Edge Note: Are You Strong or Just Surviving?

Notes from the Edge

Host Lisa Lacy and therapist RenÃ©e Calhoun explore the critical distinction between true resilience and chronic survival mode. The episode

Key takeaways

Survival mode is characterized by a nervous system that remains on high alert, scanning for threats even during periods of apparent productivity.
Trauma adaptations are often protective 'parts' of the self that served a purpose in childhood but may no longer be necessary in adulthood.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) work allows individuals to approach their behaviors with curiosity rather than criticism.
True rest should be viewed as recovery for the body and mind, rather than just an absence of scheduled tasks.
Intelligence and logic are often insufficient to override nervous system-driven attachment patterns in unhealthy relationships.

Main topics

Survival Mode vs. Resilience
Trauma Adaptations
Internal Family Systems (IFS)

Notable quotes

Resilience is bouncing back to your original self but survival mode is a complete opposite.

Conclusion

The episode provides a roadmap for transitioning from a state of const

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:04) Welcome to Notes from the Edge, where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. We talk about the things that we're not talking about. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author of the upcoming memoir, Notes from a Certified Madwoman. Welcome to the Edge. Speaker 2 (0:34) Hey, hey, my friends, welcome back to another episode of Notes from the Edge. I am your host, Lisa Lacey, and this is the place we have the conversations we should have been having this whole time. Guess what? You ain't talking about it, but we're gonna today. And today's guest is Renee Calhoun, and she is a licensed marriage and family therapist, speaker, and educator. And she specializes in trauma, addiction, family systems, coercion, and human trafficking prevention. She is known for, and we love this in here, translating complex psychological concepts into things that actually work and can be used. Her work explores the... overlap between trauma, relationships, nervous system, survival responses. We hear the word survival a lot in here. Emotional labor. Love that word. We'll talk more about it. Addiction and family dynamics. She helps people understand why intelligent, capable individuals often remain stuck in the same unhealthy patterns. And her mission is simple, but it's a powerful one. Let's move beyond the therapy buzzwords and have conversations that actually transform our lives. Renee, Speaker 1 (1:47) you're the perfect guest. Welcome to Notes from the Edge. How are you today, my friend? I'm well. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Speaker 2 (1:55) Yeah, I'm excited about this conversation too, because it's something that we talk a lot about in here and something that I actually lived on, on many, many levels, but we're just gonna, we're gonna dive right in and then we're gonna go down whatever fun rabbit holes we find today. Okay. So, um, maybe she isn't strong. Maybe she's surviving. Talk to me about that. How do we know the difference between this buzzword, right? You're not a big fan of buzzwords, resilience. And what is actually survival mode? What are some signs that for somebody like me 20 years ago that was in it, survival mode and had success on the outside and everybody assumed that was it, I was fine. And I absolutely wasn't. So how do we know? How do we know? Speaker 1 (2:48) Yeah, great question. I think you're nailing it already, right? Like society loves success. What does success look like, right? Like we've confused endurance with wellness. We see Speaker 2 (3:03) folks Speaker 1 (3:04) holding down, especially women, right? Holding down a career, raising children, taking care of everybody else, volunteering, right? PTA. um they're showing up for everybody and everything and we're like oh they're so strong they're doing it all um but strength and survival are not the same thing Speaker 2 (3:23) for Speaker 1 (3:24) me resilience is bouncing back to your original self but survival mode is a complete opposite where you your nervous system is operating at such high levels and you never give it permission to come back down. So you're always scanning for the next problem. You're looking around and seeing what everybody else's needs are and you're solving people's emergencies before they happen. Right. And like, again, you got to ask Speaker 2 (3:53) me now. I jump Speaker 1 (3:54) into, you got to ask me now. Yeah, absolutely. But the tricky part of the survival mode. is that it looks really productive. It looks really wonderful. You're the dependable one. You're the one everyone can count on. You're not dropping any balls, right? But you can't remember the last time that you felt at peace. When I asked my clients, when is the last time you felt safe enough to do absolutely nothing? And your body believed you, right? Because there are times that like, we think that we're at rest and we're, you know, we don't have anything on the schedule. So we're like at rest, but your body's always waiting for the next shoe to drop. And so that's, that's the difference, right? Like we've mistaken, again, this endurance for healing. But just because someone's functioning doesn't mean that they're actually surviving. And, and like you said, Just because someone's functioning doesn't mean that they're not suffering. So Speaker 2 (4:54) your Speaker 1 (4:55) nervous system will always choose what feels familiar long before it chooses healthy. Speaker 2 (5:03) Yeah. Well, and I even wanted to add something to what you said is even move on to the next goal. Right. See, that was a big one for me. Oh, got there. OK, next goal. OK, next goal. There was never any downtime because downtime. I didn't like alone time. I didn't like to be alone. I was too much time to think. But, you know, but it was never enough. There was always another goal, another mountain to climb. So we get there and then I'd be like, great, we're here. And now what's next? No time to celebrate, no downtime to rest. And I believe those of us who are on autopilot in survival mode may actually need practice in what rest really is. Talk to us about Speaker 1 (5:42) what rest really is. What is rest? What does that even mean? Yeah. right like you just said something about celebration like Were we taught to celebrate? Not ourselves. No. We were taught to celebrate, right? Speaker 2 (5:58) Yeah. And how? We were taught to celebrate the goal, right? The goal, but not ourselves in said goal, especially as women. We're taught to self-sacrifice, right? Yeah. And like Speaker 1 (6:09) for a lot of people, I ask them like, what did your mom do at home? Like, did you see her rest? Speaker 2 (6:17) Yeah. Speaker 1 (6:19) What does that mean? And it was like, oh, well, no, she was always like up doing dishes or making lunches or cleaning or whatever. But when it when did she sit down and like to me, I think of rest as recovery. Speaker 2 (6:36) And Speaker 1 (6:37) I think that that is. Speaker 1 (6:40) popularized by the like exercise injury in industry as a rest day for your muscles where you're like allowing them time to recover but that that doesn't translate to the rest of the world it should right but when is the last time you sat down and just like took a breath And took care of your body, your heart, what you wanted to do. Maybe rest for some people is exercise. Maybe rest is sitting with a cup of coffee. Maybe it is reading a book. Maybe it's sleeping. Everyone's rest is different. And what your body needs, your body knows what it needs. We just never listen to it. I love that, that rest can be different Speaker 2 (7:24) for everybody. Well, one of the practices that I had to employ was guilt. free rest. So Speaker 1 (7:31) when Speaker 2 (7:32) I'm having my downtime, it's not, oh, I should be, I need to be, I'm working in my head, because that's not rest either. Speaker 1 (7:41) I have met so many women that have had to unlearn behavior of, especially if they're sitting down, and they hear their partner's car come in the driveway, and they're like, oh, I got to get up and I got to be doing something so I don't get caught sitting. and like you're Speaker 2 (8:01) allowed to sit down you're like no one knows now sometimes i'll be a bad because there's many reasons why i need to rest not only for mental and physical health but i'm like well hit a wall he knows i hit the wall sometimes the wall comes in two sometimes it comes at eight at night sometimes it comes at five you just never know but once i hit it i know now there nothing else productive is going to get done I'll just be exhausting myself further. Right. Speaker 1 (8:31) I've hit the limit. I've hit the wall, like you said. Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:34) Yeah. Yeah. You don't have Speaker 1 (8:36) to hit the wall to rest. Speaker 2 (8:38) Yeah. Very good point. Very good. I'm learning, girl. I'm learning. It's still practice. I'm still learning not to beat myself up while I'm resting, right? That's, that's, we're just there. We're just there. I'll be on your calendar tomorrow. Speaker 1 (8:53) All right. Speaker 2 (8:55) So I love this too. You say, I love this. Oh, you say that trauma sometimes gets mislabeled as personality. Talk to me about that. How can somebody spend years thinking, well, this is, this is just who I am and it not really be who they uncover themselves to be once they start doing the journey towards healing. Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:20) Again, like our brains are so incredibly good at surviving. People grew up who are walking on eggshells and they think like, oh, I'm