Have you tirelessly traversed a path, investing precious moments, treasures, and vigor, in pursuit of external resources promising the magic of health and vitality?

Imagine if the compass to your well-being was not afar but within, beckoning just a few moments of introspection each day to decode the symphony of your needs and the measures required to satiate them.

In this episode, Laura unveils a transformative ritual, elegantly simple yet profoundly impactful. Embark on a journey not on rugged terrains but within the vast landscapes of your soul, guiding you closer to discerning your true needs and embracing the steps for unparalleled health and serenity.

The best part? This voyage requires no athletic gear. Forget those gym shoes; all you need is an open heart and mind!

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Read the full transcript: 

00:02

This is Laura Lummer, healthy lifestyle coach, personal trainer, and clinical Ayurveda specialist, you're listening to let your lifestyle be your medicine, your resource for creating and living a healthy life. In this podcast, we talk about nutrition, healthy thinking, exercise, and lots of other ways to connect with your body and live a healthy, vibrant life. Welcome to Episode Six. I am Laura Lummer. And this week's episode is called take what you need. So first of all, I want to take a moment to say thank you for supporting me for tuning in for supporting this podcast, I cannot tell you how much it means to me, you know, when you you take the time to take on a project like this, I think that, for me, there was a part of me that just felt like, out of all the experiences I had with breast cancer, that there was just something I really wanted to give back. And I have had some people reach out to me over the past couple of weeks to just tell me what they've received from this podcast. And that in itself is just so meaningful, and it makes everything that I do to make this happen and to bring the content that I do put out there to try to reach other breast cancer survivors, it makes it all worth it. You know, sometimes it gets to be a little tiresome and and as a professional, you think you know, is this really making a difference for anybody is this accomplishing the goal that I would like to accomplish was just that someone finds help and support in it. So it's really nice to hear sometimes that that is working and that someone is getting something they need from listening to this podcast or from following me on Facebook or from working with me one on one. So I thank you for your comments for your support. And if you haven't yet, and you have the time to go to the iTunes Store and leave a positive review for let your lifestyle be your medicine, I'd really appreciate it. And then that will just help more people be able to find this show more easily. And then hopefully they can find something that they need as well. So we're gonna jump right into this episode. And, you know, the title of this episode was inspired by a graphic that I saw online and that I actually posted on my Facebook page, because when I saw it, it was very meaningful to me, it was a graphic that said, Take what you need. And it was written on a piece of paper, like you would see someone advertising for a roommate or an apartment for rent. And then at the bottom, they would have little pieces of paper that were cut out. So you could tear it off and take their phone number to contact them. But on this graphic, the instead of phone numbers being the little tear offs at the bottom, they were different things like hope, love, joy support. And I thought, you know, that's really cool. It was really a cool graphic. And I wish I knew who had put it out there on the internet. So I could say thank you. But if it's you and you hear this, thank you, because it was something I needed. And it inspired me to think about how what we need changes from day to day, based on what is happening in our life. And some days what we need maybe an exercise program. And some days what we need might be a little more hope. And Sunday's what we need might be a little bit of trust in the universe, that things are the way that they should be. And to look for opportunities in them in the circumstances that we find ourselves in whether or not we would judge those circumstances to be what we want them to be. So I want to talk a little bit about how do we take what we need from life. And I think that we need to start that by asking ourselves what we need. So I read this really interesting article, and it was in a special edition of Time Magazine some time ago, some months ago. And one of the articles and it was written by a physician, and it was called can you think yourself well, and the doctor's name was Lisa Rankin. And in her article, she talks about how she was working with people and kind of fascinated by the fact that she had a lot of patients who were health conscious and had practices in their life that we would consider to be very healthy. And yet these people were ill and they were struggling with different disease or ailments or pain or discomfort. Even some that couldn't really be identified or you know as a root cause what what was creating this discomfort for them so And then there would be other patients that she had that were what we would consider leading unhealthy lifestyles, eating junk food, not exercising, not getting the right amount of sleep consuming too much alcohol, all of those things that we judged to be unhealthy. And yet, these people had no diseases, no pain, no discomfort, and they were seemingly very healthy. And what I love about this article is that she went into so much thought when she was trying to figure out how to help these patients. And what she finally came around to, was asking them, What do you need to feel better? Isn't that interesting? Trusting your own intuition. And she put that on her patients. And even though of course, they're coming to a physician to say, hey, I want you to tell me what you need, she came to this realization that something's not right here. As a physician, she's not seeing any type of metabolic or biological cause for the symptoms that these people are experiencing. And she began to realize that there was something missing from their life. But it was different for everybody, because everybody needs something different. And so she turned to those patients and said, What do you need in order to feel better. And some of the responses were really remarkable as these people became very introspective. And they realized, I need, maybe it was a different job. Maybe it was a different partner in life. Maybe it was to take time for themselves. Everything changes depending on where we're at in our lives. But when we tune into our body, when we reconnect with ourself, we have to ask ourselves, what do I need. And

07:02

it's not always going to be something maybe that's exercise related, or that's nutrition related, maybe finding that thing that makes you happy, that thing that fulfills you, is the first thing that you need, maybe it's to feel safe. You know, I've talked in previous podcasts that after breast cancer, oftentimes people deal with, with anxiety with fear. And there's just that that feeling of not being safe in the world. And I think that comes back around to what I said a few minutes ago is trusting, trusting that in the universe, everything is as it should be, whether or not it's what you think it should be. So another book that I recently read is co authored by the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and its title is finding joy. And or no, I'm sorry, the title is The Book of joy. And it's finding lasting happiness in a changing world. And when I read this book, what I thought was really fascinating is I kind of thought I would hear, you know, hear about their ideas on here's how I find peace, here's how I find happiness, but especially for the Dalai Lama, speaking about how he was exiled from his country. And he spoke about how, even though the circumstances were something he would not have chosen, that in order to live in joy, you have to look for the opportunities in whatever it is that life throws your way. So because he was exiled from Tibet, and now lived in India, what were the opportunities? What were opportunities that came his way, just simply because of being a refugee? What new things were open to him. And I thought that was really fascinating, because it just keeps it circles back around to finding that silver lining, looking for what you need, even though in the circumstances that you're in you, you have to acknowledge what you have control over and what you don't. And then from there, you have to say, okay, you know, here is where I am in life. What do I need now? How do I move forward? And I'd like to offer up a little exercise for you to use so that you can begin to work with understanding what you need so that you know what you can take for what you need and to fulfill yourself. So I love when I read an article or I hear information that they say new science or new studies or new technology shows and then they talk about something in that article or in that news report. That is an ancient gent technique, right? So in this day and age, we hear all the new science of mindfulness and the new science of breathing. And I, every time I hear that, I think, how is that new? We've been doing that for 1000s of years, that's been a part of our VEDA for 5000 years. And so I think it's just really funny when I read it. And yet I understand because from our western perspective, we like things to be proven through clinical research and scientific studies. I know I do, too, a lot of times, I like to hear what the science has to say. And it doesn't mean that intuitively, the practice itself was not valid for me prior to hearing the science. But once you hear the science, it's fascinating to hear how the biology works behind this practice that's been known to be useful for 1000s of years. So I'm going to suggest to you a practice for you to take on to help you figure out what you need in life, what do you need to live your healthiest lifestyle, to be in balance, to be at peace with your self, with the world around you, with your routines in your life? With the way you feel overall? What do you need, not what the world tells you, you need, not what you're supposed to do to fit into whatever, I don't know, new box we're putting out there for you. But what do you really need. So here's the practice, it's something super simple. And it's something you do need been doing since you were born you do every day of your life, and it's breathing. But not just breathing. It's the practice of breathing. And the reason why I say it's so interesting, because I see and I read so many studies and so much research now about the benefits of breathing and what science is finding out about breathing. But like I said, this has been a practice that's been well, obviously, we all breathe. But as a practice as a part of meditation, or yoga, or mindfulness practices, breathing has been around for a long time. But now the science is showing that breathing is activating areas in the brain, that it shows us have anti depressive effects. So it can actually help you to feel better when you practice, have a breathing practice, it can actually help reduce the effects of insomnia so that you sleep more deeply. I know I personally have worked with several clients who just have changed nothing but breathing before they go to bed and trying the practice of breathing and focusing on their breath for five to 15 minutes. And I've had amazing results with just being able to fall asleep, and to stay asleep. So the more you can do a breathing practice, the better it is for you. So if that's five minutes every day, that's awesome. And that's better than actually doing 30 minutes a day, one time a week. So you want to be able to do this as frequently as possible. And it's in that quiet time of that spending time with yourself. And bringing your awareness just to the breath. That just kind of helps things percolate. So you don't have to go in with this agenda of okay, I'm going to stop and breathe for 10 minutes. And, you know, I want to hear a message from the universe from God from whoever tells me what I need. You really just going into this practice, for one thing, and that's to focus on the breath is to find a quiet place where you can sit, where you can close your eyes, or just find something in the room that you want to focus your gaze upon. And just notice your breath. And that's it. The practice is to just notice your breath. And that every time your mind wanders away from noticing your breath, you realize it's wandered away, and you bring it back. So this practice in itself has been shown to reduce blood pressure to help people have hypertension to reduce their blood pressure after having a consistent practice. And it's also shown to just help people just slow down to reduce their stress level to improve their sleep. And to reduce that anxiety like control groups versus breathing groups, we've seen that there's a significant reduction in anxiety for people who practice breathing on a regular basis. And then for those of us who've done this practice, or been a part of it or studied it for some time, there are just other things that come along. And some of those are just unknowing, you're getting in touch with that, that source of yourself that it's my belief, especially as we go through breast cancer and we have to deal with some of the just horrendous things that we undergo, and having our bodies cut into and poisoned and all these things in an attempt to save our lives. We kind of had to disconnect from ourselves a little bit and just, you know, say it's gonna be okay. Hey, and if you get too into the experience of how uncomfortable and painful it is, it can be a little too much. So it's after we've gone through, and we've done what we had to get ourselves through these treatments, that we really have to come back and connect, and get back in touch with our body to continue to help it to be healthy and to support it and to understand what it needs. So I'd like to suggest that going forward to figure out what you need. And to get those answers that come just from within you of what do I need now, to feel as good as I can feel that you begin a breathing practice, and and begin it just five times, five times five minutes, try and five minutes a day to begin with. And if you feel overwhelmed by that, maybe try it five minutes, three times a week, and then you can build up from there. And so what that practices once again, is you're just going to find a quiet place to sit, you can sit on a chair, if that's more comfortable for you, you can sit cross legged on the floor, or even on a meditation cushion. But actually set aside a little space for yourself and plan a time for yourself are you going to be able to do that, we're going to be able to just sit for your five minutes for your breathing practice. And just take that time to sit down and to focus on that breath. And that's it. See what happens from there. So sometimes this practice seems overly simple to some people. But I don't want to put too many thoughts into your head, because what I know you'll find is that as you do this practice, there's so much more that's going to come up for you than just sitting there paying attention to your breath. So I have been conducting a mindfulness meditation class for a group of women. And basically, this is what we're focusing on. It's just mindfulness practice. And so you're focusing on the breath and bringing, bringing the mind back to the breath. And I've heard so many wonderful accomplishments from these women. And by accomplishments, I mean, how they've come and said, How many things have changed when the only thing they've changed is that they've instituted this breathing practice into their life. And then I have one young mom, who is just a beautiful lady. And, you know, she came to me and says, Wow, I realized that if I stop in my car, before I go into the house, once I've come home from work, and I just sit there for only a couple of minutes, and I practice this breathing, I have such a better evening when I go in, and I'm able to just leave everything else behind me and really be present, enjoy my new baby when I get home and just really be present and aware. So we talked about taking what you need. First step is to make the time for yourself to understand what you need. And then from there, you start taking action. Because intention is great, but action is what's going to bring that change. So the practice that we're going to begin to institute for the next two weeks, is going to be setting aside time to breathe, to practice breathing and awareness. And to understand what we need, what we need to have a healthier, more balanced lifestyle. Okay? So I hope that that gives you something that you look forward to working on and that you look forward to experiencing, and that maybe even you already know what you need. But there's something that's holding you back from taking the steps to give yourself that. And so through this, practice through this taking these few minutes for yourself every day, or three times a week, to start off with, just take those steps. So that what percolates up, what comes up from deep inside of you a comes up and says to you, here's the next step. Or here's what you need to overcome to take that step for what you already know you need. All right, I hope that's helpful for you. Again, thank you so much for joining me. You can follow me on Facebook at Laura Lummer where I put out daily goodness and videos and tips and motivation. And you can go to my website, Laura lummer.com, where you can also find information on my revenge vibe program. And this is a program that is going to give you information regardless of you just finished cancer treatment, or you're 10 years out of cancer treatment, but you just want to take that next step in making your life be as healthy and vibrant as it can be. So thanks again for tuning in this week and a look forward to talking with you again in two weeks on let your lifestyle be your medicine.

20:05

voices in your head. You've put your courage to the test laid all your doubts your mind is clearer than before your hardest, wanting more your futures Give it all you know you've been waiting on

20:37

this is your