Have you ever noticed how you talk yourself into staying uncomfortable? 

It happens when you know something in life doesn’t feel right. Maybe it’s served it’s purpose, or maybe you’ve changed and you need something different or you want to express your need or dream for the first time ever. 

Then you tell yourself things aren’t so bad.  

You tell yourself you “should” be happy. 

You “should” be grateful. 

And in doing that you avoid looking at what is actually happening, and you create low level, long term discomfort. 

That’s the kind of thing that makes us sick. 

In this episode I’ll talk about why we do that to ourselves and how to stop it. 

There’s a simple beauty in accepting life as it is now and giving yourself permission to stay in it and embrace the truth. 

Check out this episode and learn to okay with what is so you can make it even better. 

 
Referred to in this episode: 
The Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership 

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. Hey, friends, welcome to another episode of Better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm thrilled that you're here with me today, I got some really good stuff to go over in the show. Last week, we did the sugar reset. Now, I used to call this the five day sugar challenge. And I renamed it to the five day sugar reset, because I couldn't deny that people had huge mindset shifts when we did this reset together. And it's such a powerful experience. The five day reset isn't a diet, it's not an eating program. It is a life coaching program, a healthy life coaching program, meaning that we don't look at food. And I don't give people rules on what they can eat or what they can't eat. I just ask questions and give a PDF guide that lets people go through a process of self coaching and self exploration to see the stories they're telling themselves and how to change that. And I'm going to go into it in this show why that's an important thing, why looking at what's really truthful in your life right now is so important to creating the life you want to have. But before I do that, I want to answer some questions that I got a lot of actually last week. So when you're a course creator like I am, when you put a program out there, well, you kind of understand what it means because I'm the one that wrote it. And I'm the one that put it out there. So I started getting a lot of questions, I thought I think I need to clear some stuff up. So I got a lot of questions on how to work with me, and what the difference is in the programs that I offer. And I want to clear that up here. So that you can understand too, in case you have that same question. So I have a life coaching membership, the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership, that is a monthly membership. In there, we have now three years, nearly three years worth of content that we've worked on videos, lessons, coaching, guides, workshops, bonus courses, all kinds of amazing things to support you in every aspect of your life you could possibly imagine. And as I go through the life coaching membership, and every month I have live coaching calls, my members have opportunities to do individual private coaching with me. And they can actually book additional one on one private sessions with me as members at a member discounted price. And that's pretty much the way to work with me individually right now as a part of the membership because because I'm so booked, so I prioritize those one on one sessions for the people that are my members. But inside that course, there have been some super powerful, additional courses. And I've pulled those out of the membership. And I've made them into standalone courses. So they're things I've already gone through with my members, like the 90 days of wellness, which is a 90 day heart centered wellness plan, where again, it's not a diet, it's looking at different things that you probably already know, right, the right things to do, why it's the right thing to do as far as food exercise, stress reduction, but it digs in more to what the stories are you tell yourself about these things. So that we move away from deprivation and restriction and we move into living every aspect of your life with self compassion and love. Because one thing that I hear from people frequently is they've tried everything and nothing has worked. And then when I say have you tried doing it from a place of self love, I get a blank stare? And the answer is always and I don't even know what that means. No, I haven't done it. And that's what the 90 days of wellness does. It helps you look at wellness and healthy lifestyle from a place of self love. And not a confusing place to follow this diet. Follow that diet, measure your macros here. It's all about learning to look at the way you think about the way you treat yourself. And then some valuable steps and how to move forward into becoming and treating yourself in the way that you really really want to Becoming You is another program that I did inside of our membership, and it's eight weeks of really profound self exploration. Because when we come out of a breast cancer diagnosis so often We just feel like something's not right. And we need to do some exploration and see like, where are you right now? Why are you there? What's the benefit from staying there? What would be the benefit from changing something, what would be the concerns you have from changing something, we go into all the thoughts about that, to help give you the clarity that you need, because we got to clean up our thoughts and get clear on what we want in life, if we want to move forward in life. And then finally, there's my signature program, which is the four pillars of breast cancer recovery coaching program, that's a 16 week program, we did it inside of the life coaching membership, and it was initially called RE vivify. It was one of the first 10 week coaching programs I ever did back in 2020. And then it evolved even more with everything that I've learned in everything I've added to the way that I coach. So the four pillars of breast cancer recovery is a 16 week program. And you go through every pillar of breast cancer recovery, release, releasing all that stuff that keeps you from living the life, you want to live from feeling the way you want to feel, from treating yourself the way you want to be treated. We go into Renu and understand how to really treat our bodies well. Into regroup. We're understanding what's working in your life and what's not working in your life, how do you want it to look different? And how do you take steps towards that, and revive the final pillar of really putting your gifts out into the world. Now, the beautiful thing about all those programs, you can do the four pillars of breast cancer recovery coaching program on its own, as well as 90 days of wellness becoming you. But when you're in them, you get access to the live coaching calls that I do with my small groups inside of better than before breast cancer. Because coaching is a vital program, if I just put this out there and I leave it up to you don't have any different tools that you already then you already came to the program with, right? Just like when you listen to this podcast, when you listen to the podcast, you're exploring new thoughts and new ways of thinking about things and new concepts that can just kind of open a shift in the mind give you a paradigm shift to make you realize something that maybe was already in you and you didn't even know was there. So when you're in one of my programs, you also get to go to the live coaching because I want to coach you, I want to meet you, I want to support you, I want to help you through the things that keep you stuck. So that's how it works. That's how my coaching programs works. That's how you can work with me. That's what's available to you. And inside the better than before breast cancer life coaching, membership is everything, all the standalone courses, all the content, everything I've created for the past three years is inside of there, along with multiple opportunities every month for the group coaching, private coaching and discounts on one on one coaching as well. And the exciting news is I have coming very soon, is my new metabolic health coaching program, which is going to be amazing. More on that when the details are finalized. Okay, I said that what we're going to talk about had something to do with looking at what's really happening in your life. And when I do these resets, I do these challenges. I work with people, I coach with people, I see this thing that comes up. Now, let me share a story with you. Because this is what it reminds me of. There's a book and I think I may have even talked about on the podcast before and it's called The Gift of fear. And the gift of fear is a really good book, I highly recommend it. But what it talks about is how we as human beings have a sensation of fear, right, we have the emotion of fear, and our gut says something's wrong, we get fearful. And this book really is geared towards females because the guy that wrote it has been big in body Guardian protection and security his whole life. And he wrote this book, because what he realized was that when a woman gets this feeling of fear, she talks herself out of it. More often than not, right? We get a gut feeling. Something doesn't feel right here. Something's weird here. Maybe this is sketchy here. But then we go into talking ourselves out of it. So the book is called The Gift of fear because he's saying trust that fear. Fear is a gift to you. Fear is something we can lean into, in specific circumstances, to keep us safe. So don't try to talk yourself out of it. But when you feel fear, go into it, listen to it, explore it, what's the fear telling you? And more than that, trust it. Trust yourself, trust your gut.

Laura Lummer 9:36
Trust your intuition. The reason I want to share that story with you is because I see this happening in so many areas of life in a little bit of a different way. And I'm gonna call it the curse of guilt rather than the gift of fear. Because here's what I see habit. So many times women that I work with women that I know friends of mine and even myself I Absolutely on this throughout my life, we see things we know what it is, we see what it is in our life, right? This isn't working for me, this job isn't fulfilling me this relationship needs some work, whatever it might be, right? I want to start something new, I want to change something that's been, and we see it, even when it comes to our health and our nutrition, right? We see what it is. But then we talk ourselves out of it. And we say, well, I should just be grateful. Well, it's not that bad. Yes, this job is sucking the life out of me. But the benefits are great, right? And we feel guilty. Because we have something that we say, this isn't so bad, I shouldn't want something else. And so we don't stop and just lean into what is in our life right now. And what brought this up is because in the sugar reason, that's what these women were doing. Right? They were just really taking a look at what do they do on a daily basis, and examining and increasing their awareness about why why that choice, what's the thought that drives that action, because the thought is what gives them the feeling. And the feeling drives the action. So if the thought is, oh, I have to sit down and pay taxes, I am really bored here, I don't want to do this, the feeling of boredom says go do something else, it gives you a dopamine hit and feels better. And we go to the pantry and look for a snack. Okay, this happens throughout our life. We look at things, we see what they are, we may say, this relationship, I'm just just not working. Like there's so many areas that I'm not happy. And then we feel guilty. And we go through all the reasons why we don't have the right to feel unhappy. And that's not ever to say like throw out a relationship, right? Everything has good and bad. But it's okay to lean into what doesn't feel good. And let go of the guilt and self judgment around it. Because where we can lean into it and increase our awareness of what's not working for us, then we open ourselves to the opportunity, we explore the possibility that something could be better, that something could feel better. We don't talk ourselves into the fact that we have to live feeling yucky, feeling uncomfortable feelings that make us not sleep well increase our amount of stress causes to go and make food choices that don't serve our health. But it's okay to look at what is actually happening. We tend to avoid to do that. Because the idea of confronting situations of changing a job of having difficult conversations in a relationship of stepping into creating something new in our life, that's uncomfortable, because we don't know it. So it's new and it's changed and it's different. So we tell ourselves, I don't want to do it because I don't like change because change is uncomfortable. And you're not looking at what really is. Because what really is is the fact that you're living with discomfort every single day. You just got used to it. You want to go and paint landscapes while you travel around the world. But you tell yourself, Oh, it'll be too expensive. Oh, I can't do this. Oh, I can't leave oh, what will people think of me, and that feels uncomfortable. So you stay dreaming and wishing and wanting to go do this thing. And that is also uncomfortable. But you know that feeling of discomfort. So you stay with it. Instead of just leaning into what is leaning into. I have this feeling this desire. I want something more and it's gonna be scary. And it's gonna be different. But I got my own bag, it's okay, I can do this. Right? It is so incredibly important to allow ourselves that space to really look at things for what they are and then to catch our brain as soon as it starts to talk us out of it because it will every time. It's not so bad. You shouldn't think like that. Don't be mean. Same thing with the gift of fear, right? We feel fear around some sketchy situation. Oh, don't be a bitch. Don't be rude. It's okay. You know, and we and we stay in something. So the same problem staying in something that doesn't feel good to you. But it's a different motivation, either fear or guilt, right? So really thinking about what is in your life is important not only for those reasons, but for another reason. Is that what is happening when we refuse to just allow ourselves to see what actually is in our life right now. and to accept what we're feeling and experiencing, then we have a tendency to push our limits. We want to push through the misery, right? We want to push through. So I'll share another story with you. I know a woman who currently, she is experiencing some health issues. She is quite a bit overweight. She has elevated blood sugar, elevated insulin, elevated HBA one C. And yet she does not have a diagnosis of diabetes. And so, because she doesn't want to give up sweets yet, she says, Well, I know that's not good. But I don't have diabetes. Now, if I were to evaluate her labs, and to assess her terrain from a metabolic approach to cancer, she would be considered diabetic. But the thing is that our brain tells us we're not in danger. So don't change. Right? We get a diagnosis of cancer our brains like oh my god, we're in danger. We need to do something, what do we do we need to act, then further we get away from that diagnosis our brains like, you know, so, so bad, we live, we're okay. We don't have anything going on, you can have that. Don't worry about it, don't worry about it, right. Same thing happens in our life. It's like, I'm not any danger of coming to harm, you know, somebody, I will share this, I used to say to my daughter, because people struggle, you know, when they want to get out of a relationship. And we try to look for reasons that the other person we want to get out of a relationship with is a horrible person and, and horrible things. And it's so unnecessary. And I would say to my daughter, honey, someone doesn't have to be a jerk for them just to not be the right person for you. And when we can lean into what we feel about things and just say, this isn't the right thing for me. You know what, this is a great job. Would a million people love to have this job? Yeah. Cool. Like one of them have it? Because it's not the right thing for me right now. Right? Is this person, I'm with a wonderful person, they are a wonderful person. But is this thing that's happening between us something that I don't feel good about right now? It is, and it's okay. And it doesn't make that other person a bad person. It just means something needs to be worked on. But we've got to be in it instead of push through it. Because when we try to push through it and convince ourselves, it isn't what it is, then we have uncomfortable emotions that we're living with on a daily basis, chronic discomfort versus acute discomfort from going into something hard a difficult conversation or change. We have chronic discomfort. What do we do with chronic anything people?

Laura Lummer 17:42
What do we do? What do you do with chronic pain? You take stuff to get you out of pain on a regular basis. What do you do with chronic discomfort you buffer on a regular basis, you buffer with food, you buffer with drink you buffer with spending, you do anything you can to try to give you as many dopamine hits as you can get, so that you can feel better in the moment because it doesn't feel good to be uncomfortable. But when you don't look at it, when you're not willing to say this is what it is I'm living with a low level of discomfort every day. And then I'm trying to numb that discomfort rather than stepping into maybe what might be a little more intense discomfort or unfamiliar discomfort, and change that thing and work on that thing or create that thing that I really need, which would really give me the honest, long lasting, sustainable happiness that I'm seeking. Right? So we live with that ongoing discomfort. I read this book recently called freedom. So good, amazing story, amazing story about a woman who opened a restaurant called the last kitchen in Maine. I'll put a link to that book in the show notes for this episode. And she goes through her life story. And part of that story is she is in a relationship and it is a bad relationship. It is very, very toxic. And really bad things are happening, right? And she's not feeling good. And she's just not feeling fulfilled. And she's desperately needing love and support and care and concern. But she's not getting it. And what did I just say? What do we do when we feel that bad? So she would take Xanax and wash it down with alcohol, and then more Xanax and wash it down with more alcohol until it ended up really being the problem. The drugs, the alcohol, and real life blew up. And I read this book and it was so inspiring because she went from nothing to dream to less than nothing, that to a dream even bigger than you could imagine. So it's a really inspiring story. But as I was reading that part of it, I was like, Oh, God, it's killing me. Because I see this all the time we hold our voice back. We don't say what we really need. We don't say what we really feel If we don't allow ourselves to just say, this is what's happening in my life, and this is what I want to change, this is what I want to be better. This is what I want to be different. We just say, I don't want to deal with it, right? And look the other way, and push ourselves too hard, in live with too much chronic discomfort on too long of a basis. And that my friends undermines everything, our mental health, our emotional health, our physical health, and all the relationships around us. Because people see that right? When we're not happy when we're struggling when we're worrying. People see that, and they know so we think we're fooling everybody, where we're only fooling ourselves and not very well, because we're usually doing things to harm ourselves, because we're not willing to just stay in what is and then step into finding whatever support and tools you need to manage it and deal with it. So that you can feel more happiness and more joy, and support your health on every conceivable level. So what I want you to consider is what areas of life are you shading with guilt? What areas of life? Are you wanting something more in? something different in? But then you talk yourself out of it because you feel guilty for wanting it? How can you explore that, and teach yourself that you deserve that happiness? That if you have a feeling in your body, you can listen to that feeling? Say my body's telling me something's calling to me, right? There's something out there that I want to explore, I want to create, I want to do, my body's telling me something doesn't feel right here. I've got to speak up. Right? Something doesn't feel right here. Maybe it's outlived its usefulness in my life, whatever that thing is. And how can we just embrace that and say, that's okay, because life is a journey, right is always changing. My youngest son, he's 24 years old. And I've learned a lot from that kid. And in his generation, a lot of kids have this idea. Like, I don't want to work there. I don't want to work 40 hours, I don't want to do that. And as people will come from a more traditional background of go to work, get a 40 hour a week job, stay for retirement, get a pension and get a 401k. At first, we might look at something like that and say, well, that's really lazy, or that's irresponsible. But my son is in by no means an irresponsible person. He's very responsible. But what he does is say, I don't want to do one thing for 40 years. And he said to me, Mom, how do you do that and then go home, exhausted and drained because you don't enjoy it. And then you just watch TV and have to get up and do the same miserable thing again, how does anybody do that? And I think kids got a point. But we talk ourselves into it sometimes because we say it's secure. It's got benefits. But inside our heart, our body is saying, I need something new. I need something different. And it's okay to give yourself permission to explore that. Right? You're able to jump in and change anything, don't anybody go out there and quit your job or you know, break up with people. But just allow yourself to be in the space to examine, what is it that needs to change? What is it that will make your life better than before breast cancer and give yourself permission to learn about it. All right, friends, I am here to help. As I said in the beginning, you can come and join me in the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership, where we coach through things like this all the time, where we give ourselves permission to be authentically ourselves. Listen to our intuition. Step into supporting ourselves and having our own back. You can find all the details at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash life coaching and we'll talk to you again soon.

Speaker 2 24:13
Your head you've put your courage to the test laid all your doubts your mind is clearer than before your heart is wanting more your futures Give it all you know you've been waiting on