A NEW coaching business has launched to support people receiving cancer diagnoses.

Hexham-based life coach Alex Brown launched Harmony Coaching for Cancer in September, following her diagnosis of lobular breast cancer in 2023.

She launched her first coaching business, Start Here, in 2022 before she was diagnosed.

Coaching can be done on Zoom or in person and she has published the diary she kept while being treated for cancer on her website to help others.

Alex said: "I started a separate coaching business from Start Here because cancer is a huge problem. By the end of this decade they are now predicting one in two people will experience a cancer diagnosis within their lifetime. Numbers are rising at an alarming rate.

"I am hoping to help people by taking the fear out of cancer. Just the word is probably one of the most dreaded words in the dictionary. Cancer is scary but it doesn’t have to be.

"If you have the right tools to help you through the process, it can be made a lot easier. There are a lot of important decisions to be made in a cancer journey and very often people struggle to make those choices easily.

"It can also be a strange kind of limbo land that you live in after the cancer journey is over and I am hoping to help people move on from existing to thriving.

"Your life can often look very different to you after cancer but that doesn’t mean it can’t be great or even better than it was before. I am looking forward to helping people regain their confidence and zest again."

Alex has a programme dedicated to helping people cope with the loss of a loved one, whether that be through cancer or otherwise.

She added her experience of cancer last year helped her realise how 'ill-equipped' we are when a cancer diagnosis comes 'out of the blue'.

"Even with all the tools I had previously learnt through the courses I had done, the whole experience was still tough, although undoubtedly easier with the tools I had. I also found myself in a strange place after my cancer journey ended and it made me realise how hard it is to go back to normal life again as it was."

Alex hopes to run some free wellbeing workshops in future.