Life is unpredictable. You’re grooving along, everything is going great, and then BAM! The unexpected Awful Thing happens that throws off all of your progress.
It can be tough to get back up when life knocks you down. I know. Sometimes it can take months or years to figure out how to navigate some of life’s twists and turns.
Resiliency is a thing that’s often talked about, but rarely do people teach you how to build it within yourself. It’s often viewed as this mystical thing that some people just have or don’t have rather than the truth that it’s something you can easily train into yourself.
I often talk about nervous system responses and survival mode versus stress response and how to effectively manage them, but that’s only one part of the process. Once you’ve successfully managed your nervous system, then what?
It’s the ‘then what?’ that people tend to struggle with the most after awful life events.
How do you get your motivation back once you’ve recovered? How do you decide what to do now that all of the plans for yourself and your life have changed so dramatically? How can you find joy again when you don’t know what makes you happy anymore? What even IS happiness anyway?
If you’ve been to a show, you know that I talk about a 2 step process for managing your nervous system responses. If you haven’t been to one yet, the next one is happening this upcoming Saturday, June 1st, in Truro. I highly recommend that you come out. Tickets are on Super Sale now, so it’s the BEST time to get yours. If you’re struggling with anything at all, I’m going to teach you how to not only come back from it, but how to thrive BECAUSE of it.
Why this 2 step process that I’m going to teach you is SO IMPORTANT is that it actually helps you to train your resiliency. It takes you from having an external locus of control to an internal one - meaning, your happiness and satisfaction with life are no longer at the whim of the events happening to you and around you. It teaches you how to very quickly bounce back from any set back, any injury, any Awful Thing life can throw at you. How? Because it teaches you a very easy to follow system that you have complete control over, no matter what, for giving yourself everything you need no matter the circumstances. This builds self trust, and self trust is the absolute key to resiliency.
Once your nervous system trusts you that you will always give it what it needs to thrive, then it has no need to panic to get your attention when life is happening. That’s the key to recovering quickly, to maintaining logic and brain capacity, to be able to make decisions, and to maintain focus and motivation while life occurs.
So, what’s one thing you can start to think about now that will help what I’m going to teach you make the most sense quickly?
I want you to think about when the last time you felt overwhelmed by life was. It might be right now. What was the first thing you stopped doing when life happened? I’m willing to bet the very first thing that flew out the window was anything that brought you joy.
The way our Survival Modes work is our brains immediately narrow focus to only the things that keep you alive. Anything else it immediately ignores. But the antidote to overwhelm is joy. So, by cutting out all of the things that bring you joy, you’re accidentally setting yourself up to stay stuck in your Survival Mode response. Stay stuck there long enough and life becomes just a series of awful events that you have to survive with no joy or happiness or fulfilment in between.
One of the easiest and quickest ways to turn off Survival Mode is doing stuff that brings you joy. But, if you’ve been stuck in Survival Mode too long, you won’t know what those things are anymore and it becomes an extra process to rehabilitate that part first. Which is okay. It’s just an extra step, but I can help you with that too.
So, I want you to think of the things that bring you joy. It doesn’t have to be big. It’s often easier if they’re small, quick things you can give yourself repeatedly.
For instance, this weekend, I’m doing a Lobster Roll Food Crawl. Just because it brings me IMMENSE joy to do. Or, I’ll watch cute animal videos on social media. Or scroll Pinterest for dark humour memes that make me laugh and send them to friends I know will appreciate them and laugh with me.
What are some quick easy things you can do right now that would bring you joy?
Be sure to bring that list with you this upcoming Saturday, June 1st to the Truro show and I’ll teach you what to do once you have it. This list is the key to unlocking your motivation, passion, productivity etc etc. It’s also fine if you can’t think of a single thing to put on the list. I can help with that too.
You can get your tickets for the show here:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/dr-stephanie-the-world-record-tour-tickets-902281025837
Can’t wait to see you all there! You’re not going to want to miss it!