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Survival Times: How to Recognize, Cope and Adapt When Trials Hit {Episode 20}
132 Plays5 years ago
Have you ever gone through a situation that just flattened you emotionally, physically or spiritually? Grief, trauma, the birth of a baby, a cross-country move or any number of life changes can cause us to go into survival mode. It can seem overwhelming and impossible that you'll ever feel normal again, but we're here to tell you that you WILL!
In this episode we'll give you the tips you need to give yourself extra patience and grace as you navigate this tricky time and how to come out on the other side.
Audrey's Recommendation: Live Free Creative podcast Episode #33
Bonnie's Recommendation: Natalie Norton on Instagram, Show Up Podcast
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Theme
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. And we're homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter. Regardless of where you are on your journey, come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
00:00:32
Speaker
Hey everybody, and welcome back to the podcast. We are so happy to be here, as usual, and have a really great episode for you today. We are going to be talking about survival times, and we'll explain what we mean by that in just a minute. But Audrey's got a funny mom segment for us today. Take it away, Audrey.
00:00:50
Speaker
Okay. Well, um, I was in the middle of my survival time that we're going to be talking about in a little bit. And, um, so I was on my own in the kitchen and, um, trying to get everything done because there was a couple of kids that needed my attention, needed me. And, um, I was emptying the dishwasher and we have in our kitchen, we have, um,
00:01:12
Speaker
Stone tile on the floor and so if you drop something on it it breaks so of course I'm emptying the dishwasher and I let go of a bowl and it goes skidding across the floor of course it shatters into a million pieces and my My five-year-old walks up to the doorway it says
00:01:30
Speaker
Why did you do that mom? As if that was something I had been intending to do. So instead of breaking down and curling up in a ball on the floor and crying at that point, which was probably one option, I just decided to laugh and then went on and cleaned it up and kept on with my day. But that was a moment that I found humorous when I could have cried.
00:01:56
Speaker
That's my humor segment for today. I love that. Yeah. In fact, we're going to add that to our tools to use during our survival times is that humor is a huge one. So I appreciate you sharing that for sure.
Defining Survival Times
00:02:07
Speaker
Okay. So what we mean by survival times are those periods of time that you find yourself so overwhelmed and just bombarded with
00:02:15
Speaker
the realities of life that you just can hardly function. And to start off, we're going to talk a little bit about how to recognize what these survival times look like and how to know if one is coming and how to prepare for it a little bit. Okay, so first of all, both of us want to share just a little bit about our current situations because we both really feel like we are in survival mode right now. So you probably know that we both recently had our ninth babies. And so the birth of a new child is definitely
00:02:45
Speaker
something that precedes a survival time. Currently, I am trying to hold on to homeschooling. Basically, all we're doing is a little bit of reading every day. I'm trying to nurse a baby, keep him happy, trying to run a household that always looks like a tornado went through it. I have three fairly big helpers, but I also have five other small children all eight and under.
00:03:09
Speaker
under eight actually nobody's turned eight yet. So you can just imagine what my life looks like right now. And I just share that so that you can get a glimpse of one person's survival time and what that feels like to try to keep all the balls in the air when you're feeling overwhelmed.
Current Survival Scenarios
00:03:26
Speaker
How about you Audrey? How's your what's your current life situation looking like? Yeah well we also just had our ninth and I don't think mine is quite as intense like
00:03:36
Speaker
into survival mode because I have older children. So I have two children that are adults and then I have two teenagers and then I have some little kids too, four little kids and then the baby or younger kids. But it's not as survival mode as some of my last births and pregnancies because I have help and I have older situation.
00:04:01
Speaker
older kids helping me out. But something that threw me into survival mode this past week was all eight out of nine of my kids, the baby was excluded, came down with a sickness at the same time. I think it was just a cold, but they had sore throats and they had headaches and every horizontal surface in my house had a kid laying on it wanting mom to bring them something, an ice pack for their fever or
00:04:29
Speaker
a cold drink for their throat or some tea or something. And so I was left doing all the laundry and all the meals where usually I've been used to some of my older kids helping me with that. So that kind of threw me into survival mode in this past week. So a shorter term survival situation, but still pretty intense.
Appreciating Positives During Survival Times
00:04:51
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I will say, I saw, I'm pretty good at seeing the bright side of nasty situations. I will say that number one, you and your baby survived. So that is a bright side. At least there was a functional mom to take care of kids. And also, I mean, when kids are sick, they don't make messes.
00:05:12
Speaker
Except for maybe vomit. It's true. And another thing, I think, a positive out of it is that I really, really could appreciate how helpful my older kids are. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Like I wanted to send one of them to you to help you out for a while.
00:05:31
Speaker
I will take one anytime. In fact, for years, I still think this. Why did I not have a girl first? Not like I could have controlled it, but a 14-year-old girl might've been more helpful at this point. I love my son, but... Oh, most definitely. And we'll talk a little bit in the future about how to recognize the good that's still going on around you and to see the bright side in these survival times. Because sometimes they're given to us, I think, to allow us to slow down and to kind of enjoy the roses a little bit more.
00:06:00
Speaker
than just running around at 100 miles an hour like we usually do as moms. Yeah, that is what we're going to talk about next, is recognizing when you're in a survival mode situation, when those times, those periods where you just need to switch into survival mode. Bonnie and I both described our survival times, periods that we're in right now.
00:06:24
Speaker
And for us, it was birth that kind of threw us into that. But it can also be other life events like death or a move. Changing schools, a new school for kids goes into survival mode when they have to be adapting to everything. Back to school for parents is another situation.
00:06:44
Speaker
Um, illness, like I was talking about, my kids all got sick at one time, which was, you know, threw me into survival mode. Vacation, um, is a good time to switch into survival mode. Basically anything that messes with your routine, your routine that everybody's used to and can kind of relax in, um, that throws you into survival mode.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think that recognition is kind of the most important part because if we are really in a survival mode, but we're still pushing ahead like normal and trying to get all the things done like we usually do, we're going to burn out fast and we're going to be miserable. So to recognize that you're in one and oftentimes to recognize that it's coming can be really, really helpful to just lower your expectations. That should be our tagline for this podcast, lower your expectations.
00:07:31
Speaker
And we don't mean it in a bad way, we mean it in give yourself some grace, give yourself a little bit of patience and a little more kindness. Because if you don't lower your expectations and you spend your entire mothering years worked up and uptight because your expectations aren't being met, I think that could be something that you would regret in the later years when your children are grown up and gone.
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, in fact, I want to share a message I got from a sweet woman on Instagram. She said that she's a grandma now and she said that she was recently looking back at pictures and videos of special occasions in her kids' lives.
00:08:07
Speaker
and that it really struck her how high strung she was running from one thing to another and, oh, we're going to put you here to blow out your candles and no, don't blow his candles out. No, you're going to unwrap the present like this and think grandma and you know, all these things. And she says when she's watching the video, she just wants to say, chill out. What's wrong with you? Why are you running around like a chicken with your head cut off? And she says now looking back, she doesn't have a ton of memories of experiences and of enjoying the moments. She has a lot of
00:08:34
Speaker
memories of getting things done. That really struck me because that is definitely something that I struggle with is valuing the relationships and the moments more than the productivity. This survival mode is definitely one of those times to take a step back and say,
00:08:51
Speaker
Is my life too full? Am I enjoying things the way I should be? Am I running myself so ragged that I won't have memories of experiences and of my children that I'll just have memories of laundry? So I really appreciated her comment, especially with the wisdom of a few extra years. Right. And a little bit different perspective on that. I wanted to share that as an adult, when I look back on my childhood and my dad passed away when I was 22, so he hasn't been a part of my adult life really.
Focusing on Basics in Survival Mode
00:09:21
Speaker
But I look back on those times with my dad and just really appreciate and respect all the fun times that he had with that. And I want my kids to have some something like that to look back on me about too. So a little bit different perspective.
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. And I'll admit right now, my kids do not have a lot of fond memories with me. I'm working on it. And that's not meant to be a reason for anyone to beat themselves up, but to just be aware that you don't have to be so hard on yourself to get all the things done. You can just relax a little bit sometimes. So once we've recognized that we're in one of these survival modes, the next step is to accept it. And those are two different things, really.
00:10:03
Speaker
I think the recognition comes fairly easily when you're realizing, oh, my life is a little full. I'm going to have to let some things go, but then to accept it and kind of settle in. An example of this for me was after my last baby, Alice. I was a little bit nervous. This was number eight. I thought, how are we going to keep up with school? How are we going to keep the household running when I'm down on the couch and recovering from having a baby?
00:10:25
Speaker
And I remember that I was really good at staying off my phone for some reason at that point. That was a temptation for me. And instead we just did a lot of couch time together. So the house was always a mess and the laundry was behind, but we did lots of reading aloud. That was basically what school was all about, was just reading books aloud together. The kids always knew where to find me. So if they came and they needed some special time, mom was just on the couch.
00:10:48
Speaker
Hanging out with the baby and it was great for me and great for them and I realized how many opportunities I often miss by running from one thing to another Because I wasn't always available for my kids. It was hard to track me down and stop me And so I really valued that time and the opportunity to slow down a little bit even though inside I was kind of screaming that there's Crumbs on the floor and there's junk everywhere, but to just kind of be still for a few minutes Yes, I can relate to that
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, once we accept this phase, we need to realize that we need to just take things back to basics, right? The basics that we need to focus on are food, we still need to eat, and so do our children, shelter, right? We still need to have a house, so don't forget to pay your mortgage, but we'll talk a little bit later about what that house might look like.
00:11:36
Speaker
And don't forget to love on your kids and your spouse. That's really it. Those are the basics. Food, shelter, love, right? Granted, there are some external obligations that you can't entirely let go, like if you have a job or a business or whatever. But for the most part, those are the basics we got to focus on.
00:11:55
Speaker
Right. And part of, I think, accepting it is then choosing to focus on the things that you are accomplishing, like keeping your kids alive instead of choosing to focus on the things you're not able to do. And then resentment starts entering in and you start feeling like, oh, you guys are just keeping me from doing whatever fill in the blank thing. But for me, part of acceptance is focusing on
00:12:24
Speaker
the positive. Even if it means, you know what? I got my kid's fingernails clipped today and that means I am like super mom. So focus on that. You're not all the hundred things that didn't get done. Yeah. I love that. And for me, it's been helpful if I have a hard time finding the good in the day or what I got done to look at myself as if I were a third person, right? So to see if I can look at my life from a third party perspective,
00:12:51
Speaker
And to think what I would think about myself if I was looking at someone at me from someone else. So instead of the laundry is backed up again and you know the floor is filthy and I haven't sat down had time with any of my kids.
00:13:05
Speaker
Instead to just kind of peek in and say, oh my gosh, I kept nine kids alive today. Somebody give me a cookie. They actually ate food and no one died. Were there fights? Sure. But guess what? I also talked to my kids more today because I wasn't running around to appointments, et cetera. So just to see yourself as another very complimentary person would see you, I guess.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, kind of like those people when we tell them that we have nine kids, the shock and awe response that we get kind of like put ourselves in their shoes. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe even look at your life as you would if you were your 19 year old self. You know, you'd probably be pretty impressed. Wow. Look at me. I got a house and my own car and
Maintaining Self-Care in Survival Mode
00:13:48
Speaker
my own kids and they all love me. I'm doing pretty good.
00:13:52
Speaker
Oh, that reminds me of something I say to my husband just about every year on our anniversary. I say, okay, honey, the number of years ago, if 20 years ago you'd have known that you were going to have eight kids and a wife like me and live in this house and all that, would you still have asked me to marry you? He always says yes, but that's kind of the same idea. He has to say yes.
00:14:19
Speaker
It is funny, we had an anniversary this week too and I just think that it's funny to look at your life and see where it's ended up and think, wow, I never had any idea it would end up here, but I'm very happy and to see the things that we're grateful for, even if it's something that we never anticipated.
00:14:38
Speaker
I tease my husband that he has to be nice to me because if we separated, he had to pay for child support. All he would be able to afford is a box down by the river. Oh my gosh. I think about that all the time. I'm like, you can never divorce me. We would never be able to afford two households with all these kids. So it's important to focus on your spouse during that time too. Yeah, absolutely.
00:15:02
Speaker
Another thing to do when you realize you're in survival mode is just to be flexible with the length of it. Some survival mode situations last days, like when my kids were sick. And another thing I forgot to add to that situation was that our dryer had broken and so the laundry was piling up. And so it was like a trip to the laundromat or go naked.
00:15:36
Speaker
But anyway, that situation, like one thing I kept telling myself is, you know what, in a week, this situation is not going to be like this anymore. And so that helped me. But sometimes our survival situation can last weeks.
00:15:51
Speaker
like with the birth of a baby, you're going to be down for weeks. But then sometimes it's years. If you're going back to school, that's going to be a couple of years situation where you might have to be in survival mode.
00:16:02
Speaker
Right. Yeah. When we talked about that, I mean, this is something that a lot of people don't want to hear because survival mode is not always fun, right? But I was specifically thinking about divorce or the death of a spouse. That can be years of recovery to find a new normal. It doesn't mean that life is going to be miserable that whole time, but it's going to be a big adjustment. And it might be a year or two before you feel like you've found a new normal and you're able to be happy and satisfied again.
00:16:28
Speaker
So we just mentioned this so that you're aware that you might just need to have a little bit more graces and patience with yourself and life will still go on and things will recover and get better, but it might be a long time and that's okay. So moving on, the next step in our kind of acceptance of this process
00:16:47
Speaker
is to figure out what to let go during our survival mode and what not to let go. What to let go, you guys can probably all guess the number one thing on the list is deep cleaning, right? You're going to have to let those baseboards go. It's okay. Happily. You can let those go happily. Oh, that's the first thing I'm like, yep, don't have to scrub toilets. I got a baby doll.
00:17:09
Speaker
I would add to that extra activities for yourself or your kids. You might not be able to go to book club for a couple of months or your kids just might have to not have their dance class for a while. For us as homeschoolers, we have to let go our full homeschooling schedule. So we pair it down to the bare basics, reading and writing and math or whatever we choose to do. You might have to let go of some of your hobbies. I remember after having the twins.
00:17:33
Speaker
I just miss sewing so much. I just really wanted to sew on. It was months before I had even an extra 20 minutes to try to put a seam in something and I missed it. I missed my hobby, but I realized that that wasn't the season or even a side business. You can let go unnecessary appointments. You don't have to take your kid to the dentist.
00:17:52
Speaker
You don't have to take your kid to whatever else that's been on your to-do list forever. Even if they're going to be late, it's okay. Just put it off for a little bit. And then lastly, we hope that we would all learn to let go of any difficult relationships. So many of us have maybe neighbors or friends or acquaintances that we value, but the relationship is a little bit strained or a little bit difficult. This is not the time to try to improve one of
Communication and Preparation for Survival Times
00:18:18
Speaker
those relationships. Just
00:18:19
Speaker
take a break, recover yourself first, get your life back to normal, and then maybe you could reach out again. Right, exactly. And then that goes into what not to let go of. So one thing this kind of, for me, I don't know if you're the same way, but often I let go of self-care. And that's one thing that really just not to let go of because you have to be in a good condition to be able to take care of your kids. So it might
00:18:44
Speaker
feel like to me sometimes it feels selfish to grab myself a shower. But if I don't grab a shower, I'm going to be an absolute grizzly bear the rest of the day. So self-care, it's hard to fit it in when you're in survival mode sometimes. And sometimes you don't even feel like fitting it in. And maybe that's the times to make sure you do get it in.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. My physical self-care has been a huge one that I've realized over the years that if I let that go, even just I'm talking brushing my hair and getting the shower, it really affects my day and makes me feel a lot worse. For me, another thing I can't let go, deep cleaning and toilets, absolutely. But one thing I can't let go is basic cleaning. I'm not clutter blind. I'm the opposite of clutter bind. What's that?
00:19:33
Speaker
Really sensitive to when there's clutter. Clutter-phobic? Yeah, maybe. I don't know. But when there's clutter laying around everywhere, it really affects my mood. So to not let that go, not let the kids just lounge around with clutter everywhere, but if they're able, pick it up. And then we also go to a minimal homeschooling or basic schedule.
00:19:53
Speaker
Because, I think we were talking about this earlier, if we have zero schedule or zero homeschooling, my kids get pretty out of control. They don't have anything to do. They don't have a routine and they start imagining things for themselves to do. Let's take all the cushions off all the couches and build forts and then everything devolves into chaos. But if they have, okay, today I'm going to practice my piano lesson and I'm going to do math, then they have a little bit of a
00:20:22
Speaker
structured outline and that helps them. So we can't let go of our total schedule or our total homeschooling or everybody just goes crazy.
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah, and even if you're not homeschooling, you probably recognize this at the end of a summer. If you haven't had any structure in your summer, you're like, oh my gosh, even though I don't really want my day to be crazy, get these kids back in school because we need some sort of routine, right? A complete lack of routine is often backfires. And the last thing that is really important not to let go of is important relationships. So your spouse, because that relationship needs to be really good in the survival times because
00:20:58
Speaker
Well, you're in it together, or if you're not in it together, like it's you recovering from birth that your spouse didn't give birth. But they need to understand, and it needs to be a good, smooth relationship during that time to help during survival mode. So if my husband and I have a little bit of a disagreement before he goes to work, the entire day is just going to be ruined if I'm in survival mode. Like I can't recover. But if we keep that most important relationship healthy,
00:21:28
Speaker
and happy then everything does go a little bit smoother.
00:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I would add to that that if you have children that are old enough to understand the situation, to share with them your struggles. I wasn't getting a lot of help from my older kids the other day and I was getting pretty upset. And I thought, well, I have two choices. I can totally melt down and freak out on everybody. Or I can just have a heart to heart and let them know what's going on in my mind. And so thankfully, I had the wherewithal to do that. And I just looked at my oldest and I said, I think if you knew exactly everything that was on my plate and what I'm struggling with right now, you'd be a little bit nicer to me.
00:22:02
Speaker
And he just really took that to heart. And the rest of the day, he was such a good helper and so sweet to me and really trying to lighten my load. And I really appreciated that. And I think he just wasn't aware. I can't expect a teenager to really understand everything that goes into running a household and having a baby and keeping everyone alive. And so just to communicate that with your big kids and say, I could really use your help. You could really be my best buddy if you would. XYZ. I love that. Yeah, that's really good.
00:22:28
Speaker
Okay, so now sometimes you know one of these survival mode situations is going to be coming up. And so what can you do to prepare ahead? So to hopefully maybe make it easier during that time. So one thing that we do like before a birth
00:22:44
Speaker
situation and you can do this before a move to somewhat is some food prep ahead of time so that we notice when our nutrition goes down and this goes back to self-care when my nutrition goes down that everything kind of devolves from that point. So if we can do some food prep ahead of time have on you know just if that means going to the grocery store and getting some really healthy snacks to have on hand
00:23:07
Speaker
So that, you know, if you have to skip lunch or have something that's not very healthy, at least they can have a piece of fruit or something really healthy.
00:23:16
Speaker
Another thing you can do is have activities planned for your kids that don't require your participation. So maybe once a week someone can come pick them up and take them to the library for reading time and then bring them back to you on a break. During survival mode is maybe good for everybody, but that way they get a little bit of activity and you get a little bit of rest maybe.
00:23:38
Speaker
So if that's possible to find an activity maybe maybe just once a week or once a month that can happen or maybe after dad gets home he can do something with them.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah. In fact, sometimes having other kids over so you can get some things done is helpful too. I know most people don't immediately think, I want some more kids at my house when things are stressful. But for me, for my younger ones especially, having a change of pace, a friend over is huge and I can be free to take my shower or whatever because some friends are over playing and distracting my kids.
00:24:09
Speaker
Right, and sometimes you can leverage that into extra help from your kids, like, hey, you know, your friend is coming over, let's make the house look a little nicer, and they're motivated because it is in their interest as well. Right. Although I've tried that before, and my kids do not care if the house is clean when their friends come over. I say, wouldn't you be embarrassed if your friends saw your house like this? No. I'm like, well, I am, so hop to it. When their mom walks in, I don't want to be embarrassed. You better keep cleaning.
00:24:35
Speaker
And then another one I had thought of, a way to prepare ahead, if you know a situation is coming up, is to say no to new commitments. Like there will be times in the future when you can maybe do that commitment. But if you know you're gonna go into a survival mode, just do yourself a favor and have the courage to say no to a new commitment that would be during that survival time.
00:24:59
Speaker
And then moving on, we are going to talk a little bit about how to
Seeking Help and Recovery from Survival Mode
00:25:03
Speaker
ask for help. So we suggested this in, in farming out your kids or whatever else. But this is really difficult for women, I think in general. Don't you think so, Audrey? Yes. For some reason, we feel like we have to do it all and do it all alone. And it's just unreasonable. It's silly for us to expect that of ourselves. It's like we're having to admit we're not good enough for something.
00:25:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's ridiculous. Think about our, you know, if we, you have a husband that's, that's maybe a manager at work or whatever, he, he's not expected to do his job without any help. He has a full team of employees or, you know, a boss that also has his own obligations. And yet we're expected to run the entire household, um, and keep everyone alive and, and everything else that entails by ourselves. So we really need to reach out for help if needed. And I'll start that off by saying, if someone offers you help, just say yes.
00:25:54
Speaker
It's not that difficult. You just say that'd be great. Thank you. Oh, I'm really bad. I'm really bad at saying yes and accepting no. Yes, absolutely. Me too. I've had a lot of people reach out this time and multiple times I've thought, oh, I don't want to make them do that. I don't want, you know, but if they're reaching out, it means they want to do it. So just say yes. It doesn't cost you anything and allow that person to help serve you. We've talked about this in church recently, actually, how
00:26:20
Speaker
I feel like every good person wants to help out another person. So offering service seems to be so much easier sometimes than accepting service. But a helpful way for me to think of it is to realize that I am allowing someone to serve me. And anytime we serve someone, we feel better, right? And so I'm giving someone the joy that comes from service. So just let them do it.
00:26:42
Speaker
Oh, that is a really nice way to look at it. I need to keep that in mind as well. Yeah, right. Okay, so if someone doesn't offer or maybe they offer and ask exactly what you could use their help with, some ideas are cleaning, so that deep cleaning that you didn't get to, or even just the picking up. Please don't be embarrassed that your house is a mess. I mean, I know we all are. We're always making excuses for, oh sure, come on over, but my house is trashed.
00:27:06
Speaker
Just stop saying that. Of course it is. You just, whatever, went through a move, had a baby, went through a divorce, whatever, it's going to be a mess. It's okay. My mess is, my house is a mess all the time. And even when I'm not in survival mode, but you could say, I would love it if you'd come over and help my kids put their clothes away. Or would you mind coming over and mopping my floor? It's gotten pretty gross and I just don't have the energy to do it.
00:27:27
Speaker
Someone would love to do that. Have you ever cleaned somebody else's house? It's the best. It's anything, other than cleaning your own house is awesome. And it feels so satisfying. And you're not looking at your mess over and over and over. It's somebody else's and I don't even care. I love it. Yeah. One time I asked my grandma, she had four kids and I said, grandma, was your house ever a mess? Because she, her house now is immaculate and it's perfect and there's never anything on the floor and there's never, you know, job's not done.
00:27:54
Speaker
So I said, grandma, was your house a mess when you had kids? And she laughed and she said, Audrey, of course it was. Everyone says when they have kids. Kids lived here. Exactly. Exactly. It should be. And then as Audrey mentioned before, taking kids. So if somebody offers to help and they have kids say, yeah, you want to plan a play date? That'd be great. Get this troublemaker out of my hair for a little while.
00:28:16
Speaker
Some other ideas are coming by to talk. Sometimes these survival times are due to a really heartbreaking thing. Like we said, grief or death or whatever, or just loneliness. You have a new baby and all of a sudden you're lonely. Ask somebody to come talk to you. Say, hey, you know, I can really use somebody to come and
00:28:33
Speaker
chat for a few minutes. You want to come hang out? I'm sure someone would love to do that. Offering meals, getting out of the house, so maybe coming to watch kids while you can get out of the house, or just say, reaching out to see if someone would come take a walk with you because you really need some sunshine. Asking for help with yard work, laundry, or other household tasks, or even just holding down the fort while you shower. So I remember, especially when all my kids were very little, when I had a baby or had something tough like this happen, sometimes it was just difficult to get
00:29:02
Speaker
in the shower. And I felt like if I could just have another adult to hold a crying baby for a while, I could relax a little bit instead of being stressed out that I probably won't get to washing my hair because that kid is still crying. So I got to hurry. And then the last thing we want to talk about is recovering from survival mode. So hopefully, usually in most situations, survival mode is not going to last forever. There will be an end point to it. The kids will grow up or the, you know, whatever.
00:29:30
Speaker
you'll adapt to the new situation that's causing through you into survival mode, like a move, you'll adjust to that new location.
00:29:40
Speaker
and so on. But we have some tips for when you're recovering from survival mode so that you don't throw yourself immediately back into that survival mode situation again. First thing is just take it one thing at a time. So you're feeling a little bit better. You're feeling slightly human again. Just add in one thing. Don't and see how it goes. And then you don't try to do all the things because you're feeling better. I know I have a really bad habit of OK, getting up and planning my day. OK, I feel great today. Let's do.
00:30:10
Speaker
Let's do
00:30:20
Speaker
really happy that I got two things done when I'd only planned one thing is what I mean. Yeah, exactly. And I would say about that too, let's say that your survival mode is due to grieving of some sort. From what we know about grief, it can come and go, right? So you might have a day where you feel fantastic and you think, you know, I'm getting through this, everything is great, and you're functional again, and then the next day it just hits you again.
00:30:47
Speaker
And I think to be extra patient with yourself in those periods and realize, oh, today is not going to be a good day. And this also goes for any form of mental illness. You know, we've talked about anxiety or postpartum depression or other kinds of depression. You can have really, really good days and then out of the blue, you can have a really, really bad day. And like I said, just to be patient with yourself and realize, nope, nothing's going to happen today and that's okay, maybe tomorrow.
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And that is our second tip for recovering from survival mode is self-care. Continue with that self-care, just like you weren't supposed to let it go during the survival time, like cling onto that with all you can.
00:31:28
Speaker
As you're recovering, maybe step up a little bit on self-care. So what does that mean for you? Maybe it means, you know, an afternoon at a spa or something to help just boost it. Maybe for you it means extra vitamins or extra nutrition. Whatever it means for you, throw in a little extra self-care because you're in recovery mode. Like if you were recovering from an illness or you're recovering from a broken bone, there would be
00:31:54
Speaker
things that you would have to do to take extra special care to help the healing because really it kind of is a healing situation when you're coming out of survival mode.
00:32:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And I would I would suggest that if you can find a self care practice that also allows you to be alone a little bit that I would highly recommend that like a walk or meditation or yoga alone, because sometimes these periods require a lot of thought process to get through some meditation or some prayer or whatever it takes for you to kind of wrap your head around your limitations and and how you're going to survive that day. That's really helpful.
00:32:29
Speaker
I guess the last thing I had to add was that just maybe a little bit of recognition here too that you're not going to be the same person as you were before you went into survival mode because hopefully you've learned some good positive things about yourself or about your situation and maybe you've learned some hard things about yourself too and just maybe accept, recognize and accept that you're not going to be the same person you were going in.
00:32:54
Speaker
You've been through an event that you had to survive. Yeah, I like that. That's awesome. Okay. So we have a couple of recommendations for you, maybe to help you through this time or as you're recovering from this time or maybe going into this time. I recently listened to the Live Free Creative podcast. I love all the episodes, but one that was specifically helpful for this time.
00:33:20
Speaker
Um, a survival mode was called times and seasons. It's her episode 33. And, um, that was really helpful just to listen. Um, she's talking a lot about the same things that we're talking about and some additional tips too. So that was one I enjoyed and recommend.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, thanks. My recommendation is an Instagram account and podcast. Natalie Norton is the Instagram account, and she is an awesome motivational speaker, Instagram, or all the things. And she also has a podcast as well, fairly new. It's called the Show Up Podcast. And Natalie has gone through quite a few of these survival
00:34:01
Speaker
times herself because she's had a lot of grief in the past year, couple of years, several deaths and illness and accidents. And so following her and listening to her talk about it has been really influential to me as I realized that even though I might not have serious periods of grieving like she has, I can also be a little bit more graceful and kind with myself as I encounter these difficult situations. She's just really inspiring to follow.
00:34:25
Speaker
So that is all we have for you guys today. I really hope that you guys can relate to this. I hope that as you go through your survival times, you remember some of these tips and most of all to just realize that you are awesome and to have extra love and patience with yourself as you encounter these difficult situations and you will come out stronger and better than before. Just don't push yourself too hard until you're ready. Thanks so much for listening.
00:34:51
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you've enjoyed this episode, we'd be so grateful if you'd leave us a written review on iTunes. If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at OutnumberThePodcast at gmail.com and find us on Instagram at OutnumberThePodcast. See you next week.