#189 What Would it Be Like if You Did Things Differently

What would happen if we took “normal” off the table and looked at life with fresh eyes to decide what we want it to look like going forward? 

It’s so interesting how easy it is to get caught up in doing life the same way we always have for no other reason than, that’s what we know. 

We do what we’re comfortable with, over and over. 

But, what are we missing out on because of that? 

What if you decided to do things differently to see what it would be like? 

How does it feel to even consider that? 

Who would you be if you weren’t “the strong one”, “the sweet one”, or “ the sassy one”? 

Check out this week’s show and let’s talk about what it means to do things in new ways just because you want to. 

Referred to in this episode: 

Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership 

Read the full transcript below:

Laura Lummer 0:00
You're listening to the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a Certified Life health and nutrition coach, and I'm also a breast cancer thriver. If you're trying to figure out how to move past the trauma and the emotional toll of breast cancer, you've come to the right place. In this podcast, I will give you the tools and the insights to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer. Let's get started. Hello, friends, you're listening to Episode 189 of the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I am your host, Laura Lummer. So excited to be here with you today. You know, it's an interesting thing. I'm coming off of several days, almost two full weeks that I've had with my youngest son who's home, he lives in Colorado, and he had a little break from work. And he's been here for several days. And it's been really cool, really cool. I love having my kids around. My second oldest son was the first one to ever move away from home, left California and moved to Colorado. And now my youngest has followed. They don't live in the same town but very close together. And it is a really nice experience to have them home, you know, when you've lived your whole life, having your kids so close by I'm thrilled with them, they have wonderful lives and cholera, they're doing great, they're thriving, they're super happy. But it's really nice to have them home. And it and it makes me think about how cool it is to have adult children. Because it's just neat to be at a stage of life to be able to listen to their ideas, to have conversations with them as adults. And obviously, that's a lesson for me as a mom to who right, I have to stay out of mom mode, and try not to tell them what to do or Well, that's not a good way to think or anything like that, and just stay in adult mode and have really cool conversations with my adult children. So it's a neat experience on many levels. And my kids I think are really good thinkers, right. They're deep thinkers, and I have a lot of great conversations with them. Some of the conversations that I've been having with my son, while he's here, inspire me to take notes and write things and rethink things. And I'm going to talk about one of those things here on the podcast here today. You know, it's an interesting thing. When I had kids, when they were little, I was raised, you know, one way, the way that my parents thought was the best way to teach me to be able to move into adulthood and be a successful adult. And then I raise my children by what I thought was the best thing for them taking what I had learned. And of course, rejecting nearly everything my parents said, and then going back and accepting some of it, and then putting my own spin on it and then teaching my kids, hey, I think this is the best way to do life. Because if you do it this way, I think you will be able to take care of yourself, be able to provide for yourself, but be even happier and like this way even better than the way my parents taught me. Of course, they did the same thing I do would just throw everything I told them

Laura Lummer 3:25
and come back and and take pieces of it, but rethink it and put their own spin on it. Because isn't that the way we live life. It's our own life. It's our own journey. And we live in our own way, and we have to, but one thing that really stands out to me is how my opinion of the quote unquote right way to do life has evolved over the course of my life. And it has definitely evolved with my diagnosis of cancer both times. But definitely this time, you know, stage four diagnosis caused me to think even harder and even more and be really curious and really introspective. And without judgment. Look at all of the things I think are why I do the things that I do and is my life benefiting from that? Are the people I love benefiting from that. Am I limiting myself? Am I limiting them? And I think that is such an important thing to look at. Because when I have these conversations with all my kids, basically but especially with my youngest, he is just a anti doing things. The traditional way is my kids have a very strong entrepreneurial spirit and they're really smart and really creative. And my oldest son and my second oldest son have created their own businesses for themselves. They do a great job and my daughter is working towards that and my youngest son is just determined that he will not quit walk in and clock out for someone else, you know, he does not want to work for someone else. And he has a very different perspective on how to live life than the traditional perspective that I was brought up with, which was get a job, take care of yourself, pay the bills, security, security. And I understand why my parents taught me that. But now, even at this stage in my life, I see and of course, value many things about security about having an income, it's nice to have an income, right, and about having insurance and having benefits. And, you know, obviously, in this situation, and you're listening, you get it, you've had medical condition, and having insurance does help for sure. But the thing is that we can have some things that we choose to keep and some things that give us what we want to have. But then also looking at those things and asking ourselves, like how they keep us from actually fully living and engaging in our life. And that's the thing that I love about the conversations that I've been having Gosh, with my members this month, we are working on looking at life through the beginner's mind. So looking at your life with fresh eyes and a fresh mind, and evaluating and questioning and getting really curious about the things that work for us and the things that don't and the things that we would like to change. And again, all without judgment, but with curiosity, why do we think these things about ourselves? Why do we think life has to work this way? And I think that's the message for this podcast, is that I feel so strongly to say, you know, maybe somebody has never said to you, that you can do things differently. You get to change things up, you get to decide if what's happening right now isn't working for you, you get to decide to do it differently. And I think that a lot of people don't really know that. I think that part of the struggle we have after breast cancer of how do we get back to normal? Now, how do we get back to the status quo now? Is is kind of based on this. It's kind of based on that's the way things should be? Again, I'm doing air quotes, right? This is the way things are supposed to work. But is it really? And does it help us to believe that? Does it help us to tell ourselves that, and I want to offer that it doesn't, because I coach a lot of women who are struggling, and really having a difficult time creating the life they want and finding happiness and joy in the life they want. Because they're telling themselves, it should be a different way. And here's what starts to happen. When we tell ourselves so much that things should be this way, that even today, I have to do something this way today, because that's going to impact what happens 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now. Or even when we forecast that far out in our life and act like we're going to still be doing the same thing, then that we're doing now, what happens is our world gets smaller, and smaller and smaller. And we put more and more limits on ourselves. And the older I get, the clearer that becomes to me, the more I see people around me siblings, friends, my mom, and I see this very, very small world. And I think that as we get older, as we mature as our kids mature, that our world should get even bigger, that we should see more things we could do more possibilities out in the world, fewer limits, because typically as we age, we have a little more financial freedom, we definitely have a little more time freedom. So it gives us the ability and the opportunity to have a much bigger world with fewer limits. If we choose that. Now I coach many women who are going through chemotherapy, this applies even to them. And it's absolutely incredible. People go into chemotherapy, and they think how horrible it's going to be the torture there. They're gonna go through the torment, they're gonna go through the terror they're gonna go through, but these women have reached out and they get coaching and they do self coaching. And they've decided that it's going to be a different experience for them. That it doesn't have to be the way it's always been that they choose to think about it differently. And therefore is it so harsh heck yet is it still difficult? Heck, yes, it is. But it is not the same torment, that it would be if they didn't decide this experience was going to be different from them. For myself and for other women that I coached medic patients that were on for years after breast cancer treatment, which is a part of our treatment, right? We can decide that this is going to be a part of our healing and take in those medications in a very different way. And not have to listen to a lot of the horrible, horrible things that we hear, that people post about and tell stories about and just the devastating stories that are out there. We can decide it's going to be different for us. And who does that make it perfect? No, it doesn't. Sometimes, do you feel crappy? Yes, you will. But it still is different. And it makes it less crappy. Trust me, I know this for myself. And this works in life, we can decide, You know what, I'm going to stop saying I'm not good at things. I'm going to stop not trying things just because I've never done them before. I'm going to start from this line today. And ask myself,

Laura Lummer 11:03
What would I like life to look like today? What would I like life to look like tomorrow. And I can decide to drop all of the weight and the heaviness what we all call baggage, all the baggage of everything that's led up to this point today, and decide what I want my life to look like, every single option is available. Some of the things that come to mind right off the bat where we limit ourselves as women for sure, as breast cancer survivors is saying, you know, I'm the strong one, I'm the warrior everyone comes to me. I don't let myself cry. I don't get emotional. Think of all those labels. And really get curious about each one of those and think about what that means to you. And how that limits you. How does the label of I'm a person who doesn't cry? How does that limit your life? If you tell yourself that story about yourself, think about it, then you've just said, I have to fulfill this role, where I don't allow myself to experience deep emotion, emotion that might bring me to tears, whether it's happy tears or sad tears, I've decided I'm going to shut myself off. And I'm not a person who does that. I'm the person that everyone comes to, I have to be the strong one. Think about the limits there. I can't ask for help. I can't let people know when I need them. I can't wake up today and say, Man, I just need some time for myself, I need some space, I need a hug. I need some quiet, I need someone to understand me. Because and that's a limit you put on yourself because of a label you attach to yourself in, in this work that we're doing. In this work I'm doing for myself in this work that I'm doing with my members. It's just so incredibly powerful. Because it's a beautiful thing to be free. It's a beautiful thing to say who would I be? If I weren't a person who said, I don't cry. If I weren't a person who said I don't get emotional. And how does that serve you now to limit yourself in that way? It's such a amazing and powerful thing to explore. What would be wrong with that? You know, what would be wrong with allowing yourself to experience all of your emotions? What would be wrong with being vulnerable? God knows that's a buzzword, right? I'm not vulnerable. What would be wrong with saying I'm open to the idea of being vulnerable and open to people around me? What comes up for you there? And I talk about this because it's such an important part of healing. And that goes back to the whole normal thing which I you know, I hate to be a dead horse but I want to be normal. I just want things to be normal. I just want things we don't know why. How limiting is that? What is normal? Nothing changes. Everything goes back to the same. What if Whoo, okay, I just had a really big life changing experience. Mm hmm. I get to check in with myself now and say and say now what? Now what I want us to look like now what I want this to be why the heck would I want to go back to this same old normal? What if by telling myself I just wanted it to be normal? I just want everything to be smooth. I just want everything to go back to the way it was would have been doing that you are limiting yourself from experiencing. Amazing. Phenomenal What if there are other options available to you but you can didn't even see them. Because the only thing you want is to go back to the way things used to be, which I'm sure you were complaining about before you got cancer because I don't I was. And I know, every woman I work with does, right? They say, Oh, gosh, you know, I hate my hair now after chemo. But you know what, I always hated my hair, right? Nothing was ever good enough, right? I never thought I was thin enough. I never thought I was pretty enough. I never thought my hair looked good enough. Do you want to go back to that? Or do we want to start saying to ourselves, you know what, I'm going to open my mind in my life to the idea that I can do things differently in an a different way that brings so much more joy. So much more freedom. And kind of a little bit more fear to write. Because if you're the person who never cries, and suddenly you say, You know what, I'm open to be the person who cries if I feel like it. Some fear might come up there. And that's okay. It's okay to have fear. It's okay to experience fear. You know, it's a common belief that if we do work on ourselves, and if we move forward in life, and if we start thinking differently, and if we learn how to kind of train our brain to think less with conditioned thinking and more with deliberate, intentional thinking, that suddenly we're not going to have a human brain anymore, suddenly, our brain isn't going to send up limiting thoughts. Suddenly, we won't experience fear, suddenly, we won't experience sadness. And that's just not true. We're always going to have that that's a part of us. We're human beings, and it's a part of who we are. But what's wrong with that? Why do we tell ourselves that's a bad thing? Like what's wrong with experiencing fear when you try something new? What's wrong with saying, oh, you know what, this hasn't been working for me and so I'm not going to be that person anymore. Hey, that's a little scary. Okay, cool. I can do scared, I can do fear, I got this. And I can also choose to do things differently. Right? Maybe normal, just isn't good enough anymore. Maybe fantastic. Sounds a lot more appealing. I know it does for me, and I love seeing that it does for my kids. And I love seeing that it does for the women that I work with. And I hope that it does for you too. Because what was the point of everything we've been through if we don't want fantastic if you liked this podcast if you like what you hear if it helps you in any way I know you will love joining me in the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership. Get all the details at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash life coaching and I'll talk to you again next week. Until then, be good to yourself, take care

Speaker 2 17:54
courage to the test laid all your doubts your mind is clearer than before your heart is full and wanting more your futures Give it all you know has you been waiting on yours this is your