#65 Three Truths and Lie About Living a Happy Life

Clichés often get a bad rap, but sometimes, nestled within them are profound truths.

In this special birthday episode, I delve deep into the life lessons that have left an indelible mark on my journey and on the journeys of the incredible women I've had the privilege to guide.

Embracing these essential truths can be transformative, steering us away from unnecessary pain and providing a fresh vantage point from which to forge ahead.

Join me as I uncover the three undeniable truths and one deceptive myth that have the potential to reshape your perspective on happiness.

Read the full transcript:

0:01
This is Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm a healthy lifestyle coach, a clinical Ayurveda specialist, a personal trainer, and I'm also a breast cancer survivor. In this podcast, we talk about healthy thinking and mindfulness practices, eating well, moving your body for health and longevity. And we'll also hear from other breast cancer survivors who have reengaged with life, and have incredible stories to share. This podcast is your go to resource for getting back to life after breast cancer. Hey there, welcome to episode 65 of the breast cancer recovery coach, I am your host, Laura Lummer. And today, the day this episode releases is November 26. And it is a really special day, therefore it's going to be a really special show begins today is my birthday. So you may have read the title of this episode and thought three truths and a lie. That sounds a little bit like a game you play at some kind of party. And it is because the theme of our show is going to be a little bit of a party game theme. But my three truths and a lie aren't going to be just facts about me. This show is three truths and a lie about living your happiest life. So on my birthday, I look at my birthday somewhat in the same kind of way, as I look at New Year's Day. My birthday is the end of one year, the beginning of a new year of life. And I like to reflect back on what I've actually accomplished during this year on what I've learned not just about myself, but just about life shifts and perspectives, I want to look at some real things because many years ago, I would set goals based on landmark birthdays, when I'm 25. By the time I'm 30. By the time I'm 40, I will have done this. But after having cancer, I consider every birthday a landmark birthday. I know that even making it one year is an exceptional feat and something that I'm very grateful for. So I try to make a point of really taking that birthday for everything that means looking back on everything that I've been able to experience, which is usually more than you think when you really examine what has happened in a year's worth of life. And that doesn't just mean that I travel around the world. But what's happened in your relationships, what have you learned? What impact have you had in your life in the people around you and in the world. And so this three truths and ally, are going to be some reflections that I have on life in general, what I've learned over 56 years of being on this planet, and what I want to share with you to encourage and inspire you to live your happiest life. So my very first truth, this is something that I know for sure. And it's something that I know for sure. A lot of cancer survivors struggle with. This first truth is that life is not fair. There is a lot that happens to us in a life over the course of a life. And it isn't fair. But something we struggle with is trying to figure out why things happen. Why when you do all the right things, bad things happen. And if we could just embrace this one truth and understand that life isn't fair. And sometimes shit just happens, then I think it will be a lot easier to come to terms with moving forward. Because that's really what it's about getting back to life after breast cancer. It's all about moving forward. But there's a lot of things that keep us stuck. I remember when my daughter who's 28. Now, gosh, she was maybe six or seven years old, and telling my kids that life isn't fair. It's something that I've just done my whole life and said, Hey, sometimes things happen. Everything isn't going to be fair. I picked her up from school one day, and she got in the car. And she started to unload all of the things that have happened in her little seven year old day. And she had had this experience with this one girl who wanted her to share something, a toy or something in her class. And the girl said to her that's not fair that you've had it and I can't you know something in that context. And my daughter looked at her and said, Well, life isn't fair. And then she proceeds to tell me how the teacher got him involved. And the teacher said, you know, we'll play fair, everything has to be fair. And she the the moral of her story was a question for me and she said, Mom, my teacher is wrong, isn't she? I mean, life isn't fair. That's what you tell me there. And I'm laughing at her but still said, Yeah, that's true. Life isn't fair. Of course, we try to be as fair as possible with people. We want to play nice. And we want to be kind. But life isn't fair. So questions like, Why me? Or why now? They may never be answered for you. And truthfully, it's those questions that I find derail you from solution oriented thinking, when we're stuck in the Why did this happen? Or what did I do to deserve this? It keeps us from looking at what can I do to move forward.

5:43
So the first truth of my game that I want to encourage you to really embrace is that life isn't fair. And yeah, that sucks. It's not a great thing. But it's a truth. And if you let that truth just kind of percolate and settle in with you, I think you'll find it a little bit easier to move forward. My second truth, it takes a village. And this truth means more to me than just community, it takes a village right how, in the past, we might perceive that as you know, it's you want to have your family around you or we had neighborhoods around us and, and over the years, especially over the course of my lifetime, I've seen a lot of distance and a lot of separation in neighborhoods, in families. And it's really sad. But more than that, I see a lot of distance that we have, not just from the closest people around us, from our loved ones, our friends and our neighbors, but to ourselves. When I say it takes a village, that truth to me means it takes connection, there has to be connection in this life. And that means connection to the people around you. And connection to yourself, connection to this planet, connection to the food that we put into our bodies. It never ceases to amaze me how often I run into people who literally have lost the connection in the understanding between the food they put in their body, and the health that they experience or the lack of it. I've always been a fiercely independent person. And I can remember as a kid thinking, I don't need anybody, I can do this on my own. And it took a long time throughout my life. And as I look back now, I see how I viewed standing alone and being independent as a strength. But the strength was really in the vulnerability in the ability to connect other people in the ability to take that risk and allow other people in something that I see in other survivors that creates a tremendous amount of pain is the separation the distance that they create, while going through cancer treatment, and then have to face during the recovery. There's often been this distance, whether it was because going through cancer treatment itself was something that was emotionally so overwhelming, that it was difficult for them to let anyone else or anything else in. Or there was the idea of protecting others. Sometimes people try to keep everything to themselves with the idea that they're protecting someone else. But it's really just internalizing, and holding in all of that pain, and all of that suffering and all of that trauma that you do go through. And I think I spoke about this just in the last episode, this, this protective barrier that we build between ourselves and our loved ones. And I think it comes from both ways. But if we can drop that barrier, if we can stop thinking about protecting each other, and think more about connecting to each other. And we bring that village together, things become much more fulfilling when you take that quiet time for yourself, to really connect yourself to connecting to what your body needs, how food affects it, how exercise affects how engaging with different people can impact and affect your body. Then your whole village begins from the inside out. You connect with yourself, you ground yourself in this life, and you open those channels of communication to each other. When we open those channels of communication with each other. We lift a burden. Now I know that there's a lot of people out there that listen to this podcast and I am so grateful for that. Because as I've mentioned before, I mean that's my dream. This is my passion to connect to other survivors and to support them and living their best life and thriving in this life. And that's all about communication I often get missed stitches in emails and DMS, on Instagram and Facebook, from women who tell me about something they've heard on this podcast that's helped them to shift in some way, or helped them to have a new understanding of what they're doing or make just made them feel better and not so alone. You guys being alone, I mean, yeah, on the one hand, we go through life alone, right? It's our life, we're going to make our own decisions. But while we're going through our lives, we have to realize that we have a ripple effect, and we're connected to everybody around us. And when we don't open that connection, when we don't partake in our village, then we shut off that flow of energy in our lives. And opening that up, and developing relationships, friendships, compassion for each other, becomes a much more fulfilling place to live and thrive in. So even though I still consider myself a very, very independent person, I truly, truly understand and over the course of my life, have come to realize the deep importance of being connected to your village. Truth Number three, you can't please everyone, oh, my God, if we could just truly accept that truth, and not just spouted out as cliches now and then when it fits a situation, but really understand that we have to be ourselves. We have to live our life and be true to it. I had a conversation with a woman the other day, who was struggling with two of these truths, with connecting to someone and was trying to please someone. And there was so much pain in this conversation. This woman, although she's emotionally very unhappy, had also been conditioned not to say the things she actually felt because the things she actually felt would be met with condescension or anger. And so she would say to me, I can't say that, I can't tell him that. And as she was saying that she was literally sobbing to me. And my heart was breaking. And I was trying to listen and ask questions to help her to see past that in her attempt to please this person in her life, she was literally destroying herself making herself sick. And it was just heartbreaking. And finally, I just had to say, there is no option here. It's not that you can't say these things. It's that you must say these things. You can't not say these things. And the reason that you're not getting this communication out there, you're trying to please this other person is because of fear. Because you're fearful of what those consequences might be, meaning that it may be the end of the relationship. But if you're that miserable, and you're that unhappy, trying to please someone else, then something has to shift. And by finally standing up and being strong enough and pleasing yourself and expressing your needs, the energy in that relationship will shift, and either will grow and become something different, or it will fall away because it wasn't meant to be. But this woman had to find a way to live in her truth. Because she can't please everyone. You can't please everyone, I can't please everyone. And we had to find within ourselves that boldness to stand up for what our truth is to connect through compassionate and constructive conversation. And sometimes those things are tough. And I bring this up, because I know there are a lot of tough conversations that need to take place around a cancer experience and healing from a cancer experience. But keeping those in and trying to be everything to all people doesn't lead to a happy life. Truth Number three, you can't please everyone.

14:10
And now for the lie. It's a little bit corny, so hang in there with me. But the lie is a leopard can't change its spots. Now, I know throughout the course of life, people say people don't change, no one changes. They are who they are. But you know what, I don't believe that anymore. I did for a long time. But when I say that the lie is a leopard can't change its spots. I say that because I have seen so much change in so many women. And I think that going through the experience of breast cancer is an incredible catalyst for change. And maybe the very truth that is that like we just talked about not pleasing everyone. Maybe it's that some of these women just have never really connected to their authentic self, and that going through this devastating experience has caused for them to really connect to that truth and want to live a more authentic life. So here we are presented with all kinds of change that needs to take place. People in their lives, look at them and say you changed, maybe they maybe they were not as outspoken before their breast cancer treatment as they were after, maybe they were not as compassionate before having cancer as they were after things change. Breast Cancer changes the way we view ourselves, we view life and the way oftentimes we want to live. And that doesn't mean maybe everybody wants to, you know, pick up the torch and go out and change the world. But maybe you do want to connect to somebody a little deeper, maybe you want a life that's more fulfilling, maybe you want to life, it's just a lot more fun. It's okay, because people change and our ideas and our perspectives of life change. And that rolls us back to that last truth, or I guess was the second truth, a meeting a village, you have to have that really clear, open, honest communication. Because as you realize things you may want to change about yourself, new things that you want to tackle in your life, you have to be able to communicate that effectively and lovingly and kindly so that people understand that your change is something that is going to be more fulfilling for everyone, rather than perceiving change as a threat, which can very often happen. So as you emerge from this experience of cancer, as you start to reconnect to your body, if you feel like you're floating aimlessly or feeling alone and isolated, if you're starting to think I can't go to that office job one more time and be an accountant, I need to go learn how to be a whitewater rafting instructor. I mean, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be that drastic. I'm overdramatizing the situation. But the thing is understand that people do change the spots on that leopard change. And it's okay to embrace that change. When I finished cancer treatment, I went through a program at a local hospital called beat the odds. I think I've mentioned it in a show before. And this program is it was really amazing, if several weeks long. And there was an older woman in the program older than me. So she I would say was in her late 60s, early 70s. And she was there with her sister, her sister was her support person. And she was the cancer survivor. And she was also married and had been married for a very long time. And the relationship she had with her husband was one of she took care of everything around the house and everything for him and beating him and laundering and everything, everything. And now she didn't want to do that anymore. And it was really interesting because she was becoming resentful towards him. Because he wasn't openly accepting the fact that she now wanted to change everything. She wanted to change up the roles in the House that this poor guy had been conditioned to live in for a very long time. But the beautiful thing was the oncology coach, who was running the program, worked wonders with her and really helped her to understand how to effectively and constructively communicate why she needed to change things, and how changing things in this way, and tell him stepping up and taking on a new role would make their relationship even stronger. And at first she fought and fought and she said No, he'll never understand he'll never understand. But he she finally did relent and say, Okay, I'll take your advice. And I'll go ahead and follow it. And I gotta tell you, by the end of that course, that woman was so happy. And she would come in, and she would share with the class and she would share how her husband responded differently. But she approached her change differently. And she approached him differently. So he was willing to accept the change, rather than feeling threatened or kicked to the curb because of the change. So know that the leopard can't change its spots is a lie. And that means with you as the survivor, and with people around you. So if you lived a life that you wake up to now and say, You know what, I need people to step it up and start taking care of stuff around here. It's okay. And if you start with the why you need that change. Those people that love you will have a better understanding and more of a willingness to step up because they love you and they want to see you happy. Well, I hope you enjoy my three truths and a lie. And really, I wanted to bring these up, because over the course of this last year that I've worked with so many more survivors than ever before, these are three things that I see are really common and really impactful. So over my reflection of this past year, I see these as really important truths and a really important lie I need to get out there for you, so that you can embrace and thrive in your very, very best life. So I'm gonna get out there and thrive in my life and do some birthday celebrating. This is also in the United States Thanksgiving week. So I want to wish every single one of you who celebrate the holiday is a very, very, very happy and fulfilling, fulfilling not just in food, but in your heart holiday. Thanksgiving is always one of my most favorite holidays because I love cooking. I love cooking for my family. I love bringing everyone together. Even though sometimes there may be drama or whatever, we just kind of roll our eyes and go with it because the magic that happens there when everyone is together is truly the magic of that village. Truth Number Two. So before I leave, just know that if you haven't gone to my website, and downloaded my free guide four steps to healing after breast cancer, go check that out. You can find it at Laura lummer.com and you can also get on the waitlist for revivify. My online course that will be reopening with even more fabulous stuff and lots of live group coaching in January of 2020. And read vivify is an awesome program. We've got some great ladies in there. But it starts off with helping you to release the things that keep you stuck, helping you release the things that cause pain, and some of the trauma that you've gone through with the experience of cancer help you to renew yourself through good nutrition and exercise and mindfulness based practices. Not just the same old same old when it comes to to workouts and eating steamed broccoli and chicken breasts but really tuning into intuitive eating, regrouping your life through communication and creating a village and creating champions and reestablishing for yourself healthy goals, healthy boundaries and creating the life that you want. As George Bernard Shaw said, life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. And my read vivify program is a structured step by step system to help you recreate yourself, heal yourself and move forward getting back to life after breast cancer. So thanks for tuning in if you have a chance or you can make a moment to go to the iTunes Store and leave a review for the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I would love that. So thank you for downloading and joining me at the show on my birthday. And I will talk to you again next week. Until then be good to yourself

22:40
in your head use courage to the test laid all your doubts your mind is clearer than before your heart is full and wanting more your futures given all you know you've been waiting on

23:11
this