#360 Navigating Conflicting Thoughts and Wellness Choices After Breast Cancer

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This episode marks a significant milestone—celebrating 13 years since I discovered a lump in my breast that resulted in a cancer diagnosis. The journey has been both challenging and enlightening, marked by two major hurdles that I had to overcome: navigating conflicting thoughts and pushing the boundaries of wellness.

Over the years, I have grappled with the internal struggle of holding onto conflicting thoughts.

On one hand, I firmly believe in my ability to heal and improve my health through dedicated effort and lifestyle changes.

On the other hand, the pervasive thought that cancer is an incurable disease has cast a shadow over my optimism from time to time.

There were times when this duality made it difficult to commit to my healing beliefs fully. In this episode, I delve into the strategies and mindsets that helped me reconcile these opposing thoughts and move forward with a balanced perspective.

The second significant aspect of my journey involved pushing the boundaries of wellness.

I adopted a rigorous regimen of healthy eating, regular exercise, and stress management techniques. These efforts yielded promising results, improving my tumor markers and PET scans.

But sometimes, curiosity and a desire to be “normal” made me test the limits by temporarily reverting to less healthy habits.

Throughout this episode, I share my experiences, insights, and the lessons learned from this journey.

 By reflecting on the importance of mental resilience and the tangible effects of lifestyle changes, I hope to inspire and guide others in navigating their paths to recovery. Join me as we explore the complexities of healing, the power of positive thinking, and the crucial role of wellness in overcoming breast cancer.

Referred to in this episode:

The Four Pillars of Breast Cancer Recovery

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0:00
You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills and the insights and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis. If you're looking for a way to create a life, that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started.

0:33
You're listening to Episode 360 have better than before breast cancer. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. This episode is going to come out on Fourth of July weekend. So July 5, and honestly, I was just going to post an encore episode, I was going to just take the whole weekend off not worrying about producing and editing and all of that that goes on behind the podcast. And then I thought I just can't do that. Because this month is just too special. And I'm so grateful and celebrating just everything that it means to be on this side of 13 years post cancer diagnosis. And this side of what has been three and a half years now of a stage four diagnosis. And I'm not only celebrating that, but I want to share with you all that I kicked off this month with follow up PET scan results. Last PET scan I had was in February, which was the first one I've ever had. And we found that there was only one lymph node in my entire body underneath and more kind of underneath and tucked inside under my right armpit there in that area. And it was the only part of my body that showed metabolic activity. And of all the places that I had cancer three and a half years later, one lymph node, and the follow up PET scan, same stable one friggin lymph node. That's just it's just hanging in there. And you know what my oncologist said to me. And this really made me think, because I think a lot about the energetics of cancer. And I've talked about that on the show before as a part of healing. I've learned over these last years that the energetics about it are so important meaning the emotional energetics our mindset or feelings, the way that we think there's bring so much energy to the body and has such a huge impact on our physical health. And so I was discussing the results of the PET scan with my oncologist. And he said that one lymph node is just angry. The rest of your body is so quiet, everything's at peace, but that one lymph node is hanging on to something. And as he said that to me, I thought, Hmm, what does that mean to me? How does that translate to me? Is there something I can explore? Is there something I'm holding on to? Is there a residual thought or belief somewhere that I haven't yet found? Right? And when I work on that, and I discovered that energetic will that support that last little tidbit of healing. So I don't know, I'm just sharing, that's where my thoughts went. But I'm super happy with the results of that PET scan. And today actually, as I'm recording, this is the exact day 13 years ago, July 3, that I rolled over in my bed, waking up and the beginning of a extended weekend. And as my arm fell across my chest, I felt the lump in my breast right? This is this is the day 13 years ago. And I sit here and I think about how much life I have experienced in 13 years. I like bringing tears to my eyes. And I'm so grateful. And I think about the work that I get to do now the joy that I get from it, and how much I've evolved as a person how much I've created, which is absolutely amazing to me. And if 13 years ago when I heard that news, when I felt that lump and has discovered it and thought, oh God, something's really wrong here. That if you would tell me this was where my life would be 13 years later. I don't know if I believe it, because I wouldn't know how I got there. Right? I just wouldn't understand how do I get to that place? How do I get to that place 13 years later, where I not only went through everything from a stage to be diagnosis, to healing, to going back to college, to getting a new degree to starting a business, to becoming a grandma to moving out of our family home and changing into what I call a lifestyle home for my husband and I where we live out our dream when I left the job of 13 years that took really good care of me and went out on my own and started my own business and then from there evolved, went through stage four extensive stage four cancer diagnosis and still went on to study for a year and a half with Dr. Nisha winters to become an advocate to learn everything I've learned and get to support everyone in the way that I do. It's just fascinating. When I think that diagnosis 13 years ago finding that lump, the diagnosis didn't officially come till July 11. But how devastating it was in that moment, and how I can look back now and just see, I guess we call it a blessing in disguise, right? How much my life evolved, how many wonderful things came up at it that would have never most likely never happened? I mean, would I be coaching breast cancer survivors, if I'd never had breast cancer, I highly doubt it, that wouldn't have been anywhere on my radar that was nowhere towards where my mindset was at. So it's just amazing to look back, to celebrate, to learn about the power that we have to support our bodies, and to change our lives. And a lot of those changes are scary. They're big, you know, when I had my stage four cancer diagnosis in October of 2020, and I decided to start a new membership, I decided to make a huge investment into another a new life coach certification, I decided to make another huge investment into becoming a certified terrain advocate. And in order to do that, I really had to learn to believe in my ability to create the life I want. And my ability to heal, I had to believe that I could do this. And sometimes that's scary. And we have competing thoughts, one of the things that I had to work through a lot and I see this often. So I want to talk about this, there's two things that I want to talk about that I think stand out a lot to me, over the course of this 13 years, one of a lot of things stand out. But there's two I'm going to talk about on this podcast. One is competing thoughts, and the other is pushing boundaries. So when it comes to competing thoughts, I've been through this, and I see this all the time, we want something we want to create something, want to believe something, but we hold on so much to the way we've been conditioned to believe. So we've got like one foot in the future and one foot in the past. And then we're in the middle. And it's really hard to make a concrete decision to move forward. We feel sometimes stuck, we feel sometimes conflicted. And then our mind will come up with all of these stories. I can't believe this if I move forward. Sometimes I hear this because I'll disappoint myself if it doesn't work. And I know I've certainly been through that thinking, what if I believe I can heal? And then I don't? What if I get sick? Or sick? Or what if it spreads. And I certainly had to work through that mindset. And it was really, really strong. It took a long time because I think some some beliefs are deeply rooted. And when it comes to illness, especially in our current society, in the western belief system, and in the standard of care medicine that most of us grow up in believing in right. There are those wonderful hippie factions whose parents raised them to be like all natural, but most of us had to kind of come across that as we got older. So we're really rooted in the beliefs of standard care and the kind of the belief systems of how disease goes. And when it comes to cancer. I'll tell you, one of the things that I hear more than anything else is it's uncurable. In fact, I was reading a book just this week, great book, which I didn't even know that the author of this book was a breast cancer survivor, when I read it, but it's a second book I read from her. And there was a theme of breast cancer diagnosis in both of those books. And so I looked into it and found out that she also was a breast cancer survivor. And when she refers to in the book of this character that has breast cancer, the word she uses is it's uncurable, right or the doctor said is uncurable. And I hear that a lot. I got this diagnosis, and it's uncurable. And yet, the person who says that, to me typically, desperately wants to heal. How do we heal? When we hold on to the belief that something is incurable? Right? We got these two really strong, conflicting beliefs. And then we have to decide which one are we going to choose? What are we going to go with? And then all the thoughts in between some of the things like well, if I don't believe it's uncurable? Am I kidding myself? If I think I can do this is that foolish? I hear people and people have asked me, aren't you living in denial? But I can look and find evidence of people who've cured themselves from cancer who have been cured from cancer with all kinds of different approaches, but have ended up having no evidence of disease in their bodies. And so I know that it's possible, right? So even if somebody says it's uncurable, I can look and find evidence that that's not true. Yet I still have to work through holding on to what I was so conditioned to believe it's not curable, it's not fixable, things can't change that can't happen. Why do we choose to believe those things that limit us? And I think we have lots of thoughts about, maybe I'll look foolish. Maybe I'll be a failure. Maybe I'm being delusional. But why don't we have those same thoughts? By believing in the thing that limits us? Right? Why is that? Why if I can look at people who've healed? And I've looked at people who haven't healed, why would I believe more in the people who haven't healed than the people who have? Like, think about that? Why do we do that? This was a big part of things over the last three and a half years, especially when it was stage two, I at first was very scared. And I definitely had the thoughts because I had memories of my brother dying from cancer, and he had advanced stage four when he was diagnosed. But as I learned more about it, I started to realize when people don't die from stage two, right from stage two B, we have to go through some horrendous treatments to treat it. But most of the time, people don't die from that, right, we die from stage four from metastasis and advanced metastasis. So once that happened to me, I really had to focus on every little shred of belief that I had, that said, maybe you're wrong, maybe this can't happen. And it was just amazing to me. But I really, at one point realized, I can't accomplish what I want to accomplish. If I've got, if I'm holding on to these conflicting thoughts, I've got to decide. And that doesn't mean that my brainstorm won't throw up that conflicting thought, but it means I will choose not to believe it, I will choose not to put energy in it, I will decide that I'm going to put thoughts into own or energy into only this thought, that moves me forward and serves the goal that I have. Right? So I think, conflicting thoughts is a really big deal when it comes to anything in your life. Like if you're working on a relationship, and you're thinking I want this really happy, close, connected relationship with my spouse, and then you also have the belief things can't change. This has been the way it is it's always going to be this way. How do we move past that? Right? So I think it's important to recognize that I see a lot of this when it comes to health, that people have this vision and this desire in this dream for themselves to have this really healthy body, maybe to have a fit body, maybe to lose some excess body fat. But at the same time they tell themselves the story, I can't do it. It's never worked for me. It's never changed for me in the past, I've always gone back. And as long as we hold on to that belief, we've got to recognize that it's a ball and chain. Right, it's really going to hold us back. So when you're thinking about creating a life that's better than before breast cancer, what conflicting thoughts are you holding on to. And then another thing that I think I know, is super powerful, and I still catch myself doing it all the time. And I know for my clients, I see them do it too. We start to see a positive change. And then we push the boundary. Right. So I'll give you an example. In the past, when I've had bloodwork come back, and my tumor markers are really low, the start to deviate a little bit, right? People do this a lot with weight loss as well. We lose weight, and we're like 510 pounds away from that goal. And we're so proud of ourselves because we've already accomplished five or 10 pounds of weight loss. And so it'd be like, so I can have one cupcake, right? Because I'm doing good. Okay, I had the cupcake, and I didn't really lose anyway, I can have two cupcakes next week. And we push the boundaries and we push the boundaries and we test. And when it comes to supporting our metabolic health, and living a lifestyle that supports that, I see that a lot. I am totally guilty of it. I did it as recently as last PET scan. When I got this wonderful pet scan result. My tumor markers now since October have been in the normal range, normal looking at the CA 15 three marker. And the normal range is considered to be between zero and 25. And my tumor markers have been between zero and two are not zero. My tumor markers have been between 18 and 20. Since last October, fantastic, right? So I see myself testing the boundaries. I see myself going well. I could have that warm hot flour tortilla at a Mexican restaurant that I love where they're making them fresh in the kitchen. Oh, maybe that's got 38 carbs instead of 20. But I'm doing good. I can go past that. When I'm sitting with my husband like right now as I'm recording this podcast. He came home early. He's taking an extra day off for extra long Fourth of July weekend. And he's sitting out on our patio watching what's going on with the festivities because we live on a marina so people are taking stuff out to their boats and they're getting ready to go and like totally enjoy the Fourth of July weekend. sitting out there was an old fashion, right? And he's just enjoying the warm day and watching all the activity and

15:07
is attempting, right. And I'm thinking like I have an old fashion. I mean, it's Fourth of July weekend, maybe I'll have a couple. And then how do I know when I push the boundary? If I've pushed it too far? Well, the only way I know if I push it too far is the next blood test, or the next scan that shows cancer is moving forward, then what? Am I willing to suffer that consequence? Am I willing to push the boundary until my body says you push too far? You know, we have to think about that. And it's an interesting thing. I don't know why we do it. I don't know why we feel that need to test instead of say, look, what I did is wonderful. It's working. Let me stay here. I think it's because it's so appetizing to look at whatever it might be the fun. Like, I could go back to what we think of as normal. Again, I can be like everybody else and have another glass of wine or have a cupcake. And I can go back to living the way it was before anybody ever told me I had cancer. I think that's what our brain wants to gravitate to. And so we've got to be super intentional and conscious about being aware of when we're pushing the boundaries, which is okay, sometimes if you want to, but what's the consequence? When will you know that you've pushed too far? What will be the indicator? And are you willing to push far enough for that red flag to pop up? I think that's something that we have to be super aware of. A lot of times, the farther away we get from a cancer diagnosis and treatment. And that's for people who are out of treatment, right. And for those of us living with metastatic disease, the more we see healing, the better we get, the more we think I can just act, whatever your perception of normal is, again, and we've always got to be aware that that may come with a consequence that we're testing the waters, right? And what happens if that water gets too hot? Is that what you want? Do you want to have to undo something? So I think especially in this last three and a half years, that's been a really powerful one for me, sometimes I say to my husband, ooh, I feel like I'm getting cocky. I feel like I've, I feel like I'm feeling too confident in my amazing body and its ability to heal, right? And I want to push a boundary, I want to test it, I want to see, but the test is always going to have an outcome. Do I want to risk the outcome? Sometimes I do, I get cocky. And I've got to reel myself back in. And I remind myself that all the things that I'm celebrating all the things I get up every morning and write gratitudes for especially waking up not in pain for the many, many, many months that I was in horrendous pain from cancer in my bones. I'll tell you what, every morning I wake up and I'm not in pain. I write that gratitude down how wonderful it is to wake up and not be in pain. Amazing. Yeah. So whenever I'm thinking about testing the boundaries, and whenever I'm thinking about like those conflicting thoughts, right, I'm always coming back to thinking what would be the cost here? If I don't let go of something that's holding me back? What could potentially be the cost? If I decide to push if I decide to test the waters? What could be the cost? And I think that I think that that's an important thing to consider. So I just want to throw that out there for you. Like, where do you think you're pushing the boundaries? Where are you telling yourself a story? Because we do this right? We look for validation that it's okay to push and it's okay to test. And it's not too far yet. And sometimes as I'm working with people on labs, they'll say, Well, yeah, I've been eating lots of carbs, or I eat lots of sugar, but my HB one C, which is an indicator of pushing towards pre diabetes and type two diabetes, and then look at and say, but I'm not there yet. Right? So why is that that we have to have sometimes this really devastating news before it scares us enough to take action. And sometimes that doesn't even happen. Right? So really examining your mind and saying, Am I living the life I want right now? Is there something I want to create? And if I do, am I holding on to thoughts that are telling me I can't have it? And am I deciding to push? If I'm creating it, if I'm finding success in moving forward? Am I going all in and embracing that success and the actions that have gotten me here? Or I'm looking at the actions? Or are you looking at the actions that got you there and testing and see, can we cut back on them? Can I put a little less energy into this? How much less energy can I do you know what I'm talking about? Right? We all do it? And so just being aware of it, I think is very important. awareness to me is the is the key to change. The more we're aware and willing to look at what we're doing and not doing even if we don't create change or change the behavior immediate Lee the willingness to be aware of it is a huge and powerful step towards creating the life you want. So quick episode I just didn't want to let this Fourth of July weekend go by. I love Fourth of July. I'll tell you I used to love the fireworks I still do love watching them from a distance. But about 10 years ago, one of my sons had a horrific fireworks accident and I'm traumatized from that incident. And so handling fireworks has just never been appealing since that day. But I do like to watch them from a distance and I'm looking forward to this weekend and celebrating with my husband and with some dear friends that are coming over to celebrate the holiday with us. So I wish for you if you're living in the United States, you're celebrating with the Fourth of July. I have a safe and happy holiday. And I look so forward to celebrating the rest of this amazing month of survival anniversary with you. And just a reminder from now through July 11. My actual diagnosis date you can get into my four pillars of breast cancer recovery coaching experience for $130 off of the price. It's a great deal. It's a powerful program, and you can find all the details about it on my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com use the code 13 years get the discount you have lifetime access to the program and 16 weeks of getting to have life coaching with me as well. All right friends, have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you soon take care

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