This week, we’re diving into a topic that can truly transform how we navigate life’s hardest moments: gratitude.
I know that after a breast cancer diagnosis, or during the chaos of the holidays, it can feel impossible to see past the overwhelm and stress. That’s why I want to explore how gratitude can become a powerful tool for finding light, even in the darkest days.
In this episode, I’ll share why gratitude isn’t about pretending everything is okay or leaning into toxic positivity—it’s about being honest with ourselves and still recognizing the good that exists alongside the challenges.
We’ll unpack the science-backed benefits of gratitude, from its ability to lower stress and improve sleep to its surprising impact on physical health.
I’ll also share simple, actionable ways to incorporate gratitude into your life, even if you’re feeling overwhelmed. Whether it’s journaling, sharing a heartfelt thank-you, or pausing to appreciate a small moment of beauty, these practices can help you reconnect with what truly matters.
Here’s what you’ll take away from this episode:
You won’t want to miss this empowering and heartfelt conversation. Tune in to discover how gratitude can help you find peace, joy, and strength, no matter where you are on your journey. See you there!
Referred to in this episode:
The Four Pillars of Breast Cancer Recovery
The Better Than Before breast Cancer™ Life Coaching Membership
Follow me on Social Media:
Read the full transcript:
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 on the insides 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
Hey, friends, welcome to episode 388
0:37
of better than before breast cancer. I'm your host, Laura lummer, and I am extremely grateful that you are here with me today. Today in the United States is the day after Thanksgiving, and this week is the week I turned 61 years old. 61 years old. What a blessing, what a gift. I remember distinctly thinking when I got diagnosed at 57 years old with stage four widespread stage four breast cancer. I remember thinking, shit, I'm not even gonna get to turn 60. That's crazy. How I can't I'm not done. I'm not gonna die before I turn 60, which was something I decided not to do. And I turned 61 this week, and I am healthy and going strong and doing great, and I have my heart set on 82 right, and I'm so grateful for just everything that has happened in my life over these 61 years. That might sound weird at first, because I just finished telling you I had a widespread stage for cancer diagnosis. How in the world could I be grateful for that, right? But I will tell you that after having two breast cancer diagnoses, they both dramatically changed my life, and that's kind of what this podcast is about. This is a podcast about gratitude. Why do we need gratitude? Is there really any proof that gratitude does anything to make your life better? And how do you practice gratitude? And especially, how do you practice gratitude when things are hard, right? How do you some people will probably hear me say, you know, I have gratitude for everything that's happened in my life and be angry about it, and that's okay. That's where they're at in their journey. And it's a choice, right? It's a choice to make, to choose to be angry about something. And I think that whenever we make that choice and we experience these emotions, it's an opportunity for us to learn, whoa, where's that emotion coming from? Right? What are thoughts here that are causing this to happen? But what I'm doing now the reason, the reason you're listening to me now, the reason hundreds of 1000s of women have downloaded this podcast over the past eight years, is because I was diagnosed with breast cancer, right? The reason that I have an amazing husband is because I had two crappy marriages before him, and I learned a lot. I learned what I wanted and I learned what I didn't the reason why I am a successful life health and nutrition coach, working with amazing women, helping them to create lives that are better than before breast cancer is because I had breast cancer, right? There are so many things in life that were hard and that still are hard today. I mean, I still, I am working to support myself for a no evidence of disease PET scan, you know? Well, that'd be amazing one day. And sometimes these things are hard, and yet
3:57
it's so important that no matter where you are, in diagnoses, in treatment after treatment, in life, in what stage of life that the thing you perceive as negative in that time and in that moment, we don't allow it to overshadow everything else. And this is kind of the bigger picture. This is something that I hear a lot, right? It's all about cancer. Life can become all about cancer. Life can become all about a scary event that's going on with one of your kids. Life can become all about challenging relationship that you're in, and we can put so much attention and energy into that thing that is challenging us and bringing up heartache or pain that we forget that life is fuller than that, and that does not mean by any reason or in any way, shape or form, to ignore the things that are the challenges and. Pretend everything's just okay. That is absolutely not what I'm saying. But it is that when things are challenging, to remember that there is more in life than just that. When I hear people, in fact, I was out to dinner with my mom a couple of nights ago, my mom's gonna be 84 this December, and she was like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm gonna be 84 the old lady and I just said, Mom, what a blessing. Like I want so bad to get to be 84 one day, right? How cool would that be, that I get to be 84 what a blessing I get to be 61 do I have wrinkles I didn't have when I was 30? Yeah, of course. And you know what? How lucky am I that I got to live long enough to have that and figure out what I want to do and what aesthetician I want to go get a patient from right? So when we're talking about gratitude, gratitude is not ignoring life. Gratitude is not refusing to look at all aspects of life. Gratitude is not pretending like everything's okay when everything isn't okay, but it is a practice that has so much value, and I'm going to share with you all the value that that has here in just a minute, and I'm going to give you some implementation tips and tricks. Okay, so what I want to focus on today is that even in the most difficult moments, there's always, always a flicker, if nothing else, a flicker of good. And if you can just find that flicker, then you can grow that flicker into something bigger by the practice of gratitude, right? It's not slapping on a smile when something's hard. It's not toxic positivity. We do not do that here. Toxic positivity is when we feel like we have to ignore the reality of our struggles, that pretend everything is fine when it isn't. And that's not helpful, and that's not authentic. Gratitude is being honest about our challenges Well, acknowledging and appreciating the good that exists at the same time. Okay, so I want to talk to you a little bit about the science, the science behind the benefits practicing gratitude, how it can support us as breast cancer survivors and as people living in a challenging world, and how we can incorporate it into our daily lives in a very real and very meaningful way. Right? So let's start with this. Gratitude is not about ignoring the hard stuff. It's not about pretending that life is easy or that holidays don't bring their own unique stresses. It's about holding space for both. You can feel overwhelmed and still have moments of gratitude. You can be tired and still appreciate the warmth being with your loved ones. The beauty of a sunrise or a sunset is not one or the other, and we have to really work to train our brains to remember and understand this. It doesn't have to be one or the other, and it's hard. It's hard when you're in pain, when you're tired, when you're grieving, when you're sad about parts of your life that you've lost, or that you feel you've lost, or that will never be the same again. It's can feel like it's really challenging to find gratitude, but gratitude isn't about forcing yourself to feel thankful for things again that don't feel true. It's about turning into the real, small moments that bring you a sense of peace or joy, even if those moments are fleeting. Okay? So why try? Why does gratitude matter? Why not focus on what sucks, right? Why not say this sucks, and I'll tell you something, I had a call, Wow, such a great call a couple weeks ago with a client, and we were just talking about a very challenging space she's in right now with her treatment and disease progression. And what we came around to was, how are you inviting joy in your life? What's good in your life? Right? Because there was just so much going on that was cancer focus, it was almost hard to even see that the good kind of slipped away, like It suddenly became smaller and smaller, and the challenges became bigger and bigger, and the fear became bigger and bigger. Okay, so let's talk about why it matters that we keep gratitude in as this powerful tool for healing and well being. So first, I'll address stress and anxiety. So studies show that gratitude can u reduce levels of cortisol, which is our stress hormone. When you practice gratitude, you are literally helping your body shift out of fight or flight and into a more relaxed and balanced state. When I was working with this client, and I started to ask her talk to me about things you enjoy. Small things, little things, not things that take a lot of energy right now. Little things? Is there a place where you like to sit and have a cappuccino and see a beautiful view? Is there a friend that you can just talk about and forget that cancer is even in your life for 15 minutes? Right? What are little things? Because it's those little moments of gratitude that boost the production feel good chemicals in your brain of serotonin and dopamine, and this means that over time, practicing gratitude actually does rewire your brain to notice and remember more positive experiences and observe everything we go through in life, in diagnoses, in all the things that are happening in the world who doesn't need more focus on positive experiences, real positive experiences. Right beyond mental health, gratitude even has physical benefits. It's been linked to better sleep, improved heart health, stronger immune function, and for us as survivors, navigating a lot of health complexities and a lot of mindset shifts, because what you didn't know before breast cancer was that breast cancer is a forever thing, right? Even if you're out of active treatment, you still know that your future holds things you have to be mindful of, and scans and blood work and things will come up, right? No one really realizes that before a diagnosis, but no matter how far out you are from a diagnosis, you know that it's always still going to be a part of your life, and that brings up some challenges and some complexities. So when we can focus on the things that exist that are wonderful at the same time and practice gratitude for them, we can feel a little less stressed, and then you can know that you're supporting your body's healing process just by that practice, because stress reduction is Uber important. So how do you do it? How do you cultivate gratitude in a way that feels genuine and not forced, right? How many times do you shut yourself down by saying, you know, this part of whatever I'm going through sucks, but I should just be grateful, right? I've talked about this before, and that's not the practice either, right? It's not ignoring one in place of the other, not focusing on the good instead of the bad. It's not focusing on the bad instead of the good. It's embracing life and its totality, but building energy behind the things that bring you the feeling of what feels good. People ask me a lot of times, how do you do this? How do you stay positive? I think I shared a couple of weeks ago on a podcast that I had a radiation oncologist that I was doing a follow up thing with, and he came in and he it was a new guy, and he came in and he's like, where are you with the patient? Right? And I was like, No, I am the patient. But I don't even like to talk about myself like that, because I'm so grateful for how good I feel and that I can walk and that I can see and that I can exercise and that I have muscles that are still working, and, yeah, I also have lymphedema, and I also have some discomfort where I had tumors, and I also have some discomfort where I've had radiation, but I don't put my energy into those things, not because I'm toxically positive, but because my mind is 100% future focused on that person that I am becoming who has completely healed from metastatic breast cancer, right? So all my gratitudes are for all the things I have now that are leading me to and all the things I've learned and all the things I've experienced that are leading me to this person I'm stepping into, right? So how do we cultivate gratitude in a way that feels genuine and not forced. We start small. We begin with simple things. So like at the beginning of each day, this is mine, or at the end of each day, you take a moment to ask yourself, What am I grateful for today? It is literally as simple as that. I like to focus every morning, when I get up, I get my coffee, come back to bed, I open up my Kindle scribe, and I open up my manifestation and gratitude journal, and I write things I'm grateful for, and I write I can taste this delicious cup of coffee like little, tiny things, right? I had the ability to walk out into that kitchen make coffee I could afford to buy coffee, like everything, it just becomes this cascade of, wow, like, there's a lot to be grateful for in this cup of coffee, right, seeing a friend, hearing from a friend, or just the fact that you have a friend, or the fact that I woke up, you know, when I go out to dinner with my family, my younger sister has started a tradition where she always says, everybody share your high and your low for today.
14:50
And it's so hard for me to come up with a low, because I had the gift of waking up today, right? There are days where there's something that sucks and maybe it stands out. There are very few days where there's like a real, honest to goodness low. Because there's so many things in my life, I have to be grateful for that. Even if something comes up that's challenging, it's like, okay, this is, this is a part of life. And I think that's because I've built that gratitude muscles so strong, so consistently, day after day after day for years, right? So when you focus on these little, simple, amazing things, and you put energy into remembering how lucky we are to have them, whatever it is bed, I live in Southern California. I see homeless people everywhere every day, and I actually, I see them, and I just sometimes I think, my God, I'm so lucky. I have a bed, a warm bed. I'm so grateful from my warm, comfortable bed, and often write that down in my gratitude journal, so grateful for my warm, comfortable bed. I have a window that faces where the sun comes up, faces these, and I just write, I'm so grateful to see the sun come up, right? So just think about that. Think about little, small things, keeping a gratitude journal. Tip number two, this is one of my favorite practices, and as I've shared with you, every morning, it's just like five minutes, I write down three to five things I'm grateful for. I used to just do three things, and I was like, more things come up. So I just write five things. Don't overthink it. Don't make it a big deal. Just let a simple thing come out, and then over time, you notice these patterns and these themes remind you that there is good in your life, even if times are tough, right?
16:44
A very specific when you use a gratitude journal, a very specific when you tell yourself what your gratitudes are, and that's tip number three, right? Instead of saying I'm grateful for my family, right? That's kind of general. I'm grateful for my supportive husband who did ba for me right fill in the blank. I'm grateful for my son who just told me I'm the best mom he ever had. I'm grateful for that smile on my granddaughter's face when we put up the Christmas tree, like really get into it, because being specific makes gratitude feel more real, right? It brings back up the moment, right? We were at we did a little birthday thing for my husband, and they brought out the dessert, and then I had a red glittery candle on. It's like, I'm so grateful. I had that moment yesterday. It wasn't yesterday, but then the next morning, when I wrote in my gratitude journal, just like that moment where they brought out dessert with a red sparkly candle for my husband's birthday. Because I love sparkle, right? So it made it even more special. So we remember all the tiny details be specific, because we can all say I'm grateful for my health, I'm grateful for my family. There's nothing wrong with that, but really dig into it for yourself to build this practice, here's tip number four. There's one thing about putting energy into something and growing it for yourself, but if you want to grow it even bigger, you share it so you share gratitude, and you do that by giving someone a compliment, letting them know you appreciate them. Write a note, send a text message, say it in person. Remember to say, I'm grateful for you. Like my husband and I have this practice. He does the laundry, he does the grocery shopping, he does most of the work for the dogs, but we're just in the habit of saying thank you for doing that. You know, when I take the dogs to the groomer, thank you for doing that, because that's my job. I take it with that in the groomer, he takes him for walks and picks up the poop, right? I say, Thank you for walking the dogs. Yeah, it's like his thing. He does it every day, but I'm grateful he does it, right? He does the laundry every weekend because he hates the way I do laundry, and he won't let me touch it, but I'm grateful that he does it. And so I say, thank you for doing the laundry right. Think about the things that strengthen your relationships and just amplify that sense of gratefulness and thankfulness for the people in your lives and the things in your life, and share it. When you share it, it grows. Finally, be very mindful. Mindfulness is a tool or the practice of gratitude, and what I mean by that is take those few moments every day to truly pause and notice little things around you. Notice the way the sunlight comes through your window. Notice the colors when the sun goes down or the sun comes up, whichever if you're early bird or a night owl, notice the sounds of the birds. Notice the sounds for me, the sounds of the ocean, the smell of the ocean for me is it brings me so much gratitude, so much gratefulness, that this is the life I always wanted to live. I. Decided this was where I was going to live, and every day I'm grateful to be here right those small moments and the small details of those moments, being very mindful in them and absorbing them, that again, anchors you and builds your gratitude. So it helps you remember life is so much more than the struggle. So I want to remind you that gratitude and your gratitude practice does not have to be perfect. Some days it might feel harder than others. You might miss a day. Some days you might think it's really hard for me today to find something to be grateful for, and that's okay. Give yourself some compassion, give yourself some grace. The key is to just keep coming back and practicing, because over time, the consistent act of practicing gratitude will become very natural, and it will become stronger, and you'll start to see its effects ripple through your life. You truly will, because it is the energy that you are putting out in the world, and you will attract that energy back to you, right? So again, it's not a magic wand. It won't cancel out the fact that life has challenges. It won't cancel out the fact that some days things are hard, but it is a tool to help you come back when things feel overwhelming. It is a tool to help you build the gratitude muscle and to build the larger vision of your life. And it can kind of help you see that the overall balance of good and challenging in life can also be a balance for the weight of the challenges, and it can bring you a little bit of a feeling of lightness when you need it the most, some appreciation when it's feeling like you're really getting beat up. So we want gratitude to be a part of our everyday life, because it's a valuable tool in our mental and physical health. It's a valuable tool in our powers of manifestation, for the things we want to create in our life, to be grateful for where you are and what you have think about. I like to think about this, so I'm very much a student of manifestation. And manifestation doesn't just mean on a financial level. Manifestation means everything. Means my health, my relationships, my business, everything, right we manifest. It's just creation, the process of creation, and one of the things that I've learned in the process of creation is we've got to be learned, to be grateful in our moments. Be grateful in our present. Because even if we don't have everything that we want to have in the ways we want to have it in our life. Now, when we can practice gratitude for the things that are good and the things that are real and the things that are shareable, it gives our brain evidence that we deserve good things and we're worthy of good things. And good things come to us, and that invites more good things. It's really, really important. Piece of manifesting the life you want is the practice of gratitude. So whether you pick journaling, sharing your appreciation, noticing small moments of beauty in your days, know that every little, tiny step is a big step towards supporting your mental, emotional and physical well being through this practice. All right, I hope that you heard something in this episode that inspired you to incorporate some practice of gratitude, something that would work for you and feel true and authentic for you. And if this episode did resonate with you, and you can think of someone that you love, then you could share this with to help them be able to see the good in their lives. Please do. Please share it. And as always, if you need more support, if you're looking for more support, come to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach, join one of my programs, join the four pillars of breast cancer recovery. Join the better than before. Breast Cancer life coaching membership. Download one of my free programs, like the self love journal. What better way to practice gratitude than every single day of the month having a prompt to remind you that there's something about you that's good and worth love. All right? You can get everything on my website, breast cancer recovery coach.com you'll find the links in the show notes for this episode. And before I go, I do want to say this show would not exist without you listening. And I am so grateful for that. I'm truly, truly grateful for that, because this is a passion of mine, and we have an amazing community of women to follow this podcast, who come together in the breast cancer recovery group on Facebook, over 1000 women in there who want to create better lives for themselves after a breast cancer diagnosis. And it's all so amazing, and I obviously couldn't. Do it alone. I can't be a community by myself, and you are my community, and I'm extremely grateful for the time and energy that you take to be a part of this community. So thank you. Get out there. Have a wonderful week, and I'll talk to you next week. Be good to yourself.
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 on the insides 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
Hey, friends, welcome to episode 388
0:37
of better than before breast cancer. I'm your host, Laura lummer, and I am extremely grateful that you are here with me today. Today in the United States is the day after Thanksgiving, and this week is the week I turned 61 years old. 61 years old. What a blessing, what a gift. I remember distinctly thinking when I got diagnosed at 57 years old with stage four widespread stage four breast cancer. I remember thinking, shit, I'm not even gonna get to turn 60. That's crazy. How I can't I'm not done. I'm not gonna die before I turn 60, which was something I decided not to do. And I turned 61 this week, and I am healthy and going strong and doing great, and I have my heart set on 82 right, and I'm so grateful for just everything that has happened in my life over these 61 years. That might sound weird at first, because I just finished telling you I had a widespread stage for cancer diagnosis. How in the world could I be grateful for that, right? But I will tell you that after having two breast cancer diagnoses, they both dramatically changed my life, and that's kind of what this podcast is about. This is a podcast about gratitude. Why do we need gratitude? Is there really any proof that gratitude does anything to make your life better? And how do you practice gratitude? And especially, how do you practice gratitude when things are hard, right? How do you some people will probably hear me say, you know, I have gratitude for everything that's happened in my life and be angry about it, and that's okay. That's where they're at in their journey. And it's a choice, right? It's a choice to make, to choose to be angry about something. And I think that whenever we make that choice and we experience these emotions, it's an opportunity for us to learn, whoa, where's that emotion coming from? Right? What are thoughts here that are causing this to happen? But what I'm doing now the reason, the reason you're listening to me now, the reason hundreds of 1000s of women have downloaded this podcast over the past eight years, is because I was diagnosed with breast cancer, right? The reason that I have an amazing husband is because I had two crappy marriages before him, and I learned a lot. I learned what I wanted and I learned what I didn't the reason why I am a successful life health and nutrition coach, working with amazing women, helping them to create lives that are better than before breast cancer is because I had breast cancer, right? There are so many things in life that were hard and that still are hard today. I mean, I still, I am working to support myself for a no evidence of disease PET scan, you know? Well, that'd be amazing one day. And sometimes these things are hard, and yet
3:57
it's so important that no matter where you are, in diagnoses, in treatment after treatment, in life, in what stage of life that the thing you perceive as negative in that time and in that moment, we don't allow it to overshadow everything else. And this is kind of the bigger picture. This is something that I hear a lot, right? It's all about cancer. Life can become all about cancer. Life can become all about a scary event that's going on with one of your kids. Life can become all about challenging relationship that you're in, and we can put so much attention and energy into that thing that is challenging us and bringing up heartache or pain that we forget that life is fuller than that, and that does not mean by any reason or in any way, shape or form, to ignore the things that are the challenges and. Pretend everything's just okay. That is absolutely not what I'm saying. But it is that when things are challenging, to remember that there is more in life than just that. When I hear people, in fact, I was out to dinner with my mom a couple of nights ago, my mom's gonna be 84 this December, and she was like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm gonna be 84 the old lady and I just said, Mom, what a blessing. Like I want so bad to get to be 84 one day, right? How cool would that be, that I get to be 84 what a blessing I get to be 61 do I have wrinkles I didn't have when I was 30? Yeah, of course. And you know what? How lucky am I that I got to live long enough to have that and figure out what I want to do and what aesthetician I want to go get a patient from right? So when we're talking about gratitude, gratitude is not ignoring life. Gratitude is not refusing to look at all aspects of life. Gratitude is not pretending like everything's okay when everything isn't okay, but it is a practice that has so much value, and I'm going to share with you all the value that that has here in just a minute, and I'm going to give you some implementation tips and tricks. Okay, so what I want to focus on today is that even in the most difficult moments, there's always, always a flicker, if nothing else, a flicker of good. And if you can just find that flicker, then you can grow that flicker into something bigger by the practice of gratitude, right? It's not slapping on a smile when something's hard. It's not toxic positivity. We do not do that here. Toxic positivity is when we feel like we have to ignore the reality of our struggles, that pretend everything is fine when it isn't. And that's not helpful, and that's not authentic. Gratitude is being honest about our challenges Well, acknowledging and appreciating the good that exists at the same time. Okay, so I want to talk to you a little bit about the science, the science behind the benefits practicing gratitude, how it can support us as breast cancer survivors and as people living in a challenging world, and how we can incorporate it into our daily lives in a very real and very meaningful way. Right? So let's start with this. Gratitude is not about ignoring the hard stuff. It's not about pretending that life is easy or that holidays don't bring their own unique stresses. It's about holding space for both. You can feel overwhelmed and still have moments of gratitude. You can be tired and still appreciate the warmth being with your loved ones. The beauty of a sunrise or a sunset is not one or the other, and we have to really work to train our brains to remember and understand this. It doesn't have to be one or the other, and it's hard. It's hard when you're in pain, when you're tired, when you're grieving, when you're sad about parts of your life that you've lost, or that you feel you've lost, or that will never be the same again. It's can feel like it's really challenging to find gratitude, but gratitude isn't about forcing yourself to feel thankful for things again that don't feel true. It's about turning into the real, small moments that bring you a sense of peace or joy, even if those moments are fleeting. Okay? So why try? Why does gratitude matter? Why not focus on what sucks, right? Why not say this sucks, and I'll tell you something, I had a call, Wow, such a great call a couple weeks ago with a client, and we were just talking about a very challenging space she's in right now with her treatment and disease progression. And what we came around to was, how are you inviting joy in your life? What's good in your life? Right? Because there was just so much going on that was cancer focus, it was almost hard to even see that the good kind of slipped away, like It suddenly became smaller and smaller, and the challenges became bigger and bigger, and the fear became bigger and bigger. Okay, so let's talk about why it matters that we keep gratitude in as this powerful tool for healing and well being. So first, I'll address stress and anxiety. So studies show that gratitude can u reduce levels of cortisol, which is our stress hormone. When you practice gratitude, you are literally helping your body shift out of fight or flight and into a more relaxed and balanced state. When I was working with this client, and I started to ask her talk to me about things you enjoy. Small things, little things, not things that take a lot of energy right now. Little things? Is there a place where you like to sit and have a cappuccino and see a beautiful view? Is there a friend that you can just talk about and forget that cancer is even in your life for 15 minutes? Right? What are little things? Because it's those little moments of gratitude that boost the production feel good chemicals in your brain of serotonin and dopamine, and this means that over time, practicing gratitude actually does rewire your brain to notice and remember more positive experiences and observe everything we go through in life, in diagnoses, in all the things that are happening in the world who doesn't need more focus on positive experiences, real positive experiences. Right beyond mental health, gratitude even has physical benefits. It's been linked to better sleep, improved heart health, stronger immune function, and for us as survivors, navigating a lot of health complexities and a lot of mindset shifts, because what you didn't know before breast cancer was that breast cancer is a forever thing, right? Even if you're out of active treatment, you still know that your future holds things you have to be mindful of, and scans and blood work and things will come up, right? No one really realizes that before a diagnosis, but no matter how far out you are from a diagnosis, you know that it's always still going to be a part of your life, and that brings up some challenges and some complexities. So when we can focus on the things that exist that are wonderful at the same time and practice gratitude for them, we can feel a little less stressed, and then you can know that you're supporting your body's healing process just by that practice, because stress reduction is Uber important. So how do you do it? How do you cultivate gratitude in a way that feels genuine and not forced, right? How many times do you shut yourself down by saying, you know, this part of whatever I'm going through sucks, but I should just be grateful, right? I've talked about this before, and that's not the practice either, right? It's not ignoring one in place of the other, not focusing on the good instead of the bad. It's not focusing on the bad instead of the good. It's embracing life and its totality, but building energy behind the things that bring you the feeling of what feels good. People ask me a lot of times, how do you do this? How do you stay positive? I think I shared a couple of weeks ago on a podcast that I had a radiation oncologist that I was doing a follow up thing with, and he came in and he it was a new guy, and he came in and he's like, where are you with the patient? Right? And I was like, No, I am the patient. But I don't even like to talk about myself like that, because I'm so grateful for how good I feel and that I can walk and that I can see and that I can exercise and that I have muscles that are still working, and, yeah, I also have lymphedema, and I also have some discomfort where I had tumors, and I also have some discomfort where I've had radiation, but I don't put my energy into those things, not because I'm toxically positive, but because my mind is 100% future focused on that person that I am becoming who has completely healed from metastatic breast cancer, right? So all my gratitudes are for all the things I have now that are leading me to and all the things I've learned and all the things I've experienced that are leading me to this person I'm stepping into, right? So how do we cultivate gratitude in a way that feels genuine and not forced. We start small. We begin with simple things. So like at the beginning of each day, this is mine, or at the end of each day, you take a moment to ask yourself, What am I grateful for today? It is literally as simple as that. I like to focus every morning, when I get up, I get my coffee, come back to bed, I open up my Kindle scribe, and I open up my manifestation and gratitude journal, and I write things I'm grateful for, and I write I can taste this delicious cup of coffee like little, tiny things, right? I had the ability to walk out into that kitchen make coffee I could afford to buy coffee, like everything, it just becomes this cascade of, wow, like, there's a lot to be grateful for in this cup of coffee, right, seeing a friend, hearing from a friend, or just the fact that you have a friend, or the fact that I woke up, you know, when I go out to dinner with my family, my younger sister has started a tradition where she always says, everybody share your high and your low for today.
14:50
And it's so hard for me to come up with a low, because I had the gift of waking up today, right? There are days where there's something that sucks and maybe it stands out. There are very few days where there's like a real, honest to goodness low. Because there's so many things in my life, I have to be grateful for that. Even if something comes up that's challenging, it's like, okay, this is, this is a part of life. And I think that's because I've built that gratitude muscles so strong, so consistently, day after day after day for years, right? So when you focus on these little, simple, amazing things, and you put energy into remembering how lucky we are to have them, whatever it is bed, I live in Southern California. I see homeless people everywhere every day, and I actually, I see them, and I just sometimes I think, my God, I'm so lucky. I have a bed, a warm bed. I'm so grateful from my warm, comfortable bed, and often write that down in my gratitude journal, so grateful for my warm, comfortable bed. I have a window that faces where the sun comes up, faces these, and I just write, I'm so grateful to see the sun come up, right? So just think about that. Think about little, small things, keeping a gratitude journal. Tip number two, this is one of my favorite practices, and as I've shared with you, every morning, it's just like five minutes, I write down three to five things I'm grateful for. I used to just do three things, and I was like, more things come up. So I just write five things. Don't overthink it. Don't make it a big deal. Just let a simple thing come out, and then over time, you notice these patterns and these themes remind you that there is good in your life, even if times are tough, right?
16:44
A very specific when you use a gratitude journal, a very specific when you tell yourself what your gratitudes are, and that's tip number three, right? Instead of saying I'm grateful for my family, right? That's kind of general. I'm grateful for my supportive husband who did ba for me right fill in the blank. I'm grateful for my son who just told me I'm the best mom he ever had. I'm grateful for that smile on my granddaughter's face when we put up the Christmas tree, like really get into it, because being specific makes gratitude feel more real, right? It brings back up the moment, right? We were at we did a little birthday thing for my husband, and they brought out the dessert, and then I had a red glittery candle on. It's like, I'm so grateful. I had that moment yesterday. It wasn't yesterday, but then the next morning, when I wrote in my gratitude journal, just like that moment where they brought out dessert with a red sparkly candle for my husband's birthday. Because I love sparkle, right? So it made it even more special. So we remember all the tiny details be specific, because we can all say I'm grateful for my health, I'm grateful for my family. There's nothing wrong with that, but really dig into it for yourself to build this practice, here's tip number four. There's one thing about putting energy into something and growing it for yourself, but if you want to grow it even bigger, you share it so you share gratitude, and you do that by giving someone a compliment, letting them know you appreciate them. Write a note, send a text message, say it in person. Remember to say, I'm grateful for you. Like my husband and I have this practice. He does the laundry, he does the grocery shopping, he does most of the work for the dogs, but we're just in the habit of saying thank you for doing that. You know, when I take the dogs to the groomer, thank you for doing that, because that's my job. I take it with that in the groomer, he takes him for walks and picks up the poop, right? I say, Thank you for walking the dogs. Yeah, it's like his thing. He does it every day, but I'm grateful he does it, right? He does the laundry every weekend because he hates the way I do laundry, and he won't let me touch it, but I'm grateful that he does it. And so I say, thank you for doing the laundry right. Think about the things that strengthen your relationships and just amplify that sense of gratefulness and thankfulness for the people in your lives and the things in your life, and share it. When you share it, it grows. Finally, be very mindful. Mindfulness is a tool or the practice of gratitude, and what I mean by that is take those few moments every day to truly pause and notice little things around you. Notice the way the sunlight comes through your window. Notice the colors when the sun goes down or the sun comes up, whichever if you're early bird or a night owl, notice the sounds of the birds. Notice the sounds for me, the sounds of the ocean, the smell of the ocean for me is it brings me so much gratitude, so much gratefulness, that this is the life I always wanted to live. I. Decided this was where I was going to live, and every day I'm grateful to be here right those small moments and the small details of those moments, being very mindful in them and absorbing them, that again, anchors you and builds your gratitude. So it helps you remember life is so much more than the struggle. So I want to remind you that gratitude and your gratitude practice does not have to be perfect. Some days it might feel harder than others. You might miss a day. Some days you might think it's really hard for me today to find something to be grateful for, and that's okay. Give yourself some compassion, give yourself some grace. The key is to just keep coming back and practicing, because over time, the consistent act of practicing gratitude will become very natural, and it will become stronger, and you'll start to see its effects ripple through your life. You truly will, because it is the energy that you are putting out in the world, and you will attract that energy back to you, right? So again, it's not a magic wand. It won't cancel out the fact that life has challenges. It won't cancel out the fact that some days things are hard, but it is a tool to help you come back when things feel overwhelming. It is a tool to help you build the gratitude muscle and to build the larger vision of your life. And it can kind of help you see that the overall balance of good and challenging in life can also be a balance for the weight of the challenges, and it can bring you a little bit of a feeling of lightness when you need it the most, some appreciation when it's feeling like you're really getting beat up. So we want gratitude to be a part of our everyday life, because it's a valuable tool in our mental and physical health. It's a valuable tool in our powers of manifestation, for the things we want to create in our life, to be grateful for where you are and what you have think about. I like to think about this, so I'm very much a student of manifestation. And manifestation doesn't just mean on a financial level. Manifestation means everything. Means my health, my relationships, my business, everything, right we manifest. It's just creation, the process of creation, and one of the things that I've learned in the process of creation is we've got to be learned, to be grateful in our moments. Be grateful in our present. Because even if we don't have everything that we want to have in the ways we want to have it in our life. Now, when we can practice gratitude for the things that are good and the things that are real and the things that are shareable, it gives our brain evidence that we deserve good things and we're worthy of good things. And good things come to us, and that invites more good things. It's really, really important. Piece of manifesting the life you want is the practice of gratitude. So whether you pick journaling, sharing your appreciation, noticing small moments of beauty in your days, know that every little, tiny step is a big step towards supporting your mental, emotional and physical well being through this practice. All right, I hope that you heard something in this episode that inspired you to incorporate some practice of gratitude, something that would work for you and feel true and authentic for you. And if this episode did resonate with you, and you can think of someone that you love, then you could share this with to help them be able to see the good in their lives. Please do. Please share it. And as always, if you need more support, if you're looking for more support, come to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach, join one of my programs, join the four pillars of breast cancer recovery. Join the better than before. Breast Cancer life coaching membership. Download one of my free programs, like the self love journal. What better way to practice gratitude than every single day of the month having a prompt to remind you that there's something about you that's good and worth love. All right? You can get everything on my website, breast cancer recovery coach.com you'll find the links in the show notes for this episode. And before I go, I do want to say this show would not exist without you listening. And I am so grateful for that. I'm truly, truly grateful for that, because this is a passion of mine, and we have an amazing community of women to follow this podcast, who come together in the breast cancer recovery group on Facebook, over 1000 women in there who want to create better lives for themselves after a breast cancer diagnosis. And it's all so amazing, and I obviously couldn't. Do it alone. I can't be a community by myself, and you are my community, and I'm extremely grateful for the time and energy that you take to be a part of this community. So thank you. Get out there. Have a wonderful week, and I'll talk to you next week. Be good to yourself.
50% Complete
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.