Beyond the pink ribbon: Healing from breast cancer needs compassion, not just awareness

As October draws to a close with ribbons, campaigns, and illuminated buildings to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the world has turned pink in solidarity. Beyond the colour and the cause are real women, each with her own story. Some beginning treatment, stepping into unfamiliar territory filled with uncertainty and hope. Others, adjusting to a new rhythm of life, finding balance, redefining strength, and perhaps even rediscovering joy in everyday moments.

Early detection continues to save lives and deserves every effort of awareness, yet healing extends beyond medicine. It blossoms through compassion, presence, and supportive communities where understanding replaces isolation and care becomes a shared act.

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) theme this year, Every Story is Unique, Every Journey Matters, reminds us that no two diagnoses are alike. Behind each is a woman navigating her own fears, choices, and hopes.

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women in the GCC. Globally, WHO reports that 2.3 million women were diagnosed in 2022 and 670,000 died from the disease. Behind these numbers are mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends, each with a story of courage, vulnerability, and a need for dignity and care.

At a recent event at Majlis Al Amal, a community created by Al Jalila Foundation to support female cancer patients, stories of resilience and compassion revealed what healing can look like.

The day showed how illness can awaken compassion, awareness, and connection, qualities that complete the work of medicine. The room was filled with stories of strength and courage: women who faced the unknown with grace, doctors who cared with kindness, and practitioners who supported healing. Each story reflected hope, love, and faith, showing that healing grows through community and shared experience.

Wellbeing practitioners who support people through illness often see that what is most lacking is compassionate care, the kind that honours both body and spirit. Trauma-informed methods, mindfulness, and breathwork can ease fear and restore a sense of control, helping people move from surviving to feeling alive. Healing grows when people are met with understanding rather than managed through only symptoms, and when care helps them reconnect with their inner strength and sense of wholeness.

Many women living with post-treatment lymphoedema, a condition that can develop after cancer therapies when lymph nodes are removed or damaged, find that awareness practices, breathwork, and gentle movement help them reconnect with their bodies and release long-held tension.

Over time, these practices improve mobility, restore energy, and build a deeper sense of balance. Healing extends beyond the diagnosis, touching confidence, relationships, and vitality, and shows that listening to the body with compassion can be as restorative as treatment itself.

Still, many experience this journey in silence.

In much of the Arab world, cultural expectations often favour endurance over expression. People are taught to be strong, to hide emotion, and to carry pain with dignity, but this strength can also create isolation.

Speaking openly about fear, vulnerability, or emotional struggle is often seen as uncomfortable, even within families. This silence can deepen loneliness at a time when connection and understanding are most needed for healing.

Emotional support should be part of the care plan from the start, not added later. There must be spaces where women can speak openly, without fear or shame. Families and caregivers need guidance to respond with empathy, and workplaces should provide safety and understanding so women can heal without fear of consequence. Healing strengthens when empathy and compassion guide every stage of care, from diagnosis to recovery and beyond.

Awareness is the first step, but real change requires action. The WHO’s Global Breast Cancer Initiative (GBCI) sets clear goals: 60% of cancers detected at stage I or II, diagnosis within 60 days of the first symptoms, and 80% of patients completing treatment. These outcomes are achievable when health systems strengthen and when equity, access, and compassion shape every level of care.

Breast cancer affects the body and reaches the heart, mind, and the fabric of community. This October and beyond, may the focus be on creating a world where every woman feels supported, seen, and cared for, and where compassion and cultural understanding are valued as essential parts of healing, as vital as treatment itself.

Nancy Zabaneh is a Dubai-based wellbeing educator and trauma-informed facilitator