Season 1 (Episode 6) Are You Surviving or Thriving?

Welcome to Pain, Passion, and Purpose. I am your host, Shakeeta Torres, where I share mental health education, biblical teachings, and tips to help you to heal on purpose so you can walk boldly in your God-given purpose. This podcast is sponsored by Empowered Purpose Academy, a certified online Christian academy where where we provide services such as certification for Christian life coaches, mentorship for master's level aspiring and existing Christian therapists, mentorship for Christians, and continued education courses for the body of Christ. You can visit www.empoweredpurposeacademy.com to learn more and to download your free guide. If you like today's episode, please subscribe and leave us a raving review so that others can tap into the knowledge and wisdom that will be shared on this podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

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Hey, you guys, welcome back to today's, um, episode, which is titled "Are You Surviving or Thriving?" So before I get into it, I want to let you know that this is the last episode of the season, okay? I will be back next year, the beginning of here. So thank you so much for listening to my episodes. Thank you all for your support. And trust when I say I still have a lot of things to say. So let's go ahead and get into, um, today's episode. So surviving, right? I have counseled many people over the years, as many of you guys know at this point based on my previous episodes, um, and discussing different things that I've learned and treatment, all that good stuff. So surviving, let's talk about that first. So the definition of surviving— went to Google to research it, it had various definitions of it, but the primary ones I kept seeing was, um, simply living life, um, surviving a death of a loved one, okay, doing the bare minimum to get by, um, and to, and to remain alive or in existence. And so I sat there with that and I kind of pondered like, wow, like this is a very, you know, broad definition in my, in my opinion, because of course when you experience a loss or traumatic event, you will go into survival mode. But what happens if you continue to stay in that survival mode. It can keep you stagnant, it can keep you in a place where you're not growing, where you're not really truly happy. And so we all have a story, we all have things that we have endured. And whenever you're trying to heal, you still could have like an enormous amount of things you need to work on, or you could have healed from so many different things but you still have that residue that you gotta, you know, get rid of. Okay, and so here are some alternate words to surviving. That is to bear, endure, exist, to get through, keep, remain, recover, ride out, subsist, suffer, sustain, weather, withstand, outlast, outlive, outwear, perseverance. Wow, right? Those are a lot of different words to describe survive or surviving. And surviving— surviving is not a bad thing. It's just if you're staying there for way, way too long that's where you become stagnant. Okay, so what are 10 ways to identify if you are surviving? Okay, I want to share that with you, with you all today. If you have a chance, get out pen and paper if you want to and write this down. Number 1, each day you get up because you have to and you dread getting up. You have no desire to really start your day. You have no desire to really engage in things that you are passionate about. You really, you know, deal with a lot of anxiety and depressive moments or depressive feelings. Number 2, you often just run through the motions. The alarm goes off, you get up, you do your morning routine, and you just keep going. Like, you do the things that you are required to do, but you doing it as though it's a routine with really no emotion to it. Or you doing it, you know, out of, um, just, you know, having— what's that feeling? That feeling you have, um, like a robot. Like a robot. Okay, number 3: you are engaged in the things you are doing, but you are not excited about them anymore. Like, you don't have the same joy, you don't have the same, um, motivation to do the things that you enjoy. On number 4, you're riding the rails of an emotional roller coaster. From day to day, you can be happy, you can be sad, you can be, you know, stressed, anxious, or even from moment to moment, it's like your emotions are all over the place for various reasons. Okay, number 5, you hide your emotions. You do not confront your emotions. You do not share with your family and friends and loved ones who care about you what you're experiencing and how you're feeling. You pretty much, you may cry alone, be alone, have all these different thoughts in your head, but you're not really letting them out, and you're not allowing people to comfort you or help you, you know, during, um, this season of your life. Okay, number 6, you live for the weekend. You hear this a lot, you know, um, Friday can't come soon enough. Oh, I can't wait till I'm done with this job, or I can't wait till this is done. Oh Lord Jesus, like, I can't wait, right? You feel like you just want to just fly by the week, from week to week. And of course, we all have those moments, we all have weeks like that where it's just so busy and we can't wait to the weekend. But if you having this sense of dread for the week, like all the time, that's not a good feeling. All right, number 7: you often see the negatives in a situation first. So your mindset is you always see the glass halfway empty instead of halfway full because you are dealing with these, you know, surviving, you know, moments and not thriving. Okay, number 8, you live your life for others. Your identity, everything that you do is consumed with whether it's ministry and church activities, whether it's your spouse or significant other, your children, other people. Like, that is the only way you're like really living your life. You're not really tapping into the things that you enjoy as a person. What are you going to do if you lose some of those aspects of the identity that you have given yourself? Okay, number 9: you're making no progress. Life is all about progress. We never want to become stagnant or stuck. Okay, when you're not progressing, you are settling. You are settling for the life you were given, not the life you have seized. We can settle in so many areas of our lives, such as work, career, relationships, family, conflict situations, friendships, where we live and where we travel. Or if we travel at all. And so of course we go through seasons in our life where we feel a little stagnant, and that can be, you know, for various reasons. And we talk about that in next year in detail. But the Lord has created us to go from faith to faith, to glory to glory. And to me, that means, you know, evolving. You're going to be evolving as a person I'm evolving as a daughter, a son of God. God desires for us to have a life of fulfillment, to, you know, pursue and engage in different things in life. I know for me, I like the fact that how God uses me in various, in various ways, and it's changing. I love that. I am an extrovert at heart. I'm a person that likes, um, I like change. I get bored, you know, after a while doing the same thing, especially after I master something. Okay, I'm ready to like move on to the next thing. That's why I love therapy so much. And, you know, coaching is because I'm able to work with a variety of people with a variety of needs and variety of backgrounds.

I love it. I love that.

So number 10, you think you're just okay. This is a bit of a self-esteem and self-confidence issue. You don't really believe in yourself. You might sometimes, you know, On some days, you know, have negative language about yourself. It can be in your head or it can be out loud, like, I'm not good enough, I would never be able to grow in this area, I'll never be happy, I never meet the man or woman of my dreams, and so forth and so forth. Because you are, you know, feeling defeated, feeling defeated in the area. So that's only an example, okay? So you think you're just okay. But you know deep down in your heart that you're not just okay. So those are the top 10 ways to know that you are actually surviving and you are not thriving. So take out time, you know, meditate on that, and we will take a break and we will go into part 2 of this episode, which is thriving. Hey, hey, hey! I hope you are enjoying this episode so far. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a raving review. I also want to share with you more about Little Warriors in a Bottle. This is healing anointing oil that God instructed me to prepare back in 2015. I have received so many testimonies since 2015 about this oil. It is powerful. It has changed my life and others.

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And there are also 13 other authors who share their story about setting healthy boundaries. So that's it for our little break. Let's get back into part 2 of this episode. Hey you guys, welcome back to the final section of this episode. So let's get into thriving. So the definition of thriving is whenever we feel like we are growing and developing, continuously learning and trying new things. And to me, that was a perfect definition because thriving doesn't mean perfection, but thriving literally means progressing. You might have, you know, a stuck point here and there, but it's not to the point where it's causing you to, you know, go backwards or causing you to be stuck in this place for a long period of time. And for everybody, that looks different. Everyone's situation is different. So what are some alternate words to describe thriving? So you have, you know, walking in purpose, you know, um, your intentions, affirmation, flourishing, going, prosperous, successful. Triumph, growing, succeeding, improving, blooming, flowering, booming, expanding, and shining. So these words to me are just like awesome. Okay, so thriving is about visualizing possibilities more than limitations and taking action toward becoming the best version of your self, of yourself. So what are some characteristics of thriving? They are doing things that you give— that should give you a sense of achievement or competence. Emotional stability, feeling calm and able to manage your emotions. Hopeful about the future. Resilient, the ability to cope with the life— with life stressors. Feeling optimistic and positive about your life and your future. Um, you are confident that when you're faced with new situations or people that you can handle it. You do not always blame yourself for things that happen in your life. You set goals. You feel good about you as a person, and you have a very healthy self-esteem. Not perfect, but healthy. Okay, and so these are some of the characteristics of thriving. And so what I want you to do is a quick little exercise for you to assess where you are right now in your life. Pretty soon it will be 2022, and so many people are, you know, will wait to January to set these goals. But I want you to work on setting some goals right now. Typically people offer these strategies, you know, in January, but I want to give you some tips right now for you to be able to take out time and evaluate where you are so you can go ahead and start planning now for your New Year's goals. All right, so sit down, get some paper, get a pen, and write down these domains. Write down mental health, write down spirituality and your relationship with God, write down finances, write down work, write down interpersonal relationships such as friends, family, and intimate partners. Okay, so in each category, what I want you to do is score them on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest score and 10 being the highest score of how happy you are in each of these areas. So again, it's mental health, spirituality, finances, your friendships, you know, family as far as relationships, and work. Okay, so sit down, score each area, then take out time to meditate and just think, okay, what in this area is causing me to feel unhappy? And what about what's going on in this area is causing me to feel unhappy or not satisfied? All right, so like write down, you know, those things in each category and go back and look at it. Then ask yourself, what resources do I already have to help me to grow in this area? Okay, then consider other avenues that you need in order to make progress in that area. So this is like an exercise that I do with many clients who want to like improve their overall livelihood. Many people think that therapy and coaching is all about just dealing with a lot of pain areas and these gigantic areas. But sometimes we need an extra boost or extra pair of eyes to help us to see the things that we may or may not have to help us to grow. And sometimes we already have what we need in our hands. Sometimes we don't. And so when we don't, you have to really invest in whether it's your time, reading, hiring in a coach, hiring a therapist, looking at— I'm going to the library. Whatever you need to do for you to grow in the area so that you can be thriving, okay? No one's life is perfect. Not mine, not yours, not anyone we see on TV, social media, celebrities. Our lives are not perfect. But if there is room to grow, take advantage of that. Don't sit here and allow yourself to fall into slump of depression or self-defeat because you feel like you're not where you want to be in your life. And I'll be honest with you guys, sometimes people don't want to invest. Sometimes we say, I don't have the money to do that. But if you look at your bank account and you look at the things you're spending your money on, you will see where your treasures lie. You will see where your money is going to. And I know that people, you know, I've met before in the past, sometimes they can't afford it, and that's okay. That's okay. But if you're just saying that because you don't want to invest in it, then guess what? You're probably going to continue to be stuck. The word of God talks about this, like sowing seeds and investing. It does. If you go back and study that, go to Google, God, what are you saying about finances? God, what are you saying about sowing? And you will see scriptures, you will see articles and all that to show you and teach you the importance of those things. I did not get to where I am today without investing in myself. So I invested in myself, I invested in my healing, I invested in my education, and still am. I invest by hiring people that can help me. I invest, I invest, I invest, I invest, I invest in my time with God. I invest in what I need, um, as far as tools to make sure that I do a good job in excellence. Not perfection, but in excellence, right? So you have to, you have to do that. And so I hope that this episode helped you today. I hope that it gave you a fresh perspective to prepare for 2022 and to see what God is saying to you about the things that, that you need to work on. And he will tell you, he will tell you. Just ask him. If you don't have it, say, God, what do you want me to do? See me somebody that can help me to grow in this area. And he might send someone as a mentor, as a free resource to you, or he might tell you invest in this person and hire them. I've had clients tell me before that God has told them, invest in your healing, I have someone for you, here she is, right? And it's their choice. It's your choice though, it's your choice. No one can make you do anything. All right, so once again, thank you guys so much for listening to my episode. This is the final episode of 2021, and I look forward to seeing you guys, um, next year and sharing fresh new content. Have a happy and Merry Christmas. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. Our prayer is that this podcast episode has blessed you. Don't forget to go and subscribe and leave us a raving review. If you would like to sow into this ministry or to this podcast, Pain, Passion, and Purpose, you can do so at anchor.fm/painpassionandpurpose or Cash App, $shakeetatorres. Thank you so much, and I will talk to you next time.