00:00:01.157 --> 00:00:05.657

Kevin Lowe: You survived it. I'm talking about the diagnosis, the surgery,

00:00:05.917 --> 00:00:08.357

Kevin Lowe: the divorce, the job loss.

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

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Kevin Lowe: And yet you can't help but fear what's next.

00:00:20.197 --> 00:00:24.377

Kevin Lowe: You have that ever looming cloud that just won't leave.

00:00:24.657 --> 00:00:30.037

Kevin Lowe: That feeling of doom, of dread. Instead, constantly waiting on the next shoe to drop.

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

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: We're going to have you living a life that you're no longer waiting on that

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Kevin Lowe: next shoe to drop. But instead, you're focused on enjoying right now,

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: Welcome to the podcast.

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: Now, the inspiration for today's episode, it came from our past interview with

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Kevin Lowe: Steve Garrity, a guy who I've been talking about this month because,

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Kevin Lowe: well, his story inspired me.

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

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Kevin Lowe: That came with a cancer diagnosis.

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

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: Because if you've ever dealt with something like a cancer diagnosis,

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Kevin Lowe: you know that even after the cancer is done, is gone, you still have the ever

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Kevin Lowe: looming fear of what if it comes back?

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

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Kevin Lowe: Every little thing is another moment of anticipation, of worry,

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Kevin Lowe: of anxiety, of that ever horrible question of what if. What if it comes back?

00:03:03.640 --> 00:03:08.080

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

00:03:08.320 --> 00:03:11.940

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

00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:14.800

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: But sometimes it gets in the way because it's been trained that you've been

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Kevin Lowe: in this trauma. You've been in the middle of battle.

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

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: Instead, it focuses on all those negative things, the fears,

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Kevin Lowe: the anxieties, the worries, the things that keep us up at night.

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Kevin Lowe: And that's exactly why some of the hardest work we do doesn't happen during

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Kevin Lowe: the crisis, but rather it happens afterwards.

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

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: How do we get our brain to go back to times that were good, to not anticipate

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Kevin Lowe: the worst, to not expect bad, but instead to expect good?

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: Maybe what's worked for others. that I have to think has worked for others,

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Kevin Lowe: like the guy Steve Garrity.

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: And because I was just a 17-year-old teenager, kind of like Steve,

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Kevin Lowe: when my life took an unexpected turn.

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

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Kevin Lowe: but it was life-threatening.

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Kevin Lowe: And even after the surgery, even after that tumor was removed,

00:06:05.383 --> 00:06:11.123

Kevin Lowe: I still had to keep going back for MRIs to see if the little piece that had

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Kevin Lowe: to be left, was it going to grow back?

00:06:13.663 --> 00:06:19.883

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

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

00:06:27.325 --> 00:06:31.945

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

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Kevin Lowe: It can eat us alive. So today, as I said, I'm just sharing the four things that

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Kevin Lowe: I found to work and that I hope can work for you.

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: Here, sharing it with you. The first step in this process is honestly how we

00:06:58.625 --> 00:07:04.925

Kevin Lowe: have to start many things in life when it comes to overcoming challenges or obstacles or pain.

00:07:05.065 --> 00:07:08.385

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

00:07:08.865 --> 00:07:13.625

Kevin Lowe: Because if we want to pretend that something didn't impact our lives,

00:07:13.825 --> 00:07:18.205

Kevin Lowe: pretend that it was nothing, my friend, that only does harm in the end.

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Kevin Lowe: We have to be real. We have to be honest with no one else but ourselves,

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Kevin Lowe: that what we've gone through, what you've been through, is something.

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

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Kevin Lowe: So I'm not telling you anything you don't know, that whatever traumatic event

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Kevin Lowe: you've been through in your life, your brain remembers it.

00:07:41.665 --> 00:07:48.285

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

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Kevin Lowe: All it takes is one thought, a date on the calendar, the infamous anniversary,

00:07:55.165 --> 00:07:59.285

Kevin Lowe: to take you right back to that spot. And you can feel it.

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

00:08:04.845 --> 00:08:10.485

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

00:08:10.745 --> 00:08:15.145

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

00:08:16.180 --> 00:08:20.020

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

00:08:20.440 --> 00:08:24.600

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

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Kevin Lowe: Once we acknowledge it, once we get real with ourselves that what we've been

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Kevin Lowe: through has been something monumental, we can move to step number two.

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: No, life is good.

00:08:58.920 --> 00:09:04.320

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

00:09:04.580 --> 00:09:08.140

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

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: Maybe not forever. I don't know what tomorrow holds, but right now,

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Kevin Lowe: life is good, and I don't have to worry about tomorrow.

00:09:41.980 --> 00:09:46.300

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

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

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Kevin Lowe: Right now, I'm okay.

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

00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:09.540

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

00:10:10.383 --> 00:10:16.423

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

00:10:16.923 --> 00:10:22.623

Kevin Lowe: Because fear asks, what if something bad happens? But gratitude,

00:10:22.623 --> 00:10:24.263

Kevin Lowe: it asks a better question.

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

00:10:30.283 --> 00:10:35.663

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

00:10:35.663 --> 00:10:41.183

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

00:10:41.943 --> 00:10:47.483

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

00:10:47.783 --> 00:10:49.383

Kevin Lowe: What if I never went blind?

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Kevin Lowe: Instead, I can reframe it and start asking my question of, well,

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Kevin Lowe: because this did happen, what has it done for me?

00:10:58.583 --> 00:11:03.623

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

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

00:11:10.083 --> 00:11:14.623

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

00:11:15.043 --> 00:11:18.543

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

00:11:18.883 --> 00:11:24.803

Kevin Lowe: All we can focus on is right now. So when you're getting caught up in the questions

00:11:24.803 --> 00:11:31.103

Kevin Lowe: that tear us apart, that rob us of joy, that keep us from a loving life and

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Kevin Lowe: living it like it was meant to be?

00:11:32.903 --> 00:11:39.163

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

00:11:40.063 --> 00:11:45.363

Kevin Lowe: Viewing the glass as half full, even if you clearly look at it and see that

00:11:45.363 --> 00:11:51.003

Kevin Lowe: it's half empty, we are focusing on changing the perspective to being half full.

00:11:51.785 --> 00:11:56.645

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

00:11:56.985 --> 00:12:01.725

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

00:12:01.905 --> 00:12:07.045

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

00:12:07.665 --> 00:12:15.165

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

00:12:15.885 --> 00:12:22.605

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

00:12:22.865 --> 00:12:28.625

Kevin Lowe: You keep telling yourself, when this happens, when that happens,

00:12:28.925 --> 00:12:32.085

Kevin Lowe: when I feel this way, then I'll do that.

00:12:32.265 --> 00:12:35.905

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

00:12:36.745 --> 00:12:42.565

Kevin Lowe: Safety doesn't come before living. Instead, the feeling of safety comes because

00:12:42.565 --> 00:12:44.525

Kevin Lowe: you choose to start living again.

00:12:45.165 --> 00:12:49.665

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

00:12:50.543 --> 00:12:57.443

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

00:12:57.623 --> 00:13:02.123

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

00:13:02.343 --> 00:13:07.743

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

00:13:08.203 --> 00:13:10.983

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

00:13:11.303 --> 00:13:16.243

Kevin Lowe: No longer is it dictating your life. So my friend, what I want you to do at

00:13:16.243 --> 00:13:20.823

Kevin Lowe: this moment is I want you to take a moment and think to yourself,

00:13:21.143 --> 00:13:24.083

Kevin Lowe: what is that cloud that's looming over you?

00:13:24.403 --> 00:13:27.943

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

00:13:28.663 --> 00:13:34.163

Kevin Lowe: Whatever that is that's over top of you, whatever that thing is that has you

00:13:34.163 --> 00:13:40.703

Kevin Lowe: waiting on the next shoe to drop, maybe just implement one of the four strategies I just mentioned.

00:13:41.163 --> 00:13:45.303

Kevin Lowe: One of the four strategies. You don't have to do them all. You don't have to

00:13:45.303 --> 00:13:48.303

Kevin Lowe: do them in order. Just do what feels right to you.

00:13:48.923 --> 00:13:54.383

Kevin Lowe: Is it reframing the negative as a positive? Is it beginning to just allow yourself

00:13:54.383 --> 00:13:58.123

Kevin Lowe: to start living before you think you're ready?

00:13:58.483 --> 00:14:01.823

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

00:14:02.143 --> 00:14:04.863

Kevin Lowe: an intentional decision to start doing it.

00:14:05.263 --> 00:14:09.983

Kevin Lowe: My friend, if you've made it through to the end of this episode,

00:14:09.983 --> 00:14:11.983

Kevin Lowe: you're still here with me now.

00:14:12.303 --> 00:14:16.563

Kevin Lowe: Well, I have to believe that there's something in your life that is over top

00:14:16.563 --> 00:14:19.323

Kevin Lowe: of you. and you're ready to let it go.

00:14:19.603 --> 00:14:25.783

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

00:14:26.043 --> 00:14:30.443

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

00:14:31.233 --> 00:14:39.113

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

00:14:39.413 --> 00:14:45.553

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

00:14:45.713 --> 00:14:47.153

Kevin Lowe: Grace, and Inspiration.

00:14:47.593 --> 00:14:53.673

Kevin Lowe: If I can ever be of help to you in any way, shape, or form, even if it just

00:14:53.673 --> 00:14:59.353

Kevin Lowe: means somebody to talk to, my friend, please know this. I'm not just the host of a podcast.

00:14:59.893 --> 00:15:05.593

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.

00:15:05.853 --> 00:15:12.593

Kevin Lowe: So reach out to me, go to my website, gritgraceinspiration.com is the best place

00:15:12.593 --> 00:15:16.233

Kevin Lowe: to go where you can have easy access to send me a message.

00:15:16.653 --> 00:15:19.513

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

00:15:19.793 --> 00:15:25.993

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

00:15:26.373 --> 00:15:28.933

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