Show Transcript

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I'm going to hope that you've never actually been stuck in quicksand before,

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but if you have, then you will know that the more you struggle,

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the harder you fight, the deeper you're going to sink.

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The best thing you can do is to just be still.

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You could kind of say you just need to embrace the suck.

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Today, we are talking about the philosophy known as embrace the suck brought

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to us by the military. But today, we're not talking about the military.

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We're not actually talking about quicksand.

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We're talking about the hard times in life, and that sometimes the best thing

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that you can do is to just embrace it.

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Today is episode 285, my friend, let's embrace the suck.

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What's up, my friend, and welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

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I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life-saving surgery

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only to find that I was left completely blind.

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And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

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And here on this podcast, I wanna share those insights with you.

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Because friend, if you are still searching for your purpose,

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still trying to understand why,

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or still left searching for that next right path to take, well,

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consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

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Inside of our previous episode, I announced our prayer request for the week.

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And that was from Debbie, who asked for us to join her in praying for her son, Shannon.

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Shannon has had some really big medical issues. He just underwent a massive heart surgery.

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And she would love it if we could all join her in praying for a complete healing,

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that God would make him well and make him whole and that he could get back his

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strength to regain his life again by getting past this big medical issue.

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His name is Shannon, and it would be awesome if you could help me in praying for him today.

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In relation to today's topic of this philosophy of embracing the suck,

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one thing that we don't have to embrace the suck on is shopping at MyPillow.

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Thanks to our amazing sponsor, MyPillow, you can get up to 80% off when you use promo code Kevin.

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Yes, you can go shopping today, use promo code Kevin, and you can get up to 80% off.

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Now, here's what's extremely exciting right now is they have the $25 extravaganza.

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Some of their very best products are literally only $25. It is insane.

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Be sure to go shopping today at mypillow.com and use promo code Kevin.

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That link is also inside of today's show notes if that makes life any easier for you.

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I also want to remind you, if you would like to send in your own prayer request, please do so.

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That's how this is going to be kept going is I want to do it as long as it's

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something that you, my listeners, want to participate in.

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To send your prayer requests, I've made it super easy. You can text your prayer

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request to 877-749-8178.

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Again, send your prayer request as a text message to 877-749-8178.

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And with that, we are ready to dive into the meat and potatoes of today's episode,

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this idea of embracing the suck.

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In the military, embracing the suck, it's more than just a catchphrase.

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It's literally a means of survival.

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It means leaning into the hard times, not giving up when you want to.

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It means literally embracing the hardest moment that you're going through.

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Because you know on the other side is victory.

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How this relates to you is, well, today we're talking about what it means to

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lean in on the hard stuff that you're going through,

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what it means to embrace it, to understand it, to give it the attention it deserves

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so that you can emerge on the other side,

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a bigger and better version of you.

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Embracing the suck, it's about you acknowledging that what I'm going through

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right now, yeah, it's hard.

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It's difficult. It literally is about to break me, but I know that I will get through this.

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I know that there is light on the other side of this darkness that I'm in.

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Sometimes you just have to remind yourself to just embrace it, to understand it.

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And like I said, to give it the attention it deserves.

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Sometimes we just want to immediately start fighting, start struggling.

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But sometimes we just need to relax.

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Sometimes we need to lean in and we need to embrace the sucky moments in life.

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I want you to think back to a point in your life when you were doing something.

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Maybe you were out for a run and you were so tired. You were ready to just give

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up, and now it's the hardest part of the entire run.

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You're going uphill, up the mountain, and you didn't give up. You didn't turn around.

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Instead, you embraced it. You dug a little deeper, and you found a part of you

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that you didn't even know existed before, and you ran up that hill faster than

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you could have ever imagined.

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You embraced the moment. it. Or maybe you were at work and the boss gave you

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a really big project, something totally overwhelming,

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something that you never thought you would be able to complete in the unrealistic

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time that the boss gave you.

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And yet what happened?

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You did it. You embraced the moment. You took ownership over what you were given and you did it.

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You embraced the sucky moments and look what happened on the other side.

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Why this matters is that when you think back to the stuff that you've already

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done, the really bad moments that you've already overcome,

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well, those are you just just reminding yourself of how incredible you really and truly are.

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I think so many of us, we put ourselves down. We don't think that we can handle it.

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We look at other people and we say to ourselves, wow, I could never do what they're doing.

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But the fact is true is that,

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None of us think we can get through the hard times until we're in them.

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And then at that moment, it's up to us to either embrace it and to get through

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it or to fight and to ruin our lives.

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Today, it's about you looking at life in the hard times a little bit differently.

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It's not about giving up. No, embracing the suck has nothing to do with giving up.

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It's you literally embracing it. The whole reason why this topic is being discussed

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today is because of the guest in our previous episode.

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If you listen to that, then you will know that our guest, he had the unimaginable happen to him.

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He was sentenced at 19 years old to 12 years in prison.

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Now, he could have chosen to let that ruin his life, but instead he embraced

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it. He embraced the sucky moment in life, and he turned his life around for the better.

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That is what we're talking about when you embrace the suck, is you turn the

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negative into a positive.

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You find the good in the midst of the bad, all because you chose to change your

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mindset, to change what actions you're taking by embracing the moment as it is.

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Now, I understand that sometimes things are easier said than done.

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So a few strategies to help you the next time that you're in a moment that is

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hard and you're wondering to yourself, how do I exactly embrace this horrible moment?

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Depending upon the situation, I want you to first and foremost, just breathe.

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Breathe, remind yourself to take a deep breath, to get present in the moment

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of recognizing how you feel, what your emotions are feeling,

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what your body's telling you.

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But it all happens by you taking a moment to just sit still and breathe.

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Big, deep breaths, it will do wonders for you.

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You'll find that your mind gets a little bit clear year.

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And maybe a lot of that stress, it starts to go away all by being purposeful

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with taking big, deep breaths and helping yourself to relax.

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The other tactic is to prepare mentally for the hard times in life.

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Maybe you're not in a hard time right now, which thank goodness,

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but if you know If you know how life is, then you know that there will be tough times to come.

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Maybe you can go ahead and start trying to get yourself prepared mentally for

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when those times do come and start getting your own game plan together to how

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you're not going to fight through it. You're just going to embrace it.

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And by embracing it, you will get out of it faster than if you fight and struggle,

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just like the example of the quicksand at the beginning of today's episode.

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My other tactic for you, it goes back to what I spoke about earlier.

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Is you looking back on your life and letting yourself realize all the stuff

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that you've already done, all the moments that you did embrace and you got through

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it and you came out a better person on the other end.

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Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of how awesome we really are by looking

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at the stuff we've already done.

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And my last little tactic is to start seeing challenges as opportunities.

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Now, trust me, I know it sounds kind of stupid because nobody wants to go through the hard times in life.

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And that's not what I'm suggesting.

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What I'm saying, though, is the fact is true.

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You, me, we will all go through hard times.

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So what if we can figure out, though, how to use those challenges as opportunities?

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That's what I'm talking about here. is for you starting to look at the hard

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times at a different angle and figuring out how you can harness them to propel

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you forward, turning the bad into good.

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So with those tactics, with today's episode, I want you to now start to think

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about how this can apply to your life right now.

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What is the stuff that you're going through? What is the stuff that maybe you've

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been struggling, fighting against, and you've gotten nowhere? where.

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You're like a salmon trying to swim upstream.

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You're swimming with all your might, yet you're not moving forward.

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How can you now, knowing this philosophy, start to implement it in your life today?

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What can you lean into? What can you embrace?

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The stuff that you don't feel like you should be embracing, but you do because

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you know the sooner you can embrace it, the sooner The sooner you can give it

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the attention it deserves, the faster you'll get out on the other side.

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I want you to remember this is the fact is true is that oftentimes the hardest

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things we go through lead to some of the most profound changes in our lives

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and changes for the better.

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You're listening to a guy who went blind over 20 years ago.

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And it took a long time, but I finally realized all the amazing blessings that

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have come out of what happened to me.

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I'm only here doing this podcast because of what has happened to me,

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because I chose to lean in, to embrace the suckiness,

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and to figure out how can I make good out of the bad.

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And I want the same for you.

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I want to end by asking you, if you are experiencing a moment that you feel

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like, wow, okay, how do I really embrace it? How do I get through it?

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And you would love for somebody to talk it out with, well, I'm going to leave

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a link in today's show notes where you can book a free call with me.

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I would love to be able to help you to walk through it, to figure out what your

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game plan is, how you're going to get through it, how can you embrace it,

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yet still keep moving forward to get out of it.

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Again, I'll leave that link inside of today's show notes.

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I would be glad to be able to sit down and talk with you and see if we can't

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figure out a game plan for you to keep moving forward with that.

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My name is Kevin Lowe. This is Great Grace and Inspiration.

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And Hey, maybe it's time for you to embrace the suck.

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Music.