When life throws something at you out of left field your brain goes straight to fear.
We are conditioned to think in scarcity.
The more unexpected things that happen, the more fear you can fall into until it feels crushing.
So, how do you get out of feeling crushed?
You create space.
You explore options.
You notice that it’s your thoughts about life that are creating the heaviness.
In this episode, I’ll offer you two ways of noticing thoughts of scarcity and how to move past them when they come up so you can have more space for abundance in your life.
Referred to in this episode:
Read the full transcript below:
Laura Lummer 0:00
You're listening to the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a Certified Life health and nutrition coach, and I'm also a breast cancer thriver. If you're trying to figure out how to move past the trauma and the emotional toll of breast cancer, you've come to the right place. In this podcast, I will give you the tools and the insights to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer. Well, let's get started. Hello, and welcome to episode 190 have the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I am your host, Laura Lummer. As always, I am thrilled to be here. I say that with most sincerity, like what a gift, what a gift to get to be here and put this podcast out every week. And you know, now that I say that it brings up this thought I can remember when I first started this podcast, and I was so afraid that I wouldn't have anything to talk about. I was working with a coach at the time trying to understand how to start a podcast and what you do to start a podcast. And she had had I don't even know at that time well over 100 podcast episodes. And I remember looking at her and just marveling and thinking, Oh my God, how did you think of that many things to talk about? And I kept thinking, what
Laura Lummer 1:25
if I do, like three or four podcasts and then I'm out of stuff to talk about. And I have to tell you that in the beginning, actually, my thinking like that was a bit of a block for me because I had so much fear that I wouldn't know the next thing to talk about that it took a tremendous amount of energy for me to put into the podcast to figure out what to talk about. I had all these thoughts and judgments around it, I won't know what to say it won't be the right thing. And then finally, I remember I was working with a different coach much, much later. And I brought this up, I said I need to coach about this, I need to talk about this and talk about what is thought that I have this podcast, I'd love it. It means so much to me. But I have so much fear around what to talk about on it. And I remember my coaches saying Well, are you just there to share what your experiences what you're going through, you know, you're serving breast cancer survivors, you are going through breast cancer, you are recovering from breast cancer, I just share what's happening in your life. And I remember at that moment, feeling like I just lost 25 pounds, right? This huge weight, this pressure was gone of, I need to figure this out, I won't know how to do it. And the way that I was thinking about it was coming from such a place of scarcity, that it was creating a tremendous amount of anxiety and stress for me. Whereas now, it's so amazing every day when I'm going through my day, or I'm going on my morning walk and I just think, be open, be open to what's meaningful right now. Be open to what's important right now. Be open to being of service. And knowing that whatever it is that you have to share is something that someone out there in the world needs to hear. And man, it makes it so much easier to show up. I wanted to share that with you because I know that we put that kind of pressure on ourselves all the time. With so many things throughout life, the fear that we won't do something the right way, the fear that someone will think something of us and so that fear in itself makes the whole experience not only less than we not only cut ourselves off to what we might be open to seeing and experiencing, but man we put ourselves through the wringer chances getting there. And that leads right into exactly what today's podcast is about. I want to talk today about coming at life from a place of scarcity, and how many ways in which we do that, that we don't even realize and what we can do to shift that and live a much more abundant life. So a couple of things happened to me recently. I noticed because I've been doing a lot of work on this a lot of work over the years. Our human brain again and again, is programmed to have a negative bias to keep us safe. So when things happen, our brain it automatically goes to worst case scenario. Now we may be some of us are people who bounce right back really quick. No, no, just think of the silver lining the positive look for the good. Some of us think like that. Some of us don't. But nearly every human being as soon as something happens that was out of the plan or unexpected. Our brain will go to worst case scenario. This isn't going to end well. I won't have Have enough, this isn't going to be right or good. And I had that experience. And over the past couple of weeks couple of things have happened to me. And mainly, it's been getting hit with a really, really big, unexpected bills that had come from medical care. Because I worked so much on identifying when I'm coming from a scarcity mindset, I can see that really quickly. doesn't always mean that I can move past it really quickly. But I know when I'm in it, and I know when it's happening. And I can stop myself and say, Okay, what's going on here, right now look at how you're thinking, and how could this be different? So this, I would say, within three days, I received, let's see, he well over $5,000 worth of bills. And at first when I opened one in particular, like my heart dropped, right, I went, Oh, my God. So I got on the phone, I made the phone calls to make sure that everything was correct. And then probably like two envelopes later, I opened another bill that wasn't expecting, right. But the point of that is that I was talking to my husband later that night. And I said to him, you know, I noticed that when I open those bills, my brain went right to Oh, my God, am I going to have enough? Oh, my God, where's this going to come from? Oh, my gosh, Should I cancel the vacation I had planned in July, right. And my brain automatically went to come back, pullback, play smaller step away. And when I noticed that, and I thought, okay, that's really interesting. Because I'm going to be able to manage this, right, we're going to be able to manage this. But the interesting thing is that my brain automatically went to fear. It went to, here's a bill, that's more than I thought it was going to be. And instead of my brain going to no problem. I'll be able to take care of this. No problem. I'll move this from here to there, no problem. I'll figure it out and talk to these people. And looking at the opportunities that were available to me in this situation. It immediately went to stop, right, cancel the vacation, come back, pull back, pull back, be scared. And I thought that was so interesting. I did a lot of my own self coaching on that. And I was looking at it I actually talked to my coach about it. And I just said I was so fascinated by this just watching the process of my own brain and saying no, no brain. I'm not gonna go there with you. This doesn't help me. When I think that way. When I see something that's unexpected, and I allow my brain to go straight to Oh, no, this is not good. I feel sick to my stomach. I feel constriction inside of me. I feel this awful. It's almost like a cocktail of anxiety and fear and yuckiness and scarcity, and I don't like it. So I'm glad I can identify it. Because now I can look at it and say, Hold on. Where am I alive? Ever? I'm 58 years old. Where in my life ever has something unexpected happened to the maybe wasn't pleasant or comfortable to deal with. But I didn't figure it out. Right? I've always figured it out. And here I am now. So obviously I'm doing okay, right here. I'm healthy. That's probably sounds weird because I have cancer, but I think of myself as healthy. And life is good. So I had to look at that and recognize it. And I and something came to mind as I was working on this for myself. Something came to mind. It was a podcast I was listening to a long time ago. I don't even remember what it was. But I remember this line so well that I was actually by my computer when I was listening to it. And I opened a Word document and I wrote this in the Word document because it just resonated so much with me in that moment. And what it was is a saying and it said more is the mantra of the universe. And as soon as I heard that I went oh my god. Yes. Yes, that is true. More is the mantra, abundance, more expansion. And I wanted to share that example. Specifically, I wanted to share that example about finances because women in general, and I'm saying this from working with a lot of women have trouble spending money on themselves for self care or anything else. We judge and hold the reins tighter on treating ourselves than almost everyone else in our lives. And when it comes to cancer treatment money is a big impact. It is a big part, I think of this process, it can be a very big part of contributing to the stress factor because of the way we think about money. And especially if we're coming at it from a place of scarcity and fear, some of the places where I see our thoughts about money or having a scarcity mindset about money affect our breast cancer treatment. And I'll tell you, me personally, how it affected me is I literally chose my treatment, I chose initially a lumpectomy over a bilateral mastectomy. Based on Yes, my doctor saying, we can anticipate the same outcomes as from a lumpectomy as we can from a bilateral mastectomy. But more than that, because as a single parent, at the time, it was less downtime. It was less sick time, less paid time off. And taking into consideration the financial aspects of my job, my insurance, my benefits, my co pays my deductibles, it did play a big part in my decision to initially start my treatment with a lumpectomy. And look back now and I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but I look back now. And I realized that it was also coming from a place of scarcity, of thinking of scarcity, of not looking at the situation I was in at the time. And all of the different components in my life, you know, me work as a working single parent, but I had excellent benefits at my job. Not looking at it from the point of it's okay, take what you need for yourself here.
Laura Lummer 11:49
This is serious and important. And what you need will be there when you need it. I was not thinking that way. I was thinking, how fast can we get this out of me? And how fast can I get back to work because of X amount of vacation time and X amount of sick time and I need to make this work in that timeframe. So that is a way in which that fear and the scarcity mentality around money can really have an impact after cancer. For me, I see that money and scarcity mindset around money affected me when it came to benefits into wanting to change the course of my life into what I do now wanting to move from where I was working into doing coaching for breast cancer survivors full time like making this my life I wanted it so much. And the single biggest factor was the fear of the financial impact of carrying my own benefits. Huge right. And it took a lot of work, I mean, a lot of work for me to manage my mind around what it would take to get benefits for myself. And so I wanted to share that with you. Because I know I'm not alone. I know that this is on the minds of a lot of women out there and that there's a lot of fear around the financial impact of breast cancer treatment. And sometimes that fear gets so big, that it actually limits the ways in which you're willing to care for yourself, indulge in your own self care. So I see this, and I hear about this quite often. And so I thought it's really important to address it because I want to address how you can make a mind shift. When you're in this place. When your mind is in the place where you're telling yourself, I can't use this money for me or something comes in an unexpected bill or something like what I just shared with you and you go right into fear and scarcity because oh my god, I don't have that, oh my god, I'm not going to be able to do this. And it's important to address that because that state of mind creates so much stress for you that thought of I can't do this is very limiting, but also can be very stressful. Think about I started to think a second ago when I think about being in scarcity. When I think about not having enough not being able to take care of myself the feeling in my body is one of constriction and one of very much discomfort, right? And that discomfort is different from the discomfort of saying, Okay, this came up. And I'm just going to keep my mind open to the options. What are our options here? Right and that might be a little scary because you may think, Okay, I'm going to venture out into thinking about something in a new way, about time scarcity, about financial scarcity, about relationships, love any of those kinds of things where we put our mind into I don't have enough this isn't a Now if this isn't going to work, I'll never be able to write any of those kinds of phrases, it's showing that you are in a mindset of scarcity. And when we do that, we're closed off to the opportunities that might open a new door for you. So for instance, I'll go back to my two examples. When I was faced with the decision of having a lumpectomy or a mastectomy, and medically, my doctor says, you know, lumpectomy is going to give you the same outcomes. And my thought is, okay, let me fit cancer in here. Right? How quickly can we get this done, so that I don't have to worry about finances. But the truth is, I didn't have to worry about finances, right, I was choosing to worry about finances, where I could have looked and said, Okay, you know, I have benefits in my job, I have sick time in my job, the most important thing here is healing my body, what other resources are available to me, that might help me feel a little safer and a little more secure. Because there are a tremendous amount of resources available for breast cancer patients and survivors. And in fact, I will link to a resource I may have mentioned in this podcast before, but it's called Nancy's lists. And Nancy's list is a phenomenal resource for all cancer patients of every kind, for support in finances, you know, if you need help with treatment, if you need mental emotional support after treatment, or just a ton of great resources there. But when our mind is not in that place of thinking, Okay, what is available for me, and it's only looking at what am I limited to, then we miss that there are so many services available for people, and so many other opportunities in life that we miss out on because our mind is stuck here, in this is all I know, this is what I have. And it's not open to the possibility of receiving abundantly in your life. And with my second example of money influencing life after breast cancer treatment by looking at, okay, I need medical benefits in the United States, medical benefits are not cheap. But this is a really interesting mindset. And I see this often with people because I recall specifically, the fear that I had, like, can't leave my job because of the benefits. And obviously, I'm not going to be without benefits. And that was even before my second diagnosis. But I didn't ever want to be without benefits. And I see this in clients that I work with, I deal with it myself. And it's really fascinating. Because in that moment in that thought, the brain just automatically goes to, oh, gosh, I won't be able to do that. Because of this because of benefits. There can be so much fear, though that before we even explore what is available, we stop ourselves and convince ourselves that it will not work. So two different approaches to it here, right. And the first one that I was talking about, it was like, Okay, I'm limited to this, that what what is here for me now I'm limited to what exists in my life at this point. And so I'm not open to seeing if there are other options. In the second example I gave you about my benefits. There's being in this place where we know other options exist. But before we give ourselves a chance to explore those options, we convince ourselves, they won't work. So we never even go out and collect the data. And a big part of that is because we tell ourselves, if we go out and collect the data, then we have to make a change. And that's just not true. If change is too scary, and we're not quite ready to make that leap yet, we can always give ourselves permission to just investigate. So I can say, Wow, okay, I have a fear of this, I can see that I'm in scarcity, I can see that I'm constricting that I'm feeling like, I don't have enough love in my life. I don't have enough money in my life. I don't have enough time in my life. And I'm just feeling as if I'm imploding, right, because when we're in scarcity, things like pull in, it's very constricting, it's not expanding. So when you can see that, but yet, you're not ready to make that leap to the next thought and say, hey, I can create anything I want in my life, hey, all of these options are available to me. Sometimes we just have to say, what if there was something else? Is it possible? There's another way? Is it possible that I could start to look and investigate and see if there's another way without holding myself to making the change that might seem a little too much to manage at this time? These are small steps that help to move us into more is the mantra of the universe. And more doesn't necessarily mean like I'm collecting hoards of cash, right? More just means more space, more expansion, more options, more opportunities, more ideas. It means opening ourselves to the potential of more, and seeing if more fits with our life and makes our life better. If it makes our life work for us in a better way, and relieves that awful feeling of the tension and the stress that comes when our brain is looking at, I'm only limited to this. So give it a try. Check out that way of thinking offer yourself that option, a new option, a new way of checking things out the maybe there's a possibility, and then let me know how it works for you. You can find me on Facebook as Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach, you can join my free Facebook group, the breast cancer recovery group, or you can find me on Instagram and YouTube as the breast cancer recovery coach. I would really love to hear your thoughts, your questions on this idea of moving away from scarcity and moving into the possibility of more in your life. All right, I hope that helps you and I look forward to talking with you again next week. Until then, Please be good to yourself.
Speaker 2 21:19
Use your 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 has you been waiting on
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