Season 5 Kick Off: More Hope, Tools, and Inspiring Stories

In this episode of the Living to Thrive with Cancer podcast, Kathryn White welcomes listeners back for the fifth season of the podcast.

Kathryn shares what listeners can expect this season and her own insights from a lesson she learned over the summer.

Listen in to learn:

• What you can expect in Season 5
• The thing that stopped Kathryn and made her slow down
• How Kathryn navigated the message her body sent her
• How this valuable lessons relates to you and your life with cancer

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Kathryn White Cancer Coach

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If you would like to know more about the concept of living with cancer I have written a book all about my personal experience with moving from survivor to thriver. In my book I offer anecdotes and strategies that will encourage you to learn how to thrive with cancer.

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Transcript

Episode 5.1
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[00:00:00] Kathryn: Hello and welcome to season five of the Living to Thrive with Cancer Podcast. I am your host Kathryn White, cancer coach and author of Living to Thrive, A Holistic Guide to Living with Cancer. Whether you are a long time listener or tuning in for the very first time, I am so glad that you are here.

[00:00:18] This podcast is dedicated to helping you to move beyond just surviving cancer and into a space of thriving physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If you are living with cancer, supporting a loved one through their walk with cancer, or simply looking to understand more about what it means to live well with a cancer diagnosis.

[00:00:38] This podcast is for you. So I am here today to welcome you to season five, and just to give you a little bit of oversight of what this season is going to look like and a lesson that I learned this summer. Season five is going to be. Powerful, practical, and deeply supportive. I listened to some feedback from listeners who reached out and they are looking for really clear content in short spurts, so we are revisiting how the podcast is delivered to you and making the episodes a little bit shorter.

[00:01:18] Unless it's a guest interview, which we'll talk about in a moment, 

[00:01:21] So that you can get the information that you're looking for in a clear and concise way.

[00:01:26] I'm going to be coming to you biweekly as I have been in the past seasons, and these, as I mentioned, are going to be short and focused episodes. Easy for you to digest and easy for you to listen to on a walk or in your car or while you're making dinner, or if you're in treatment or wherever you happen to be.

[00:01:44] When this drops into your podcast platform, you are going to hear a mix of solo episodes with me where I'm going to share insights and tools and reflections from both my personal healing journey. My work as a coach, and as I mentioned, there's going to be some great guest episodes featuring inspiring conversations with other cancer thrivers caregivers, practitioners, and advocates.

[00:02:10] You'll hear stories of strength strategies for healing and encouragement from those who truly. Get it, because that's what this is about, reaching you, where you are, helping you to get the information that you need from people who also have this lived experience. Every episode is created to meet you where you are and walk beside you as you take your empowered steps forward.

[00:02:34] Now, I also wanted to get things started this season by sharing with you a few lessons that I learned this summer. So it's really a bit of a reflection on where I have been and what I needed for myself this summer. And it's all around the concept of. Burnout and listening to yourself. So this has been a very valuable learning summer for me, and I wanna share with you why and how this connects to you as a person who is living with cancer.

[00:03:08] So first of all, I want to acknowledge that burnout. Is a real thing. Admittedly, I am a yes person. I'm not very good at saying no, and after five years of nonstop going and doing. This summer, it caught up to me when I'm not coaching and creating for you. What you may not know is that I work with an organization for teenagers, and it's a September to June program and it consumes a lot of my energy.

[00:03:37] Now. I am very passionate about it. I have zero regrets working with these teenagers. They are incredible. The team that I work with is incredible, but sometimes in addition to my regular work. Can be a lot. I was, uh, for the last five years in a top leadership role in this program, and so I was engaged and on all of the time, always having to be aware of what was going on, making decisions, emails, all of those things that come with being a leader.

[00:04:07] Then last May, my role changed. And when I didn't have to be on like that all of the time, I hit a wall. I was mentally and physically exhausted and slipped into a place of not feeling motivated, quite honestly, to do a whole lot of anything. So burnout is a real thing. But what I also learned from burnout is that healing from it.

[00:04:35] Is not an overnight process. This has taken me the better part of the summer to not just wrap my brain around, but to really work on and through. So how did I spend my summer getting through the process of burnout? The first thing that I had to do was listen to my body, which has always been part of my cancer story, right from the beginning 10 years ago.

[00:05:01] When that first pain showed up, I listened to my body and so this is no different. When the messages came knocking on my door and I could feel it, I had to listen. I could not not listen, so when my body said to me, I am tired. I chose to rest. When it wanted to move, I chose to move. When it whispered that it had had enough, I stopped.

[00:05:28] And it really required me to remember that it's okay to say no when something doesn't feel good or, um, for me to say yes when I felt like I could manage it. This is one of the joys of having options. I could say no when I needed to, but I could say yes when I wanted to. And so. Managing burnout and enjoying my summer became a possibility for me, and this was part of the lesson, was that initially it felt difficult.

[00:06:01] I wanted to keep moving. I wanted to keep doing, I wanted to keep going forward as a coach, working with clients over the summer and showing up in the best way that I could. But at the same time, I still needed to take that break. So. As a coach, what I would say to you is listen to your body. Listen to what it's calling you to do, and find the space to take care of yourself.

[00:06:26] So that is what I did. I had to listen to my own advice. So rather than resisting the messages. I listened to them and I learned how to find that balance. I spent just enough time in my office doing things that bring me joy, like sending weekly emails to my Thriver community, and you can join that community in the show notes.

[00:06:48] There'll be a link to join us. I was continuing to create my blog posts to support your health and healing. I was preparing for this new season of the podcast, which I'm very excited for. I created a new podcast hosting platform. I moved my entire email list to a new space, and I created a new website that can still be found at kathrynwhite.coach

[00:07:12] Now admittedly, I did not create the website entirely. I had amazing support from my, uh, online business managers, Ian and Madi, at Your Support Company. I have to give them a little bit of a shout out for their amazing vision and their amazing detail, um, uh, attention to detail in building out this new, beautiful website.

[00:07:34] And I created new, exciting content for my new coaching program that is launching this September. I'm going on vacation for a couple of weeks, and when I get back, I am going to hit the ground running with this new. One-to-one coaching program and a few other things that I've been working on this summer as I've been working on resting at the same time.

[00:07:57] It probably doesn't sound like I was resting, but really I was. I rested a lot despite what it sounds like. I rested in my home. I enjoyed time in my garden, time by the pool, time with my husband, time walking in our neighborhood time, doing things that we wanted to do, getting out in nature. I read six books this summer.

[00:08:20] I love reading. I've always loved reading, and I've gotten into this habit of reading books that are related to work. But what I chose for myself this summer was to dive into some fiction books by an amazing Canadian author. I'm going to give her a little bit of shout out here 'cause she helped make my summer very enjoyable.

[00:08:41] Her name is Louise Penny and she writes a series around this detective named Inspector Ache and they are mystery set in Quebec here in Canada. And I am officially a fan. Have just do dove headlong into these books and just cannot stop reading them. So if you are into mystery or you are curious about it and you're looking for a new author, check out Louise Penny.

[00:09:06] I really, really love that. I cannot solve her books until very close to the end. They're really good. Anyway, that was part of what I did this summer for myself. I also traveled with my husband a couple of times. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I took some work trips with him when he was traveling.

[00:09:27] I visited my kids and um, I went to some concerts and I enjoyed silence. Silence is such a beautiful gift to be able to just sit in peace and listen to the birds and feel the breeze and the sun. It was absolutely fantastic. Now, again, that might not sound very restful. You might be thinking that does not sound like a summer vacation, but again, I assure you that it was, and I do feel very refreshed and I am ready to be back for season five of the podcast and all of the other amazing things that I want to do in this coming season.

[00:10:04] Now you might be wondering, how does this relate to cancer? It really does. In that it's the same principles. Listen to your body. Rest when you need to move, when it feels right. Care for yourself. Practicing self-care is healing and it's a form of self-love and it matters. Utters. Do what brings you joy.

[00:10:27] Say yes to fun. It is so important. Fun can be big things. It can be little things. It just needs to be something that brings a smile to your face and fills up your heart. And I'm reminded as I reflect on this, that caring for my health and happiness. Is still my full-time work as a person who's living with cancer, this is my living with cancer life, and so I need to be in tune with, with my body and my mind and my spirit.

[00:10:58] I do wanna share that this past August 22nd, I celebrated two years of being no evidence of disease. That was an anniversary of the last surgery that I had, and I am still here walking this walk with you, which is why what I share on this podcast and in my coaching is so important. It's a reminder that there's life with cancer and that you can do this when you have self-love and you practice self-care.

[00:11:26] You have self-belief. So that is what I learned this summer. That is what I learned this summer that I could find balance. I could heal myself again. I could enjoy my summer. I could be peaceful and quiet and still productive. So many lessons in all of this. And show up for you in a new season of the Living to Thrive with Cancer Podcast.

[00:11:53] Now, if you would like to take the, your learning to, uh, in a different direction, if you wanna know more about my story and about the healing that I have gone through and the healing that I share with others, um, and these concepts of self-love and care and belief. You can explore them deeper in my book, living To Thrive, A Holistic Guide to Living With Cancer.

[00:12:15] You can get your hands on that, um, wherever books are available. Or you can go to my new website, kathrynwhite.coach, take a look at that and you can actually, um, get a signed author copy if you would like. That is available on the website. This book is really a great companion for everything that we talk about in the previous seasons, and we'll be talking about in this season of the podcast.

[00:12:42] And as always, friends, if you found what you've learned here today to be helpful, please share it with other people that you know could benefit from this episode and others. And I would really love it if you would leave a review wherever you're listening, when you leave a review. It drives the algorithm, which helps other people who need this kind of support to find the podcast and help them to move from survivor to thriver.

[00:13:06] And go ahead and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. Follow it on my YouTube channel and go to the show notes and get your name on my weekly email list so that you can get those thriver emails that I was mentioning earlier and head to the website to find the blog and other things that, um, I am going to make available to you.

[00:13:28] My mission here is to support you on your path to thriving with cancer and using what I have learned along the way and the tools that I've learned from the other amazing people that I have been able to work with and get to know over the many, many years that I've been doing this now. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:13:48] Please join me in the next podcast episode where I do an interview with a very special guest who supports cancer patients in his medical job, and cancer survivors in his own cancer coaching platform.