If you have read my book or took one of my classes you have heard about how I named our fear center in our brainThe survivor self.
For those of you who haven’t heard of this before, The survivor self is the part of us that keeps us in the waiting room. In the place between two lives.
The life we left behind and the life we have yet to live. The second firsts life.
The survivor self tries really hard to stop us from taking chances, trying new things after loss and stepping too much out of our waiting room. The more new life we try to live the more the survivor self interrupts it with fears, doubts and loss of worthiness.
The more we get out and about the more skilled the survivor self gets.
I was explaining this to one of our Life Starters the other day.
Here is a personal example. I am going to share something about my stage fright (obviously a survivor made lie).
When I want to step on stage my survivor self tries to stop me with quite the vocabulary.
You have no idea the things it tells me. I am even ashamed to share them but I must so you see that our survivor selves are very alike.
“Christina you have gained a few pounds and it will show.”
“Your accent always gets in the way of your words. Do you really need to be on stage, can’t you do this work behind your computer?”
“What about the kids? You should not be going away for this, what kind of mom are you?”
The list goes on.
Guilting. Shaming. Lying. That’s the survivor self in all its glory.
And after loss the survivor self is the happiest because we are afraid the most. Yup, lots of cruelty here.
So…I have one small ask for you today.
I could share with you many different ways to send your survivor away, but for the purposes of this letter I am going to suggest just one.
Don’t plan ahead something that you are afraid of.
Do things that scare you.. on the spur of the moment. @SecondFirsts (Click to Tweet!)
Of course it can’t work all the time, but imagine if you saw your boss walking by your desk and you just got up and asked him the question you have been trying to ask him for months about your promotion.
Imagine if you made a decision to move, and picked up the phone and called the realtor without sleeping on it.
Don’t sleep on it. Don’t over think it.
That is when the survivor self gets in and activates your fear center.
I am not asking you not to spend time thinking about important things.
All I am saying is that the way to sneak out while your survivor self is asleep is to just go directly to action.
For this weekend try it with a small decision. Something that is not a big deal.
And just do it. I mean really, what do you have to lose? You and I have lost so much, this is a piece of cake.
And always be safe, the things we are talking about here are life decisions and not jumping off airplanes. Just in case anyone misunderstood me.
Alright let’s do this.
With life and love and some unexpected steps,
Christina
PS. And if you want to send your survivor away, join me in my next Life Reentry Class which starts October 18th. I want to see you there. I want to walk with you. And I want to watch you reenter back to life.
Christina Rasmussen is a bestselling author, speaker and philanthropist on a crusade to change the way we live after loss. As the founder of Second Firsts and Life Starters both organizations to help people create a pathway back to life after loss, Christina has helped thousands of people rebuild, reclaim, and relaunch their lives using the power of the human mind. Her book Second Firsts: Live, Laugh, and Love Again, aims to take her message even further. You can find more information on her website and follow her on FB or Twitter.
Image courtesy of Konstantin Stupak.
