#187 Who Do You Want to Be Now?

Life after breast cancer often starts off with one big question, “Who am I now?” 

If you’re not   

- the healthy one 

- the one who never takes medicine 

- the one who has boundless energy 

- the one who _______ (fill in the blank) 

Then who are you? 

How do you show up like you “used to” when you don’t feel normal now? 

In this episode I’ll give you the good news…you get to decide how you want to show up and how you want your life to look. 

You can let go of a lot of baggage and pressure and allow the real you to show herself in all of her glory. 

That’s freedom. 

It’s healing, it’s loving and it’s all possible. 

Referred to in this episode: 

Better than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership  

Read the full transcript below:

Laura Lummer 0:01
This is Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm a healthy lifestyle coach, a clinical ru VEDA 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, and welcome to another episode of the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. And I'm so thrilled to be here with you today. Before we jump into this show, I just want to give you a reminder that we are open for enrollment in the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership. This is a powerful membership where you can get personal coaching, group coaching, we have workshops, we have all kinds of incredibly powerful ways to look at the way we've been conditioned to think over our life, and how those thoughts and how that way of thinking creates results in our life, that may not be exactly what we want. And how we can retrain our mind. You know, it's a fascinating thing. Because as a person with a long history in wellness and education and training and wellness, I'm a personal trainer, yoga teacher, or your VEDA, all of the things I've always been fascinated with fitness and the human body. And it takes a tremendous amount of work to keep a body fit, right, it takes conscious decisions about what we're going to put in the body to nourish it. It takes conscious, intentional, deliberate decisions about moving the body, how to move the body, sometimes it takes professionals to teach you how to move your body so that you can do it in a way that supports your health. without injuring your body. There are so many things, and you can take care of your body for decades, right, you could be a high school and college athlete, you could have even been a professional athlete, and then you stop that training. And sadly, you don't stay in the same condition. Right, your body starts to change your body responds to the work and the effort and the intentions we put into it. And the same happens with our emotional and mental well being. When we take the time to give intention and energy to our emotions, when we allow ourselves to be whole human beings and have the whole range of human experiences physical, emotional, and mental. And we put the energy into looking at what we're creating through the way we think the way we feel the behaviors we participate in. And versus how we want to think, feel and act and the results we want to create. We start to see tremendous amount of change in our life, we start to feel better, we start to feel lighter, we let go of the burdens and the baggage that we carry with us. From past experiences from how people told us we should think from what people told us we should feel. And we can stop this, especially after cancer after a life changing life threatening experience, where oftentimes no one has taught us how to process this. No one has taught us how to move forward and show up in our life. And so I invite you to come and join me in the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership, where this is exactly what we work on. Because it is so incredibly important. And you are so worth it. And if there's anything that breaks my heart is when I see another woman struggling, needing help and support knowing that she's not in a place where she wants to be. And still not valuing herself or feeling worthy enough to invest even the time it takes to do the work to support your wellness. You are worth it. 100% So come and join me you can find all the details at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash life coaching and speaking about this, speaking about making decisions, speaking about showing up for yourself in life, and speaking about your worthiness. You know that's something that's the topic of this show, because I often hear from women that I coach, I don't even know who I am anymore. I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to do. I'm not even sure what this is supposed look like, I wish someone would tell me how I'm supposed to feel. And I've given this a lot of thought over the last month, why give it a lot of fun a lot of times, but in the last month in our life coaching membership, we've been working on decisions. And decisions may seem like this off the cuff like, okay, decisions, so what big deal, but decisions and being aware of all the decisions you make in your life, being aware of your power to make decisions in your power to have choices in your life. And being aware of the intention you put behind what you decide to do or not to do in your life is incredibly powerful. And so it's been an amazing month of some really cool and incredible insights. And as I think about that, and I and I work with people on where they're making decisions in their lives, the decisions and choices that are available to them in their lives, this comes up what you want for yourself, what you want your life to look like, whatever someone has in their mind, I want to do this, I want to change jobs, I want to take on this new passion, or anything else they may want to do in life. Often the next thought is, but I can't because if I do this, this person might think that or I want a better relationship, but I can't because my spouse will never change. You know, I want to have a closer relationship with my kids. But I can't because we've never talked about these things. And if I bring up these things, I know this is what they'll say. So we just don't talk about it at all. And then we go through life saying we want to create something new. But instead of creating something new, we're just reliving our past over and over again, I shudder to think if I was reliving my past with my oldest son, he's going to be 40 next month. And let me tell you as a teenager, it was extremely challenging. And there were some it was tough times, man, it was it was a tough road raising that one. And if I believed that, that was all my relationship with him could ever be based on how he acted, then I would never be where I am now. Right? I get to always decide what I'm going to let go, I get to always decide what I'm going to choose to think about. And what I'm going to choose to be open about right the space that I'm going to allow for this other person to be in, in my life. Because when we go through life saying, I can't do this, because my husband will always say that we miss something really important. We miss the fact that he may show up like that. And your kid may show up like that, because they always have. But more importantly, how are you showing up? How many times does someone come in, you see the look on their face? You feel the energy that they've had a bad day? And your mind goes straight to here we go again? And then how do you show up? When you think here we go again? Right? That person comes in. And already in your mind, you're putting your defenses up, you're expecting that depending on your personality, if you're a people pleaser, oh my gosh, what am I going to do to please this person? Can I fix them something to eat? Can I make them a martini? Do I need to be quiet? Should I get out of the house should I give them space. And if you're not the people pleaser, like hear your guns again, now that we're gonna go at it, walk in the house being a grump. And you show up in a specific way, as a reaction to someone else right to someone else's energy to someone else's words.

Laura Lummer 8:51
And the beautiful thing about that is that once you start to see that, and once you understand the truth of you cannot change other people. But you can choose to show up differently. And that is the beginning of changing relationships. That is the beginning of changing your life. So when we come through breast cancer, when we come through this treatment, this experience this trauma, and we get on the other side of survival mode. And we start to process what's been happening, and we start to look at life and without fail. Any woman that I have spoken to has been through this HUD says no one else understands, right? They haven't been through it. They don't get it. I feel like I'm all alone now. And you know, back to that analogy of the jacket, I feel like I'm in a jacket that doesn't fit right life just seems a little bit off in the way that we begin to change that and figure that out, is to let go of the protective barrier. That barrier we create in our own lives when we don't find our voice when We don't speak up for ourselves, when we don't allow ourselves to be open, and to say the things that we want and need in our lives, because we have a story in our mind, of how someone else will respond. When we decide that we're just going to show up as we are, when we decide my words, my needs, my place in this world, is not a source of worry for someone else. It's not a burden for someone else. It's this beautiful dance and interaction have our relationship and we will both or all depending on how many are involved, learn from this interaction, if we can be open and transparent with each other. That's how we learn and grow. When we wait around for somebody else, to show up in a different way, when we go through this experience, and we wait for someone else to understand us, and we wait for someone else to realize what this means to us, you're going to be waiting a long time.

Laura Lummer 11:09
But when we own our own feelings, and we embrace them without shame, without judgment, when we do the work for ourselves to see, this is what I'm thinking now. This is what I'm needing now. And we allow ourselves to stay there, instead of jumping right to I shouldn't, I shouldn't be thinking that I shouldn't need that I should just be grateful, I should just stay here, I should just keep everybody happy. That's doing yourself a tremendous disservice. But when you can stay in that place of Hmm, this is what I need in my life now. And you know, this doesn't just apply to, Hey, I just finished breast cancer treatment. And you know, this, I'm trying to assimilate back into life. It happens in that stage. But it also happens two years later, and three years later, and five years later, and 10 years later, right, we're always going through the seasons of our life. And within the seasons, we limit ourselves, if we decide to keep showing up the same way, based on other people continuing to show up the same way. And it doesn't mean we have to show up with anger. That doesn't mean we have to show up with resentment or demands or controlling or you better act like this, or I can change that. But we decide to own her life. Right, we decided, You know what, I'm gonna change my eating habits, I decided I'm going to incorporate more vegetables, and instead of the first thought being, oh, but my significant other hates vegetables, they'll never go along with ideas, so I can't do it. And limiting yourself based on someone else, you say, this is what I'm going to do. This is how I'm going to start to show up in life. I work with so many women who finally when they embrace this concept of I get to show up in integrity with myself. I've decided something in me needs to try something new needs to change needs to be heard. And I've decided I'm going to step into that. From a place of love from a place of compassion, I'm stepping in to who I am. And I trust myself that this feels right. And I know that I can experience and handle the experience of anything that comes with it. And when we start to do that, that question we have after breast cancer, that question like who am I? Where do I fit into life? Now? What do I want my life to look like? Now? That question starts to take shape. It may not be answered in one day, it may not be answered in one week. But we start to take little steps towards it, we start to step into it and notice Yeah, this is good. Or I thought it would be good, but it's not so great. Let me take another step another way. But the key to it is, is to own it ourselves, to own our life because we're not just the victim of circumstances and other people's behaviors. We're just not here. And I'll hear this often. Like, why does this keep happening to me? Like as if life is just happening to you, and you're just sitting here going bang, bang, bang, trying to put up the Wonder Woman arm shields and defend yourself. Right? Life happens? situations happen. But you are so much more powerful than you realize. You have so much power to show up. However it is you choose to show up? What is the person you want to be? So when you ask yourself that question, Who am I now? Answer it for yourself. And in fact, let's take that question right out of the equation. Let's say wow, I asked myself this question Who am I now? And now I just go forward say, Huh? I'm learning about who I am now. Every Today I'm learning more about who I am now. Every day, I'm learning more about how strong I am, how powerful I am, how loving I am, I'm learning more about what I want my life to look like, and the ability that I have to create that. I'm learning more about how I can be more connected to the people I love, and learning more about what I want to do in this world, to give back to be of service to earn money, whatever it is. And the truth is that what's happening here isn't that you're changing. It's that you're finally allowing yourself, to get to know yourself, you're finally allowing yourself to be the authentic version of you. To show up as the person you really are, rather than the wife, you're supposed to be the sister, you're supposed to be the friend, you're supposed to be the employee, you're supposed to be the daughter, you're supposed to be an all the suppose dues in life, that never felt great, even before breast cancer, but then we go through this life changing experience. And we come on the other side and say, Look, breast cancer changed everything. And the truth is, the only thing that had changed is it opened your eyes to see, like all this should shit just doesn't feel right. And I want to stop it even though I may not know how. And this is the first step in knowing how it's allowing yourself to show up as you allowing yourself to learn how to be in control of your emotions, allowing yourself to see what your thoughts are creating in your life and knowing you have the power to change that. So it's this beautiful process of transformation in the sense of letting go of these very heavy, very weighty, conditioned ways of thinking and believing that you've been taught all your life and experiencing who you actually are, and allowing others to experience you. And it's amazing and beautiful. A lot of people get scared because they think oh my god, I'll change so much. You know, what will other people think what will other people do? How will other people act, I encourage you to step back from that and just be with you. And just take things one step at a time. And just notice, you know, when I show up in my life in this area, and I lose my temper, I don't like that. I don't like the way that feels. When I show up in this area of my life. And I try to tell someone else how they're supposed to dress or how they're supposed to act. And inside, it doesn't feel good to me. I don't think I want to show up like that anymore. Somebody told me I was supposed to somebody told me that was my job. But I just didn't feel right. That's when you start to get to know who you actually are. And I bet you anything, you are really going to like it, I bet you anything, you're going to discover that you're one hell of an amazing person. And the cherry on top of all of that is when you start showing up as your authentic self without the need to control without the need to judge without the need to label you or the people around you. You will start to see the people around you change in the way they show up too. Because as I said a minute ago, right? You show up defensively when someone comes in with that energy of having a bad day. Well, the people around you have been conditioned also to step lightly depending on how you're acting, to be very mindful of the way you show up to know Oh, here she comes. And I can tell by the look on her face. That's what she's thinking. And so we conditioned people around us to not say certain things to hold back certain thoughts to behave in certain ways. And when we stop that, and we just start showing up more accepting, less judgmental, less labeling, we create a space where other people can show up that way too. And it is an amazing transformation. When that starts to happen. When the people you love the people that you mentor the people that you befriend the people that you serve, start to see that they are safe with you just being who they are. Because you show up and create that space, you will be absolutely amazed at how life begins to shift. So this all sounds well and good. But how do you even start? What do you start with? How do you take that step? Well, here's a tip for you. You take a piece of paper, and at the top of that piece of paper, you write my authentic self. And then you just start listening. Who is it that you want to be? What feels good to you? What actions do you take that really help you feel alive inside and really create write it out and decide this is me this is the person that I want to uncover this As the person I want to be, and like I said before, it's doubtful that you're going to have to make that stuff up, it's more likely that you're going to have to drop conditioned behaviors to allow that part of you to shine through. So the first exercise is, take a look at that piece of paper, and write out who you really are. That desire you have inside of you, that person you want to show up as, describe her to yourself. And then ask yourself, what do I have to stop doing in order to let her show up here? Pretty cool exercise, and I would love to hear what you come up with. So come and find me on Facebook, Laura Lummer on Instagram as the breast cancer recovery coach, and if you like what you hear here on the podcast, you will love experiencing the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership. So come and join me at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash live coaching and let's do this work together. It's amazing and fun and you'll love it. I will talk to you again next week. And until then, Please be good to yourself and expect other people to be good to you as well. Take care

Speaker 2 21:15
you've put your courage to the test laid all your doubts your mind is clearer than before your heart is full and wanting more your futures Give it all you know has you been waiting on