#178 You Get to Grieve so You Can Grow

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When I look back over the past ten years, I’m amazed at how much my perspective of cancer has changed. 

I thought I had it beat because I was always down for the fight. 

But the most important thing I’ve learned is that the best way to get back to life is to let shit go. 

It took many years for me to figure out that grieving was necessary for healing. 

Even when I did figure it out, it took working through my process and supporting many other women in doing the same before I saw the power of allowing yourself to grieve. 

We humans aren’t that different from each other. 

Our brains process trauma in similar ways, and the steps of processing grief are well established. 

The problem after breast cancer is we’re conditioned to fight how we feel rather than process it and allow ourselves to grieve. 

In this episode, we’ll talk about the importance of that process and how allowing yourself to grieve can give you the ability to grow. 

 


 

Read the full transcript below:

 

Unknown Speaker 0:01
This is Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm a healthy lifestyle coach, a clinical or Aveda 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.

Unknown Speaker 0:37
Has Hello, hello. Welcome to the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I have some great stuff here for you today. And I want to share a little insight before I jump into it. I talked about last week, the fact that we are doing the self love month challenge in my membership groups and in the breast cancer recovery group. And, you know, it is amazing how just full of love for all of these people have been posting about themselves that I feel, you know, it's such a cool thing to be immersed in this energy of self love in seeing others realize their amazingness and hearing them post it and get to watch them celebrate themselves across the board. And in my coaching calls over the past week. With my members, as we've talked about this challenge, the two beautiful things. One is just the way that these women are able to change the lens and the way they look at themselves, and to the way that they are seeing each other, the inspiration we get from seeing others with that energy of love. And you know, it's a true thing because we go through life. And if you're around someone who's negative and heavy, and even if you're coming home to someone who's like that in your house, God knows I have that experience. And anyone who has teenagers probably has that experience, but dreading the feeling right when you walk into a house and you know there's a heaviness and an attitude and you feel that energy. And on the opposite side of that, when there's someone, even if you're not in the room, even if we're not physically together, but you're just seeing every day, these posts of things people are doing for themselves, how they love themselves, how they're caring for themselves, how they're supporting themselves, and how they're giving themselves permission to change the way they think about themselves. I love it. It is awesome. So if you are already in the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership, or you're a part of the breast cancer recovery group, keep it coming. And if you're not come and join us, you can join the better than before breast cancer life coaching, membership at Breast Cancer recovery coach.com, forwards laughs life coaching. And in there we work monthly on so many things, we get coaching, we have fun with challenges, but there's a lot of self study and relearning about ourselves, which is going to lead into what I'm talking about today. Because in order to be able to learn about ourselves, in order to be able to really love ourselves, which is the foundation of being able to live a happy and fulfilling life.

Unknown Speaker 3:20
In order to do that. We've got to create space, I did a podcast on that a little while ago, have the space to be able to invite new thoughts and love into our hearts. And the way that we do that is by releasing all the old bullshit that we're holding on to and doesn't serve us. And I'm sure I've talked about this before. That's why release is the first pillar of breast cancer recovery, letting go of what is blocking your ability to think new ways about yourself. I believe very strongly that that is the process of grieving. And I want to talk about that today. Because as you know, if you listen to this podcast, if you follow me at all, you know that this idea of going back to normal is something that I'm always talking about. I'm always working with people to be able to see their thoughts on that and see the fruitlessness in that to understand from a realistic perspective and from a thought perspective that it doesn't make sense to go through what we've been through and then go back to what we were before it just doesn't make sense. But we hold on to it and in the holding on to it in the holding on to the memory of what was we suffer profoundly.

Unknown Speaker 4:44
So I want to share this story with you and over over the holidays. This past Christmas, my stepdaughter, she had a stillborn birth, and it was very tragic.

Unknown Speaker 4:57
Who it was very tragic and when she

Unknown Speaker 5:00
He

Unknown Speaker 5:01
was trying to process all of this. I was talking to her one day, and she's amazing. She's friggin amazing, she's so smart, she's so strong. She's so mature for her young age, and for the tragedy that she went through. And she said to me,

Unknown Speaker 5:17
I feel like I'm mourning my innocence. Because I never believed something like this could happen to me. Things like this only happened to other people. And now I have to mourn the fact that I know that this type of thing can happen to me in life also.

Unknown Speaker 5:36
And I am not literally said to her at that point, there's just nothing I can add to that, that is so beautiful. And so spot on and so profound, and you are amazing for realizing that knowing that is so important. And accepting that we get to grieve is so critical to our healing. I coach women all the time, and this idea of grieving comes up for me, we've we've lost so much. But we are programmed and told and conditioned, fight, be strong, being positive is only air, it's only boobs, it's only temporary, the bullshit. It's real, it's powerful. It's scary, it's traumatic, and it's an incredible change that it's forced upon you very, very quickly in life, the diagnosis and treatment of cancer is what I'm referring to.

Unknown Speaker 6:36
So I want to offer this concept, this idea of grieving this idea of giving yourself permission to experience the loss and let it go.

Unknown Speaker 6:49
Because that is the space in which we can renew the second pillar of breast cancer recovery, release, renew, we've got to let things go. And in order to do that, it is okay to grieve the loss of everything that you do lose going through breast cancer treatment, it's very hard to be able to bring in the gifts that come from the experience of breast cancer from what you've been through. And oftentimes when I bring that up, especially depending on where someone is at in the process of breast cancer, if I say where's the giftedness or that I witnessed the gift in it, who that still trapdoor come slamming down, and there's no room for them to bring into their mind, even the idea that there's a gift in this experience, because they're still going through the process of grieving. Let's talk about what the stages of grieving are. The first stage is shock, in denial. And I will tell you that I coach women sometimes who are more than a year out of treatment, even not just diagnosis, but treatment, and are still in shock and denial have still not processed and embraced the fact that they had breast cancer, the fact that this happened to them.

Unknown Speaker 8:12
And the second stage is pain and guilt. Yeah, pain and guilt. Who's familiar with that? How many times have you tried to blame yourself? What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? How come this happened to me, you know, am I a bad person, we look at it on a karmic level, we look at it on a physical level, and the pain, the pain of perceiving that we're out of control going through treatment. Because we always are in control, we always have a choice. And I love working with women to be able to embrace the power of choice that they have in treatment. Now I am in treatment, and I will be in treatment for the rest of my life. And I have complete control over that. My doctor offers me what he believes are the best methods to cure my body to stop the growth of cancer and I get to choose whether or not I'm open to those treatments. I get to choose whether or not I'm willing to accept the consequences of those treatments, the side effects and the aftermath. It is always my choice. And so I think that one of the big pieces of pain after breast cancer is the struggle with the feeling of powerlessness. The idea that I had to do this, someone made me do this, right. It's almost like being assaulted. And I've used this analogy before when I've spoken to groups of fitness and wellness professionals who have not had a diagnosis or understood a diagnosis of breast cancer. And I've described it to them so that they could kind of bring it into something that would be realistic in their world by saying Imagine you're walking down the street and out of the bushes. Someone jumps out and they physically attack you

Unknown Speaker 9:57
and you are assaulted violently.

Unknown Speaker 10:00
You wake up in a hospital, and you have wounds, and you are in pain.

Unknown Speaker 10:08
And your physical body is forever changed by the impact and severity of those wounds. And your doctor tells you, you have to take this medication now for the rest of your life to deal with these wounds. And even if you take it, you're not going to be like you were before because you've been wounded, your body's been forever changed through the attack and through the surgeries to remedy the attack. And so then you go home, and you're done being treated for the wounds that came from that attack. But every day when you walk down the street pass that bush that someone jumped out of your brain says, What if someone jumps out again?

Unknown Speaker 10:47
Right? And that's what happens to us with breast cancer. We get the wounds treated, we go back home. Everyone expects us to be normal, including us, and then we're not. And then we walk past familiar things. We feel familiar things we feel aches, pains, headache, whatever it might be. And we think oh my god, what if it's cancer again, right? We're still holding on to that trauma, that's a part of the trauma. And that's a part of the process of grief is the anger in the bargaining, right? The anger that has happened to you, somebody jumped out of the bush, like cancer came out of nowhere, what the hell? And now there's the bargaining, what can I do? What will I do? And then oftentimes, in that stage of this bargaining is, what can I do? What what? Well, look at what I did, I thought I did do everything, or everything I have to do is so different. And now I buffer with things that temporarily bring me good feelings, because I don't know what to bargain with. And then that leaves you feeling powerless. And what is the next step in grieving is depression, we go through shock and denial, we go through pain and guilt, we go through anger and bargaining. And then when none of that works, because we haven't changed our thoughts, and realize we have power over what our brain offers us, that powerlessness can bring us into depression. Powerlessness is not a good feeling. And when you feel like you have no control over your body or over your life, that's a very painful place to be. And so grieving is such an important part of this experience of breast cancer, going through the experience of breast cancer. And when I start coaching someone who is holding on to the past version of themselves and their lives, like as if their life depended on it, then I know that this person needs release, I know that this person needs to shift the way that they think about what just happened to them, and give themselves the space to grieve their loss. Rather than fight like hell to get their loss back.

Unknown Speaker 12:58
This process of healing requires acknowledging the loss,

Unknown Speaker 13:04
it's necessary, and it's O. K, you have the right to grieve what you've lost. And you've either lost a breast a part of a breast, both breasts, you may have been through multiple surgeries, you may have lost your hair. But as I started this show by saying you've lost a piece of your innocence,

Unknown Speaker 13:32
you've lost a piece of getting to live in that beautiful place of ignorance is bliss, right? When we're ignorant to trauma, and I don't say ignorant with the negative I say it as a space of the unknowing when we have no knowing, and no first hand experience of an incredible loss, then there's an innocence there, that does go away when that loss happens to us. And it's okay to acknowledge that

Unknown Speaker 14:06
it's okay to cry about it.

Unknown Speaker 14:09
It's okay to express that you don't like it. It's okay to be angry about it. As long as you're processing those emotions when they come up.

Unknown Speaker 14:20
As long as you're moving into understanding that I'm experiencing pain and guilt, and letting yourself know that of course you're experiencing pain and guilt. Of course you are. But then going through what thoughts are bringing up those feelings and answering the questions you ask yourself. You know, oftentimes that's one of the most powerful exercises as I'm coaching someone because they'll say, How can I do this? How can I get through it? How will I ever be able to handle it? And I just asked them answer that question. How will you write how will you move forward? pretend for a moment that you know that

Unknown Speaker 15:00
The answer, be that actor on a stage ask yourself that question, how will I move forward? Well, if I could move forward, let me entertain that for a moment. If I could move forward, then I would have to think this instead, if I could move forward,

Unknown Speaker 15:18
I will have to let go of this anger.

Unknown Speaker 15:22
One of the questions that I posted in the Learning To Love Yourself Challenge was, what is one judgment you can drop about you to love yourself more. And some of the answers that I got, were, I'm not good enough. Stop worrying about every little ache and pain and thinking cancer is returning. I don't have to do it all. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not worthy.

Unknown Speaker 15:48
I don't matter to anyone but my daughter.

Unknown Speaker 15:52
When you hear me say those things, what do you feel?

Unknown Speaker 15:57
I feel a constriction in my chest, I feel an aching in me, for these people. I feel a deep, deep empathy for these people. This is what I'm talking about. When I say we have to look at our thoughts in ask ourselves, is this thought serving me

Unknown Speaker 16:17
is this thought bringing me any closer to the life I want to live and the person I want to be? Because you get to choose that? Anything that happens in the moment after you hear the sound of my voice is up for grabs? It's all make believe. So if you get to decide if you get to imagine if you get to create, why would you choose thoughts, like the ones I just shared with you, you get to release those thoughts, you get to let them go. You get to grieve what you've lost. You get to recognize the thoughts that your brain is offering you. And then you get to say, No, thank you. I choose to love myself now. I choose to be fully present with the person I am now without judgement labeling or conditions. I choose to love myself. And that's going to be a process that's most likely not going to happen in a heartbeat. Because your whole life you've gone through conditioning yourself to believe you're not good enough to tell yourself, you're not perfect to have these ideas that you should be prettier. You shouldn't be smarter, you should make more money, bla all the shoulds.

Unknown Speaker 17:33
But I think the most important takeaway here is that the space after a breast cancer diagnosis and life moving forward from that is a process. It's not a let me take a timeout for breast cancer treatment and jump right back in. It is a transformation. If there was a fire and you went through it one way and you came out as the Phoenix, that's breast cancer, that's the fire.

Unknown Speaker 17:58
And from my experience of having been in that fire, it's not important to put the fire out. I thought it was at one time, but it isn't what's important to to come out of that fire and say to yourself, now I get to take time.

Unknown Speaker 18:13
Now I get to take time and go through this process of learning what my life is about, of learning what I'm about, of grieving what I lost in that fire. And allowing myself to create a new life going forward. A new way of loving myself going forward.

Unknown Speaker 18:31
Because you know what is in the process of grief after the depression is the upward turn.

Unknown Speaker 18:39
It's reconstruction and working through things. It's acceptance and hope, acceptance and hope. These are beautiful. This is part of renewal. I'll share story with you that comes to my mind. I was 30 years old when my brother died. He was 32. And I had been very, very unhappy in my marriage for a long time. And when my brother died, I did not process his death and unhealthy ways. Let me make that very clear. Right off the bat. It took me three years to really start to begin to process what had happened. In that time. What became very clear to me was, I didn't like the way life was going. I didn't like what was happening. I didn't like the way that I felt. And I didn't like that relationship and had it for a long time. I made a huge change in my life. As a result of that grieving process. I decided life was too short to live this way, and that I was going to create more happiness, more space for happiness in my life. Fast forward. I don't even know how many years my second marriage, again, really struggling very unhappy. We've been through counseling, we were doing marriage counseling. There was so much happening I

Unknown Speaker 20:00
I had that familiar, heavy, dark, awful feeling inside of me. And especially because I had been divorced and I didn't want to go through a divorce again. But I was just so unhappy with life. And I got a phone call one day that my cousin's adult daughter, adult, she was 2022 years old at the time. And they live in a rural place in Ohio and she was driving out of her driveway heading to work. And someone hit her broadsided her car and killed her right in front of their house. And in that moment, I literally went back into my office, I was at work, I went back into my office, I got on a computer, I found a real estate agent. And I went and looked at a property that night and left that marriage. And I said, That's it. Life is too short. And sometimes in that tragedy, and in the process of grieving, we realize that something needs to change and I'm not saying change your marriage, everybody get divorced. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying inside of us, oftentimes we know something in life isn't working. And this tragedy can allow us to lift that veil of, of bargaining that veil of denial, that veil of pretending that what's not okay is okay because right we justify it with other things. And it can allow us to really jump in and reconstruct our lives, so that we can come back into life with acceptance and hope. If we don't go through this process. We stay in pain and guilt. Trust me, I know I stay there, I worked with so many women who stay there. We're in pain and guilt. And we don't realize that we need to grieve and let go have some thoughts and some ideas. Because we're told to fight it. We're told to fight it and be grateful. We're told to fight it and just get over it. And it doesn't work. Healing comes from a place of love, pain, anger, guilt, depression, those feelings do not come from loving thoughts. Those feelings do not come from a place of love. And they do not support health and healing. This I know for sure. This I know from Yes, I could do research. And I can give you quotes to show you that that's been demonstrated. But this I know. So strongly, so powerfully firsthand. In I've seen it in I don't even know how many women now after breast cancer, they've realized that the way that they're thinking is keeping them stuck in pain, guilt, anger, depression, unworthiness. And that working on changing those thoughts, working on letting go working on releasing and going through the process of grieving that person that is no longer serving them, and becoming who they want to be stepping into themselves. It is life changing and amazing.

Unknown Speaker 23:04
So I offer this to you. And I offer that you give yourself that permission to grieve and let go of the things that are keeping you stuck in pain and guilt. Because there is such an incredible, amazing life on the other side of pain and guilt. Right. And we can't get there, we can't get to the possibility of potential of amazingness if our mind is full of anger, guilt, grief, and fear, I promise you that I know this for sure. I know this for sure. If you want more help with that. That is my mission in life is to help you all live a happier and more fulfilling life and I can help you develop the tools to be able to do that. So come and join me and the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash live coaching, or come and join the breast cancer recovery group. It's a free Facebook group, you get lots of motivation and support. And if group joining sounds like I don't want to do that I don't like group things, then I have an extra special offer. In fact, I'm coming up this April will be one year since I opened the better than before breast cancer membership formerly known as the revived membership experience. And I thought you know I love doing my one on one coaching. And so I decided as I come up on this one year anniversary to offer only five very special spaces in the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership, and that is a lifetime membership. I'm only offering five of them because each of those five memberships come with 12 hours. So 12 sessions of one on one coaching with me and I'm telling you that is from a financial perspective, it's worth as much as the membership itself, but from an impact and transformational perspective. It is literally priceless. What you could accomplish.

Unknown Speaker 25:00
for yourself in those 12 sessions like amazing, amazing transformation. So if that sounds good to you go to the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash live coaching and join me there. All right, I will talk to you again next week and until then love be good to yourself and expect other people to be good to you as well.

Unknown Speaker 25:22
As in your head, you've put your courage to the test laid all your doubts

Unknown Speaker 25:30
your mind is clearer than before your hardest phone wanting more your futures

Unknown Speaker 25:41
Give it all you

Unknown Speaker 25:43
know

Unknown Speaker 25:46
you've been waiting on

 

 

 

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