The Impact of Let Us Play™
Building Hope, Connection, and Well-Being After Cancer.
Over the past year, Lee Lee’s Life Lessons has begun building a meaningful impact in the cancer survivorship community. Through monthly support group sessions at Messino Cancer Center and participation as a Positive Psychology Practitioner with The After Cancer program, we have engaged approximately 50–60 survivors. Our Let Us Play™ Thriving With and Beyond Cancers programs are grounded in Positive Psychology and guided by the EPIC Framework—Express, Play, Integrate, and Carry Forward—helping survivors process their experiences, reconnect with joy, integrate new insights, and create sustainable practices for thriving beyond cancer. Participants explore strategies that foster hope, meaning, resilience, connection, and vitality while building supportive relationships with others who understand the survivor journey. As our programs continue to grow, we are implementing formal outcome measures using the PERMA-V well-being model to document and strengthen the positive impact of our work, supporting our vision of helping survivors move from surviving to thriving. 💜
The Positive Psychology-informed, Let Us Play™ journey follows the EPIC Framework:
🎨 Express – Share your story and honor your experience.
🎈 Play – Rediscover joy, curiosity, and possibility.
🌱 Integrate – Transform insights into meaningful growth.
✨ Carry Forward – Create sustainable practices for thriving beyond cancer.
Impact at a Glance
Approximately 50–60 survivor experiences reached
Monthly support group sessions facilitated at Messino Cancer Center
Positive Psychology-informed survivorship programming delivered through Lee Lee’s Life Lesson’s Let Us Play™
EPIC Framework implemented
Growing partnerships with cancer centers and support organizations
Survivor testimonials demonstrating increased hope, connection, resilience, and meaning
A Survivor’s Voice
A retreat participant shares her experience
“I showed up at the retreat nine months into treatment for Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. I was still reeling from what that diagnosis meant for me long term and even wondering what “long term " meant.
When Lisa invited us to write down a list of activities that bring me joy, I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. Two of the activities that brought me the most joy were hiking and cooking. Simmering below the surface was a deep grief…It almost felt like too much to even acknowledge how much my diagnosis/treatment had impacted my ability to experience these joys. Radiation left me feeling so depleted I couldn’t walk, much less hike, for more than 25-30 minutes….and my taste buds were wrecked. And I no longer had much of an appetite. Sadly, these were also two of the activities that facilitated deep connection with my partner….but surely I could come up with a list beyond these two….I loved the invitation, but initially I was paralyzed. The lawyer in me wanted to ask her to define “joy.”
I was struggling. My mind headed down a rabbit hole, recounting all I had lost when Lisa reminded us that joy could be as simple as noticing little waves of delight or feelings of well-being. Wow. It was profound—and then it all started flooding in faster than I could write.
“….Watching the sunset at the beach, eating shrimp burgers at our favorite drive-in. Feeling Glenn’s warm hand on my back in the morning. Drinking my morning tea sitting in my favorite chair under my wool throw. Watching our 2-year-old Labrador sleep. Watching photos of the sky and other fun times with family pop up on my digital frame. Listening to Glenn wash the dishes while I napped on the couch…acts of service are his love language. I don’t think I heard Lisa say another word for the next hour.
When we were invited to share our list with the group, I remember feeling overcome with emotion-and the realization that despite all I had been through over the last 9 months, I was actually living a life filled with many moments of joy.
Today, noticing and naming those moments is almost a daily practice. Like when I’m driving to the grocery store, and I see the sun setting and my favorite song is playing, I take a deep breath, smile, and just say “Joy” out loud. I can feel it reverberate through my body. And that can’t help but support my healing. “ - Chris McLeod
