I want to share a story with you, there was a woman who had to go to a big event. The event was going to be spectacular.  
 
Amazing food, great music, beautiful new outfits, and everyone she loved would be there but there was also this one person…the ONE person she could not stand! 

So, the woman dreaded the event. She put all her thoughts into the horror of seeing the person she had a toxic history with. She felt sick to her stomach and whenever the event was mentioned all she could think of was that ONE person. 

The more she thought about it, the more often her brain took her attention there. 

She was so deep in dread that she couldn’t begin to get excited about all the wonder that would be a part of that night. 

That’s the kind of thing our human brains do to us if we let them run on auto pilot. 

I bet you’ve experienced some version of this in your life. 

I know I have. 

In this episode, I’ll tell you more about the impact that dread has on your health, your relationships, and your joy and what you can do to reign in your mind and redirect your attention so you can have better experiences whenever you choose to. 

Referred to in this episode: 

Better than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership 

A Sense of Dread 

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, hello, welcome to episode 198 of the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I am Laura Lummer. I'm so happy you are joining me today. Today. Well, the day I'm recording this is July 5, I think it'll come out actually a few days from now. But last night, July 4, here in Southern California, there was some fireworks Madness Madness happening around here. And we have two dogs to cockapoos. And one of them has some extreme anxiety. And that poor little animal was just a wreck last night, he was just a wreck. It was interesting because as I was going over the outline for this podcast, it kind of I kind of related it to what I was going through with my dog. And I'm going to talk about that a little more here in just a minute. And before I jump into it, I want to remind you that beginning July 9, we have the Reclaim Your Life After breast cancer Summit. It is a free Summit. There are 22 speakers at this summit speaking about everything you could imagine related to breast cancer, from implants to metastasis to detoxification, and everything in between intimacy, physical health, emotional health, and I am one of the speakers on day five, where I am talking about self compassion and emotional healing after breast cancer, which I think is the foundation to everything else we do. Well, I believe it is from my experience and from the experience of so many women that I work with. So please, if you haven't grabbed your free spot to join this summit, go to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com. And right at the very top, you'll see grab your free spot at the summit, enrolling that you'll get a chance to see all of these videos, pick the ones that resonate the most with you get some good information, the more information you have, the better in my opinion, because you can take that information and check in with yourself and see what resonates with you. What makes sense for you. What can you implement in your life that helps you feel the way you want to feel as if you are supporting your wellness and your joy. So please check that out the breast cancer recovery coach.com And up at the top just click on register for the free Summit. All right. So let's get into this. This week, I want to talk with you about dread. I have to tell you that recently, I've been going through my own experience of processing dread and it's been pretty fascinating. And I'm also working with several clients at the moment who are working to process dread. And the other night, we went out with some friends and one of my friends is suffering horribly, horribly, and it breaks my heart. And I broke you know the cardinal rule of coaching don't coach unsolicited, but I couldn't take seeing her so much pain. And so I did try to offer some insights. But I could see there was still a lot there. Because it's a process any of these kinds of things are a process when we're trying to let go of negative emotions. But I started to think, okay, Dread, what is this about? Why do we dread things? And then I wondered is dread the same as anxiety? How are these two different from each other? And so I looked it up and I want to share with you the definition of dread because I think it is so freakin powerful. And the fact that when I looked up anxiety to be clear that anxiety includes feelings of dread. So that's interesting, right? So let's take a look at what dread actually is. I found this article called a sense of dread on counselling directory, which I'll put a link to in the show notes for this episode. But I thought that the way it described dread was so powerful and so spot on that I want to share it with you here. It says that dread may be described as a sense of impending doom, and oppressive an overwhelming force sucking the joy out of life and smothering your enthusiasm for new experiences. Dread may include being constantly on edge imagining worse. Case Scenario and screen playing moments of imminent catastrophe in your head, you begin to see it everywhere you look, for example, in anticipating events or conflict with other people, you can find it even in the most insignificant situations, unable to motivate yourself or move forward, it feels like a burden, and a dead weight, on quote. So, my favorite part of that definition, because this is the part that really stuck out to me, is that it's overwhelming force, sucking the joy out of life, and smothering your enthusiasm for new experiences. Now, I think that all of us can identify at some point in our life with having had a sense of dread, that impending feeling of doom. And that being in that moment, being in dread, truly does suck the joy out of life. So for myself, and some of the clients I'm working with, it's kind of interesting, because there's a group of us actually several people who are coming up on a wedding for a child. And at that wedding will be people that they have a history with someone they used to be married to family members that were conflict with. And so now, which is anywhere from months to a couple of years before the wedding, they're already in dread. So I want to talk about why this is so significant. And the number one reason is because of its impact on your physical health, in my opinion, but I'm going to share with you several places where being in dread impacts your life, and what you can do about it. So let's go back to that definition for a sec. When the definition talked about running screenplays in your head, we're thinking about going to an event, someone is going to be there. And in our past, that person had an experience with us, or we had an experience with them. That was negative, maybe even traumatic.

Laura Lummer 7:17
And in that experience, I believe there was a sense of powerlessness. I know, for me, there was when I think back or what I used to think back on my previous especially my first marriage, I felt a sense of powerlessness. And that sense of powerlessness I know now, was something I had, I did have power. But I didn't know at the time that I could exercise that power. I didn't know at the time, that it was okay for me to say and do the things that in my gut I really felt because I was raised and conditioned that a wife behaved a certain way that a wife didn't do certain things didn't say certain things didn't stop her husband from certain things. And that a wife kept the peace. Right? That was my perception of what a wife was supposed to be based on what I witnessed in my home TV social media, while there was no social media there that but TV, you know, things like that. Leave it to Beaver. I mean, come on. Can you imagine anything more suppressing to what a woman has on her mind, Leave It to Beaver vacuuming in your dress, high heels and pearls. So in my head at the time was a movie an idea of who I was supposed to be. So when I found myself in emotional situations, in circumstances that conflicted was what I wanted. In my head was also this other conflict of you're supposed to be okay with this. So at that time, in that situation where I felt powerless, I felt very angry, very suppressed. I felt like this person had power over me. I felt like the upset and the sadness and the pain, and the turmoil in my life was being caused by that other person. And even after that first marriage, when we divorce, we had three children together. And there was absolute chaos and hell with regard to custody of the children and drop offs, and it was just a nightmare. And I didn't think I had power. I believed I had to do what I thought was do the right thing. So I did what was the right thing? When I was sick to my stomach, and feeling like someone else had power over me. I wanted to share that story with you because I think it is a very important part of dread. Once I was able to look back many years later and see, oh, I could have said something, I could have behaved differently, I could have stood up, I was within all of my rights to do exactly what my gut was telling me I wanted and needed to do. But my belief systems and my condition thoughts at the time stopped me. So I didn't set up the boundaries that I desperately needed. Fast forward, decades later, the idea of having to see that person brings back the memory of all the suffering, that at that time, I believed was created by that person. Now, it does not change the fact of what that person did, it does not change the fact of their behaviors or the circumstances of their behaviors. But when I stop and realize, I did have power, I just didn't know it. That helps me see, I have power. Now. I have a lot of power now. Because I know that no one else can make me feel something that I choose not to feel, no one else can get into my mind and create negative or painful feelings. It is only me and my mind. If I let it go there, that creates pain for me. Now, it's taken decades of work to understand that, but I want to share it with you because it is key to these things where we experienced dread. Because we have power. Looking forward to a situation where there may be former spouses where there may be former in laws where there may be people you had conflict with doesn't have to be miserable. And in that definition, where I said the definition of dread is that it sucks the joy out of life. And that you don't enter you don't get to have excitement, anticipating events, let's think about this. When your mind is fixated on one person, what that person did to you in the past. And you're about to go into a very special event. You want to be there, right? Because choice number one, option number one is don't go. And there are times in my life now as an adult, where there's an event, and when I hear about the people who be at the event because of my past experience with seeing them and then energy and whatever around them. If that is not an event I need to be at I will not go. And I will say yeah, I don't want to do that. Because multiple times I've experienced that person's behaviors. And it's not something I want to manage my mind around or, or exposed myself to in the day. Now, there are other events like let's say, for instance, my child's wedding, what a spectacular event. So am I going to choose to allow my mind to fixate on who might be at that event that I don't want to see. And therefore not anticipate the excitement of the event? Because that's where our head goes, right? Our head goes straight to Oh, my God, he's going to be there. Oh, my God, she's going to be there. And then we start remembering, she did this, he did that. He said this, he said that, whoo. And then we get angry. And then we get frustrated. And then we get scared, maybe. Right? We put ourselves in this position, we create dread in our mind. We're completely absent of the excitement over the event itself. And as I said earlier, we're impacting our physical health. Because I know for a fact that when my mind goes there, when my mind goes to someone who's going to be there who I don't want to see, and the feeling and the feeling of powerlessness comes up. What if they say this? What if they say that? Well, what if they do?

Laura Lummer 14:17
If we're concerned about other people's behavior? Once again, we're giving up our power? What do you want to do? How do you want to show up at an event? How do you want to experience the event? What is exciting for you about that event? This is where we can choose to go instead of fixating on the person or group of people we don't want to be exposed to. So choice number one is we can not go choice number two is we can make a decision about how we want to show up. Now, once you've decided how you want to show up, those feelings of dread aren't necessarily going to go away and if you allow them to continue if you allow your mind to go running off with them what your mind will do, because that's it's automatic. That's its go to it's our negativity bias in the book The Power of bad, which is phenomenal. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes here as well. There's a quote where it talks about how bad things negative things, when you feel them in your gut, right? So you think I'm gonna go here I dread it, like I'm sick in my gut, that bad things are more powerful to us, viscerally, in our gut. And to properly weigh the good against the bad, it's mandatory that we engage our rational mind. There's some fascinating research in that book. And it's all about how we perceive bad things, and what we can do about it. So I thought that was particularly important, especially for this topic, because you think about it, somebody's going to be there. Oh, my God, there goes your gut. And that's an automatic response. Then your gut kicks in, at the mind body connection kicks in and the mind starts going, Oh, geez, yeah, all this, all this is gonna happen, this is gonna go wrong. So it's critical for us to realize that in that moment, to be aware, to catch ourselves and engage our rational mind, our prefrontal cortex, recognize what's happening, say, Oh, look at this is what I'm doing to myself. And I feel nauseous, and I feel like I can't breathe, and my throat is constricted, and unshaken. And now I'm sweating. And now I can't do I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't go. Think about the power that you are giving up. When you're in that place. If you let your mind run away on its own. Now, he said at the beginning of this show, that what I experienced last night with my dog reminded me of what I was going to talk about in the podcast. And that's because when we go to that sense of dread, and we're stuck there, when we are in dread about an upcoming event for a week, for a month, for a year, for year and a half, it impacts the relationships around us. Because we talk about it, we bring it up, we say, Oh, God, oh, that person is gonna be there. Oh, my God, I can't stand it. And the people around us see that and feel that energy from us. So it does have an impact. And I kind of liken it to when we're kids, and you have that friend, and that friend just has horrible taste in boyfriends. And a boyfriend is a jerk, and she keeps telling you what a jerk a boyfriend is, but she never does anything about it until finally one day you're like, listen, either break up with the guy, or shut up about it, right? Do something. While we're in dread, we can kind of get stuck in that neutral gear, that gear of I'm not moving forward, I'm not moving back. I'm just stuck here, dreading this thing that's coming, fixating on this thing that's coming talking about this thing that's coming, but not engaging my rational mind not reaching out for the social support, perhaps that's needed to move beyond it. So it impacts you, it impacts your health. And it impacts the relationships of everyone around you your relationship. So think about this, again, here's the person you're dreading. They no longer have any power over you. You always get to decide how you're going to show up. You always get to decide how you will experience something, the event or whatever it is. And you can do the work ahead of time to plan for that to manage your mind around it, get coaching, get therapy, get support, whatever it takes, but you do have power. But now, not only is that event going to be miserable, if you stay in dread, because you are going to be watching you're gonna get to that event. You're gonna be watching that person. Watch, watch. They're gonna do it. They're gonna say it. What a jerk. I know it. I know that person's gonna do it. Oh, look, she wears that dress and barely covers her nipples. You're gonna watch, you're gonna check it out. Right? Think about the joy you're missing. Think about all the misery you brought on yourself leading up to an event. And sometimes this doesn't even have to be a special event. This can be a day to day occasion. This can be my boss, my colleague, my co worker, my mom, it can my husband, my kid. It can be anyone. When we are in dread. We even show up differently if it's on a day to day basis. And I can remember this very clearly. My oldest son, he's 40. Now but when he was a teenager who it was, it was a very difficult, dark time. And I can remember driving home from work pulling up into the driveway and just dreading going in the house. And just thinking what is it going to be tonight? I, when I look back on that, of course, I didn't know any different then, because I thought my emotions were connected to his behavior. But I think about now that I showed up differently, I was a different mom going into the house, expecting my child to do something bad. Right? I was already on the defense going in. So that kind of shuts down a lot of opportunity and possibility for something good to happen. Right? Are we open to something positive? When we are so locked into dread, and so locked into the story of how miserable something's going to be? We miss out on the joy. And that's why I love that definition where dread sucks the joy out of life. And I don't want that for you. I don't want that for me. When I realized, Oh, God, right, there's my brain went right there. Right when I heard wedding, of course, I was thrilled. And all this, after it sunk in, I was like, Ah, geez, man, now I'm gonna have to deal with this, right. And that's where I started my work. Because I don't want that feeling. I want to be enjoy. So another thing when, especially when it's a day to day feeling of dread, if that's someone that's in your home, or someone you have to deal with on a regular basis, it's really important to look at what you're expecting. And if you can't get to that place where you feel like you can expect something different. Get some support there. There's lots of support out there, there are ways to help to coach there are therapies, there are things you can do to actually redirect your attention. Because remember, where attention goes, energy increases. So if attention is going to dread, if attention is going to this is going to be awful. Oh my God, I know that person's gonna do something stupid. What if they try to talk to me what if they say this to me, think about how that energy builds inside of you. And how it consumes everything else, if you're a Harry Potter fan, it's like a Dementor. It just comes in and it just takes over everything. And you my friend, miss out on the joy, you miss out on the possibility for positivity, you miss out on the potential for something more. And that is not where you want to go. We didn't come this far, we didn't work this hard to live, we don't go through every day trying to support ourselves and live with joy to let our minds take us to that place where we ourselves, suck the joy out of our life.

Laura Lummer 22:59
So I hope you someone out there needed to hear that I really feel like I'm experiencing it. With so many people around me right now, that is something that needed to be talked about. And if you resonate with that, and you want help with that, please come join me go to the breast cancer recovery. coach.com Join me in the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership, because this is a stuff we dig into. How do you manage your thoughts? How do you redirect your intention? When you are in these places and these strong emotions in it's actually making you physically and emotionally ill you have the power here. And you have the power to get support for yourself when you hear something and you know, yeah, I need that. I need to work on this. Don't do this to yourself that I see so many people do I should just be able to do that on my own. If you should just be able to do that on your own. Well, I wouldn't be a coach and many people wouldn't be therapists. And this wouldn't be an issue, right? Sometimes we need a little more support. Because this doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen easily. Like it takes attention. It takes work and it takes being very deliberate. When you see that something like this is a problem for you is creating a problem in your life. It takes deliberate intention, not just I'm just gonna think about something else and make it go away. It doesn't go away. It gets stuffed down in your body. And that's what I'm talking about when I say it makes you sick. All right. Well, my friends, I hope that you will grab your free seat for the Reclaim Your Life After breast cancer Summit. I really believe you'll get some good information out of that. And I hope that you come and join me in the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership because I think you'll get a tremendous amount of value. I know you will. You'll get a tremendous amount of value out of it. All right. I'll talk to you again next week. until then please be good to yourself and expect things to be good for you. Take care of

Speaker 2 25:09
us took 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 yours this is your