When Life Gets Hard: Is What You Turn to Helping You Face Life—or Avoid It?

And the crazy thing is that a lot of times they can get confusing because what we think is helping us is actually hurting us.

What we think we're doing for our good is in fact harming us.

And that's what we're talking about inside of today's 464th episode of Grit Grace and Inspiration.

My friend, I am your host, Kevin Lowe, a guy on a mission to inspire the world to never give up on life, even when it may feel like life is giving up on you.

So if you're going through hard times, my friend, let me be here to tell you, just as a friend, as somebody who you're sitting next to, who's coming through your earbuds right now, that it's all right.

Things are gonna be okay.

That it's okay if life is messy, if it doesn't look the way you thought it would.

It all works out in the end.

Me and you, we just have to keep showing up, doing our best, and understand that everything is gonna be okay.

And today I want to enforce that because so often we find ways of trying to escape life.

And a lot of times, escape can actually look positive, like diving into our work.

Yes, we look on the outside as productive, according to our schedule, our calendar, we are super productive, we got focused goals, we got things we're achieving.

People are like, whoo, man, look at them.

They got it going on.

Meanwhile, inside, if we want to get quiet enough to actually really get truthful with ourselves as to what's going on, we're probably just trying to run away from life.

Work is an escape.

It's not us being productive, it's us just using something to occupy our time, to get our mind off of maybe the stuff that isn't going so great in life.

And so, what really prompted the idea of today's talk is the previous two interviews that I had earlier this month, the month of September.

And those interviews were the first with Alistair Thompson, the second was with Charlie Webb.

Two guys, two totally different stories, and yet there was one theme that ran through both.

That was the ocean.

For Aleister Thompson, if you heard his interview, you got to hear the depths of his story from growing up in South Africa to finding refuge in the ocean.

For Charlie Webb, well, his life took a turn he never saw coming when he was just 19 years old.

A tragic motorcycle accident left him paralyzed.

The place that he always went to, the water, surfing, it was a part of him.

And all of a sudden, it was taken from him.

And it was taken from him for over 20 years.

It would literally be over 20 years later before Charlie Webb would return to the water.

A place that we can go to escape can either be a negative or it can also be a positive, a place of refuge.

A place that we go to escape can either remove us from life or it can help us plug back into life.

The important thing is to identify which it is for you.

Because so many times we turn to things that we may think are harmless, like our phone.

Yes, the very thing that you're probably listening to me on right now can sometimes be the worst thing of all.

The technology, the social media, the little app, the little icon.

It's just a flick and a tap away.

And there you are escaping from life.

Now the question is, I think, what is it doing for us?

Is it helping us or harming us?

Do any of us actually get off of social media, whether that's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, you name it?

Do we get off of there feeling good, positive, energized, electrified?

Like we're ready to absolutely crush it in our goals?

Or do we get off of there thinking, wow, my life sucks?

Look at everybody else.

Why don't I have what they have?

Why is my life gone like it has?

We get in that trap of comparison and we click off of the app once we're able to finally peel ourselves away from our phone enough to stop the doom scroll, and we feel worse than when we came.

My friend, maybe it's not social media for you, maybe it's TV.

Now, yeah, there's a good time and place, I feel, for everybody to get lost in some trashy, crappy TV shows.

But the point I'm making, is it really good for you?

Do you come away at the end of an entire Saturday spent watching TV?

Do you feel better about life?

Or do you just feel suck down, brought down, left to be questioning your very existence?

Because, well, you just wasted an entire day watching crappy TV of some horrible reality show.

Whatever it is, we have to get clear on what it's doing for us, or maybe more importantly, what it's doing to us.

Is it a place that's benefiting us or harming us?

For Aleister Thompson, for Charlie Webb, I look at both of their stories, both involving the ocean, surfing.

And yeah, even though there was that common thread, that really isn't what their interviews were about.

They went so much deeper than that.

They were about finding oneself again.

It was about finding where in the world you're supposed to be.

One would travel all over the entire world, would end up in a place far different from where he began.

The other, well, he's actually in the same place it all started.

He didn't have to travel the world, but he did have to find himself again in the one place where it all started.

The ocean.

Sometimes we look so hard to find the thing to better our lives.

We look so hard to try to find the answer, the solution to our problems.

And a lot of times, most of the time, it's simpler than we realize.

And it's not just one of those things of the answer is within us.

It's actually the fact that I think a lot of times the answer is just right in front of us.

We're always trying to run away.

We're trying to find something new.

Well, maybe all along we just needed to get still.

Maybe we just need to step outside.

Maybe we just need to grab a cup of coffee and not immediately sit down at the computer and start plugging away.

But instead, we need to take that cup of coffee and go sit outside, watch the sunrise.

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SPEAKER_01: My friend, I'm about to turn 40 years old this month.

And even though I have a podcast, please by no means think that I have life figured out.

Because I certainly do not.

I still struggle.

I'm really struggling, getting ready to turn 40, trying to understand where my life's going.

What am I doing?

And yeah, there's times when I find myself lost in something, and I have to stop and ask myself Am I escaping from life?

Or is this activity just getting me plugged back into life?

For me, a positive example of what I'm trying to say, something that isn't an escape, but instead is a refuge, for me is creating.

It's creating this very podcast.

Now, granted, there are some times when getting on the mic and recording this podcast are a struggle.

But every time I do it, it makes me feel good in the end.

Same thing when I sit down to create a new song, whether it's for myself or someone else.

I get to be creative, I get to do something.

Same thing when I sit down at the computer.

Now with me exploring the depths of AI technology, creating websites and apps.

It's me getting to be creative, using tools that I enjoy using.

And it's not escaping from life or escaping reality, but it's just helping me get plugged into it.

But more specifically, and more importantly, it's helping me plug into the very thing that I believe brings me joy.

And that's creating something from nothing.

From creating something in the hope that it's going to make somebody's day better.

That's why I do this podcast.

It's simply the hope that maybe someday one of these episodes I record reaches the person on the other side of the world who just really needed to hear what I had to say.

Maybe today that's you.

Maybe you've been constantly escaping from life, diving into oceans merely to try to get away from what's going on.

But what I want you to do today is I want you to find the ocean that's going to give back to you.

Don't just escape life, plug into life.

Find the thing that lights you up, find the thing that lets you use your gifts to be a gift to someone else, to be a gift to yourself.

My friend, today I just want to encourage you that if you're struggling, don't look for an escape.

Don't look for some way to get away from life, but instead find a way to plug back into life.

Find a way not to escape, but to recharge, to revitalize yourself.

That's what I want for you.

My friend, today is short and sweet to the point.

And that's all I need to say is I just want you to focus on what you're doing each and every day, the activities you're doing.

Are they benefiting you or harming you?

Get clear on what they are, if they're for a benefit or for a negative, and focus on doing the things that are positive force in your life.

My friend, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

This is Grit Grace and Inspiration.

I hope you have the most amazing day ever, and I will see you right back here next week.

But until then, get out there and enjoy this beautiful day.