Pulling the gems from adversity. Mindsets and tools to rebuild, inspire and dream bigger.

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - Pulling the gems from adversity. Mindsets and tools to rebuild, inspire and dream bigger.

Susan De Lorenzo is an author, speaker and certified transformational life coach who focuses on helping women who are emerging from life-altering adversities. As a survivor of invasive breast cancer whose marriage dissolved as treatment ended, Susan draws on her personal journey as well as her training as a life coach to give clients, readers and listeners the mindsets and tools to rebuild their lives in alignment with their deepest desires.

Susan works with her clients to build a mindset where, no matter what has happened, you believe you can create something even greater through a higher platform of awareness to give inspiration to dream bigger and go for more.

Although her mother was a breast cancer survivor, when Susan had her breast cancer diagnosis she was shocked.  She never imagined it would happen to her and the diagnosis unravelled her. The first diagnosis was not the most serious. During a check up her oncologist asked if anyone had spoken to her about the lump in her other breast. At the time Susan was working full-time, had an 18-month old son and a new house that needed a lot of work and she found that she was very angry. The diagnosis was very hard to digest and she was very resistant to it and didn’t even want to do chemo.

People sometimes describe cancer as a battle but Susan thinks we need to develop the relationship we have with ourselves which is what gets us through. When adversity hits us we need to ask what can I do with myself to make it OK - I know it’s not going to be great but how can I keep my awareness that I’m not alone and am connected to life. Knowing that can be the strength by making it real for ourselves and our centre or eye of the storm. We are the centre of our own experience. Families often don’t know what to do to help and we end up comforting them. They don't have the skills to help or they have their own thoughts and feelings about what you’re going through. We need to remember that's their experience, I have mine.  

In the US divorces relating to couples where one is going through cancer are higher than the national average. Susan knew her marriage was going to be problematic but was determined to get married and have a family. She grew up with a parent who suffered with depression and this was something Susan’s partner suffered from as well.

Susan had 4 surgeries and 6 months of chemo and radiation but was then told she was cancer free. She found she had a new love of life. She wasn't going to play small anymore and was at a higher level but her partner was in depression. Susan felt they should work at their relationship but her partner wanted to be alone – he couldn’t deal with how happy Susan was.

When we go through adversity and start to come out the other side we sometimes find that we are going at a different speed to our partner. The other person is still where they were and unless you move together it becomes a challenge

The model of marriage is very romantic but the idea of staying together is impossible unless both people are growing. We need to remember it’s OK to let go if the other person doesn't grow at the same level. People move ahead and change. It takes something fundamental to change. We need to re-engineer relationships and remain interested in growth and what’s going to be next. We need to have something to look forward and to stay real by talking about the elements of life, what’s happening in the world and what’s happening to friends.

Susan works with clients coming out of life altering adversities.  The first thing they learn is to understand is that it’s not just other people who overcome adversity and that they can too. They need to be open to the idea that this is for me too so how can I design my life so it gets me to a place where I love my life.  This needs building and learning to overcome beliefs and conditioning – the not good enough syndrome.

Susan now spends her time between Rhode Island and Florida. Later this year Balboa Press will be publishing her new book Pulling the Gems from Adversity where she shares the five stages of working through adversity to come back even stronger.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Susan here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available.

Our full blog archive is also available.

You can get in touch with Susan at https://SusanDeLorenzo.com or at her Facebook page