Clea Shearer: My Cancer Will Be Purposeful

Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

Tami Simon

Religion, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Discover the wisdom and practical lessons Clea Shearer gained on her cancer journey. This episode offers hope, humor, and supportive insights for anyone facing a serious physical illness or any of life's other monumental challenges.

Clea Shearer discusses her new book, Cancer Is Complicated. With host Tami Simon, the author, entrepreneur, and co-founder of The Home Edit shares her journey through a stage two breast cancer diagnosis, the emotional and physical complexities of treatment, and the surprising gifts that emerged along the way. Learn how Clea's experience reshaped her perspectives on life purpose and helping others, and how to support yourself or someone you love in navigating physical illness or other serious challenges.

Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Sounds True Podcast Network.
0:07.5	Cancer is complicated is something I kept saying over and over again.
0:12.2	When people would ask me about certain moments of my journey, I kept saying, you know,
0:18.4	well, it's complicated, you know, because it is, I often found myself
0:23.2	with answers that were not black or white.
0:29.6	In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Clea Scherer.
0:34.6	She's the author of the new book, Cancer is Complicated and Other Unexpected Lessons I've
0:41.6	Learned. You may be familiar with Clea Scherer as the co-founder of the Home Edit, a home and
0:48.9	Lifestyle Company that began with the goal of reinventing home organizing and merging it with design.
0:56.7	It's a hugely successful brand.
1:00.1	The Home Edit was acquired by Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine,
1:06.2	and it was in this same season of the company being required, the spring of 2022, that Cleo Scherer
1:15.2	was diagnosed with an aggressive form of stage two breast cancer at the age of 40. And her book,
1:23.4	Cancer is Complicated, chronicles her journey, her treatment and recovery process.
1:30.2	The book offers the energy of companionship.
1:34.2	It's loving, compassionate, funny.
1:37.6	It's a friend to you on a cancer journey if a book could be such a friend.
1:46.0	Stay with us.
1:57.1	Clea, welcome. Thank you so much for having me and for that description. It makes me feel happy. Tell us about the title, Cancer is Complicated. Well, Cancer is Complicated is something
2:06.3	I kept saying over and over again. When people would ask me about certain moments of my journey,
2:13.2	I kept saying, you know, well, it's complicated, you know, because it is, I often found myself
2:20.0	with answers that were not black or white, that there's so much nuance in this disease, and there's so
	...

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