SS 012 Big Fat Scaredy Cat

Standing Stronger podcast episode number 12. That's right, everyone. It keeps getting better. Welcome back to another episode of the Standing Stronger podcast. My name is Shannon. And I'm Shannon. That's right. We have the same name, Shannon and Shannon. Can you believe it? The lady at Starbucks didn't believe us today. She carded us. She said, let me see your license. Then she swore it was our last name. That's your last name. No. Do you know how to look at a driver's license? His name's Timothy. I'm like, no, it's not. That's my middle name. That is my middle name, not my first name. And she swore we were lying even after we pulled out our license. So I'm like, whatever.

Call me what you want to call me. But finally she got it. So however, today we have also figured out the cure to blah. Yeah. Forever Shannon would say, how do you, what's wrong? I'm like, I just feel blah. And he's never known that feeling until today. Listen, it's like every day she gets tired and I'm like, what is your problem? She's like, I just feel blah. I'm like, blah is not a word. What is blah? It's just blah. Yeah. Well, today I felt blah. However, I have found the cure. Do you know what the cure is? What's the cure? Carbohydrates. Pizza and Pepsi. Pizza and Pepsi. Yeah. That, that did it for me. If you ask my friend Michelle, that solves all problems.

Well, the funny thing is I was talking to Shannon. I'm like, I don't know if I can do the podcast now. I just, I have to go to bed. I just, my, my eyes are about to shut. I can't, can't do anything. She's like, all right, well, let's go get something to eat. And we ended up going to our favorite place, PJ's Brick Oven here in Spring Hill. If you're ever here, go. But yeah, after I ate all those carbohydrates, I'm like, let's go home now and do the podcast because I'm all hyped up on the Mountain Dew. We have Mountain Dew. Yes. Well, I'm hyped up on something. Yeah. Pizza and Pepsi. Yeah. It was the cure tonight. That was the cure.

However, I'll tell you today or this week, man, this has been one of those, one of those weeks, one of those trying weeks, just mentally and physically drained right now. Emotionally, mentally, physically, all of them draining. Right. So this is actually a very hard podcast to do because we're very, very open people. I mean, obviously you've heard the stuff we've talked about. I mean, I've said I like movies. We are not talking about flossing today. No flossing. Already talked about that. It's getting deep in here. Check that off your list. So it's one of those things where we like to talk about everything. However, we're in a situation where we can't talk about what's going on in our lives.

However, it's one of those defining moments. You know, I look back on my life and I think before Shannon's brain surgery, after Shannon's brain surgery, before my dad died, after my dad died, before attempted suicide, after attempted suicide. And we're now at one of those junctions or crossroads in our life. When I look back, it's going to be before and after is how I'm going to remember. I think this chapter in our lives. Yeah, it's definitely a new chapter for us. And I'm sure in the future we'll be talking about it. But today, not so much. So yeah, so we just wanted to let you guys know that hey, we're human. We're regular people. I don't think we are regular.

Anyone that really knows us, they're just like, what? What? I mean, like you just said, I mean, how many people can really just lay it out there and say, four brain surgery, after brain surgery, before dad died, after dad died, before attempted suicide, after attempted suicide. It just keeps going. But you know what? That's the way our story goes. So we're just blessed because every story that we have ends up bringing God glory. And that's why we get to do this today. That's right. We talk about turning your mess into a message. And you know, that's what we're trying to do is, you know, people learn from our mistakes. You know, we've all... We make the mistakes, you all learn. Right.

You know, or even going through life's challenges, because what we're dealing with now wasn't a mistake. It was a mistaken judgment. However, it wasn't a mistake, but it's a life lesson, something that you can learn from. And one of these days, maybe you'll be able to learn from that. However, that's what we do the show. That's why we do this show is a lot of stuff that's happened to us wasn't a mistake, like Shannon's brain surgery was not a mistake. Obviously, that kind of stuff happens. However, we were able to overcome those challenges, those hardships, and, you know, come out better. And that's our ultimate goal.

Each and every week is to give you guys something to bring something to the table. So at the end of this podcast, you say, you know what, I can apply this to my life, and I can be better. You know, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even though things seem bad. Right now, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and things will get better. There's only one constant in life, and that constant is change. Things are going to change. Things are going to look up. Things are going to look down. There's going to be peaks. There's going to be valleys. The difference is how you respond or react to those different situations.

Right now, we're in a situation, and we're choosing to respond, not react, and do our best to make the right decision moving forward. Yeah, and I know that you're absolutely, insanely past this book that I'm reading, which I get to meet with some of the girls that are reading it with me, so I'm really excited about that tomorrow. But The Best Yes, and, you know, one of those discussions she has in the book is that today's decisions are tomorrow's circumstances. And it's never been more real to me than now. You know, and what you choose, that path, regardless of whether you think it's right at that moment, you don't know. Right.

You know, but every decision you make will become a circumstance. So, you know, that's just where we're at right now. So, we're going to stop that. Past the cryptic messages. So, today we have a pretty good podcast. Let me get to my podcast notes so I don't forget anything. But I really am going to enjoy this. And it comes at a perfect time. You're probably listening to this not right now, so this is right before Halloween, so it works out well. But today, we're going to... Oh, you know what? We need to talk about the t-shirts before we go into that because we have the contest. The contest ends next week. November 5th is the cutoff date.

Leave your review, leave your rating, and subscribe to the podcast and get entered in a drawing to win one of five Standing Stronger t-shirts. You know you want them. That's right, and you can go to standingstronger.com forward slash support and that will lead you to the page, give you the directions on what you need to do and how you need to do that to get involved in the little drawing where we're going to be giving away some t-shirts. And then the week after, we are going to announce the winners live. Well, not live. On air here. And the winners just have to respond with their address, and we will send them their shirts. So that's exciting. Very exciting. Yes.

I can't wait to be strolling down the road and see somebody wearing a shirt. Like, hey, Standing Stronger, what's up? I love you. That's right. So today we're going to be talking about fear, and we decided to talk about fear today because right now we're going... I don't know if fear is the right word, but it's part of what we're going through, and I think what we have today is going to really help you if you struggle with some type of fear in your life. Yeah, we went looking at different scenarios. And they're trying to prepare you, you know, worst case scenario, this can happen. Will it? What are the chances? We don't know because medicine's medicine. Right.

And then talk about fear, man, because then while, you know, Shannon's in that surgery, you try to maintain, you know, positive thoughts and vibes, but that, you know, that negativity creeps in. You're like, well, what if this happens? What if this happens? What is life going to be like? And that fear of the unknown just terrifies you. And you can work. And that's one of the if you suffer from panic and anxiety, fear is the driving factor or force behind panic and anxiety. And you get what's called what I call in the circle of panic or the cycle of panic. And we're going to talk a little bit about that here in a second. But these are real life situations. You know, people have heart attacks.

People have brain surgery. People have strokes. People die, you know, and that invokes a real fear, even though most of the time that real fear that we're feeling are because of our own emotions and the scenarios that we're building inside of our head. So if we can stop not from building the scenarios, but building positive, if we can stop building negative scenarios and building positive scenarios, that type of fear will go away. Let me give you an example. Whenever I am up on that, that the stairs going up to the slide that I had to turn around and bring my son back, I wasn't terrified because I was standing there. I was terrified because of the scenarios I built in my head.

In my head, this thing is going to collapse. It's going to come down bolt by bolt, and we're going to slam to the ground. And I'm looking around looking at, okay, if this thing starts to fall, what am I going to grab? And what am I going to do in order to get me and my son off of this safely? So when this thing comes tumbling down, how am I going to get out safe? Now, is that thing going to come tumbling down? No, we'll probably the earth will be, you know, gone. And that thing's still going to be standing because it's concrete and steel. Right. You know, I'm going to be gone and that thing's going to be standing, never going to move.

However, in my head, that thing was going to fall down while I was standing on it. And it's really annoying to be in line with him. Like, don't get over to the ledge. Even when I was pregnant with McKenzie, we were on the third floor of the hospital. And the way that you get off the elevator, you can look down into the lobbies. So we would walk off the elevator. And I mean, there's a railing there. I mean, it's all wet every day. It's just going to rot and fall over. Yeah. These people are crazy. However, my story, we were at the one by SeaWorld. What is it called? Aquatica. Yeah, we were at Aquatica. And there's this one huge slide. And my son, he was probably six at the time.

And he wanted to go on this ride. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. So we start going up the stairs. And I mean, it's way up there. It's really high. And it's cement and steel and everything else. But I get about halfway up in the line stops. So we're just standing there, probably on a five foot by five foot platform. And then you have 15, 20 stairs. And then you're on a five foot by five foot platform. And it just keeps going up like that. And I mean, it's high. So we get about halfway up. We're just standing there. I can't take it. I'm shaking. I'm sweating. I can literally feel it coming down my... I told my son, I'm like, we got to go down.

I actually had to take my son off from the line and go down because I just couldn't take it. And I mean, it was horrible. Because then my son starts making... Jordan, he is an amazing kid. He just starts making fun of me. He's like, really, dad? Really? Are you a big girl? Are you scared of heights? I'm like, come, leave me alone. And it's not about being a big girl because girls are standing up there and they're just fine. It's about me being scared. He's like, whatever, scaredy cat. But you know what? It was a fear. However, I realized, you know what? In order to overcome this, I got to face this. So the next time we went, it wasn't that day, sadly to say.

The next time we went, we got into that line. I waited. I went up the entire thing and we went down the ride and it was well worth the wait. So fear is within us all. And we all have our different story of what we're scared of. I'm also scared of spiders. And one day we will have to show a video of me trying to kill a spider. But one thing I've realized is instead of trying to hide my fears, is I simply embrace my fears and find a way to move past them. Because if I'm scared of it, it's going to now motivate me to do it. So I think another good one. We all, everyone has a fear of something, heights, spiders, snakes, all that good stuff. I don't. Whatever. I kill the spiders in our house.

Yeah, I was telling them. If you ever want to see the funniest thing in the world, I have it on my phone and I will text it to you. Because if you've never seen it, we'll put it in the show notes. I'll upload it on YouTube and put it in the show notes. Hilarious. But I just told them about that. She was actually stepped out with the baby for a minute. So all of us have those sorts of fears. Let's talk about a fear that's a real fear. Your story of brain surgery. Well, you know, I look at it as it's not as much my story of the brain surgery as it is yours because I don't remember that time frame. I can remember the fearful, which we've talked about.

It was probably like episode three or four or something like that. But, you know, if the worst outcome was I wouldn't make it, who was going to take care of my son and my husband? Who was going to care for you guys or be there and raise my son? That was a big fear for me. But going through the actual time, I think I lucked out on that because I was out of it. That whole week was a week out of my life. So it was more for your fear of what they were telling you, I guess, because in my mind it was like, okay. The biggest thing I was talking about here in particular is when they came in, they came in with all these paperwork. We had to fill out a living will.

We had to fill out the, I don't know what the proper terminology is, but when do we take her off of life support? Well, it's all in your living will. I mean, your wishes and who makes the choices for you once you're not able to speak and what you want carried out. Right. And the doctors are saying, you know, the doctors, see, especially when you're going into for a huge procedure like Shannon was going into, they scare the crap out of you just so going in, you know, you're fully prepared on the absolute worst case scenario so you don't sue them or something, I guess. But, you know, they're telling us she's not going to be able to walk. She's not going to be able to talk.

She's going to have to learn to eat. She's going to have to learn to drink. Yeah, I think it's to prepare. They're trying to prepare you. You know, worst case scenario, this can happen. Will it? What are the chances? We don't know because medicine's medicine. Right. And then talk about fear, man, because then while, you know, Shannon's in that surgery, you try to maintain, you know, positive thoughts and vibes, but that, you know, that negativity creeps in. You're like, well, what if this happens? What if this happens? What is life going to be like? And that fear of the unknown just terrifies you. And you can work.

And that's one of the, if you suffer from panic and anxiety, fear is the driving factor or force behind panic and anxiety. And you get what I call in the cycle of panic. And we're going to talk a little bit about that here in a second. But these are real life situations. People have heart attacks. People have brain surgery. People have strokes. People die, you know. And that invokes a real fear, even though most of the time that real fear that we're feeling are because of our own emotions and the scenarios that we're building inside of our head.

So if we can stop, not from building the scenarios, but building positive, if we can stop building negative scenarios and building positive scenarios, that type of fear will go away. Let me give you an example. Whenever I am up on that, the stairs going up to the slide that I had to turn around and bring my son back, I wasn't terrified because I was standing there. I was terrified because of the scenarios I built in my head. In my head, this thing is going to collapse. It's going to come down bolt by bolt, and we're going to slam to the ground.

And I'm looking around looking at, okay, if this thing starts to fall, what am I going to grab and what am I going to do in order to get me and my son off of this safely? So when this thing comes And which, just P.S. by the way, Jordan is like the least gutsy, if that's a word, kid. Like we tell him, you do not ride your bike without your helmet. Now we all rode bikes without a helmet, which it wasn't the law back when we were kids, back when we were kids. But, you're supposed to laugh. I think you need to edit. So, I'll take out the pause and you'll just hear the laughing. Right. Okay, so, anyways. Back when we were kids. Back when we were kids, we didn't wear helmets.

Jordan, we tell him, you have to wear a helmet when you ride your scooter, when you ride your bike, because Jordan will be the kid that falls off his bike and we end up in the hospital because he's cracked his head open. Creating those scenarios in our head. Yeah. Shannon will come home from wherever and he'll say, you know, did you know Jordan was riding his bike? No. Did you tell him that he needed to wear his helmet again? No. Like why, is he not wearing his helmet? No, he's wearing it, but when we were kids, we would have not worn the helmet until we got caught. No way am I putting a helmet on. So, you know, those things of Jordan is not a gutsy kid.

So all these things that Shannon has created that he's so fearful over, Jordan's not that kid. Like he's not going to be that, oh, let me push it to like, you know, get away with it. And it's dangerous. He barely will climb a tree. Right. Yeah, so at the end of the day, it's really just scenarios that you're controlling in your head. Now, how can you overcome fear? I'll let you know how I overcome my fear. I have three things that I usually do when it comes to fear that help me move past those situations. And there was times when I wouldn't walk on the third floor if that, you know, railing was there. And, you know, now I do. I might take precautions. However, I still do it.

But first is get out of the fear cycle. And basically the fear cycle is you, for instance, with heights, you think about heights, and then you think about the bad scenario that's going to happen. And then that leads to more fear, which leads to more scenarios, which leads to other things that could happen, which leads to more fear. And it's this huge circle where it's all being perpetrated by the perpetrated. Is that the right word? I don't know if that's the right word. However, it's all being made up in your own head. You're moving this force forward because of all of the scenarios that you build in your head. And in order to stop, you got to take yourself out of that cycle.

Okay, I'm not going to think about how this slide is going to topple over, even though it's made of steel and concrete while I'm on it. That's not going to happen. It's standing here. It's built to hold all of these people. We are going to be completely fine. I get up there, and then instead of thinking about falling over the side of the railing or something like that, I think about the fun that's going to be when we go down the slide. And you got to remove yourself out of that cycle of building all of this inside of your head. I'm just sitting here thinking, sometimes your fear isn't over a specific thing either. We're talking about being fearful of spiders or stairs.

For me, I can't think of something that I'm fearful of as far as a material thing. I'm fearful of those real things. I create a scenario from there. And those are the hard parts because a lot of people are right now listening to us or saying, yeah, okay, well, yeah, I'm afraid of roaches or spiders or snakes and this and that. But when you're afraid of someone kidnapping your child or someone hurting your child or whatever, those things, when they become real or something, that circumstance is starting to come to light and you start thinking, well, now what? What do I do next? And for me, it's the stopping of the scenarios because I and yourself, we can only be who we're going to be.

I can't help how someone else is, how my friend is going to react or how my mom is going to react or my sister or your sister or anything like that, depending on the situation or co-worker or what's going to happen at work. Right now I have it going, our scenario at my work. It's a couple of days away and I've already got all these scenarios worked up in my head that if this doesn't happen, this is what I'm going to do. It's made me mad. Oh, yeah. To where that's wrong. I've now three days. I know you know, but for three days I've worked myself up to this point. One might not even come to light. So I've wasted my time and energy on this, which is negatively spent energy.

Nothing was positive out of that. And two, even if it does happen, I have to still be true to who I am. Right. Because someone made that mistake or used a bad judgment at the time, I have to find a way to look at the good side of that. So there are real scenarios of fear. I know I'm not trying to say people being afraid of cat clowns and... It's real. I'm not saying that's not real. I know it's real. I live with you. I know it's real. Listen, this is why we have two different angles. Me, who knows what it's like. Her, who has no compassion for the people like us. Listen, let me talk about real fears. Let me talk about the ones that aren't real like yours. I'm not saying those aren't real.

I'm saying you create this, this standing on this ledge, like you've been on a ledge that's collapsed before. Hey, that's all right, Mrs. I don't care about your fears. I'm fine. I'm fine with it. You're right. My name is Shannon Herod and I have no compassion. Move on. That's why we have both of us on here because it's good. So the people that are real like me. People that have real fears. Is she just talk to you? All us other people. That's me. Sorry. I'm sorry. We're going to get some comments on that. Okay, so number one is get out of that fear cycle even if your fears are fake. All right. Number two is face your fears.

With me, it was going back to that water park and getting on the slide that I walked off of and actually standing even though the line was longer and I had to sit there longer and going up that slide and going down it and then coming back because it was so much fun and doing it all over again. You know, that is what you need to do. If you're terrified of heights, go jump out of planes. If you're terrified of spiders, go and hold a tarantula at a pet shop or something. There's something you can do to face your fears if it's a physical fear and one of those ones that you can face.

Obviously, the real fears like Shannon was talking about, you don't want to face your kid getting kidnapped or something like that. You just want to... And that's what step three is. Realize the likelihood of that happening is very, very slim. The realistic view of it. And step number three, so we got to get out of the cycle of fear. Face those fears that can be faced. And then number three, realization that most fears are simply made up in your own mind and do not deserve the time that they're spent in your head. It's basically giving those fears rent-free space in your head, clouding up your judgment which doesn't need to be clouded.

So you need to find a way to replace those negative scenarios with positive scenarios and focus on the good instead of the negative. Because if you can do that, you remove the fear out of the situation. You say, okay, look, there's a lot of different things that could happen. However, look at all the positive outcomes that can come out of it. So instead of looking at the negative outcome that could possibly happen, you look at the positive outcome that can come out of it. You form a plan of action and you go at it and you take care of it. This isn't part of our notes. So just something I was thinking of before.

And not everybody that pretty much listens to this knows that we are a Christian-based podcast. We love God. You're just so funny. JC's in the house. Stop. All right. I've been in different scenarios where I help listen to a lot of people and I always will give the advice of you have to let go and let God. And now, being in a different lighting of being on the other end. Being in the situation we are in now. Being on the other end, you know, it is very hard to do. And I know I just have to do it. I'm not denying that. Like, well, that's just stupid advice. It's not stupid advice. It's very true. It's very real. And his word says that.

Cast all your anxiety on him and, you know, he will take care of us. And we know that. And we talked about before of creating that valley. And I really have done that this week. I've really created a valley and dug deep and stayed down here. And that's why I'm so emotionally drained. But I need to let go and let God handle where this is supposed to go. Because we don't know. Nope. And I'm okay with that. You know, I know that, like I said in the beginning of this, God's glory will be shown to any situation. And as bad as whatever you are going through right now and as fearful of what you are, if you lean on him, he will set your path straight.

And I just want to make sure you guys try to put that into practice. And it is hard. Believe us. For those that are listening that know us very well and you said, I've sat around that kitchen table and you said, let go and let God. And I told you it was really hard. We know it's hard. But I told a friend this week, I just wish I had a crystal ball so I could look through it, see how long and how hard this process was going to be. But in reality, I do. And that's called faith. And he is going to lead our footsteps. And he'll do the same thing for you. You just have to release your anxiety and fear to him. So that's my number four.

I know it's not on our broadcast notes, but that's my little tidbit. Yes. So we now have four tips to overcoming that fear. Number one, get out of the cycle of fear. Number two, face your fears. Number three, the realization. And number four is let go and let God. So if you're in a situation where you don't know what's going to happen, you don't know where the next step is going to lead you, and you're just plum scared of what's going to happen, hopefully this has helped you in some way. We just want to let you know that we believe in you. That's right. You can do it. You are built on the amazing image of God. Therefore, you're put here to do greatness. You're going to do great things.

We believe in you. Now, we always end our podcast with a prayer. So that's what we're going to do right now. Dear God, we just thank you for all of the blessings you have given us in our lives. We thank you for all of the challenges you have given us in our life because I don't want to live a life that has no challenge. I don't want to live a life that has no fear. I don't want to live a life that has just mediocrity. I want to live a life of greatness, and I understand that that is going to bring challenges in my life. God, I just pray that whoever is listening to this, if they need love, let them know that they're loved. If they need guidance, let them know that they have guidance.

What they need, you have, and to rely on you. Lord, for us, I just pray that you give us the strength and the guidance to make the proper decisions so that this situation results in a positive situation. Lord, we love you, and it's in your great name we pray. Amen. Don't forget to get your review in. That's right. Also, visit StandingStronger.com. StandingStronger.com. Underneath our video, there's going to be a button where you can get a free report. In that free report, we give you our top three tips to stop depression and anxiety dead in its tracks. It's three easy tips to stop depression dead in its tracks. Go to StandingStronger.com to grab that. Listen, you guys have a fantastic day.

Thanks for listening to us, and we just pray that this helped you somehow. Now it's time for the theme song. As always, hopefully we'll see you on the beach of the world! Walk through life Every day is a new beginning Shine your light It's your day and the world is waiting Move along to the song singing in your soul Feel the beat, clap your hands, let it take control All you need, all you want, are you ready to find your way? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Cause every day is a new day Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh And everything's going your way Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh And you want to make it last forever We'll keep it together Cause it keeps getting better