This episode is the culmination of six years of podcasting, 300 episodes, nearly 300,000 downloads, two breast  cancer diagnosis, and five years of coaching other breast cancer survivors. 

I have learned A LOT on this journey, but I want to share the most important thing with you on this show. 

If you’re frustrated with your body, if you think you’re doing all the right things and your body isn’t cooperating, if you think you have to fight harder, do more, be more disciplined, this episode is for you. 

I want to relieve you of the burden of carrying that heavy warrior shield and assure you that lightening that load and turning to the practice of compassion for your own body is the key to supporting your health and your ability to heal. 

Take a deep breath, release the fight for the next 30 minutes and listen in. 

Referred to in this episode: 

Better Than Before Breast Cancer™ Life Coaching Membership 

Year on the wall 

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.

Laura Lummer 0:32
Hello, welcome to another episode of Better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach. This is our Tuesday terrain talk. But even more special than that, this is the 300th episode of this podcast. What is it about those big round numbers that feel like such landmark rides it's memorable moments 300 episodes. You know, it's funny because obviously I'm reflecting this is a milestone for me 300 episodes, I started this podcast back in 2017. And not only is this the 300th episode, but ironically, I'm on target this month to hit 300,000 downloads for this podcast, mind blowing. And at the same time that I've done this, today I did this exercise where I put 12 ginormous calendars on the wall and planned out my 2024 year now it's not 100% complete plan. But it's an excellent framework that I'm starting with. And as I thought about recording episode 300 While I was doing this exercise, and I looked at this plan of 2024 up on my wall, and I thought about back on 2023. And I thought about what I wanted 2023 to look like what 2023 actually looked like, and just kind of marveled at life. I looked at this calendar, these 12 huge sheets up on my wall. And I thought, wow, last January, January 2023. I had a big plan for the year, not as detailed as a plan I had for 2024 2024. And I hadn't gone that deep into what I wanted. But in 2023 I've spent a lot of time studying and practicing manifesting and intentional living. But back in January 2023, the end of that year. So last week of December, I launched the four pillars of breast cancer recovery. And I had a plan for that course. And I enrolled a bunch of people was really beautiful. We had an excellent experience. I was in Iceland with my sister, my granddaughter, my niece, my nephews, a bunch of our loves, celebrating the New Year. And when we got home from Iceland, I got really sick, really sick. I was sick for about a month. And it was a respiratory infection. And it took me about three months to really recover from that I got really, really sick. So it was maybe about the beginning of April, before I started feeling myself again. Now I kept up with the podcast, I kept up with my courses. I supported my people during that time, but I was not feeling great. And then me rolled around. And I started having a lot of pain. A lot of pain. May Well, I was April, April because my mother's day I had been in pain for some time. And by June, I was really concerned and my doctor was really concerned I was on Virginia at the time they had started me on verzenio in March of 2023. And by Mother's Day and going into June, I was having a difficult time even walking, it was a lot of pain in my hips. And we were looking doing some scans and trying to make some decisions on my treatment plan because it was clear that the cancer that was in my hip and especially my right hip was becoming very metabolically active. And by the end of August, I had gone back into radiation did a few radiation treatments and change medications. So I really doubled down on my diet and lifestyle back in May. And then I changed from Virginia to Xeloda in August, June in June, right. And everything changed for me at that point. Right. So now from August forward, I've been feeling amazing. My tumor markers plummeted. So I've been in the green zone for a while now meaning that what's considered normal in a lab when we're looking at tumor markers for breast cancer for the Breast cancer marker we look at in my lab normal is to see the marker from zero to 25. And I'm at 21. So excellent, excellent, excellent news. And here I am December, looking at the year 2024. And here's some things that pop up in my mind, thinking about this being our Tuesday Train Talk this, talking about our body and the tissues of our body, what we do to support our body, I just have to say, how remarkable it is I shared that story with you about last year because I wanted just to sink in for me and for you, how incredibly resilient our bodies are, how fluid our bodies can be, and how much we can do to influence that. And I don't think that any one thing made the difference. I think Xeloda helped. I think radiation helped. I think my ketogenic diet helped. I think training my mind helped my state of mind, I think my whole lifestyle had a lot to do with the fact that I'm here today and feeling really good today. And that everything is looking great today, and that I'm planning for a really full and fabulous year ahead. And I just want to emphasize that because a lot of times when we go through breast cancer, we go through breast cancer treatment. And for those of you who, like me are living with metastatic disease and working to heal our bodies from metastatic disease. Sometimes we can get into kind of a despair, hopelessness of frustration, because our joints are in pain, or we're feeling a lot of fatigue. And what happens is we tend to put energy into thinking about what isn't feeling good, right, we tend to focus like I'm in a lot of pain, or I'm in a lot of fatigue, instead of trying to step back and be future focused. And in fact, when it comes to supporting our amazing, incredibly flexible bodies, and I say flexible, not in the terms of like doing yoga and penciling, but just flexible. They're constantly changing, constantly adapting. And I think that's just such a powerful thing. And I hope that when that sinks in, it gives you a lot of hope. As I'm saying this out loud. I'm thinking about a woman who I did a summit with and she's a metastatic breast cancer thriver. And she is a very much an advocate for people with metastatic breast cancer and a Ms. Tara Coyote. And we did a summit I think it was about a year ago. And then we keep in touch and I follow her on Instagram. And she was in hospice with stage four metastatic breast cancer. And now she has no evidence of disease, right? I just, I'm saying that. And I think it's so impactful for this 300th episode, because my mind has changed so much from where I was, in 2017, definitely where I was in 2012, at the end of 2012, when I finished my first round of active treatment for breast cancer. And my mind was in this place where I looked at my body as if it was working against me, you know, I looked at my body as it betrayed me again, wait, it got cancer. And, you know, all of this really war kind of driven language that we're exposed to when we talk about breast cancer be a warrior fight breast cancer killed, breast cancer, all of that kind of stuff. That's where my head was. Fast forward. Now, what the I ended tree I was originally diagnosed in 2011. So we're at what does that 12 plus 12 and a half years later, I freaking love my body so much. I love my body so much, I think about it completely differently. And I'll coach people who are frustrated, who were in the place where I was, who are fighting their body and why the fighting their body at the same time. They're wanting it to respond the way that they hope it will respond. So that can happen. I remember thinking like I gotta try harder, I have to be more disciplined. I'm going to work out more push, push, push. I was stressing my body so much trying to force it to do what I wanted it to do. While my poor body was trying to recover from being poisoned by chemotherapy, trying to find a balance of being thrown into menopause in one friggin day. Right, going through surgeries, anesthesia, sicknesses, infections so much that I went through during the treatment for cancer, and then came out of it thinking I would push my body harder so it does what I wanted to do. What the heck, now? No way. I don't think like that at all. Now, every day I wake up I'm like, You are so amazing. Adi, you're so amazing. So beautiful, so wonderful, so strong. How can I support you more? What can I do today to support this body, thank you for giving me the ability to walk today. Because there was a time where I couldn't walk. There was a time when walking was not only too painful, but too dangerous because my hip could have broken. Now I walk miles every day, I do spin classes a couple of times a week, I do yoga a couple of times a week, I don't run, I don't jump, there's no plyometrics I'm careful, right? I don't want any impact. But my body supports me, it wants to heal. I think about that your body wants to heal, we have all of these cells, we have all of these little microbes, all of these bacteria, all these little buddies living with us, they all want to live. And then we go okay, well hold on cancer, those two, right? That's the problem with cancer, it doesn't know when to die off. And I think about that, as I think I've maybe referred to on the podcast before, as these cancer cells being this, like disconnect, not part of the community, because the community of the healthy cells, they want to thrive. And we have to do what we can to support those healthy cells, and put our energy into that belief into driving that into manifesting that health and that healing and that support more than we're putting our energy into thinking about killing something that's a part of our body. I mean, it's our own cells. It's our own cells that aren't following the rules that aren't complying. But since starting this podcast, since starting this journey of breast cancer, I've realized that the energy I put into fighting exhausted me, and it exhausted my body. And when I put my thoughts into how my body was betraying me how it wasn't listening to me, when I was actually doing was making it worse, because then I would think, okay, my body didn't respond the way I think it should, right. I've been a personal trainer, for what, 14 years, a yoga teacher, right? A wellness professional, I have a degree in Health Sciences and healthy lifestyle coaching. And I thought, like, I know how a body's supposed to work, its calories in calories out, its resistance training, its flexibility training, right? And I was wrong. Not wrong in that those things aren't good, right? I do those things every day. But wrong in thinking that was the only part and to drive your body harder was the answer.

Laura Lummer 12:31
When I realize that it was to be a partner to this body, to stop putting more stress, it's not responding, because it's too stressed. Right? Your body's not responding. It's not working, right? It's undergoing a lot of stress, because it wants to work, right? It wants to feel good. It wants to be healthy and strong. And so it's constantly trying to thrive. And we've got to support that with positive thinking, with loving them that body with making good decisions for it with feeding it well, with just speaking to it well, right, I think about the things that I said to my body in 2011, and 2012, Holy mackerel. Like why would my body work with me? Why would my terrain respond to the way that I was treating it. And then when I got into so much frustration and anger and resentment for the way it wasn't responding, then of course, I treated it worse, by pushing it harder. And even then, by putting things in it that didn't, didn't serve it, right, by eating more flour by eating more sugar by telling myself this, this thought error of, oh, it's not responding. So it doesn't matter what I do. So I'll just do whatever I want, which was really just an excuse to buffer, right to look for something external to make me feel good, because I wasn't doing the internal work. So when it comes to speaking about terrain, Tuesday, terrain, Tuesday talk, thinking about supporting my metabolism, thinking about what I've learned over 300 episodes, and over, let's see, so 12 years, a little more than 12 years, since the first time I had cancer, and evolving in that there and looking at this plan and thinking about what my body's been through is how it's miraculous. And we get to trust our bodies. We get to stop and think like, I'm gonna trust and partner with this body as I put my year up on the wall, and I looked at my plan of what I want to put out into the world next year of how I want this business to serve so many other women and help them learn to love themselves more because screw the diet plan. Screw the show up at the gym, learn to love yourself more that will change the way you treat your body. I see it all the time. I've done it Myself, I promise you, the work starts between your ears before it starts changing by what you decide to put into your mouth, right? We've got to do the work of changing the way we talk to ourselves, changing the way we treat this body. So as I'm looking forward at this 2024, some things came to mind, I was super excited, I've a really exciting day, I loved putting my plan for a year up on the wall, I loved marking off the vacations I'm going to take next year, the time I'm going to spend with my loved ones, the things I'm going to create, for the clients that work with me, the things I'm going to create for people who hear this podcast or who come to my workshops. I'm so excited about that. And it made me think about how many women I talked to who have had breast cancer, who are going through treatment, or have been through treatment. And who say to themselves, I can't plan anything, because I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know, if I'm gonna get sick, I don't know, if I'm gonna get a recurrence, I don't know if I'm gonna have to have a different kind of treatment. And I thought about those things as I put my year on the wall, because I don't know, either. But I do know what I want my life to look like. And I do know how I want my body to feel. And putting those goals up on the wall, putting that plan on a calendar, deciding on it, looking at it, committing to it, feeling it like absorbing it seeing this amazing year. That, in and of itself is exciting and inspiring, and I believe supports my healing. Because I'm looking at a year of life. I get to decide, that's the life I want. Do I have complete control over everything that happens to me? I do not I shared with you what happened last year, right? Did I end up meeting my business goals I had for last year doing all the things I had planned to put in the world. I didn't. But you know what I did do? I supported myself, I thought about my health first, I didn't let myself feel left out. When something changed, I gave myself grace and said, this body needs more support right now, as much as I'd love to put the thing I have on the calendar out into the world, my body's more important and it needs the rest. We've got to shift the way we think about ourselves, the driving the pushing the demanding of a body more than it has to give your needs to stop. You would not do that. Anybody else? Why would you do it to your own body?

Laura Lummer 17:43
Well, when I look at that year up on the wall, and I just think that's so awesome and exciting to have these things to look forward to. That gives me a physical feeling of glowing of growing of excitement. That gives me a feeling of vibrancy. And even though if I were to stop, and someone would say, Well, Laura, you never know, like you have been diagnosed with stage four cancer, what if you have to do radiation again next year, and the plans you have, you know, you're not going to be able to do those. I don't know. When that comes, I'll deal with it. But for today, where I'm at today, I get to look at that calendar. And I get to say that's what I want my life to look like. That's what I'm going to stay take steps towards each and every day. That's what I'm going to put my energy behind. That's what I'm going to visualize. That's what I'm going to think about an every single day, I'm going to do everything I can and make every decision based on The Laura who creates that year. How does she need to feel today? How do I need to feed this body so it has the energy so it has the clarity of mind so that it has the determination and the inspiration to move forward with this plant. So I think when it comes to supporting the terrain of our body, thinking about how you want your body to feel, no matter where you're at, in this breast cancer journey, whether it's in treatment, out of treatment, living in treatment, healing from treatment, 10 years out from treatment, I know it's always on your mind. I had cancer, I could have it again. I know that because I've coached hundreds of women and every single one of them have that on their mind. I have to work through keeping that off my mind. But knowing in the back of my mind, it is a reality. Right? It is a reality. I have cancer cells in my body. And I have to be very mindful of the things that I do to support the continued healing and the ability for this body to heal. When we infuse that energy, that vision, that belief into our life, that is what helps us make the decision to support our metabolism. I promise you what I hear. What I see with my clients is the ones who are fighting, the ones who are demanding that their body do what they think it should do, ends up frustrating them ends up separating them from the connection and the love of their body, and sends them straight down the rabbit hole of self abusive behavior, and sabotaging their own health while they're saying I know what I need to do, but I'm doing something else. Because I'm mad at my body, my body's not working right, and we get stuck, we got to do this thought work. The terrain Tuesday Talks are focused on what we can do to support our body's ability to heal, to support our health, to support the way we want to feel physically on a regular basis. But that goes so much deeper than just the food. So when I want to leave this 300th episode, what I want to leave you with, after this 300th episode, is think about the way you think about your body. Think about the way you talk to yourself. Think about the way you feed yourself. And think about what your body wants. What if your body wanted to be healthy, strong, energetic and clear minded? Can you absorb that? Can you embrace that? Can you say to yourself, my body wants to be these things? And then can you ask yourself? What can I do? How can I support it? In achieving that state of being in achieving that state of existence? And where am I telling myself that because my body isn't doing what I want it to do? I'm actually doing things that are more harmful? Where are you telling yourself that because it doesn't feel the way you want it to feel that you're focused on how it's not working right? Rather than what you can do to support it with love and compassion and no judgment? Where's that happening for you in your life? Right? I know I've said it before, I'm going to say it again now. Because with the background I have, I could give you an exercise plan, I could give you a diet plan. But they will be worthless. Even though you're coming up. At the time of this recording in December, you're coming up to a new year, whatever it is like I'm going to change, I'm going to eat differently, I'm going to exercise more and less you work on the way you think about yourself on the way you love yourself on the appreciation on the magnificence of this body you are in, you will not make those changes. At least you won't make them long term. And the majority of the people who go into the New Year deciding that willpower is going to carry them through are done with that plan by February, right. But I want you to be successful because I want you to feel good in your body. I want you to feel good about caring for yourself. I want you to feel good, not deprived, not left out about making choices, to care for yourself in the way your body needs to be cared for. And the way you do that is by doing the thought work and changing the way you think about yourself. And think about this amazing terrain, this amazing body, all the tissues in it, and what they want to do, what these tissues want to do to support you in feeling good and living your healthiest, best life. You want some help doing that thought work, you know where to come, you can find me at the breast cancer recovery coach.com Join my better than before breast cancer life coaching membership because it is not focused on what feels bad. It is focused on what do you want in your life? How do you want to live? What is the life you want to create? What is the way you want to feel? Because you can get their friend? All right. Cancer doesn't define us. Cancer doesn't determine how we're going to live our lives. We have the power to do that. And I invite you to join me in tapping into that power. I'll talk to you again soon. Until then, be good to yourself.

Speaker 1 24:13
voices in your head. You've heard 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 you've been waiting on