Episode Overview

When was the last time you felt truly inspired?

This episode comes out on July 10, and July 11 marks 15 years since my first breast cancer diagnosis. Looking back over these 15 years, and the last five and a half since my stage four diagnosis, one thing stands out to me more than almost anything else. It is not a ketogenic diet, and it is not any single protocol. It is inspiration.

For a long time, I believed inspiration was something that just showed up on a good day, when the sun was out, and the wind was blowing in the right direction. What I have learned is the opposite. Inspiration is something I go looking for on purpose, the same way I plan a walk or plan what I am going to eat. I have come to believe it is a necessary part of a healthy lifestyle, right alongside movement, whole food, and the people in your inner circle. Not a nice-to-have. A real ingredient in healing.

In this episode, I share how I use inspiration in my own life, especially in seasons that are hard. After nearly four months of pain, medication, and being sedentary this spring, I am rebuilding my strength from a very different starting point. And when the work in front of me feels heavy, I go looking for the people who have done hard things and kept showing up, from Dr. Gabrielle Lyon's sense of commitment to world-class athletes during the World Cup, to women who have lived with metastatic breast cancer for 17 and even 27 years. I am not comparing my performance to theirs. I am letting their commitment remind me of what is possible for me, within my own capacity.

I also talk about the other side of this, which is being intentional about what I do not let into my mind. There is so much heaviness and negativity available to us right now, and it is easy to get pulled into that rabbit hole. I share a recent moment when a hateful comment lingered in my body for hours, and why protecting my mental space is part of protecting my ability to heal. When I get to the point where I have enough information to make good decisions, I stop gathering other people's worst-case stories and start intentionally seeking out people who are creating and living lives they love through every kind of challenge.

Here is my 15-year anniversary challenge to you. Go find one source of inspiration and bring it in on purpose. Follow the person, buy the book, subscribe to the podcast, sign up for the conference. One thing that helps you believe a little more in yourself and what you are capable of creating. And if you do not know where to start, begin with a simple question. Who talks about something I want more of in my life?

Come tell me where you look for inspiration inside the free Living Well After Breast Cancer community, and keep an eye on my website for 15-year anniversary specials.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura:
https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health 

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Read the full transcript:

Laura Lummer 0:00
You're listening to Better Than Before Breast Cancer with the Breast Cancer Recovery Coach. I'm your host, Laura Lum Erm. 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. Hey there, friends. Welcome to episode 470 of Better Than Before Breast Cancer. I am your host, Laura Lum, and I want to start off with a question for you. When was the last time that you felt truly inspired? Think about it. When I think about this podcast episode, which comes out on July 10, and July 11 is the 15 year anniversary of the date I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and that was my first diagnosis. Oddly, the second one was also on the 11th of the month, it was the 11th of October 2020 So, I have to go back and look up the whole astrological meaning of that, but when I think about everything I've been through in the last 15 years, when I think about the last five and a half years, there's a lot that stands out to me, that I could share with you, and looking back at these 15 years at what I've created in my life, what I've experienced, what I've overcome, what I've had to deal with, and how I got here. One thing really, really stands out a lot to me, and it's how everything seems to have fallen into place exactly as it needed to get me to where I needed to be to be cared for and to where I am today living this life that I love and while we're going through life and we have those experiences we don't always see them for what they are like I would never look back at a breast cancer diagnosis and say oh that's going to end up with me creating some really great stuff in my life and getting to do some really good work in the world, right. But looking back, it's pretty remarkable to see how things fell into place and got me here and supported my healing, my ability to be alive five and a half years after widespread stage four cancer diagnosis, and there's something very powerful that I have come to believe has been a major element in this throughout these years, and no, it's not eating a ketogenic diet. Inspiration, inspiration isn't something that just shows up on a sunny day when the wind's blowing in the right direction, and you happen to wake up in the mood for it. It's something that I have learned to go looking for on purpose, and I mean on purpose in the same way that I plan a walk or a plan to what I'm going to eat, because I really and truly found that inspiration is one of the things that keeps me believing in the version of myself that I'm still becoming, and in believing in what I have the capability to create in this life, and so today I want to talk to you about why I think going out and inviting inspiration into your life is necessary to healing and living a healthy, fulfilling, thriving life, just as much as movement, whole food, the people in your inner circle. I don't think this is extra. I don't think it's a nice to have, but I truly believe it is part of a healthy lifestyle protocol. And there's an absolute for sure we do not wake up every morning feeling inspired. We don't wake up feeling like, yeah, I'm looking so forward to this day every day. We don't wake up every morning feeling like I'm gonna, you know, what feels inspiring, like I'm inspired to get up because I'm gonna jump on a plane and go to Hawaii today, right. We don't wake up with that same feeling of inspired to face the day, right. We don't always wake up inspired to even get out of bed. Sometimes we just wake up and we're like Groundhog Day, right again. Sometimes we just sit there and say, like, can I just get my coffee and stay in bed all day.

Laura Lummer 4:25
And the reason that I started this off asking you, when the last time was that you truly felt inspired, is because I think that there are many, many, many things we need to do intentionally. We need to bring into our life on a regular basis, because life can be hard. Life can beat you down, and sometimes we're going through heavy stuff emotionally, physically, whatever. And it's really important that we think about what's going on in our mind and where we are looking for. Information input and inspiration, what we are allowing into our mind versus what we're intentionally putting into our mind and in our life. So, let me give you a couple of examples. Recently, I shared a story on the podcast that in March I started going through a period of tremendous pain. I figured out what all that was. I worked on it. I'm continuing to work on it. I'm getting the support that I need, but through almost four months, there was a lot that caused me to be sedentary. There were a lot of different medications going into my body, and so my normal lifestyle of being active, of working out, of supporting my strength, my endurance, my energy, the things I normally did were not happening, even food, even nourishing myself. I had no appetite, and so now I'm on the other side, where I'm recovering. I'm trying to get back into the regular routine of fitness, which I truly believe is medicine, exercise is medicine for our body, no doubt in my mind. And exercise is a mandatory part of my healing program. Exercise, activity, being in nature, all these things for me must be part of every day as much as physically possible, and I mean, there's some days where I can't make the things happen that I would like to, but I think the most important thing is consistency. So, for me, I don't look at exercise or being out in nature as an extra, as something frivolous, as something fun, as I hope I can get around to it, but I truly, truly believe it is part of a healing protocol and a healthy lifestyle, so it's really important to me. If I haven't made that clear already, but now I want to go back and I want to exercise. I love exercise, but it's really physically challenging. There are areas that I'm struggling with. I love to do spin classes, but I'm still trying to get back my, my pulmonary fitness, right? So, sometimes I'm struggling with a heaviness in my chest, and that's because I had a little bit of a fluid buildup because of all the inflammation I was experiencing. I love to do weight lifting, but I can't lift anything heavy right now because of a neurological issue in my arm, in my right arm, and so I'm trying to rebuild strength, and I'm facing a lot of challenges in doing so. So, what's important to me is to look for inspiration, meaning I'm looking for people who are so committed to their physical fitness. I'm looking for them on Instagram, I'm reading their books, I'm listening to their podcasts, because what I'm going through is challenging, and what I need is input from people who figured out how to do this consistently in their life, and that doesn't mean that I'm able to do what they do. I don't look at Dr. Gabrielle Lyons, who's amazing and strong and jacked, and think, yeah, I'm gonna look like her in three months, no. But I love to listen to her sense of commitment. I love to find inspiration in what she teaches. That's what I'm talking about. When something is hard, I go looking for the people who've done it. When it's hard for me, and I let them remind me of what's possible, that's inspiration. I don't wait for it. I go looking for it, and here's an interesting one. So, obviously, right now we're going through the FIFA World Cup.

Laura Lummer 8:28
Everybody's talking about it, everybody's watching it, and I'm not a fan of football forward slash soccer, meaning I don't understand the game, I don't watch the game, but I'm a huge fan of athleticism and athletes, I just have such an appreciation for what the human body can accomplish when we actually train it, and so I'm watching all these clips on Instagram or on YouTube of these incredible athletic feats, and maybe you're thinking, like, seriously, you're 63 years old and trying to heal from stage four cancer, trying to get back up and even move and walk without shortness of breath. What the heck are you doing finding inspiration in 25 year old super athletes? But the inspiration part just means it's so cool to see how committed somebody is and how hard they're willing to work, and when I see how hard they're willing to work? I tell myself I can do that too, right? This is possible for another human being, therefore it's possible for me. And by possible, again, to be very clear, I don't mean I'm going to reach the fitness level of a 25 year old world class athlete. That is not what I'm saying, but what I am saying is I can meet myself where I'm at, and I can push myself harder in a way that's good for my body, as hard as my body needs, but not beyond my limits, but within my capacity. I can motivate myself, I can push myself on days when it's not easy, as long as I'm giving my. Self, that inspiration. The more I invite inspiration into my life, the more I fill my head with the thoughts that I want to have, with the accomplishments of other people that I believe are possible for me, right? Again, at a commitment level, not at a performance level, but if they can show up for themselves like that, I can show up, I can support my body consistently. So, there's a young man on the Norway team that everybody's talking about, Erling Holland, and my daughter introduced me, or showed me who he is, because she's following FIFA, and I'm just obsessed with this kid, like he's amazing, and he's just so silly, but clearly, I mean, his athletic performance is amazing, and he clearly loves what he's doing. Right, so the other morning I'm in a spin class with my stepdaughter, and it was tough, right? I was a challenging class, and when we got out of it, she did such a great job, and she said, "You know what, I really love that I haven't done spin in years, and I want to do it more. And so we started talking about how inspirational it is to be in a class in an environment where there's 50 some people, everybody at different fitness levels, everybody would be doing what's possible for them, and for me, I look at that and I'm often the oldest person in the class, but I don't look at it and say, oh my god, I'm the oldest person here, I don't belong. I look at it and I say, How cool is this? I'm 63 years old, and I'm here in this class, doing everything I can, and getting through it. Just being in the room with that energy, where I see people trying as hard as they can, inspires me, and I think about that 25 year old world class athlete. Do I think that I'm going to be as strong and fit as him? No, but it inspires me to see how hard he works, and so as I'm going through that challenge in class, that inspiration reminds me that I can do a little more, I can push a little bit harder, so looking back, and I've shared this before. When I was first diagnosed with stage four cancer, I sought out a specific kind of inspiration, and I think it's important to talk about this, because I know that when someone gets a diagnosis, immediately they start looking for information about what it even means, right? What does this diagnosis mean? And I totally understand that, because I did that too. And they look at who are the other people out there who had a similar diagnosis, what did they go through, what happened to them, what did the treatments do to them, for them, what's available.

Laura Lummer 12:38
And I tell clients, and I tell myself there's a certain amount of information we can gather, so that we can make informed decisions about our health, but then there's a point where we must decide enough of that, enough of other people's stories, because going beyond that, listening to stories of what might happen to you from a negative lens, that's the point where you have to say whoa, and recognize that you're going down a rabbit hole. That's the point where you say, I have enough information to make an informed decision about my wellness, and that's not just like a diagnosis. You may be 568, 10 years out, but nowadays when we get a breast cancer diagnosis, we're on meds for 10 years afterwards. So this is an ongoing part of our lifestyle, and the healthy choices that we have to make. So, when we get to that point, we have to recognize that. Okay, now I have to make choices intentionally to become inspired by what I want to achieve. Right, we've got enough information to make good choices, informed decisions, and now we're going to start looking for people, I look for people who have healed, right? I look for people when I see someone who has metastatic breast cancer, and I have met a woman who's had it for 27 years, I've met women who've had it for 17 years. I'm so inspired by that, I'm like, I could live with cancer for that long, and that's amazing to me, and so when I get to the certain point that I have the information I need to make sure that I'm making good decisions, I'm looking for people who create lives and continue living their best lives through every challenge, whether that challenge is cancer or something else. To me, that's so important, and it is critical, critical for me to maintaining a healthy mindset, and it does not just apply to healing, it does not just apply to a cancer diagnosis, it applies to me wanting to be more physically fit, wanting to be as strong as I can within the capacity that I have, wanting to be on stages speaking more about how women can empower themselves and how they have the power to co-create lives that are better than they ever were before a cancer. Right, I mean that looking for inspiration is important across all barriers of life, across everything and anything that we could be going through, and you know, when I think about inspiration. It, I think, an incredibly inspirational personality in this world, person in this world is Oprah Winfrey. I've watched her for years, I've listened to her for years. Her story is so inspirational. Here's a woman who came from abject poverty and so many challenges on horrendous things that happened to her, and became one of the world's most wealthy, successful women, like on the planet, not just in her community, not just in her state, not just in her country, but the whole freaking world.

Laura Lummer 15:35
She built an empire by overcoming so many things, and Oprah's just one example, she's a big shining example, but there's so many others, and the reason I look up to people like this isn't the hardships that they came from, but it's what they built on the other side of the hardships that's the thing that I want in my head, not what somebody survived, but what they created, what they built for themselves, and that's exactly why I'm so careful about what I don't let into my life and into my brain, because as you go through your life now in this world today, in 2026 there's a lot of heaviness out there, there's a lot of heaviness, there's a lot of negativity, and in fact, I'll tell you, just today there was a doctor that I followed on Instagram, and I'm not even going to say the name of this doctor, because I don't want to perpetuate this kind of mental negativity, but I was looking on Instagram, and her story popped up, and she was sharing a video from another thread, and it was a very endearing story about someone who was here for the FIFA Cup about their experience here in America, and I thought it was so sweet, but then this doctor commented on it, and the comment was really just, it was negative, and it was awful, what I perceive as very hateful, skewed perception of what I thought was a very heartwarming story that somebody else had shared, and I immediately unfollowed that account. Now, I didn't unfollow it because I disagree with this person's opinion. This person has the right to any opinion they want, and it doesn't matter to me we agree or disagree. I unfollowed because I have found that I don't want hateful negative energy in my life. I don't want it in my head. It's too easy to get drawn into, it's too easy to get sucked into that rabbit hole, and it's just so easy to then start having thoughts like after I saw the comment, I noticed that it kept coming back because I found it very upsetting. It kept coming back in my brain for like two hours afterwards, and it was just as quick, easy, like this was the comment I felt. My reaction in my body, I said, "I don't want that. No, no, no, I don't want this energy, right? And when I have thoughts like that, I feel them deeply in my body. I work with my clients on what I call the embodied thought model, and there was a model that I learned in life coach school from Brooke Castillo, now Brooke Hicks, but I added into that because I wanted the people I work with to really understand the power of thoughts on their body, and so for me, when I have thoughts like the thought I was having about what I saw and heard, the heaviness, the negativity, the divisiveness, it doesn't feel good inside my body, and my, my personal job right now, for me, that I've assigned to myself is to support my ability to heal, because if I don't do that job the best that I can, if I don't become sensitive to everything my body reacts to, and everything that impacts me, to the things that bring me joy, to the things that bring me angst, if I don't pay attention to that and look for what I need to help me feel the way I want to feel to put the energy into supporting my life the way I want to support it. If I don't take accountability for that, then it's very easy to get stuck into the negative bias of the brain and into the negativity of the world, and then end up feeling really awful inside, and when I feel like that, I know I'm having an inflammatory response. So, when I think about inspiration, I think of it just the same way that I think about exercise. I think about it like I think about eating whole foods. I think about it like I think about having a healthy relationship. I believe it is a necessary component for a healthy life. So, let's think back to the question I asked you when we started here.

Laura Lummer 19:43
When was the last time you felt really inspired, really inspired by somebody, and that doesn't have to mean because of a physical feat, but maybe it's like, what inspires you to hear someone's story of kindness, and it makes you want to go out and do something kind too. For me, hearing someone's story of physical accomplishment right now makes me think, yeah, I can do more. I want to accomplish physically more. And think about whatever that thing is, the inspiration you feel, where are you looking for it? If you stop right now and you just take a look at your life and you ask yourself, am I looking for inspiration? Do I look for inspiration for healthy relationships? Do I look for inspiration for a healthy relationship with my own body? You know, I follow people on Instagram who take good care of their bodies and eat really well, and I grab the recipes, and I'm inspired by beautiful recipes of great food that's easy to make, right. It's not too much effort. So, when we think about creating a living a life that's better than before breast cancer, better than before getting a diagnosis that yanks the rug of life right out from underneath you and slaps you upside the head and says, okay, well, things are not going the way I planned, and your life is now going in a completely different direction, and you find yourself saying, yeah, but I want to live fully. How do I do that? We cannot do that without access to new tools and new ways of thinking, right? We've come as far as we have in our life, based on what we've learned, what we know, our life experience, the mechanisms and the coping tools that we apply ourselves to our life. And at some point, I think that gets capped out, right? We get to a point where we're like, okay, I don't, I don't know what to do next, I don't know what the next step is, or like this is really hard for me, and I don't know how to move past it, because I've never dealt with it before, or I've never tried to accomplish it before, or I've never tried to overcome it before. That's a cue to look for inspiration. We have got to, even if we don't have complete clarity on what we want to accomplish, or who we want to become, but if we just know, I want to feel better about this. I want to feel more hopeful about this. I want to see people who are overcoming self-doubt, people who are overcoming challenges. I want to help myself understand the way they talk to themselves. I want to help myself understand how they make time to do good things for themselves, that's inspiration. Yeah, and just like I looked for it when I got a stage four cancer diagnosis, I looked for inspiration from people who healed from stage four cancer, because I wanted to believe it was possible. When I wanted to start an online business, I looked for a coach. I met Trish Blackwell, my very first coach, and I'm happy to give her credit and a reference here. She was amazing. She was so inspirational to me, and she had the kind of business I wanted to create, so she inspired me, and she taught me. And then I found another coach, and another coach, and another coach. And I'll tell you what, every time I grew, every time I got clarity, I found another coach who did that, who was there, who could teach it to me, who could inspire me and help me. And in fact, I'll share something with you. So, I think I've talked about it a little bit on the podcast before. That at this stage in my business, something I really want to do is speak to more live audiences. I love the energy of a live audience. I love being able to connect to people in an audience. So I went through a mastermind training, a public speaking, met a bunch of people who go out and speak to audiences. It was amazing. It gives me something to look forward to. It gives me something, a place to grow from. And in August, I'm going to go to a conference called Powerhouse Women.

Laura Lummer 23:42
I'm going to be surrounded by hundreds of women who are looking for inspiration and who are inspiring others to be their best selves and live their fullest lives. How cool is that? Think about it. Like, have you ever looked for a conference just because you thought it was inspiring, like most of us go to conferences because it's something that's required by work, or we have to get continuing education credits for something, but what if you just found something that had speakers and you thought that person is so inspiring, they're so motivating, it's like going to a concert, right? We see someone we love the way they perform. We love their music. We go watch them. It makes us feel so good. We feel good inside, and that's the same thing when I hear a motivational speaker, right? When I hear someone who's overcome challenges, who's created a life that's similar to, that's aligned with the life that I'm working to create for myself, when they've accomplished something that I want to learn. I seek out that inspiration because it helps me to grow, and I'm willing to invest my time in that kind of inspiration. I'm willing to invest my money in that kind of inspiration because I know it's an investment in my future, and I know that the more inspiring ideas I can put in my head, whether they're through podcasts or books or. Conferences or great friendships or amazing women's stories. The more I do that, the better I feel, and the more I believe in the potential of the future and the possibility of the future that I want to create. So, here's what I want to leave you with: inspiration is a key ingredient in a life that feels good to live, so this is my 15 year anniversary challenge to you, and I'm putting it out there for the whole world today. Go find one source of inspiration and bring it in on purpose. Follow a person, buy the book, subscribe to the podcast, follow the YouTube channel, sign up for the conference, bring something, one thing that helps you believe a little more in yourself and what your ability is to create what you want in your life, and if you don't even know where to start, that's okay, start by asking the question, Who talks about something I want more of in my life. Maybe you just hear people talk about happiness, right? Maybe you hear about people overcoming depression. Maybe you hear about people making a huge shift in the way they nourish their body, and just go start listening to people. That's what I did originally when I wanted to start an online business. I just started going to conferences, listening to people who were speaking, until I found Trish Blackwell, and I went to her presentation, and I just felt an energetic connection. I was like, she's the one, she's the woman that I need to work with to help me get started, right? So, if this is landing for you, if it means something to you to think about how to invite inspiration into your life with intention, come and find me on my website, The Breast Cancer Recovery coach.com I would love for you to join my free Living Well After Breast Cancer community, because I want to hear where you look for inspiration. Maybe you'll point me to someone who inspires me too. And if you want to go further, come and join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Metabolic health and mindset membership. You know, this is a membership that is about creating the things you want in life. It's not a focus on cancer, that's why it's called Better Than Before Breast Cancer, right? It's the ability to embrace our entire life and still decide what we want to create. So, when this podcast comes out tomorrow, will be july 11, and I'm going to have some anniversary specials on my website, so make sure you take a look or sign up for my weekly email newsletter, so you don't miss out, or follow me on social media, so you don't miss anything, and you find something maybe that will inspire you too. All right, friends, I will talk to you again next week, and until then, please be good to yourself and expect others to be good to you as well. Take care,

Speaker 1 27:46
you've put your courage to the test, laid all your doubts to rest. Your mind is clearer than before, your heart is full and wanting more. Your future's at the door. Give it all you got, no hesitating. You've been waiting all your life. This is your moment to go. this is

Unknown Speaker 28:25
your moment, this is your moment. shine.