Still Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop? 4 Steps to Stop Living in Survival Mode

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SPEAKER_00: You survived it.

I'm talking about the diagnosis, the surgery, the divorce, the job loss.

And yet now, here it is when life's supposed to be, quote, good and normal.

And yet, you can't help but fear what's next.

You have that ever-looming cloud that just won't leave.

That feeling of doom, of dread, constantly waiting on the next shoe to drop.

My friend, you and me both know that's no way to live.

And especially now, after the storm is past, you're supposed to be enjoying life again.

Things are supposed to be good.

So today, we're gonna help you get out of survival mode.

We're gonna have you living a life that you're no longer waiting on that next shoe to drop, but instead, you're focused on enjoying right now, living and loving life like it was meant to be.

My friend, this is episode 437 of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Welcome to the podcast.

That's only half the journey.

It's when we are able to learn how to feel safe again, to love life again, to truly enjoy life.

That's where real healing takes place.

And that is the point that I want to get you at.

Now, the inspiration for today's episode came from our past interview with Steve Garrity, a guy who I've been talking about this month because, well, his story inspired me.

A guy who was just a teenager, headed off to college when everything in his life changed.

And that came with a cancer diagnosis.

And he underwent chemotherapy 10 grueling months.

And even after all of it was done, was over, he was free and clear.

The cancer was gone.

He had to live with this feeling of waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Because if you've ever dealt with something like a cancer diagnosis, you know that even after the cancer is done, is gone, you still have the ever-looming fear of what if it comes back?

It's every scan of the MRI, it's every test result, the blood work, every little thing is another moment of anticipation, of worry, of anxiety, of that ever-horrible question of what if?

What if it comes back?

Now, today's topic doesn't just relate to medical issues.

It can be your job that's uncertain.

What if you don't get another sale?

What if you walk in tomorrow and your boss tells you that they're doing layoffs and your job is done?

Maybe you've been battling a really brutal divorce, and you can't help but fear, what if?

What's next?

These questions, they can rob us of joy, they can rob us of life.

And as I keep repeating, that's no way to live.

And the whole thing here is the fact that our body heals way faster than our mind.

Our mind has a way of remembering, holding on to the trauma.

It's there trying to keep us safe, it's trying to work in our favor, but sometimes it gets in the way because it's been trained that you've been in this trauma.

You've been in the middle of battle, you've been in the war zone.

And so even though your body might be healed, the mind has not.

Basically, your brain, your mind, it learned how to survive the storm, but it's not been taught how to survive the calm, to be able to relax again, to take it easy.

Instead, it focuses on all those negative things, the fears, the anxieties, the worries, the things that keep us up at night.

And that's exactly why some of the hardest work we do doesn't happen during the crisis, but rather it happens afterwards.

So the question becomes: how do you overcome it?

How do you move forward?

How do you begin to live a life where you're not waiting on the next shoe to drop?

Well, I believe it all starts by us focusing on how do we retrain our brain?

How do we get our brain to go back to times that were good, to not anticipate the worst, to not expect bad, but instead to expect good.

Today, I'm not pretending that I'm some expert on this topic.

I'm just going off of what's worked for me in my own life.

Maybe what's worked for others that I have to think has worked for others, like the guy Steve Garrity.

And as a refresher, in case you're new here to the podcast, I'm completely blind.

Have been so for now well over 20 years.

And because I was just a 17-year-old teenager, kind of like Steve, when my life took an unexpected turn.

And mine was a brain tumor.

A brain tumor, thankfully, that was non-cancerous, but it was life-threatening.

And even after the surgery, even after that tumor was removed, I still had to keep going back for MRIs to see if the little piece that had to be left was it gonna grow back.

And even decades later, maybe I'm not feeling too good.

Maybe I'm having a headache.

There's always that what if worry, that anxiety of could it be growing again?

I mean, the doctors tell us no, but what if it can eat us alive?

So today, as I said, I'm just sharing the four things that I found to work and that I hope can work for you.

But by no means am I some type of expert on this topic.

This entire podcast is just built off of my own life's experience here, sharing it with you.

The first step in this process is honestly how we have to start many things in life when it comes to overcoming challenges or obstacles or pain.

And that is simply acknowledging what has happened.

Because if we want to pretend that something didn't impact our lives, pretend that it was nothing, my friend, that only does harm in the end.

We have to be real.

We have to be honest with no one else but ourselves.

That what we've gone through, what you've been through, is something.

It's more than even just something.

It's monumental.

So I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

That whatever traumatic event you've been through in your life, your brain remembers it.

Every piece of you feels it.

You can go right back into the heart of it in an instant.

All it takes is one thought, a date on the calendar, the infamous anniversary to take you right back to that spot.

And you can feel it, you can smell it, taste everything about it.

You're right back there.

So the first step isn't pretending everything's fine.

It's instead being honest.

That experience, it changed you.

And that's okay.

What I want you to remember is that scars, they're not a sign of weakness.

Instead, scars are proof that healing has already happened.

Once we acknowledge it, once we get real with ourselves that what we've been through has been something monumental, we can move to step number two.

I want us to begin to try reteaching our brain that we're safe.

Your brain, it got you through the storm.

Now it has to learn that the storm is over.

It can take down the hurricane shutters, it can stop watching the weather channel, anticipating the winds and the rain.

No, life is good.

Remove the shutters, take down all precautions, and start loving life again.

And the way we do this is just one thought at a time.

The next time that you start to think, what if this happens?

What if?

What then?

What am I gonna do?

When you start to ask that question, and I want you to just stop, to pause, and instead, I want you to say the following to yourself.

Right now, I'm okay.

Maybe not forever.

I don't know what tomorrow holds, but right now, life is good, and I don't have to worry about tomorrow.

I don't have to worry about next week.

That is gonna happen regardless.

All I can control is what I'm feeling, what I'm doing, what I'm thinking right now.

Right now, I'm okay.

Right now, life is okay.

So stop worrying about tomorrow.

My friend, peace doesn't live in the future.

Peace only lives in the present moment.

In the third step of our four-step process, we're simply replacing fear with gratitude.

Because fear asks, what if something bad happens?

But gratitude, it asks a better question.

What gets to happen today because of what I've gone through?

So instead of me asking myself, what if the tumor comes back?

I get to instead ask the question, what do I get to do today?

Because it didn't.

Instead of asking the question of, what if I never had a brain tumor?

What if I never went blind?

Instead, I can reframe it and start asking my question of, well, because this did happen, what has it done for me?

Would I be this same person had I not gone through what I did?

For you, I want you to reframe these negative questions with positive ones.

We can't change the past, but we can impact the present.

And again, the future, that's anybody's guess.

All we can focus on is right now.

So when you're getting caught up in the questions that tear us apart, that rob us of joy, that keep us from loving life and living it like it was meant to be, my friend, I want you to reframe it, to rethink of it, to focus on positive, viewing the glass as half full.

Even if you clearly look at it and see that it's half empty, we are focusing on changing the perspective to being half full.

You, my friend, are a survivor.

And survivors don't just count their blessings, they live them.

They live them out loud.

And that is what I want for you.

And with those first three steps done, we can move to step four.

This is probably the most powerful step of them all, is I want you to start living before you're ready.

So many people, so many of us, wait until you feel safe before you start living again.

You keep telling yourself when this happens, when that happens, when I feel this way, then I'll do that.

But my friend, all that's doing is robbing you of today.

Safety doesn't come before living.

Instead, the feeling of safety comes because you choose to start living again.

You make plans, you take trips, you take risks, you start loving life, living life like it was meant to be.

You start loving again, you start planning bigger plans further and further out.

And when you start moving forward with life, it doesn't mean that fear goes away.

You just get to take it out of the driver's seat.

No longer is it dictating your life.

So, my friend, what I want you to do at this moment is I want you to take a moment and think to yourself, what is that cloud that's looming over you?

What is that feeling of dread that you carry with you?

Whatever that is that's over top of you, whatever that thing is that has you waiting on the next shoe to drop, maybe just implement one of the four strategies I just mentioned.

One of the four strategies.

You don't have to do them all.

You don't have to do them in order.

Just do what feels right to you.

Is it reframing the negative as a positive?

Is it beginning to just allow yourself to start living before you think you're ready?

Whatever it is, I want you to do it.

And I want you to make a decision, an intentional decision to start doing it.

My friend, if you've made it through to the end of this episode, you're still here with me now.

Well, I have to believe that there's something in your life that is over top of you, and you're ready to let it go.

You're ready to release that fear and anxiety and that horrible feeling of what if.

Let this be your sign that you are meant to let it go.

You are meant to start loving life again.

So please stop waiting on the next shoe to drop.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

This was the 437th episode of Grit Grace and Inspiration.

If I can ever be of help to you in any way, shape, or form, even if it just means somebody to talk to, my friend, please know this.

I'm not just the host of a podcast.

I'm also just a guy here trying to use what I've gone through in life to be a help to you.

So reach out to me.

Go to my website, gritgraceinspiration.com, is the best place to go where you can have easy access to send me a message.

Reach out, say hello.

I would love to hear from you.

And until next time, just remember if you're waiting on the next shoe to drop, I want you to stop.

And instead, I want you to start living.