World Mental Health Day

On this World Mental Health Day, our founder, Lisa, reflected on the privilege of joining her friend Megan on the Frequency of Courage podcast to share about breaking stigmas and honoring legacies.

It was a cathartic experience where she was able to share not just her story, but her sister Ellen’s as well. Below are some highlights, but we encourage you to listen to the full episode. It really captures the heart of why Lisa started Sister Sister and what it stands for. 

Thank you for being part of this chapter of her life.  

On Lisa’s Cancer Journey:

“In hindsight I think a lot of people didn’t really understand what I was going through because I didn’t share it with them. What I chose to share with the world was the ‘speedy gonzalez’ version of myself that everything’s okay, I’m gonna beat this thing.”

On Losing Ellen:

“My siblings and I had a lot of childhood trauma. I think the way we coped with that was to run fast through life. After Ellen passed, I just stopped (moving through life so fast). I’ve been in therapy for five years, and over those five years I’ve been processing it all. I’ve been talking about my story with somebody, and that would never have happened had I not lost Ellen.”

On Leaving a Legacy:

“People can die this way (from suicide), and there’s so much stigma around it that we can’t even celebrate their lives. They’re so much more than their end – they were these amazing people.”

On Resilience: 

“I struggled with the word resilience for a really long time. Resilience to me, throughout my whole childhood and through cancer, was going as fast as I could and bouncing back. Instead of enjoying the present, I was running. I started changing the definition of resilience in my mind to where it’s not about bouncing back, it’s about building yourself in a different way.”