How to Create a Thriving Mindset

Healing and thriving with cancer isn’t just about treatments and checkups, it’s about nurturing the whole you. In this episode, we dive into the 3S Method: Self-Love, Self-Care, and Self-Belief, three interconnected practices that support healing, growth, and a vibrant, meaningful life, even in the midst of cancer or recovery.

I’ll guide you through three transformative levels:

1. Awareness – noticing how you currently care for yourself and where shifts are possible.
2. Exploration – practical strategies and mindset shifts to deepen your connection to your body, mind, and spirit.
3. Reflection – integrating what you’ve learned to feel empowered, confident, and ready to thrive.

Tune in to learn how small, intentional steps in self-love, self-care, and self-belief can transform your mindset and help you reclaim your life on your terms.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker: Welcome back to The Living to Thrive with Cancer podcast. I'm Kathryn White cancer coach, and today I wanna share something close to my heart, how we can nurture ourselves to not just survive, but truly thrive. If you are a new listener, I want to welcome you to the podcast. As I said, I'm Kathryn White, and I am a cancer thriver, using my stories and experiences with stage four colon cancer.

[00:00:23] To guide you through your walk with cancer. As a cancer coach, I want to help support you through creating a health building lifestyle, managing your stress, and helping you to navigate the day in and day out stuff that comes up when you have cancer. If you find what you learn here today to be helpful, please share it with other people you know who could benefit from this episode.

[00:00:43] Sharing helps me to support more people living with cancer and to help them move from survivor to thriver. And go ahead and subscribe to the podcast. Wherever you are listening, follow it on YouTube. And I would love for you to head to the show notes and get your name on my weekly email list so you can follow my path to thriving with cancer and how I'm using what I have learned to support you in your walk with cancer and towards your goal of becoming a cancer thriver.

[00:01:08] And when you sign up, you will get a free download gift from me to you. Today I am talking about a process that I discovered along the way in my own cancer healing story, and I call it the three S method. This is about self-love, self-care, and self-belief. These three elements work together to help us heal, grow, and create a life that feels vibrant and meaningful.

[00:01:35] Even in the midst of cancer or recovery. In this episode, we'll move through three levels. The first is awareness, where you will notice how you can start taking care of yourself. Then we'll look a little bit at exploration, some practices and mindset shifts, and then we're going to dive into reflection, the empowerment and growth process.

[00:01:55] So grab your favorite drink and find a comfortable spot, and let's dive in. Before we can make real change, we need to notice what's happening in our lives. Awareness is the foundation of self-love and self-care. So I wanna walk through some questions and do some reflecting on them in this three S method that I have created for you.

[00:02:20] So the first question that I want to ask and that you might want to reflect on is, what does self care look like for you in your daily life right now? So just take a moment and think about it. Even tiny things count like a warm shower, making a cup of tea, journaling for five minutes. Little things can make a big difference in how you view yourself and how you feel about yourself.

[00:02:46] For me, self-care sometimes looks like simply taking a slow, mindful walk outside. It's not always dramatic. Sometimes it's just a small pause that matters most and helps me to reset myself and to reflect on myself and to notice if I'm getting out of alignment with my desire to be a thriver, not just surviving.

[00:03:10] My next question for you is. How do you know when you need to pause and give yourself care and rest? This is a really big question because it requires you to go inside. How do you know when you need to pause or give yourself care or rest? Your body and emotions are full of signals fatigue. Tension, irritability, or a racing mind are always your body's way of asking you for care.

[00:03:41] Our bodies want us to take care of them, and they send us these signals, but we've become really good at ignoring them. Now, I know when you have cancer, you may have heightened awareness of your body, and so there's kind of that balance between what is this that's happening in my body and what is this that's happening in my body?

[00:04:01] Not every feeling in the body is a crisis, but I know when you're going through the cancer process, different feelings that you're not used to can be very, um, triggering or create an emotional response that you aren't necessarily prepared for. But we'll talk about that in a moment. So again, just coming back to that idea of how do you know when you need to pause and give yourself care?

[00:04:25] A rest, A simple practice that I use is checking in with myself three times a day. What do I need right now? And often the answer is something small and nurturing. I need to get up and leave my desk and go for a little stretch or a walk. I need to remember that I need to drink some water or a nice cup of tea, and sometimes it's even just stopping and breathing.

[00:04:49] Self-care is a really important part of my own healing process, and so remembering to slow down and take those few moments for myself is really, really important to me. The next question is, what small acts of kindness toward yourself make you feel nurtured? Now, I know that self-nurturing is often put aside when you are walking the path of cancer because it might feel selfish.

[00:05:19] It might make you feel a little bit guilty or shameful for wanting to take care of yourself. And I've addressed that in previous episodes. But this is a really important part of the whole process, a small act of kindness towards yourself. So maybe it's lighting a candle. Maybe it's reading a favorite passage or a book.

[00:05:41] Maybe it's just giving yourself a compliment or repeating that mantra that you've created for yourself. My favorite one is, I am a beautiful miracle. My next favorite one, I think is I am happy and I am healthy. Reminding myself that I can give myself kindness, helps me to remember that cancer is not. All of my life.

[00:06:04] It's part of my life, but I am still at the root, at the center of who I am and of my life, and I get to be kind to myself. These little moments are not indulgent. They are essential. They are the building blocks of self-love. So let's just pause for a moment here and take a nice deep breath in and notice what is one small act of self-kindness that you could do right now.

[00:06:36] And maybe just put that aside and remember to go and do that when you're done listening to the podcast or hit pause and go and do that right now and come back. We'll still be here when you come back. Once we notice and become aware of our needs, we can start exploring practices and shifts that support growth and healing.

[00:06:59] So we're going to go a little deeper now. We're going to go into, um, the second s part of the three S method, and it's important for us to understand that awareness alone is important. What we do with that awareness, the choices we make is what transforms our lives. So being aware that first part is really important, but we have to know what to do with it.

[00:07:29] And this is where we step into this self-love piece. So we've talked about some self-care methods, but what about self-love? How has your idea of self-love changed since your cancer experience? For me, self-love has become less about being perfect and more about showing myself compassion. I have a type A controlling leadership, go, go, go personality, and I'm really like literally in this se season of my life working on releasing that as I go deeper and deeper into this concept of self love.

[00:08:12] This for me is about being able to say that I'm worthy of care and joy. Even when things feel difficult and maybe you notice your own self-love has shifted too. Maybe. Maybe. You know, they say cancer changes you and, and I believe that cancer can change us for the better when we are self-aware. So maybe you've felt this shift in your self-love towards more patience with yourself, because cancer forces us to slow down.

[00:08:42] It forces us into spaces that we've never been in before. It changes things about us that we might not like. But if we can be patient with ourselves, if you can be patient with yourself, maybe you can shift a little bit more into that self-love piece. Or maybe you're noticing a tendency towards gentleness.

[00:09:04] I know for myself, I speak softer and kinder than I used to. That is, that is a big change that I've noticed in myself and I'm more gentle with myself and more forgiving of myself when I am not who I was or who I thought I should be. And maybe you're noticing yourself setting more boundaries. This is a courageous act of self-love.

[00:09:29] Setting boundaries around who you spend time with, what you spend your time on, what you do for yourself, who you allow in boundary setting is a really beautiful act of self care. From a place of self love,

[00:09:51] what beliefs about yourself support your healing and growth? This is big because now we're getting into that deeper reflective piece. What beliefs about yourself support your healing and growth? If you can say things to yourself like, I am resilient, I deserve health and happiness, I can handle this challenge, this is going to reinforce your inner strength, that strength that you need to keep moving forward.

[00:10:19] Whether you are newly diagnosed in treatment or you're in that post-cancer recovery, what do I do now with my life phase? This is really important that, that you can say to yourself, I'm resilient. I deserve health and happiness. I can handle this challenge, and that's gonna build that inner strength that's going to keep you moving, moving forward.

[00:10:42] So just take a moment to notice the beliefs that lift you up. Conversely, notice the ones that hold you back. Then choose which ones you wanna nurture. Do you wanna be held back? Do you wanna stay stuck, or do you want to move forward one step at a time, one day at a time, into this self-love and self-care piece?

[00:11:07] And in what ways do you practice listening to your body and honoring your needs? Things like tracking your energy levels might help 'cause then you can see what part of the day is the one that is the best one for you to do something, and the one where you need to be a little softer and gentler with yourself.

[00:11:25] This might lead you to adjusting your schedule so that you can incorporate the things that you want to do with the things that you need to do. Maybe this is the invitation to bring in some gentle movement, some mindful eating. Rest. Rest is our friend. This act of listening and responding to your body is an act of self love, and it tells you I matter and my wellbeing matters.

[00:11:56] So just take a moment and just think about one shift you could make this week to honor your body's needs more fully. What can you do? One little tiny change. That can honor what your body needs from you right now. So as we move forward here, we're going to transition into this piece around self-belief.

[00:12:18] And I believe of the three self, as much as self-love is really, really important and self-care is necessary, self-belief is where the growth and the change happens. I truly. Truly believe that when you believe in yourself, it's going to allow you the space to love yourself more, which I know could feel difficult when you're going through all of these physical changes and fear and scarcity, and overwhelm.

[00:12:49] All of those things can be really challenging. I recognize that I have been there. When you believe in yourself, you can create this love within yourself that allows you to care for yourself, which will help you to continue that momentum of moving forward one day at a time. One action at a time. One thought at a time.

[00:13:09] This is where the transformation truly happens. Self-belief is the fuel that allows you to take the love and care you give yourself and turn it into the life that you are going to actively create for yourself. So think about this question. How has rebuilding your life. Taught you the importance of self-belief or how has, um, making changes in your life?

[00:13:36] Maybe you're not in the rebuilding phase right now, maybe you're in the, just figuring it out and making the necessary changes. So how has that taught you the importance of self-belief? For me, recovering and building, rebuilding after cancer required me to trust my own decisions. I had to learn to trust myself.

[00:13:57] And I had to learn to honor and trust my body because there is that thought of my body is fighting me, or my body has failed me. That's a, that's one of those sneaky thoughts that can come up. So I've had to really trust that when I make a choice for myself. It's also for my body and my mind and my spirit, and I had to decide really early on that cancer was not going to stop me and that I could thrive.

[00:14:29] Whatever that looked like on any given day, I could thrive with cancer and I didn't allow those setbacks that I had along the way, and I didn't allow any statistics to hold me back from that self-belief. That belief that I write about in my book, living to Thrive, that every day was a 100% chance of living.

[00:14:50] And, and living looked different every day, depending on what was going on. But I believed 100% that I was going to navigate this, and I was going to get through this, and I was going to live beyond the diagnosis in the moment and after I had rung the bell and moving forward in my life. Nobody and nothing was going to tell me that I couldn't do this.

[00:15:12] And that's a huge mindset piece that really was the belief that I needed to keep going forward. And if you've listened to other podcast episodes or if you've read my book, you'll know there was, there was a moment where I was ready to give up on myself because I didn't believe I could do this. I, I was like, this is hard.

[00:15:31] This is the hardest thing I've ever faced, and I don't think I can do this. But I didn't give up on myself. And that allowed me to create the self-belief. Next, think about this question. What inner strengths have you discovered by choosing self-love and self-care? And maybe you're not quite there yet, but come back to this episode and listen to it again.

[00:15:55] Revisit this and revisit this because I think this is probably one of the most important episodes because it really hits that core of how do you navigate cancer. So what inner strengths have you discovered by choosing self-love and self-care? Courage, patience. Resilience, assertiveness, self-advocacy, the ability to set boundaries.

[00:16:23] Whatever you choose for yourself, these are gifts that come from caring for yourself and these strengths. These these things are available to you too because you can make these choices. It's going to look different for everyone. Cancer's like that. Cancer looks different for everybody based on your circumstances, but you get to consciously choose what you want it to look like.

[00:16:49] And, and if you make this choice to nurture yourself consistently, I truly believe that you will see a shift.

[00:16:58] In what ways can self-belief shape the future you're creating for yourself? That's a big question. In what ways can self-belief shape the future you're creating for yourself? Now, here's what I think self-belief allows you to take risks. It allows you to dream bigger and it allows you to live intentionally.

[00:17:25] There are risks associated with living with cancer, whether it's a medical risk or a a, going outside of your house and seeing other people and doing things risk. I hear so many of my clients talk about this fear of doing things because they're afraid. You don't have to be afraid when you can trust yourself.

[00:17:45] When you can believe that doing something for yourself is a, is an act of self love and consequently an act of self care. And when you can create dreams for yourself, and I know forward thinking can be very challenging when you have cancer. I remember a time when I couldn't even make decisions about what was for dinner.

[00:18:07] I would cry, my husband would ask me what I would like for dinner and I would just cry because it was, that was so overwhelming. That was too far in the future for me. But gradually, as I learned to trust myself and I got farther into the cancer process where this. Weird, bizarre level of comfort of, of being able to do things starts to happen.

[00:18:29] I was able to start forward thinking beyond a day, beyond a week beyond a couple of weeks into maybe the next month, and it took time, but it was that belief in myself that I was going to be okay and, and that I could get up every day and keep moving forward. That allowed me to create some dreams. And that allowed me to start living intentionally.

[00:18:56] I wanted to be the person who was living the dream that I had created for myself. So what was I going to do to make that happen? I had to get out of my own way. I had to believe that I could leave my house and it would be safe, and it would be okay. I had to trust the boundaries that I was setting around myself.

[00:19:15] I had to invite in healthy food and healthy movement. All of these things that come together that seem like self-care are an act of self-love and are the, the part of the self-belief piece. It's a mindset shift. It's a mindset shift, and it's going to shift your energy from reacting to life to actively designing it.

[00:19:43] And maybe this feels uncomfortable for you, and I understand that. I, I understand that this is an invitation to do this as it becomes available to you, as your heart and your soul, and your mind and your physical body is able to start growing a little bit more into these ideas, but it's going to help you to be less reactive of, of what is going on and actively.

[00:20:10] Design your Thriving blueprint. What do you want your life to look like? Part of this whole process. I mean, this is me. Here I am, where I am as, as a cancer coach, as an author, and as a podcaster, as an advocate for young adult onset cancer. As an advocate for earlier screening, as an advocate for you to learn more about yourself and to grow it, it becomes.

[00:20:36] A giving piece perhaps for, maybe not everybody, but for some of you, a a lot of my clients say like, I wanna do something with this. There's gotta be something more than me just having cancer. What can I do with this? This is is the question I wanna ask you. If you could teach someone else one truth about rebuilding life through self-love, self-care, and self-belief, what would that be?

[00:21:06] What would that be? If you could teach somebody else one thing, one truth about rebuilding your life using self-love and self-care and self-belief, what would that be? That's a big question, but it's a beautiful opportunity to reflect on how far you've come of where you are of, of what you have created for yourself.

[00:21:28] So here's the thing that I hold true. To myself is that thriving doesn't come from doing it all perfectly. I am not a perfect person by any means. I have learned from my mistakes, and that's part of personal growth. So thriving doesn't come from doing it all perfectly. It comes from showing up for yourself, one choice at a time, with love and belief that you are worthy, you are worthy.

[00:21:58] Of a thriving and vibrant life right here, right now. Even if you are in the place where you are just literally moving forward one day at a time, you can still make those choices to live a loving life, creating self-belief and and moving forward into your thriving life. So just imagine the life you're creating when you fully trust yourself and care for yourself.

[00:22:33] It's really beautiful friends. It's really beautiful. And again, it doesn't matter where you are in the process because in between the stuff in between. Wherever you are, if you're still going through the treatments, if you're waiting for surgery, if you're in that cycle of three month appointments, if you're in six month appointments, if you're a year out, two years out, wherever you are, if you're a caregiver to a loved one, I just wanna invite you to imagine the life that you're creating when you fully trust yourself and you care for yourself in a way that feels good for you.

[00:23:15] Right where you are right now. I really feel very strongly about this, this three s method because the self-love and the self-care and the self-belief, as I said, all work together. And it comes back to, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, this awareness of noticing your needs and how you're caring for yourself.

[00:23:36] The exploration of practicing self-love and making those small shifts to honor your body and your mind and your spirit, and that reflective piece of embracing self-belief and letting it guide you into the life that you are building for yourself. So I encourage you to choose one small act of self-love or self-care today.

[00:23:59] It might be tiny, but I promise you that it will ripple out in ways that you can't even yet imagine in your life. It really is about coming back to yourself and deciding what you want for yourself. And if you want more support on this path, I'd invite you to reach out to me, schedule a free one hour coaching call, and we can talk about where you are in your process and what you want.

[00:24:26] Because you don't have to carry this alone. I am here for you to help you through this process. If this episode resonated with you, please consider subscribing to the podcast. Follow me on YouTube, on social media. Please leave a review because sharing a review helps to bring the episode to the awareness of other people who need this support also.

[00:24:53] And if you really enjoyed it, maybe you can personally share it with someone, send it to someone you love and say, I think this would be a great episode for you to listen to. And you can find more support through my website, Kathryn White Coach. You can find the, um, my book that is there. My coaching program is there, and you can learn more about me on my website.

[00:25:15] Until the next time, please be gentle with yourself and remember, you are enough just as you are. This is a process and I am here to walk the walk with you. Thriving is not about perfection. It's about showing up for yourself every day. One moment at a time.