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

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

Kevin Lowe: And especially now, after the storm has passed, you're supposed to be enjoying life again.

Kevin Lowe: Things are supposed to be good. So today, we're going to help you get out of survival mode.

Kevin Lowe: We're going to 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.

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

Kevin Lowe: Welcome to the podcast.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, surviving something hard, that's only half the journey.

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

Kevin Lowe: That's where real healing takes place.

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

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

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

Kevin Lowe: That came with a cancer diagnosis.

Kevin Lowe: And he underwent chemotherapy. Ten grueling months.

Kevin Lowe: And even after all of it was done, was over. He was free and clear.

Kevin Lowe: The cancer was gone. He had to live with this feeling of waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Kevin Lowe: 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?

Kevin Lowe: It's every scan of the MRI. It's every test result, the blood work.

Kevin Lowe: 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?

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

Kevin Lowe: It can be your job. That's uncertain.

Kevin Lowe: What if you don't get another sale?

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

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

Kevin Lowe: What's next? These questions, they can rob us of joy. They can rob us of life.

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

Kevin Lowe: And the whole thing here is the fact that our body, it heals way faster than our mind.

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

Kevin Lowe: It's there trying to keep us safe. It's trying to work in our favor.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: You've been in the war zone. And so, even though your body might be healed, the mind has not.

Kevin Lowe: Basically, your brain, your mind, it learned how to survive the storm.

Kevin Lowe: But it's not been taught how to survive the calm, to be able to relax again, to take it easy.

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

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

Kevin Lowe: So the question becomes, how do you overcome it? How do you move forward?

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

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

Kevin Lowe: 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?

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

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

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

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

Kevin Lowe: Have been so for now well over 20 years.

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

Kevin Lowe: And mine was a brain tumor. A brain tumor, thankfully, that was non-cancerous, but it was life-threatening.

Kevin Lowe: 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 going to grow back?

Kevin Lowe: And even decades later, maybe I'm not feeling too good. Maybe I'm having a headache.

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

Kevin Lowe: I mean, the doctors tell us no, but what if?

Kevin Lowe: 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.

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

Kevin Lowe: This entire podcast is just built off of my own life's experience.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: And that is simply acknowledging what has happened.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: It's more than even just something. It's monumental.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: Every piece of you feels it. You can go right back into the heart of it in an instant.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: You can smell it, taste everything about it. You're right back there.

Kevin Lowe: So the first step isn't pretending everything's fine. It's instead being honest.

Kevin Lowe: That experience, it changed you. And that's okay.

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

Kevin Lowe: Instead, scars are proof that healing has already happened.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

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

Kevin Lowe: Your brain, it got you through the storm.

Kevin Lowe: Now it has to learn that the storm is over. It can take down the hurricane shutters.

Kevin Lowe: It can stop watching the weather channel, anticipating the winds and the rain.

Kevin Lowe: No, life is good.

Kevin Lowe: Remove the shutters. Take down all precautions and start loving life again.

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

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

Kevin Lowe: What if? What then? What am I going to do?

Kevin Lowe: When you start to ask that question, and I want you to just stop, to pause.

Kevin Lowe: And instead, I want you to say the following to yourself. Right now, I'm okay.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: I don't have to worry about next week. That is going to happen regardless.

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

Kevin Lowe: Right now, I'm okay.

Kevin Lowe: Right now, life is okay. So stop worrying about tomorrow.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, peace doesn't live in the future. Peace only lives in the present moment.

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

Kevin Lowe: Because fear asks, what if something bad happens? But gratitude, it asks a better question.

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

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

Kevin Lowe: I get to instead ask the question, what do I get to do today? Because it didn't.

Kevin Lowe: Instead of asking the question of what if I never had a brain tumor?

Kevin Lowe: What if I never went blind?

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

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

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

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

Kevin Lowe: And again, the future, that's anybody's guess.

Kevin Lowe: 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 a loving life and living it like it was meant to be?

Kevin Lowe: My friend, I want you to reframe it, to rethink of it, to focus on positive.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: You, my friend, are a survivor. And survivors don't just count their blessings.

Kevin Lowe: They live them. They live them out loud. And that is what I want for you.

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

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

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

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

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

Kevin Lowe: Safety doesn't come before living. Instead, the feeling of safety comes because you choose to start living again.

Kevin Lowe: You make plans, you take trips, you take risks.

Kevin Lowe: You start loving life, living life like it was meant to be. You start loving again.

Kevin Lowe: You start planning bigger plans further and further out.

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

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

Kevin Lowe: 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?

Kevin Lowe: What is that feeling of dread that you carry with you?

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: Is it reframing the negative as a positive? Is it beginning to just allow yourself to start living before you think you're ready?

Kevin Lowe: Whatever it is, I want you to do it. And I want you to make a decision, an intentional decision to start doing it.

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

Kevin Lowe: 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.

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

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

Kevin Lowe: You are meant to start loving life again. So please stop waiting on the next shoe to drop.

Kevin Lowe: I'm your host, Kevin Lowe. This was the 437th episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

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

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: Reach out, say hello. I would love to hear from you.

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

Kevin Lowe: And instead, I want you to start living.