Casey Zeman had heart surgery in 2022 that shattered his sense of invincibility and left him with constant fear. He learned to push through it by repeated exposure, and gained something unexpected: deeper love for his family. He argues the trade-off is worth it.
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I had heart surgery in 2022, and it was a really challenging and difficult experience. And I think from that moment, the feeling of I'm a superhero, I'm invincible, nothing can happen to me because I was in the best shape of my life flew out the window. And I started to have more fear in my life. I started to feel my mortality, and that fear has shown up more and more in my life. And the big thing is that I have to keep challenging that fear. I have to keep challenging the thing that makes me scared. The moments of, hey, I'm still feeling fear, but I'm pushing through anyway. Those are now amplified. Those moments of, you know, how like maybe some of you guys have like fear of doing something, but you still do it. And it's like a kind of a minor fear. Like I have bigger fears now around minor things that I shouldn't. But what I'm challenging myself to do is push through anyway and realign that fear again, to realign what is fear and realign what is scary so that it's not scary, right? Obviously, the more fearful things we do, the less fearful we become, right? And so I need to get back into that world. Now, the gift that I was given by having heart surgery, the gift I was given was love. I now love deeper. I care way more about trying to spend more time with my family. Like, I always have loved my family, but, and all family members, but I want to be way more present and I am consciously thinking about those things because they matter the most to me. So that's the gift. The trade-off of having more fear but gaining more love is a trade-off I'll accept. And it's just more of the I have to manage the fear, push the fear away. And remind myself that I can do things and should do things anyway, regardless of all the fear that I have. So I'm just wanting to share that, that sometimes when we have life moments, sometimes they can beat us down or beat us to where something is different. The baseline has changed. Maybe trauma can change how we are as humans. And I think that would be— that's where we need to start growing again. Sometimes we've had growth before and then we don't. It's— you have to look and say, it's okay, that was a season, but now I have to have growth again and push beyond my fears. Thanks guys, that's about it. I just wanted to share that. And if you like this video, of course, subscribe.
