'The darkness lifted - and life became indescribably beautiful': In a deeply moving message to Kate, cancer-survivor JANE GREEN reveals the one daily habit she's convinced helped save her

The Princess of Wales, poised and stoic in her Friday video revealing her cancer diagnosis, gave no indication of the many things she is likely to be feeling, the fears she is dealing with, the thoughts that keep her awake in the middle of the night.

Her priority is not only going to be her health, but the emotional wellbeing of her three young children, ensuring they know only what they absolutely need to, with all the positive spin she can muster: Mummy will be OK.

When, in 2014, I was diagnosed aged 46 with malignant melanoma — a particularly aggressive form of skin cancer that couldn't simply be scraped away and forgotten, but the type that required surgery and biopsies of nearby lymph nodes, six-monthly check-ups and recurring worries about my surgeon's warning that 'melanomas have a habit of returning' – my children seemed surprisingly unbothered.

When, in 2014, I was diagnosed aged 46 with malignant melanoma - a particularly aggressive form of skin cancer that couldn't simply be scraped away and forgotten, but the type that required surgery and biopsies of nearby lymph nodes, six-monthly check-ups and recurring worries about my surgeon's warning that 'melanomas have a habit of returning' - my children seemed surprisingly unbothered.

At 10, 11, and 14, they weren't too young to understand, but we also only told them what we had to. The necessities — told with a smile.

My husband and I explained why I'd be undergoing surgeries and spending time in bed, why I wouldn't necessarily be available for them in the way I had been, whilst also ensuring they knew that I was going to be fine.

Of course, I didn't know I was going to be fine. But I needed the children to believe that I would be, just as Kate will need hers to believe that, too — as much for her as for them.

Indeed, I firmly believe that life is where you look; that if you seek the good, you will undoubtedly find it. In that vein, Kate's message of hope — reassuring us that she is 'well' and 'getting stronger' — takes on a more poignant and powerful resonance.

At a time when I could have plunged into despair – and I certainly had my moments – my diagnosis taught me that we are largely powerless to what life throws at us. Where our power comes in is how we choose to deal with those curveballs.

Shortly before my cancer was discovered, an acquaintance of mine who was a recovering alcoholic had asked if he could add me to his 'morning text list'. I had no idea what this meant, but agreed. He was going through an incredibly difficult time and it was clear he needed the support.

He had just been left by his wife, his children were refusing to speak to him, he had lost his job and was living in a grungy little apartment above a friend's garage.

In short, everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.

The next morning, his text arrived — a 'gratitude list' of three things he was grateful for.

Every morning this man woke up and instead of focusing on all the many things going wrong in his life, he chose to look for the few things that were going right.

They were often small or seemingly insignificant — that he had remembered to buy his favorite coffee, or that a neighbor had been kind — but it was a huge learning experience for me.

When my cancer diagnosis came, the scariest times were in the middle of the night, when the house was quiet and everyone was asleep, when there was no-one to distract or reassure me.

I would lie in bed, my thoughts inevitably going to dark places, terrified for my children, terrified the cancer might have spread, terrified of looming chemotherapy, of being dreadfully sick, of wasting away.

I had lost one of my best friends to this awful disease a few years earlier.

I had watched her start with strength and determination, knowing she would beat it, only to have her cancer metastasize and morph into a demon she had no way of fighting.

My husband and I explained why I'd be undergoing surgeries and spending time in bed, whilst also ensuring they knew that I was going to be fine. Of course, I didn't know I was going to be fine. But I needed the children to believe that I would be, just as Kate will need hers to believe that, too.

I firmly believe that life is where you look; that if you seek the good, you will undoubtedly find it. In that vein, Kate's message of hope - reassuring us that she is 'well' and 'getting stronger' - takes on a more poignant and powerful resonance.

That gratitude list I was receiving every morning showed me what I had to do to stop the fear consuming me.

Each time I found my mind heading to a dark place, I forced myself instead to think of three things I was grateful for.

Even if it all felt a bit silly, it stopped me spiraling — and soon became a habit, one I have kept up to this day.

I have since done a lot of reading about gratitude, and specifically on how a practice of gratitude has the ability to rewire the neural pathways in our brains.

Scientists have discovered that happiness is indeed a choice — and if you don't know how to choose it, then the practice of deliberately focusing on life's positives is a good place to start.

Struggling with my diagnosis, I found that once I started focusing on the things I was grateful for, everything changed.

The skies became bluer, the trees greener, everything in sharp definition and unbearably beautiful.

I saw the world through very different eyes, stunned at how lucky I was to be living in it, for however long that might be.

Robert Emmons, a professor of psychology at the University of California, has said this: 'Gratitude is a sustainable approach to life that can be freely chosen for oneself. It is choosing to focus on blessings rather than burdens, on gifts rather than curses, and people report that it transforms their lives.'

In a paper published by the National Library of Medicine in 2022, researchers found that 'gratitude was associated specifically with successful physical symptom management, emotional support, improved attitude toward death…humanity, and the familiar environment.'

I do not follow an organized religion, but I believe in a God — a Higher Power — and when I was sick, I found myself praying on a daily basis.

I did not pray for a good outcome, for I understood that I had no control over what might happen to my health. Instead, I prayed for the fortitude and grace to deal with whatever was coming my way.

A decade on, my cancer has not yet returned. Life hasn't always been easy during these ten years, but the key lessons I learned during my brief dance with cancer have stayed with me.

When the hard times hit, when life feels frightening or overwhelming, I still return to gratitude.