried. “Does that make me less than? Maybe in some people’s eyes but the only ones that truly matter are mine!”
There are ways to combat the high-pressure effects of society and that’s by being thankful for what you have in life.
Menounos recently shared a simple routine that she incorporates into her daily life, which helps remind her of all she has to be thankful for.
“Every night before I go to bed, I pray and recite all the things I am grateful for,” she wrote. “It can be anything from my family and our health, to listing all the great things that happened that day. It's crazy when you start to list them, you realize how many good things happen that you actually forget because you were focusing so much on the negative. So it's a great exercise to keep perspective and stay in a positive vibration.”
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The 42-year-old lost her mother, Litsa, to a type of brain cancer called glioblastoma, one of the most common and most aggressive types of brain tumors. She passed away on May 3 after a five-year battle with the disease.
Menounos' journey of grieving is far from over, but she looks back and remembers her mother for her inspiring outlook throughout her cancer journey.
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Menounos refers to her "own journey" because she had a brain tumor, but thankfully it was not cancerous. She started noticing strange symptoms like ear pain, dizziness and blurred vision while taking care of her mom. After an MRI, her doctors discovered she had a golf ball-sized benign (non-cancerous) tumor. She then underwent a 7-hour brain surgery on her 39th birthday in June 2017. She's been doing well since, but the sting of her mother's passing is still very real.
"This grieving process has a lot of twists and turns, many of which I will share on my show (@bettertogetherwithmaria )this week," Menounos continued on Instagram. "It's hard to see someone so young leave your physical side. I know she's with me though."
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