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Kamini Wood works with high achievers on letting go of stress, overwhelm and anxiety that comes with trying to do everything, and trying to do it all perfectly
Voiceover: [00:00:00] Rise Up Live Joy Your Way from emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness. Coach Kamini Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit. Through these small bites of self visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live, Rise Up Live Joy Your Way.
Kamini Wood: Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up Live Joy Your Way, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening. Thank you for spending some time here with me. And today I wanna talk about when Calm doesn't feel like relief. Right. There's a moment. People are rarely prepared for the moment when the, or the crisis or the challenge has ended, or the pressure lifts, the chaos actually settles.
But instead of feeling relief, there's this, um, [00:01:00] internal sense of confusion, the sense of being untethered, right? A question that you, that comes up is like, okay, it's over. Why don't I feel better? So if you ever thought I should feel grateful, but I just feel fill in the blank, some of this might actually resonate for you.
Survival mode is just loud. It just is right. It tells you where to focus, where to put your attention, what matters most, what needs your immediate. Drive, right? You don't have to think about identity. When you're surviving you, there's no time to, you are literally just reacting. You're not even responding.
You're truly reacting. But when the storm passes, all that noise stops, and what you're left with is this space. And so for many people, that space actually feels so disorienting when you've become so used to the chaos. You're no longer reacting, you're no longer fixing, you're no longer needed in the same way that you were needed while the chaos was happening.
And without those roles, you actually [00:02:00] feel a sense of, uh. A sense of being lost. Right? And this is where people have that internal panic. They actually start to say, like, they start to think to themselves like, well, it's over. I should be happy. Things are finally okay. You know, why do I feel so disconnected?
And here's the catch too, externally, people, I'll actually give you those messages. They'll say things to you like, well, that's over. So. You should be fine now, but you know, really what's happening is internally you are still feeling like you're feeling this sense of, okay, what do I do now? It's just you're feeling lost and so a lot of times what ends up happening with people is they will latch onto a new goal, a new project.
They'll almost try to find a new identity. Anything to replace that structure, that survival mode had actually provided that the chaos, the chaos was occurring, survival mode happened and it created that sense of structure. But the rush, uh, to do that often recreates the pressure that your system just [00:03:00] escaped.
And many people will actually describe this phase as. Losing themselves. Well hear it over and over again. Like I, I just lost myself. I don't even know who I am anymore. But what's actually happening is, is a form of separation. You're separating from who you are and who you had to be, and that can actually feel.
Like a loss because survival wasn't just a phase, it was how you actually were identifying yourself. So feeling lost after, after survival is not a sign that something is wrong. It's actually a sign that something is truly shifting and changing. When the nervous system no longer needs to constantly scan for danger, it begins to.
It begins to almost ask other questions, not, you know, okay, how do I get through this? But it's starting to ask questions like, what do I want now? And those questions don't come with urgency, but they do come with a sense of uncertainty, which can feel really [00:04:00] unsafe because when, when things are uncertain, it feels uncomfortable.
And people who learn to rely on clarity for safety, like all of that, feels very discombobulating survival mode. In a way kind of simplifies things, right? 'cause it narrows our focus to the thing that's on fire in front of us. It clarifies our priorities, it tells, tells us who we need to be in that moment.
And so for many people, that actually feels grounding. As odd as that sounds in the middle of chaos, that actually sounds grounding. But when survival ends, it can feel like that foundation has completely disappeared. But what you're actually standing on is something you're so unfamiliar with. You're standing on choice.
And choice actually does require a form of, uh, self-acceptance, self-trust, self-knowledge. But when you've been stuck in survival mode for so long, those things, they didn't disappear, but they may have gone really quiet. So when your nervous system has [00:05:00] been activated for such a long time, it has a, it struggles to actually trust calm, it struggles to see calm.
As anything but unsafe or empty or boring, especially if calm before calm historically would be followed by another crisis. You know? So for people who are in toxic dynamics as an example, they're in a cycle where, you know, they might have a moment of calm, but then something happens and. They're being bombarded with a lot of negativity and um, potentially abuse and things like that, right?
And then they get back to that calm, but they're, you can't trust it. So the nervous system has almost learned that I can't trust calm. And so now when the chaos has finally ended. And, and the challenge has quieted down. It's like there's a sense of calmness and, and the nervous system doesn't believe that it can actually trust it.
It, it wants to stay on alert, it wants to continue to scan, and it's waiting [00:06:00] for the next problem to solve. So it may show up as, um, restlessness or dissatisfaction or really struggling to just. Kind of enjoy the good moments, right? When something is actually feeling good. It's almost like this internal struggle to just enjoy it, not because you're ungrateful, it's because your nervous system has not fully recalibrated yet.
So if this is hitting home at all or resonating at all, I just, I invite you to ask, you know, what role did survival ask me to play during that time? Not what did I do? I'm asking, you know, who did I become? Who did I have to be? And this phase that you're in often includes this gap, right? You're no longer the version of yourself that lived in constant survival and constant reactivity, but you're also not super clear yet on who you are.
Without that, without that chaos, without that pressure and that gap that we're talking about can actually feel somewhat directionalist. It [00:07:00] can feel like you've lost yourself and it can feel lonely. But I wanna offer this one slight reframe. That gap can also be really creative. It can be a space where identity is no longer being dictated by survival or by the threat, or by the chaos that you were, that you were feeling.
And it's really important to maybe not push for answers immediately, or demand clarity or to force purpose. Because our, our authentic identity doesn't necessarily respond to force. It responds to emotional safety and it responds to curiosity. So trying to hurry the space often recreates another dynamic of survival, right?
It, it just, it just a new form of it. So here some things to think about feeling lost is maybe a sign that your nervous system is wanting to look inward. It, it could be an invitation to actually do the work, to start asking, okay, if I'm feeling lost, what are [00:08:00] the things that are meaningful to me? What are the needs that I have?
And you don't need to reinvent yourself. What it really is, is maybe an opportunity to reconnect with the parts of yourself that you had to shrink or put on hold while in survival mode. And clarity often emerges through curiosity and exploration, not through pressure. So just giving yourself permission to be gentle with it, to practice some self-compassion.
Now, there's another layer that people don't often talk about, which is grief. You know, when you go through years of survival mode and then you're out of it, there is grief over the years that you did spend in that there's grief over the versions of your self that did not get to exist. There's grief over maybe the choices that you had to make while you were under pressure.
This grief doesn't mean that you regret surviving. It just means that you're integrating and recognizing the cost. 'cause there is a cost when we're in those situations, and that integration is truly just part of your [00:09:00] healing. So it, it's an opportunity to ask, you know, what, what did survival actually give me?
What, what is something that I can take from it? Because, you know, living in survival mode doesn't only have to be negative, right? We can actually also grow, grow through it. And so just asking those questions allows room for you to. Kind of take your experience and reclaim, reclaim yourself through it.
'cause reclaiming yourself doesn't mean abandoning everything that you did and who you were from your survival years. It, it means an opportunity that you get to choose what stays and what you get, what you let go of, because some skills still serve you and, and some others don't. And that's, that's your ability to now discern what works for you and what doesn't.
This isn't about being urgent and and looking for answers, and it's really actually not also saying, okay, what's my five-year plan? This actually is an opportunity to slow down, to be curious, to practice that self-compassion, to allow space for you to try things and to figure out. [00:10:00] What works for you and what doesn't to notice what feels meaningful and what feels joyful, and where you get energy.
And also just to recognize what feels heavy and what feels depleting, and then choosing what's gonna stay and what, what's not. Now, if you are feeling lost after surviving chaos or surviving a situation, I really want you to hear the following. You are not failing. You are not unmotivated. If you're not broken and you're not lost, what you are is in this in-between stage.
And yes, it feels uncomfortable, and yes, it does feel somewhat uncertain, but this is an opportunity for you to give yourself permission to get curious, to re acclimate with what matters to you most, what those values are, what you need. And allow yourself to become who you truly want to be. If you'd like to discuss how coaching could help you either work through this or anything else that [00:11:00] might be holding you back professionally or personally, feel free to book a time with me anytime at coachwithkamini.com and until next time, stay well.
Voiceover: Thank you for listening to Rise Up Live Joy Your Way. For more information, Book a chat with Kamini at www.chatwithKamini.com, or visit her website at www.kaminiwood.com. You can also find Kamini on Facebook or Instagram username, it's authentic me. Thank you for listening!