#157 It's Good & Bad and That's Okay

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Life's curveballs can sometimes leave us questioning: "How can anything good come from this?"

It's not uncommon to hesitate in acknowledging the silver linings for fear of undermining the gravity of a situation. Similarly, when something good happens, the underlying costs might dampen our joy.

But what if life isn't simply black and white?

What if we could embrace life in its entirety, celebrating the highs and understanding the lows, without the burden of guilt?

Join me in this episode as we explore the intricate tapestry of life's experiences, understanding that every situation often carries both light and shadow.

 


 

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. Hey there, welcome to another episode of the breast cancer recovery coach podcast, I am your host, Laura Lummer. I have some super exciting stuff to start this show off with. And the very first thing that I want to do is give a huge thank you to sister Laura t, that is the username that you use, and I think ya know who you are. And you use that username to leave a rating and review for the show. And I gotta tell you, when I try not to get emotional when I say that, that your review is just so beautiful. And I brought tears to my eyes, it makes me emotional now just thinking of it. Because to know that exactly what I wanted this show to do is what it is doing for other survivors who need to hear it, I just cannot even adequately express what that means. Like, it's amazing. And I appreciate you so much. Thank you for taking the time to leave that reading and to leave that review. And you know, and I know it's great for the podcast. I've said that before. And I probably said this before too. But again, it just means so much to me. It is it is my motivation. It is my inspiration. And it makes my day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. The other great news that I have to let you know, before we get into this show is for those of you who don't follow me on Facebook or Instagram, or you're not in the breast cancer recovery group, then if you are you know that I got the results of my CT scan back. And if you don't follow me in any of those places, I want to tell you that the results came back, as my doctor said better than we could have expected, I think he's we could not have expected a better outcome. And you know, I was so in the moment like I got that news. And I was actually sitting at a restaurant right here by my house, where I had gone to just kind of get out of the house and I was doing some planning for something I'll be sharing with you that is that that I'm planning for you for October. And that's when my doctor called. So I'm sitting at this restaurant. And I hear this and the relief and I was just the tears just started to flow. And I thought Thank God, I have sunglasses here. People are getting I'm getting devastating news. But I was so happy. And of course I shared it with my family right away. And you know, and I left. And I posted about it because honestly, you guys word family too. We're all in this together. And I understand the House have the difficulties, the challenges, I get it, I get all the things that come not only with just navigating life and the challenges that come with that, but throwing breast cancer, breast cancer recovery, and figuring out life afterwards, waiting for this information that you can't get about yourself for yourself and the stress that can go along with that. And then just just managing everything right and so I get it and I wanted to share that news right away with the the members of empower and revived and in the breast cancer recovery group. And I just again, want to thank all of you so much listen to this podcast, whether you're in the groups or my membership or not, that the support I get from this community is just mind blowing, and wonderful. And I see you guys sharing that support with each other. And I love it so much. My heart is literally glowing just talking about it. It is the most beautiful thing. Because, you know, it's I know, there's groups out there that I look into, and I see and I check out because I you know, I want to see what's happening for survivors and a lot of them aren't really geared towards thinking positive or kind of looking for solutions or or focusing on hope. And I really think that's what these groups do. Hopefully, you know, that's what this podcast does for you. That's what my coaching programs do. I see it in the breast cancer recovery group. I just want you to know that all of the love and support from all of you towards me and towards each other is seen. It's noticed and it's meaningful and it's powerful. Well, and I thank you. And I hope you just keep coming back. And if you're not a part of any of those groups, or your this is your first time listening, then hit that subscribe button, subscribe to the podcast, and join my free Facebook group, the breast cancer recovery group, it's amazing. We have over 800 survivors looking for that support and encouragement that is so needed in navigating life with and after breast cancer. And that being said, my final exciting thing, you know, I've talked about October before, I personally feel like we need extra support in October, because there's a lot of breast cancer awareness, news going on out there. And sometimes that's inspiring, and sometimes it's freaking scary. And so I have put together a mind body breast cancer challenge for all of us for the month of October. And I've designed this challenge to help you have this safe and beautiful space for yourself. Where if you start feeling stressed, if you start feeling frightened, if you start having, or even if you're already dealing with the fears, and the concerns, and the worry that can overtake our minds sometimes come to this challenge, where you can challenge yourself to create time for yourself. And when I will support you with coaching, with videos with a downloadable workbook, it's gonna be so cool. And I invite you to come and sign up for that challenge. You can find it at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash mind body, you're going to love it. And it's kind of my kickoff, I like to put something out in the world every time I open my revived membership for enrollment. And it will be opened for enrollment in October. And I'm very, very excited about that. So tons of support for you in October, you can do the challenge with me, you can join me in revived. And you can just support yourself in that transformation in that learning how to treat yourself with compassion, learning how to experience all of your emotions, learning how to experience the shift, from fighting breast cancer, to healing from breast cancer and loving yourself and healing your life. And it's just a beautiful thing. What I see with my members is so freakin powerful. And I just love, love, love and feel so blessed to do the work that I do. So I hope that you come join me sign up for the challenge the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash Mind, Body. And if you are on my email list, you are going to receive a very special opportunity to become a part of revived so if you're not on my email list, go to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com and get on it so you don't miss that offer that's coming up this Sunday, September 26. All right. Well, that was the longest intro I think I've ever done. But there's so much great stuff that I wanted to share with you. And this show also is just kind of a an extension of what I shared with you about the results of my CT scans. So as thrilled and relieved and happy as I was to get these amazing results to hear that the solid masses that were in my body are gone. And to know that in many places in my spine in my hip, and my pelvis where there was a lot of cancer, there's now scarring that radiation helped so much. And so as I continue to focus on healing and some day work towards hearing, there's no evidence of disease, I still have to manage that every single day. And I become, you know, I have to have a really heightened awareness of what my brain is offering me. And so I want to share this with you today because even though I got these amazing results, of course, I noticed that my brain was offering me should you put that out there? You know, should you talk about that so openly and so boldly because what if the next scan isn't good?

9:17
And I noticed this thought of it was good this time. Then what about next time? Right. And as I see my brain off for that it's so interesting, and I love to dig into NC why? Why did that thought come up? Because what if it is not as great next time? But what if it's even better next time? And it's so fascinating to watch this automatic unintentional thought come up. Ooh, what if you should be careful, but get to be aware of it and say okay, brain. Yeah, thanks for that. That's not helping me. So we're gonna switch that over to what if it's even more amazing, and I'm gonna go down that road instead. And as I think about that, you know, I realized that in everything we do everything, everything, everything, everything in life, there's good. It's like half good and half bad, right? Because, yeah, I got great results. But the truth is I have cancer, right? So great results, but you still have cancer. And this is a really important area for us to dig into, is to learn how to accept the fact that everything doesn't have to be all good. And everything doesn't have to be all night good. This is so important, because when we can embrace the fact that every experience in life comes with some good and some bad, some positive and some negative, some gain and some loss, some burden, some release, then we don't have to feel guilty. For the things that we don't necessarily, like we just get to understand this is all a part of one experience. Right? So let me give you an example. I think one of the most common things is we feel guilty after breast cancer. Because we have changes in our physical body, we see the world and life differently, we want to make some changes, we may not even know how to make those changes or where to begin. But again, I refer to that to use that metaphor of the jacket just doesn't fit, we need a new jacket here, we need a new outfit to wear in this life, and we're trying to figure it out. And then we quickly shut that down with, I should just be grateful to be alive. Where if we step back, and we realize you know what, I am grateful for being alive. It was super grateful for being alive. But at the same time, I need to make some changes. Some things are not fitting. And both are okay. In fact, they're not only just okay, but I think very important for the experience. Because when we're open to accepting and embracing that part of this experience is negative and part of it has been positive, then we get to examine both sides. And I'm going to give you two examples. Because this can work both ways, especially in our breast cancer experience, we can be resistant to accepting the positive, that came out of a very challenging experience. Because it feels uncomfortable to say, yeah, something good came out of breast cancer. It feels uncomfortable, and sometimes might even piss you off to hear someone say, I would have never had this gift if I hadn't had breast cancer. Like, in some ways breast cancer gifted my life. What if you could stay open to examining that like what the hell does that mean? I'm suffering here, and you're telling me this is a gift. And I'll give you this example I'm walking along. Today I'm out for my quiet time in my walk. And I was thinking about what I talked about the beginning of the show, about getting the great results back on my scan, about all of the support that I've received about all the women that I have connected to, because I had breast cancer, I would never be doing this show, I would never have the hundreds of women who have been through my coaching programs who are in the breast cancer recovery group, that the 1000s of people that listen to this podcast, because they're looking for support, needing support, and I would never have made those connections. If I hadn't had breast cancer. Now, I live with breast cancer every day. So is that awesome? No, it's really not awesome. And going through my first experience with breast cancer and chemotherapy and all that other stuff. That was that was not awesome. It was extremely difficult. And if I could pick right now to have breast cancer or not, trust me, I would pick not, I would say no, thank you, I opt out of stage four cancer. But that's not where I'm at. And that's not a part of my life, I get to control. So I do get to look at this experience and say, Yeah, this part sucks. But this part is really cool. And I get to embrace it. And I don't have to feel guilty about any of it. I don't have to feel guilty for embracing the positive. I don't have to feel guilty for embracing the negative. And when I look into the negative when I'm willing to be open to it and experience it and explore it. Then I can ask myself how am I thinking about these negative things? Is there something I can learn and grow from within this? Let me give you a super simple example of this. Super, super simple. I like to be up early in the morning. That is my time. That is when my brain is most aware. It is a beautiful for me, I feel like it's this lovely, quiet, sleepy energy of the world is kind of waking up, I like to see the sunrise. But I hate the act of waking up early in the morning. So being up early has a lot of benefits for me. But getting up early does not. And when I can say that to myself and acknowledge that and it's not just bitching about getting up early and saying, what don't I like about the waking up? And I'll share with you here's what I don't like about waking up. I don't like to be told what to do, even by my alarm clock. Yes, that sounds immature and like a stubborn teenager. But it's true. And if I'm open to accepting the positive and the negative about getting up early, that I can look at the negative and say What's so bad about it? Well, here's what I don't like the process, and a buzzer telling me you gotta get up. And so when I explore that, I can see that and I can say to myself, You know what, I don't like to have something like Buzz time to get up. So I set my alarm 30 minutes early. And I allow myself three snooze cycles. Because that way, I'm telling my brain, I'm deciding when to get up. And maybe I'll get up on the first news, and maybe on the second. But for sir, I choose to get up by the third. And I'll tell you, it works for me. And it may sound silly. But when we look at those things we don't like if we can go beyond the surface level of I don't like to do that. Why don't you like to do that? What don't you like about it? What is the negative for you? So in an experience a life experience of going through cancer? What don't you like about it? Well, it sucks. Of course it does. But what does that mean? What don't you like about it? What is you know, for me, it's the fear of death threats friggin thing is threatening my life. So what does life mean to me? What does death mean to me? How do I need to look at this a little deeper, and process it so that I can understand what's underneath the fear and the dislike. And in doing that, I get to know myself better. But I also get to manage my mind a little better. And I get to manage my life. And it's in the digging into this acceptance that we kind of free ourselves. So I'll give you another example. Even I was married the first time I was married. I was 17 years old. Yeah. Look up Barragan teenager in the dictionary, you will see my cute smiling face. And I thought I knew everything. And 13 years later, I was going through a divorce. And there were a lot of grounds for that. And there were a lot there was a lot of ugliness that happened in those years in between. And I remember crying my eyes out, feeling so emotional. And at the same time thinking why this is the best thing. Right? I had three children. But I knew that moving on and ending that relationship needed to happen. I knew it was what needed to happen. And yet I kept experiencing all this emotion. And now I can look at it now and say, because both things were true. Even though you know, there's a next phase of life that's coming up, and it's the right thing for you. And you have to move forward. Letting go of what was in the past and what was comfortable requires a grieving. So when you're in this stage of life, you're like, Hi, I'm going to move forward. But as I think about moving forward and taking on a new experience or changing something, I'm feeling sad, so maybe this isn't the right choice for me. Or maybe feeling sad is a part of the growth and the moving forward.

18:55
Because each experience has its good and bad. So you can look back at what it is that you're leaving behind. And again, I'll use the example of breast cancer, we can look back at this life and say I'm so sad, I want my life back. Yet we know we can't have that back. So we've got to figure out a way to move forward that with joy and intention. And so if we give ourselves permission to say, I'm letting go of that previous life, and I'm going to grieve it, and I have every friggin right to have every right to feel sad for what I've lost. And that doesn't make me ungrateful. And that doesn't make it untrue that my life is going to be happy going forward. But if I can sit in that place and I can look at it, I can also let go of a lot of anger. I can look at that and say I'm grieving this because I have a right. I have suffered a loss. And I want to grieve it. And I want to understand that at this juncture in my life at this point point of transition, where I'm moving from one phase of life into another phase of life. I feel sadness and leaving that phase behind. And I want to offer that this is so important not for these big, huge critical moments in life. But for every moment, as we come up on obstacles, and we weigh out. Is this the right thing? Is this not the right thing? Is this good? Or this bad? No, it's not all good. And it's not all bad, right? We'll say loose the pros and cons, which list is longer go with that. And that's cool, too. But be aware of both of the sides of that list, acknowledge both sides of that list and say, What do I need to explore? What do I need to let go of, because the pros, those are easy, I can embrace those and run with them all day long, right? But the cons are also meaningful. And it is in the acceptance of that idea. It's in that knowing the both the good and the bad, are acceptable here. And I can embrace them both. And I can express them both. And I can explore them both, then I have no reason to judge myself, right? I don't have to judge myself, I'm not being positive, I'm not being negative. I'm having a human experience. And I'm examining what that means to me. And from being fully immersed in that I will grow and have a clear vision of how I want to create my life moving forward. So for all my friends out there who are struggling and caught in this net of I should be positive, and I shouldn't be grateful that I shouldn't be feeling like this. I hope this gives you a little bit of a break for yourself. I hope that you can give yourself permission to go away. It's okay that I'm feeling everything. And in fact, let me look a little deeper into all these fields. Let me accept them all as a part of a whole experience. And if you want even more support with that, please come and join me in the mind body breast cancer challenge for the month of October. You're going to love it. And you can register at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash mind body and there's also a ton of free resources for you on my website meditations supportive video series book on lymphedema. So go to the website the breast cancer recovery coach.com Check it out, go to the Resources page and see if you can find something that works for you and supports you and where you're at and then join me in our October challenge. I look forward to seeing you then and I will talk to you again next week and until then please be good to yourself and expect other people to be good to you as well. Take care

22:48
you've put your courage to the test laid all your doubts your mind is clearer than before your hardest foreign wanting more your futures Give it all you know you've been waiting on

 

  

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