#171 A Year is Never Wasted

Time's passage, whether seemingly favorable or not, is never in vain.

Life unfolds, regardless of our plans or wishes.

The dawn of a new year brims with promise and rejuvenation. However, if you bring forward the same self-defeating narratives, progress might remain elusive.

Now is the perfect juncture to reflect on the tale you've spun about the past year, and envision the chapters you wish to pen in the coming months.

Tune in to delve deeper into the transformative power of your personal narratives, and check the show notes for a valuable tool to reshape unproductive thoughts.

Read full transcript below:

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. Hello, friends, welcome to the last episode of the breast cancer recovery coach podcast for 2021. I guess I should have started there sounds a little scary, like the last episode, or 2021, just for this year, we are about to embark on a whole new year. And I have to tell you, I'm very excited about that. I'm very excited about it for a lot of reasons. One, I'm still here to move forward into the new year. And I consider that a blessing. Very grateful for that. And also because I have so many exciting things planned. And I'm going to share a couple of them with you right now. So something you can look forward to in January and it's going to begin January 16. Is the sugar challenge back by popular demand. And this is such a great time of year to bring the sugar challenge back. Because obviously, we've been through the holidays. And there's probably been a lot of fudge and a lot of cookies and a lot of yummy indulgences, and pumpkin pies and all of the things that sometimes we get into this flow of eating the sugary foods. And then it can be challenging to get out of it. And we say you know I'm starting tomorrow, I'm not going to do this anymore. And we turn to willpower. And willpower is only going to get you so far as a certified nutrition coach, as a health and wellness professional, a personal trainer, a life coach, all of these things I can tell you, and from my own experience, that just saying I'm not going to do it. And then just trying to push your way through as hard as you can to change your lifestyle habits is never going to be a long term sustainable plan. But there are ways of working on mindset of being more honest with ourselves of looking at what's actually going on with our relationship with food, with our relationship with ourselves, how much we love our body where we're treating ourselves with compassion. And when we can look at those things you will be amazed, and how differently you will choose to eat. Because you're approaching food from a totally different thing. It's not a good, it's not bad. It's not wrong. It's not right. It's what will nourish my body today. And we work a lot on that in the sugar challenge, which is why I absolutely love it. It is not a diet. It is not a sugar restriction. It is a different way of approaching food. And I hope that you will join me for it. Registration is not open yet. But it will be opening next week and I'll talk about it on next week's show where you can go to sign up, you'll find it on my website. And I'll also put some social media posts out about it. But you don't want to miss this. So get it on your calendar five days sugar challenge, it's going to start January 16. And registration will open next week. So that's something really exciting. Another thing is that my membership, my monthly membership, which is called the revived membership experience, is getting a little bit of an overhaul. And I am changing the name of the program, because I wanted to give it a name that really was more descriptive of what we do in this membership. And so you will be seeing over the next couple of weeks a new title which is called the better than before breast cancer, life coaching membership. And I'm really happy with that title. Because so many times with the people I coach will say you know, this wasn't just about breast cancer like this is changing my life. We look at relationships, we look at why we turn to external things like food and drink and behaviors to avoid feelings. We look at how breast cancer impacted our life and how we want to move forward in our life. It is a complete life coaching program. And so I really felt like changing the title to the better than before breast cancer live coaching membership was the perfect thing to kick it off for 2022 Because it's really what this is all about is deciding to live your life and an even better way than you did before breast cancer. And it's an awesome experience. So look for that change too. So revived is gonna go away and you're gonna see this new title and I'm super excited about that. Now, there's lots of other stuff coming but I don't want to give it all to you right away. We haven't even started January yet, so look forward to those two things. And then we're just going to jump right into this show. The theme for this show is that a year is never wasted. And I want to tell you a little story about why I decided to talk about this topic. On today's show, I will hear women who have been in treatment, who are finishing up treatment. And they will refer to that time as I lost this much of my life. I thought about that a lot. Because I know that I did that, too. It was like, Oh, wow, I got diagnosed in July of 2011. And I finished treatment in December of 2012, meaning all the things, all of the treatments, all of the surgeries, all of the reconstruction, right, so a year and a half. And I remember thinking how much I wanted to do. And that year and a half before I got the phone call telling me I breast cancer. And I remember looking at it and feeling robbed. And I want to talk about that today. Because when we're in that place, and we are telling ourselves that we've lost a part of our life, that we've lost an amount of time, I want you to ask yourself, if you ever have that feeling, or you have that thought, I've lost a certain part of my life, I want you to ask yourself, how does that make you feel? Because I know when I think I've lost part of my life, I got robbed of 18 months, my plans were taken away from me. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good at all. It doesn't serve me. It makes me feel very powerless. It makes me feel like some unseen force has power over my life. And I'm just kind of floating around like one of those puffy dandelion seeds in the wind, like whatever's going to happen to me is going to happen to me. And in some sense, you might say, Well, yeah, that is true. Because like who knew I was going to get cancer? And you're right, that is true. I didn't know I was gonna get cancer I sure as hell didn't know I was gonna get it twice. But because these things happen in our life, does it make us powerless over our life? Meaning that yes, you got cancer? Yes, I got cancer. Yes, I have cancer. And I don't look at this last year, little over a year, I was diagnosed with stage four and a 2020, October 2020. I don't look at any event as a waste of time. I don't look at any of it as having put my life on hold. Where I did the first time I did the first time that first 18 months I was angry, I was resentful. I was bitter about it. But fortunately, in the years between my first and second diagnosis, I was able to change the way that I think about that diagnosis. And I think about life. And I want to share that with you. Because as we end this amazing year, I know that some of us have this tendency to just like I just can't wait for this year to be over. Hopefully everything great will happen next year. And I want to offer that if we stop and really think about that, again, we could have put ourselves in a powerless position, as if we have no control over how our life will feel or how wonderful our life will be. Right? May all the powers that be give me a wonderful life in 2022. And then you just sit there, wait for it. And that's never going to bring you a wonderful life. That is going to have you bouncing from circumstance to circumstance, something outside of you or outside of your control happens like a diagnosis. When we allow our emotions to be dependent on these external circumstances, we're completely missing the fact that we have power, that year of life, that two years of life that two and a half, three years of life, whatever amount of time it was, or is that you are dealing with cancer is certainly not wasted. There's just so much power and how we choose to tell our story. And that doesn't mean that you can look back at the year whether it was a year of cancer treatment or recovery, or even learning to live with metastatic disease. It doesn't mean go back and look at that and just say oh, just look at the silver lining. But to look at our story, and really see what you've accomplished as a part of that story.

9:38
So let me give you an example. When you're in treatment, and you're going through treatment, and that's most commonly where I hear that was a waste of two years of my life or I lost X amount of time in my life. I just want to offer to look at that through a different lens and to ask yourself and even do this as a writing exercise because it's so valuable as you wrap up This year and you think about moving into next year, look at what you learned about yourself. Maybe what you learned about life, but what you learned about yourself, first of all, and in treatment, that means, did you realize how much you could get through? And still be here? Because when you're in treatment, that's a lot to go through. Did you ever think because I hear this all the time, too? How much more can I take? And when we ask ourselves that, I would like for you to answer that question for yourself. Now, look how much you were able to come through. Look how much internal strength you have. Look at what happened in this last year of your life. I used to look at my life and say, Okay, well, I didn't lose that weight. And I didn't make that money. And I didn't change that job. And it's kind of, it's a terrible feeling, right? Because you kind of shame yourself on where you failed all year long. And then it's okay, next year, I'm going to set these goals. But now I look back at the year. And if there are things I didn't accomplish, that I set out hoping to accomplish, I asked myself why. Because sometimes there are things that we just say we're going to do, because it seems like we should. But we really don't want that. Right, we really don't want that in our lives. Sometimes we do want it. But we have to stop and look at what's inside of us and what we're thinking that's holding us back from getting it. So just saying I didn't accomplish it, or I didn't make it happen. Or I lost time because something was happening to me with treatment. So I couldn't do the things I wanted to do. Let's change that story and look back at this year of life. And ask yourself, what did I learn about me? What can I see that I had to dig deep into this year, in order to stay engaged in life and move forward? Because when we look at this, and we see our strengths, and we see our opportunities for improvement, then we can be honest with ourself, if you wanted to lose 20 pounds, and you didn't lose 20 pounds, you can look at yourself and say, Why didn't I lose it instead of dammit, I didn't lose it. But why? What's the why behind it? What were you thinking? What fears did you have that you didn't want to feel? Or you didn't want to face? What held you back? If you were learning to live with metastatic cancer? How did you tell that story to yourself? Was it a story of making life as intentional as possible every single day? And learning how to love yourself? And how to support your body's ability to heal itself? What did you learn about it? Because in the example I gave, when we first started of saying something like, I lost a year of my life, or I can't wait for this year to be over, we lose so much value and we give up so much power. It doesn't feel good to say that, because we're giving up our power. And no matter what was happening in our life at the time, you didn't lose it because that was your life. This is life. Right? This is life every single day. We're not going through cancer treatment. We're not recovering from breast cancer treatment, we're not learning to live with metastatic treatment, and not in life. We're in life. So if you're telling yourself this story that, well when this happens, then I'll live well when this happens, then I'll do that. Well, when this happens, then I'll be happy, then you're choosing not to live intentionally today. Some of you listening may be in treatment, you may think, are you kidding me? I'm in chemotherapy, what the hell am I supposed to do? I would offer that living intentionally in chemotherapy in intervening a cytotoxic. Chemotherapy is just a matter of everyday saying what do I need to do to support myself today? What do I need to do to treat myself with love today? When we're in that space afterwards, where we're recovering from breast cancer treatments again? Are you treating yourself intentionally with self compassion? Are you judging yourself for what you can't do anymore? Or are you being very present? And just giving so many kudos to that amazing body of yours who actually got through treatment for cancer and saying, What can I do to support this body? What can I do to support this life? Now moving forward? How much intention? Can I pour into this? And what do I want to create for myself? And it's the same thing when we're learning to live with metastatic breast cancer. It's just truly every day for all of us. But I think we're a little more aware of it right? When you know you have cancer widespread in your bodies Every Day Counts. What do I want to make of this day? Am I going to choose to tell my story from the perspective of what I can't do? What I may not have done what I may not be able to do? Or am I going to look back and reframe that story from what I overcame. From what I'm learning about myself and about life, and from what I want to create for my future. Because the words we use, once again, the stories we tell ourselves, the way we look at an experience is so powerful. And as you're wrapping up this year, and as you're starting to think, what do you want to create for yourself going forward in your life? Ask yourself when you're telling yourself the story, how is this making me feel? Am I telling myself a story about this last year? That's making me feel unworthy? Am I judging myself? Is it making me feel hopeless? Is it filling me with fear? Is it making me feel powerless? And if any of those answers are yes, then it's time to review how you're telling your story to yourself. And I want to emphasize again here that this does not mean false positivity. Right? It doesn't mean look at all of the things that were difficult for you and just try to say, Okay, look at the bright side. And I want to share this story with you. You know, when I work with my clients, I teach as a coach, that your thoughts are what create your feelings, that's how I was trained, I believe it, I see it, it works all the time, and you can try it yourself. Think about something wonderful and happy right now. And you will see that you will feel happy, you will be able to change your emotion. Think about something sad or scary or tragic. And you will see the emotion change our thoughts create our emotions. And so it's so important to experience all of the emotions, but then choose where we want to direct our energy, and choose the words we want to use to tell our story, especially to ourselves. So that we feel the way we want to feel if that is empowered, if that is competent is that if that is loved, if that is worthy, it's the way you tell your story is going to change that. So I'd like to share this excerpt from the book Emotional agility, get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work in life by Susan David, I love this book. And in it, she says bad emotions are useful for different reasons. embarrassment and guilt can serve important social functions and fostering appeasement and furthering cooperation. Sadness is a signal to ourselves that something is wrong, often that we are looking for a better way to be here and participate. And outward expressions of sadness signal to others that we could use some help suppress the sadness under a veil of false cheer. And you deny yourself the self directional guidance, and maybe also the helping hand. And I wanted to share that with you here. Because it's so important. When you are reevaluating your year, when you are thinking about what you want to create in your life, to allow yourself to feel and experience and examine and get curious about all of the emotions, and not feel like you have to suppress them because suppressing them hiding them, especially under a false positivity or a false veil of happiness doesn't serve you or anyone else. In just the same way that telling yourself a powerless story doesn't serve you or anyone else. I remember a couple of shows ago, I shared a quote from you from this fantastic book, The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse. And the quote was, I wish there was a school of unlearning. And I hope that for 2022, it will be the year of unlearning for you of unlearning the stories, the condition thoughts, the expectations, all the things you put on yourself that don't serve you that don't bring you any closer to happiness that don't support you in creating the life you want. There are so many things we are conditioned to believe and we buy into over life that hold us back from being who we are, who we want to be. And if we can start unlearning those unreasonable expectations and demand are those canned expectations and demands really, is one demand going to be placed on all mothers, all sisters, all daughters, all women, all bosses. I mean, it's crazy. So unlearning the things that have been conditioned for you to believe and allowing yourself to be curious about who you really are, what your story really is,

19:38
what amazing worthiness you already have, how worthy you already are, how important you already are, and the incredible amount of internal strength you have to create anything you want. So one of my sisters likes to play this game when you sit down for dinner and she asked everybody at the table, what was your high point today? What was your low point today? And I started thinking about that and I created a worksheet for you to download, you can go to the show notes for this episode, the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash 171. And find that worksheet there. But I designed it so you could look at what you look back at your year and think of as your high point and why and what you look at and think of as your low point, and why. And then there's a couple of really important questions underneath that, to kind of help you get a healthy perspective on both of those. So that you can end this year, having learned a little something more about yourself and the way you look at life. And having a new perspective on how you can look at the life you're going to create in 2022. So happiest, healthiest, safest of New Year's to you. And I will talk to you again next week. Until then, Please be good to yourself and expect other people to be good to you as well.

21:08
In your head, use your courage to the test laid all your doubts. Your mind is clearer than before your heart is wanting more your futures given you no hesitation you been waiting on