I never thought the day would come when I would hear the words “You have cancer.” For the second time. 

But three years ago that happened. And although it devastated me in the moment, it was the beginning of transforming my life and taking the deepest dive ever into healing and harnessing the power of my mind. 

In this episode, I’ll share some of the things I’m celebrating on this cancer-versary, but more importantly, I’ll share the two thoughts I adopted that have been the root of transforming my life. 

Listen now and take another step into immersing yourself in compassion, healthy boundaries, and prioritizing your health. 

Referred to in this episode: 

Better Than  Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching membership

Read the full transcript below:

Laura Lummer  00:00

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. Welcome to Episode 286, of better than before breast cancer with me, Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach, friends, Today is an exciting day. Not just because it's another podcast episode, but today is three years to the date that I got the phone call, oh, man, feel feel the emotion coming all emotion is welcome here. So let's just roll with this, that I got the phone call that said, you have cancer in your hip, and your spine in both hips, your pelvis and your forehead, in your chest, in your shoulder. You have advanced age for metastatic disease. And in that moment, I thought that I had maybe a couple months to live. And I thought that based on my experience with my brother who received a similar diagnosis and died six months later. And about three days I wrestled with that. But I tell that whole story back on the original podcast that when I shared with the public on this podcast that I had had that diagnosis. But it took me about three days of thinking about if I only have six months left to live, what is my life gonna look like? We hear people ask questions like that. And I don't know, when they've had too many glasses of wine. If you only had a month left to live, what would you do? And this for me was very real. And I thought if I have six months left to live, what's that going to look like? Now, after about three days, those thoughts were still with me. But I decided I had a lot more than six months to live, I decided I was going to do everything I could to figure out what people do to heal from metastatic breast cancer, how people support their body's ability to heal. And that has been my focus for three years. So three years later, I sit here talking to you with much less cancer in my body than I had three years ago. 75 pounds less body fat on me than I had three years ago. I feel good, I have a lot of energy, I have an amazing life. And I've done a lot of things. Because I didn't let go of that thought of if I only have a few months left to live, what do I want to do. Because I never know how long I have to live. But I don't approach that from a place of fear anymore. I approach that from a place of wanting to have the fullest, most amazing life I can possibly have. And as I record this, I've just finished making reservations for all the places my husband and I will be traveling to next month when we go to Italy to celebrate my 60th birthday. And I put so much energy and time now into doing and creating the things I love in life. This business. This podcast, I went from doing one episode a week to doing two episodes a week, I studied for the last year with Nisha winters learning the metabolic approach to cancer. And I'm developing new programs to support other people to step into this power for their health and their well being for other people to be able to say, if I could do anything to support my body's ability to heal, what would it be. And I just want to keep putting that out into the world because I love that power. And I want to share that power and that knowledge with everyone else. So they can feel good and excited about what they can do with their bodies and with their lives as well. So over these last three years, I've made a lot of decisions. And I make those decisions based on stepping into the future version of myself. And every day, there's still a future version of myself. Every day. I have another day to look forward to to say hey, if I was there tomorrow, how do I get there? That future version of myself is someone who's healed from stage four metastatic breast cancer. Now, do I have 100% control over that? Probably not. Right, not 100% I think I could believe that I have like 95% But believing it's 100% I'm not quite there yet. I'd like to get there. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Because I believe every day I can take a step towards healing from stage four metastatic breast cancer. And that is what changed my life. Because it isn't the end goal. It isn't like losing 10 pounds and wanting to step on the scale one day and seeing a number. And each day either being frustrated or being happy based on the direction of the scale. It's a decision to be super present in this life. And there are two phrases that I have adopted, that have really supported and helped me to be very present in my life, to take some risks in a positive way, like making investments into myself to create the result that I want in my life, and to step away from the things that take from my energy, or spill toxic waste into my life. And I want to share those two thoughts with you. One, you've heard me say a lot. And that is, every day I wake up and I asked myself, What do I need to do today to support my body's ability to heal? Because I think about stepping into that future version of me, that woman who has healed, and I asked myself, How did she get there? What did she have to do? And asking myself that thought every single day, and sometimes a lot of times throughout the day, because times where I'm thinking, Man, I really want some tater tots. Last night, I really wanted cheese tortellini. And I asked myself, does that support my body's ability to heal? And it doesn't, does that support my end goal? Does that help me get closer to being the future version of myself that I want to be. And when I do that, I don't feel deprived. I feel like I'm reminding myself to love myself. And reminding myself that external things only make you feel good for a moment. And I want to feel good for a lot longer than a moment. So make a decision from love, hear love for yourself, not love for pasta. And it helps me when I wake up. And I'm feeling really tired sometimes. And I asked myself, What do I need to do to support my body's ability to heal today. Some days, it's canceled a spin class, you need to slow down today, you need to rest today. Some days, it's you need to just take it easy. Some days, it's like you need to get up early, because there's something on your mind. And I'm so excited about creating it, that I just can't even sleep thinking about how awesome this is going to be. But that thought what do I need to do to support my body's ability to heal has permeated all these different aspects of my life. When I look back three years ago, and I think you know, since then, I've invested in getting a certification at The Life Coach School, which was something that I dreamed about. I obviously invested in myself to begin studying with nature winters, we have done a lot of really cool, exciting stuff to increase my knowledge base, because I love learning. And because I want to offer the best and the most comprehensive support to my clients that I possibly can. And if I didn't have that thought, what do I need to do today to support my body's ability to heal, I don't know that I would have done those things. I don't know that I would have grown as much as I have in the last three years. Because I'm looking forward to who I want to become. And then I'm not worried about what I might not have time to achieve.

Laura Lummer  08:32

And I think that when we're in worry when we're in fear when we're in anxiety whenever we have the thought, but I might not be able to finish that we hold ourselves back. And the truth is, and I keep reminding myself of this, the truth is nobody knows how much time they ever have to finish something. This is so true. And we don't embrace that truth. Oftentimes, we just go through life thinking that we always have tomorrow, but we don't always have tomorrow. So asking myself that question, what do I have to do to support my body's ability to heal has helped me create a wonderful life and be present in that life today. Because some of the things that I have to do are reduce stress, right? Or make sure that I'm feeding myself, well make sure I'm moving my body on a regular basis on a daily basis. Even if it's gentle. Sometimes my body's been in pain, I need to go get acupuncture, I need to invest in a naturopath. I've done so many things that come from asking myself that question. And in addition to asking that question, trusting my little small voice inside when it answers that question. When I'm in moments of sadness, or I'm in moments of fear asking myself, What do I need to do to support my body's ability to heal? Do I need to process this emotion? What does the sadness trying to teach me? What can I learn from all these vibrations that come up in my body and how can I use what I learned from them to support my ability to heal. That question in and of itself has truly transformed my life. And it has a partner statement on the other side, another statement that I boiled down, and I think I can articulate it now to you. I've thought about it over the years. And it really comes down to one thing. And that is, I am no longer available for that. When we think about things like eliminating toxic relationships from our life, changing behaviors, adopting healthier behaviors, we go into a lot of thoughts about deprivation judgment, is this mean? Is this unkind? Should I give be more forgiving? Isn't this a treat, and we our brains just talk ourselves out of things that we know in our heart of hearts that are inside still small voice is saying, this is the right thing for you. But then in our head, we go into judging what our intuition tells us, Well, you shouldn't do this. And you should do that based on lifetime of conditioning. And it's okay, that's a natural process of becoming aware that these are things that are going through my mind, and then applying this statement, I am no longer available for that has changed everything. Because I'm no longer available for drama, right? doors closed, hang up that closed sign, I am no longer available for toxic relationships. I am no longer available for self judgment. I am no longer available for guilt, For shame. If I asked myself, What do I need to do to support my body's ability to heal today. And then I decide I'm going to ignore my own inner voice and what it says and I'm going to eat pasta anyway. Or I'm going to have a glass of wine anyway. Guess what, I don't beat myself up for it. Because I am no longer available for that. Because shame, guilt, self judgment, don't support my body's ability to heal. Toxic people drama, sick relationships, unhealthy relationships, they don't support my body's ability to heal, stressing out worrying over everything that has to be done because I pack things to full, does not support my body's ability to heal. So I am no longer available for those things. And that's okay, because it helps me feel good. These two, this question and this statement, they just work hand in hand. And I found that they just support this amazing dynamic of life where I can make these decisions that support my body's ability to heal. And I never have to judge myself for them. Because I've decided to listen to my small voice inside of me. And I've decided that no matter what I'll have my own back. That if something doesn't feel good when I'm in it, or around it, that I'm not available for it. So on this day, where I celebrate three years of living with managing and healing from metastatic breast cancer, and all of the amazing experiences that are common with it, I just wanted to share those insights with you. Because one of the things that I see come up so often in my coaching calls, is women who just don't have their own back, that we buy more into the social conditioning, the cultural conditioning, or the expectations of others, then we buy into accepting and embracing the beauty of being our authentic selves, and deciding what works for our lives. What supports our happiness and joy, and allowing ourselves to have that just because it works for us. It's a beautiful thing. So I offer my statements and my thoughts that helped me create this life for myself to you. And use them if they work for you. Or give them some thought and see what areas of your life what thoughts what statements, what mantras, what motto, could you adopt for yourself, that supports you in creating the life that you want, and creating a life that's rooted in self love in creating a life that is devoted to self compassion. And in creating a life that hold space in gives yourself permission to do the things you love and to take care of yourself. If you need help with that. You know where to find me come to the breast cancer recovery coach.com Join me in better than before breast cancer life coaching membership, where this is the stuff we work on. Everything in supporting your wellness, your whole wellness, your emotional and mental, physical, and just holistic wellness, how you regroup your life, how you construct your life and the results that you are creating in your life because we do have the power to create those results of your living with results that you're not happy with. You have the power to change it. And that should be really exciting at least I hope it's really exciting for you. So come and join me and step into that power and I'll talk to you again soon Until then be good to yourself.