#120 Creating a Space for New Possibilities

As the new year dawns, many resolutions and goals often wane before the first blossoms of spring appear.

It's not for a lack of desire for transformation or growth. Nor is it that we don’t wish for a happier, more refined version of ourselves.

The hurdle lies in our inability to release old, ingrained thought patterns that led us to our current state—those very thoughts that act as barriers to positive change.

To truly change, it's pivotal to recognize and let go of beliefs that haven’t yielded desired outcomes. After all, how can we welcome fresh possibilities if we’re bogged down by outdated mindsets?

In today's episode, we'll delve into the subtle art of letting go. Discover how embracing change doesn’t always require a grand leap, but often just a minor shift in viewpoint.

Remember, a small pivot can set the stage for monumental transformation.

Resources:

The Breast Cancer Recovery Group Facebook

Read Full Transcript Below:

0:01
This is Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm a healthy lifestyle coach, a clinical Ayurveda specialist, a personal trainer, and I'm also a breast cancer survivor. In this podcast, we talk about healthy thinking and mindfulness practices, eating well, moving your body for health and longevity. And we'll also hear from other breast cancer survivors who have reengaged with life and have incredible stories to share. This podcast is your go-to resource for getting back to life after breast cancer.

0:38
Hello, and welcome to the Breast Cancer Recovery Coach Podcast. I am your host, Laura Lummer.

0:45
And I am very happy to be here with you today. And I'm happy you're here with me today. So thank you for downloading the show and for listening in. You know, I feel like this in when I first started this podcast, of course, it was this huge undertaking and this big project like how's this going to be received, who's gonna want to listen to it are people gonna say horribly mean things, there are internet trolls, you know, all that. And, you know, over the years, it has, of course, morphed so much I've figured out so much.

And especially recently, I'd say, you know, over the past few months over the past year, it's just become such an amazing tool of connection. And rarely a day goes by that I don't hear something amazing from someone, you know, someone out in the world that I would have never connected with someone out in the world that needed to hear something and they'll drop a little note or they join the breast cancer recovery group on Facebook. And they'll post a little something about what the podcast means to them or how they heard about it. And it's really cool. It's really, really amazing. And I just, it means so much to me to be able to do this and to hear the feedback from all of you who take the time to do that. It's super, super meaningful. And I just want to thank you so much for everything that means everything to me. And it means everything to feel that connection to other survivors out there. You need to hear whatever it is on the show.

2:18
So thank you for downloading, thank you for subscribing, you know thanks for the reviews. And if you have time and you haven't left a review, I would love it, it would mean so much if you subscribe to the show, and leave a review for the podcast. And I appreciate you taking the time to do that as well. So thank you.

2:38
Alright, so here we are, the second week of January. And I want to talk about RELEASE, letting some things go.

2:49
And you know, in January, we talked about setting goals and changing things. And for me coming into this year in January, after having a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer in October, kind of gave a whole new dimension to this spin on a new year. And what I want out of the year, and what I want my life to look like. And something that I realized, was not only the release with respect to the emotions, fear, anxiety, that kind of thing that comes with a diagnosis of cancer. And as you well know, recovering from breast cancer or being in treatment, or maybe like me living with breast cancer. It's a process of release, that's a really big part of what I coach on. It's a really big part of my programs.

3:40
And it's important because there are so many things that we have to let go of. And sometimes we don't realize that we have to let go, we think this is how things are. We think this is how things should be this is how you want things to be. And we cling to it. And it's really hard to let go. And sometimes it's hard to see that we're not letting go because it can be very subtle.

4:07
So something I talked about frequently is that release after breast cancer treatment of going back to normal, letting go of that expectation that at some point, everything your body's been through is going to magically disappear. And it's going to be the same body that it was before breast cancer treatment.

4:24
That's not going to happen, right?

4:26
That's not going to happen with your perception of the world. You don't go through cancer treatment, face your mortality, go through the things we have to go through in treatment, and then come out the other side as innocent as you were before you went through it. You can't undo what's been done. And so that's why we have to really focus on release and that process of letting things go because otherwise, it keeps us stuck.

4:52
Right?

4:53
We get very stuck and how do you feel when you're stuck? How do you feel when you want something to go back to something It was or become something you think it should be. And it's just not happening. It feels frustrating, right? It feels terrible. And when you feel frustrated and you feel terrible, what result does that bring into your life? Rarely something magnificent, right? Rarely, something awesome, rarely something spectacular. It doesn't bring about healing and growth and fulfillment and joy. And that's what we always want to aim for.

5:24
So the good thing is we get to choose how to feel, we get to decide. We have emotional independence. We are emotional adults, as long as we take responsibility for our emotions. And we get to decide how we're going to feel about the results we create in our lives and what is going on.

5:43
So over the past week, this has been very heavy on my mind, because I went through after my diagnosis, I went through radiation treatment, and I finished that the week after Christmas.

5:56
And here I was right just like the first diagnosis, oh, done with treatment, what now, what's next.

6:06
And yet, even though I'm not really done with treatment, I'm on chemotherapy, I'm on other treatments, and I will continue to be for the rest of my life. But done with that really intense, you know, that here, this is going to happen. And this is intense treatment, and you need to show up every day, and you're going to feel the effects on yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, all of that stuff. And then that's over.

6:29
And so I come into January, and really looking at the women I want to reach is so important to me. Now I look at this business, I think about the women who need support, I think about how many women I want to reach and I think how can I change things? How can I transform things to reach more people to reach more survivors who need that support? Who needs that understanding and training and coaching and that ability to tap into the understanding of their own power of how to change their thoughts.

7:02
And so as I'm, I'm working with that, and I'm wrestling with that, and you know, I'm going through my own existential crisis, I call it as I was talking to my daughter, am I physically, you know, I feel great. I'm doing great. I'm responding fantastically to every treatment.

7:16
But now, this is like, phase two, right? Chapter two breast cancer.

7:22
Okay, face mortality once I recovered, I did great. I made all kinds of changes in that time span. And now, hmm... I face it again, I'm in a new year. And I'm reminded of the urgency of life, of the importance and the tentativeness and the delicateness, and the fragility, and yet the magnificence and the importance of everything I want to embrace of everything I want to create of everyone I want to connect to.

7:54
So, here's the question. Why haven't I done it yet?

8:01
So when we talk about release, here are two things to think about two different ways to look at it.

8:07
When you look at your life, and you think I would like to accomplish this goal over here. And maybe you've wanted to accomplish that goal for a long time, I'm going to use the most common easiest one to pull up, which is weight loss. I mean, how many women do we all know who are constantly wanting to lose weight, it's 5 pounds, 10 pounds, 20 pounds, I don't care, whatever it is. And so you come into the new year, you're like, I'm going to lose 10 pounds, I'm going to lose 15 pounds, whatever it might be.

8:35
But what I would like to offer today, is not setting that goal and saying to yourself, what am I going to set up to make this happen? But to ask yourself about whatever your goal might be? Why haven't I done it yet? What do you need to let go of? What thought Do you need to release? What habit what belief system? Do you need to release that you've had all this time so that you can become that version of you or move closer to becoming that future version of you that you want this year?

9:16
And it can be a really subtle thing. And here's another aspect to it. Sometimes we want to change something, but it's not a bad thing. Right? So if you want to lose five or 10 pounds, you probably know that much overweight, right? It's probably not a big threat, you may just want to fit into whatever your old pre-menopausal jeans, I don't know. But it's not a really big deal. It's not a huge point of suffering. It's probably not threatening, you're not pre-diabetic or something of that nature. It's threatening your health yet, right.

9:47
And so you may look at it and go well it's not bringing me that much discomfort. I like to do it because the size 8's are still sitting there but whatever. It's not that big of a deal. I'm going to have the creme brulee.

9:58
Well, you may have a job. And the job is fine. You know, it's fine. The people you work with are fine. Everybody's nice, make decent money. And yet, it's not everything, right? It's not what you LOVE, it doesn't light you up, you don't go to it and think, dang, this is awesome. I love doing this every day. I love what I do.

10:22
So this always reminds me of relationships. And especially once my daughter was old enough to have boyfriends and this a serious boyfriend she was in a serious relationship with and you know, living together. And not only did I see her go through it, and how to help her through it, but this is an experience I have had my other female friends have had girlfriends, anybody, anybody who's been in a relationship. And for some reason, when we're in a relationship, or we're in a job, or I don't know a house, an apartment, whatever it is, and it's not horrible.

10:58
But it's not everything. It's not what we really want. We feel like we have to find the horrible, right? It's not that easy to just look at it and say this no longer serves me, I'm ready to make a change. And that change may be a modification that change may be leaving, who knows. But we look at whatever it is when.

11:23
And going back to the story of my daughter, right? She would look for these stories to kind of say, you know, this is a horrible person, right? This is a bad guy, he did this thing, or this guy's a jerk. I did the same thing, right? Looking at an ex-husband, when before he was an ex-husband, right? I have to justify how bad it is, and how awful the things are, this person did to me in order to feel like it's okay to change it. Like I have the right to make it different now because it's so horrible.

11:57
And when it's not, and it's not that horrible. And we wrestle with our brain, and we go back and forth. And we tell ourselves, yeah, I want this thing to be different in my life or this thing in my life. It just isn't serving me. It's not fulfilling me. But it's not horrible. And that relationship, it's not horrible, it could be worse. But the thing is that it doesn't have to be horrible.

12:22
I can remember saying to my daughter, honey, you don't have to make someone out to be a jackass, you just had to have the realization that this relationship is not the right one for you. It's not fulfilling for you. It's not where you want to be. That's all you need. And you can change, it's your life, you get to change it, it's your life, you get to create what you want, you don't have to justify by making someone or something out to be a horrible villain, in order for you to have the right to make a change.

13:01
So when it comes to release, this is something else, that as you look forward to this year into your life, thinking about what's not working for you. And not being horrible or abusive, or you know, way off the spectrum, but it's just not working for you, then you can release that idea. And that story, that it has to be horrible in order for me to justify letting it go making it different, bringing up controversy, rocking the boat, however you want to call it. It doesn't have to be the big bad, hairy monster. You just have to know it doesn't serve you. It is not serving you.

13:48
And so when we hold on so tight to these ideas of, well, things are good enough, you know, things aren't that bad. It doesn't allow any space for something new to manifest.

14:05
So what if when you have this thing in your life, whether it is weight loss, or finances or relationships, or careers, or businesses or just some kind of work that you want to do or a creative outlet, and yet you tell yourself, you can't change your life right now. Because right? Because for this reason or that reason, or it's not that bad.

14:33
That, my friend, is the idea you need to release when you let go of that fixation of that very deeply rooted idea that something has to be secure. That insurance has to be this way, that money has to be that way that relationships have to be that way, that you have to provide this way for your kid.

14:55
And you stop because you say, God, these things I'm telling myself these beliefs that I have that you know, they're not that bad, they're the right thing to do that the thing I have to do, even though we know they're not serving us, and we feel a little, you know, uncomfortable, when we think about it physically in our body, there's that sense of discomfort. It's like, this isn't bringing me peace, this isn't bringing me fulfillment. But we're not ready to let go of the idea around it, we're not ready to go, you know what, every time that comes up, and I tell myself, it's not so bad, I'm gonna respond to my brain with but what if it could be better? But what if I allowed the opportunity for it to be better?

15:40
You know, one of the biggest things that we deal with breast cancer and after breast cancer treatment is fear and anxiety. It's huge. It's real. It's something that I work with women all the time. And it isn't just fear and anxiety around cancer, it's fear and anxiety around life.

15:57
And that's one of these things, right? When we say a relationship isn't that bad, or a job isn't that bad, even though we know we're not fulfilled by it, it's fear of change. It's fear of judgment, it's a fear of other people's thoughts. There's all this fear that comes in. But when we can look at it, and we can release it, and we can just say to ourselves, you know, I don't have to jump into this super uncomfortable space. But what if I just allowed the possibility, and what if I just went into the rest of this year, looking at this area of my life and saying, you know, it's not that bad, but I'm gonna allow the possibility for it to be better, I'm going to release that idea that it's good enough, I'm going to release that idea that it has to be horrendous. In order for me to justify not liking it this way. I'm just gonna allow the possibility for something different.

16:55
You know, in the past, I've shared a story of after my first diagnosis, the fight, you know, the anger and the need to fight and I'm going to fight this, and I'm going to win this, and I'm going to change this and I'm going to fix my body, and I'm gonna make it go back to normal, and I'm gonna force it to be what I want it to be.

17:12
Just the fight, the fight, the fight, we talk about this fight all the time.

17:17
And when you think about it, does the fight really feel comfortable? Does the fight make you feel good? Is the mentality of fighting, being angry, and working against your own body, bring you a sense of peace and fulfillment? Does it bring you a sense of lightness and a sense of healing?

17:37
You know, fighting something really is a fear-based action and emotion. Right? Because we're fighting, we don't want something to take over. So we're gonna fight it, we're gonna fight it, because we're afraid of it. But what if we allowed ourselves the possibility, and we opened that space and said, I'm not gonna fight anymore, I'm not gonna fight my body anymore. I'm going to allow this space, I'm going to hold this space for my body, I'm going to allow the possibility that I could just love myself. I'm going to open up that space. I'm going to release the fight and the judgment and the fear. And I'm going to get to know this body and I'm going to ask it, what do you need from me today? What do you need from me today body to continue to move forward in creating the life we want. Right? The life I want, with my body with peace of mind, with good health. And instead of the sense of fear and fighting off the bad, scary monster that's always lurking in the shadows, opening my heart, opening my energy, opening myself to the possibility that I could just send love to this body.

18:54
That is our human healing this body, healing my soul, my spirit, the trauma of what I've been through, or what may still be happening in your body side effects from aromatase inhibitors and, you know, ongoing treatments for metastatic disease, all of these things, and we let it go. And we worked on releasing this mentality that's pounded into us all the time, fight, be strong, be strong, be strong, be strong, which really is so clear to me now is more a message of being afraid. Be afraid and keep fighting. Don't let your guard down, keep fighting, keep fighting.

19:35
And we just said, What if it's not about letting my guard down. And it's about knowing what I want in my life. And it's just about allowing myself to really take a look at how I feel about my body. how I feel about this life, how I feel about the things I want to accomplish in my life. And if I haven't been moving closer to those things? If I haven't been feeling better about myself and my life? Why? What is it I need to let go of? That's kept me from moving forward. That's kept me from feeling that lightness. What is it that's kept me in anger or fear, or resentment or bitterness or frustration? And what do I need to release?

20:29
And then letting that go from the past, right? Because, you know, we can't become different change life live a different life thinking, acting, and behaving the same way we've always acted. So if you don't have the results you want yet in any aspect of your life, something's got to change, you've got to let something go, some kind of thought pattern going open yourself to say, what could make this better.

20:54
So a little exercise for today that I'd like to offer you is writing at the top of your journal or a regular old piece of paper:
What has kept me from moving closer to the version of myself I want to be?
What do I need to let go of?

21:16
And take five minutes every morning, take five minutes before you go to bed, whatever it might be. And just brainstorm, just allow all the thoughts to come out on a piece of paper, all the thoughts, girls can't do this, people can't do that. I can't earn that much whatever it might be. And look at those thoughts that keep you from having the results that you want in your life.

21:38
Because I would love for this to be the year of possibility and opportunity for you. The possibility to heal, to transform to create the life you want to feel joy and love and fulfillment and satisfaction in your life, your capabilities and your abilities as a spectacular, amazing, miraculous human being. But in order to do that, you're gonna have to let something go.

22:08
So I would love to hear what you think you have to release. What do you have to let go of to move forward? Whether that is something you have to let go of from your past, or something you have to let go of what's blocking you from your future. Something that's blocking you from having happiness, calm, and peace of mind. What is it that you have to release?

22:29
Come and find me at the Breast Cancer Recovery Group on Facebook is a free group.

22:35
Great discussion, hundreds of amazing women looking for ways to bring positivity back into their life fulfillment back into their life, to release the fear, the anxiety, and the negative thought patterns that hold us back from living the absolute best life, we can.

22:54
Come on over there and tell me because I'd love to hear what it is that you're going to let go of to help you move closer to the spectacular future version of yourself. In this new year that we are going to make wonderful.

23:08
We're going to make it a wonderful new year. I know there's stuff going on right now. We're not going down that road. We have our little piece of life and we can make that piece of life. Our little piece of the world is spectacular.

23:22
Thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you again next week and until then be good to yourself and expect others to be good to you as well.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai