Recently I found a lump on my breast, and I was surprised to notice just how often the thought of ‘I have a lump’ popped into my mind. It was there every few minutes. No matter what I was doing, I would notice that thought.

I am sure I am like most other people, in that although I know people get sick or have injuries, it is always other people, right? Even when my son had an accident and became a paraplegic it still didn’t hit home that something could happen to me. 

I was blissfully happy living my normal life, eating reasonably well, and ignoring my exercise. That changed once I discovered the lump in my breast. 

 

 At first, it was the size of a baby pea and I thought it was an insect bite but no such luck. I tried to ignore it and knew I was in denial because I didn’t want to touch it. I wanted to pretend it wasn’t there, but my mind kept jumping back to the thought ‘I have a lump.’ Over and over, all day, this thought kept popping into my head. It was hard to dismiss it.

 

After a few days when I knew I couldn’t ignore it any longer, I reached out to a friend who is also an osteopath and very passionate about natural health and well-being. I asked her what she would do and she gave me a good selection of ideas and things to think about.

 

I decided I was going to tackle this by changing my lifestyle eating and exercise because I didn’t just want to get rid of the lump, I want to make sure I didn’t get any more. It was ironic that I had just released my YELLOW Journal – How to take control of your personal well-being and happiness. 

 

I took my own advice and decided I needed to make a plan and a new vision for myself. I also needed to document everything so I could see what was working and what wasn’t.

 

I started doing video journals to keep track and I noticed how flat I was in the first few weeks. Usually, I am nice and bubbly but the videos told me a different story. They showed me how much it really was affecting me, more so than I had realized. 

 

The video below is a summary of my journals from 1-7. They are all available on my YouTube channel. Click here to access the other journal entries.

Once I realized this, I was able to take control of those thoughts and turn them around, but if I hadn’t noticed, I would have become more and more unhappy without seeing the cause. I decided I needed a statement to counteract the ‘I have a lump’ thought and started saying, ‘Yes, I have a lump, and it's only a cyst that will dissolve as I improve my diet. 

 

This statement allowed me to accept I had the lump and put a visualization in place of reducing it. 

 

I believe we get what we focus on, so I chose to focus on my health. I went to a nutritionist, and she put me on a really strict eating plan. I started working out what meals I could have and what exercise I would do each day. I keep focusing on my well-being and do not let fear get into my head.

 

I see the fear in other people when I tell them I have a lump. I can see that the first thing they think of is cancer, then they try and say nice reassuring things, but the fear is there. I don’t let it in. If I did, I would start focusing on my lump being cancer and as I said before, I believe we get what we focus on, so I am sticking with my cyst!

 

I always have been fairly stubborn and now it is serving me well.

 

If I focused on having a lump that would give it power over me. Focusing instead on my well-being gives me the power over it. Taking control is a great way to eliminate fear.

 

I can now relate to the idea where they say we have 60,000 thoughts a day and don’t realize. That shows me how important it is to be aware of my thoughts so I stay in control and guide my body, instead of letting my thoughts take me to dark places where I don’t want to go.

 

I know many women face this same issue, or similar things so each week my blog will be a combination of dealing with the lump, the choices I make for my overall well-being, and how I am using the YELLOW journal to support me.

 

If you know of someone going through something similar, please share this blog and video to help them see they are not alone.

Stay FABuLous