Coming Out Of Survival Mode

Hey friends, welcome to Intuition Awakening! Today I share my experiences of coming out of survival mode after nearly 30 years, including working full time again, building my business, treating myself to singing lessons with a vocal coach, and healing my inner child that had so many unmet needs. Do you resonate with any of those topics too? Tune in to learn more about my healing journey. I hope it resonates! Much love, Jenine

Transcript

Hello and welcome my friends to Intuition Awakening.

My name is Janine Boser.

This is a new episode of my podcast.

I haven't created one in a while.

I actually ended up catching COVID back in the summertime here and have been recuperating ever since.

But through this process,

I've also learned a lot about myself and I wanted to share something today about singing.

And kind of my journey that is going to be beginning with taking vocal lessons and how that all fits in with the world of trauma.

So stick around if you're interested in hearing about my own journey with PTSD plus what I've been up to this summer and fall and to get a little inside scoop into some of the things that I do for healing.

So to start with,

Like I said,

I caught COVID and that was a real shake up in my life.

Right before that,

I had also had a really severe cat bite injury and subsequent infection in my hand.

During that episode,

Though,

I also had to take some time off work because I really physically couldn't use my hands.

And at the time I'd been working some part time jobs on top of running my business Intuition Awakening and I was suddenly without income for a few days.

And that was really scary.

I realized that I was living in survival mode.

My mom asked me a really pointed question.

She said,

How much longer are you going to do this?

And I thought,

Well,

What do you mean?

What do you mean?

I'm just going to keep going and tell.

And I didn't have an answer.

I didn't have an answer for how long I was going to let myself continue to work part time to work 55 hours a week to try to keep starting my business and running my business and I have a degree in human resources,

And my mom had always said,

Why not go get back like back into full time work and I said,

I left the corporate world for a reason.

I had like a mental breakdown at the beginning of the pandemic because I have medical PTSD if you've listened to some of my social media posts or if you've tuned into my podcast before you know this that I had colitis when I was a kid.

And so when the pandemic started hand sanitizer,

Which is a trigger for me was everywhere wearing a mask,

Which is a trigger for me was everywhere.

Talking about hospitalizations and ICU cases and the struggles people were going through with their medical health.

Suddenly everyone in the world was just as anxious as I was I lost my marbles.

And so I took a short term disability leave super thankful in Canada that we had access to them.

And then a few months later I was laid off from my corporate job and I thought I don't want to go back.

Look at how much stress I was under I'm not ready for that.

But after this cat bite this year kind of a full two years after I've been laid off and trying to start my business and working part time jobs and trying to just keep myself afloat and prove to myself like I didn't need my corporate job that I was built for the world of entrepreneurship and this was my right path and I mean with PTSD with anxiety we can really start to think in black and white terms.

On top of that I'm a Libra can definitely think in black and white terms and try to find the rights and the wrongs in a situation and I kept thinking like I'm making the right choice for myself to be doing this part time work and not be stressing myself up by forcing myself to work,

You know,

A 40 hour work week but after a while,

I was working so many part time jobs and running my business that easily I was working 55 hours a week,

Week after week after week.

My work day started at 4am and ended at 6pm and I was like I'm working 14 hours.

I went from working eight hours a day at a really good wage and salary with my human resources degree to running my own business being happier but also being much more stressed out about finances and I thought,

I've been living in survival mode.

And this will be my 30th birthday this year so I thought,

Wow,

I'm 29 and I've been living in survival mode for all these years and this summer I've really been starting to come out of it,

Which I think is part of the reason why I ended up taking some time off this summer and looking for full time corporate work again.

And I've just started a new job in the corporate field.

It's an 18 month term position which I think really fits well with my life that I don't have to get locked back into,

You know,

Feeling like I owe a company five or 10 years of my life you know to work there forever,

But also I really enjoy what I'm doing so far.

It's really interesting.

The company's really great.

I also know this about my ADHD,

Though that in past jobs,

I tend to get really excited right up front.

And then when I start to get bored,

I start to get really disappointed or like maybe this isn't what I thought it was and until I really figured out that I had ADHD.

I didn't understand why I had such trouble at jobs,

Why I had such trouble at work.

And so I've really been on this journey of discovering myself and discovering the fact that I've been living in survival mode for so many years that I didn't even recognize I was there,

Didn't even recognize that I was living paycheck to paycheck had no savings account and that my business is slowly growing,

And that's super exciting but also that small businesses can take six to 10 years to be profitable,

I didn't really know that I was kind of putting the blinders on and just thinking it's going to happen any day now it's going to all this effort all this work is going to pay off,

And then I'll be able to pay my bills.

So instead of being proactive,

I was still being very reactive,

Which is also part of the problem that I had when I was working full time in a corporate job kind of a Monday to Friday nine to five type of job.

So these habits and traits had followed me forward.

So,

What does this have to do with singing What does this have to do with trauma and you know my journey with Reiki and my business and everything.

Starting this new job now.

I've started to recognize just how sort of just how much survival mode was in my life,

How much I wasn't allowing myself the little pleasures in life,

Or how much my childhood really impacted me.

So for example,

Singing lessons during the pandemic and when I was running my business,

I started singing again.

And I say again because I grew up in a small town,

I loved the drama club I was a drama kid,

And I had a really good,

Good ability to project my voice to the back of the gymnasium to the back of,

You know,

The audience.

And so I really got I got a lot of lead roles,

I was really great at drama,

And then grade like 10 11 and 12 hit our senior years of high school.

So all of the lead roles were now singing roles.

So instead,

My directors that I had,

I mean they were my teachers they were people I had known for a number of years in the drama club so they recognize that I was really shy about doing singing roles.

And I never did,

I never auditioned,

My competition was the vocal coaches daughter,

Or the music teachers daughter,

Like those were the ones that I was competing against for these roles.

And I was I felt like I was nothing in comparison because I hadn't had the training.

I might have sung in the choir for a few years in church but no one had ever taught me how to sing,

And in a small town it was this kind of idea if you haven't been involved with singing or soccer dance since like the age of three.

You're not going to be any good at it so don't just just don't bother.

So when I moved to the city as an adult,

I was really able to start taking adult classes I went,

Oh my god there's adult beginner things.

That was something that wasn't available in my small town.

So singing was a real was something I wanted to do so bad,

But I recognized growing up now,

I wouldn't have been able to ask,

Like heck my alcoholic dad and my parents who were fighting 24 hours a day and the tension in my home and me trying to be a golden keep the peace between everyone.

My parents would have never agreed to drive me to singing lessons once or twice a week,

It just wouldn't have been an option I would have been scolded,

Who do you think you are.

We don't have time for that I don't have money for that.

So I knew from a very young age not to ask for things.

And now as an adult,

I'm noticing throughout the pandemic,

I started singing again.

And I started loving it and I started to ask questions about.

I wonder if I could ever learn to sing better,

And I am getting really curious with my healing.

And then I think is part of coming out of survival mode as well is realizing that the world we thought or these ideas that we had these limiting beliefs.

What if they're not true.

What if none of it was real,

Because the trauma was our life.

And that was normal.

So what if,

And that's almost a big scary question I'll be honest I struggle with that a lot.

I struggle with the grief and the anger and the guilt sometimes about why didn't I stand up for myself sooner.

Why didn't I say mom,

Dad,

I want these lessons.

Why didn't I ask for my needs.

Maybe they would have said yes,

But also at the time I was a child,

Trying to get through a really tough home environment.

I was trying to stay alive,

You know that was the thing,

And it's,

It's really tough to look back on that and think,

I didn't get to do what I wanted to do then I didn't get to explore no wonder I'm 29 and just starting to explore some of my confidence and stand up for myself and advocate for myself and find corporate jobs that I actually enjoy and not just take anything to have a job.

Why am I now just starting my business when I've wanted to for five or six years now.

Why am I now just discovering you know my sexuality and you know,

Realizing like maybe pansexual or just queer fits with me better than,

Than being a lesbian and you know why,

Why did it take me until my late 20s to figure all this out.

And a lot of it comes down to,

I was in survival mode.

I didn't know another way of life,

I didn't know life could be fun that things could just be interesting and joyful and that people would allow me to do things,

And that I don't need people to allow me to do things that I'm allowed to make up my own mind.

And that is tough for me still to this day is figuring out what is Janine want,

What do I want,

And how to ask for that without making myself upset but also knowing that I'm safe with someone else and asking them.

So,

It's been an interesting journey and right now vocal coaching is the way that I'm kind of moving through this.

I really really love singing rock songs,

I mean disturbed.

I mean,

Like falling in reverse,

I mean corn stone sour.

I love those songs I love singing that like deep,

I've got a really good deep voice and with vocal coaching,

I'm going to learn what the heck that means.

Am I an ultimate tenor I have no idea what those words are yet because I'm not familiar with the technical side,

But when I was 16,

Kind of one of the ways I apparently was self soothing and I didn't really know what was I was allowing myself to sing to on the way to school,

When I was frustrated that I wasn't going to be the lead roles in my final years of high school,

Just when I was like hitting my peak of my skills of being in the drama club,

I wasn't able to audition for any of the big roles.

My directors thankfully did give me some non singing roles or like writing a script for a little,

We did commercials in between the singing acts like during intermission.

Me and a friend were responsible for creating a script of jokes and comedy and so we still got to be kind of front and center on the stage and show off our skills,

But it wasn't a singing role so it still felt like I wasn't quite part of the main cast,

But they did recognize and try to give me some some opportunity to,

To have fun and still show off my skills.

So,

Sorry if you hear my cat in the background as well he's desperately wanting in and trying to convince him to stay outside while I record this podcast.

So,

When I started to feel that frustration that I wasn't getting the roles that I wanted.

I started to sing on the way to school.

I had a truck with a cassette player only no CDs Of course,

I was old school.

And I had a cassette to MP3 converter,

Literally a cassette tape with an aux cable coming out of it.

And I would plug in my MP3 player through my cassette tape burner and I would play music on the way to school.

And what I did was I thought well if they sing it like that,

If the artist sings it like this.

If I can match my voice to them,

That must mean that I'm singing well.

If it's on the radio,

They've done something right.

So if I try to sing like them.

Maybe I can learn how.

And that was really,

Really fun.

I started singing him Smash Mouth,

And Billy Talent and whatever other things were on my MP3 player at the time and the,

You know,

2008 2009,

All these male rock songs I found my voice matched with better than female voices that kind of threw me for a loop as well being a woman and thinking at the time I was straight I had such a like cis heteronormative kind of I must conform to you know singing the girly pop songs and I thought,

I really like rock songs.

And thankfully I had a lot of friends at the time that like metallic and AC DC and stuff so I fit right in with them.

But that was how I started singing.

And I kept up with it throughout the years,

But over time didn't practice as much I just felt like I wasn't doing it good enough and I would get very self conscious when my voice cracked,

Or I just didn't sound like they did,

And I couldn't sing my favorite song super well so I was trying to find ones that I could sing ones that I felt comfortable with.

And that helped like finding out what I liked was helpful.

And during the pandemic this really really took off for me being at home,

All the time.

I've worked now from home,

Almost exclusively since March of 2020,

And I love it.

I'm super glad for the opportunity for it but I was also really lonely at home and kind of bored and broke,

I didn't have money to go to a movie or to go take classes or to go swimming or go to the beach during the summertime I was at home a lot.

And I started just popping in my headphones and singing.

And whenever I took out my headphones and I could hear my own voice I would get self conscious but I would just put them back in.

And over time,

I just kept at it kept controlling my breath and noticing that suddenly that note was a little easier.

And then a little bit easier.

And then I started to find TikToks and YouTube channels about singing and tips and tricks.

And oh my gosh that really worked suddenly with just that little bit of advice,

Like,

Sitting with your back up against the wall and feeling like you're pulling your belly button into the wall.

Suddenly I could project a higher note for longer I could hold it.

And it was just incredible to notice these tiny little things.

Suddenly I could sing,

And I could sing well.

So it had been a goal of mine to just keep practicing.

I'm experimenting with screams and you know if you've no disturbed you know their beginnings of the songs always have a scream guttural like grunts,

It's,

It just feels good in my belly to try to emulate those noises too.

And I always thought,

Well is that good is this bad am I hurting my voice I don't know.

And so eventually,

Just this last week I came across a TikToker,

Her first name is Polly and she's a vocal coach in the UK.

And just the way she was describing,

Like don't get fixated on focusing on the notes does it sound the same,

Are you doing it good enough,

And just the thing she was saying really resonated with me.

So,

I started flipping through her channel and someone had asked if she does coaching one on one,

And I just loved her vibe and today we had a little 15 minute consultation,

And I'm going to be booking some vocal lessons for myself in the fall.

Number one,

I would have thought they were way out of my price range,

Actually it's quite affordable if there's some there are coaches out there that are quite affordable,

Especially having a paycheck now through my new job and noticing that I can work in this corporate job and not be in survival mode and not be scared of a corporation or my new job or,

You know,

Being able to advocate for myself at work and working from home is a huge bonus for me because I get to,

You know,

Sit with blankets and like really control the clothing that I wear and for my ADHD and sensory,

You know,

I get to shut the lights off when I need to and I need to pop my headphones and put some music on or pop my headphones into tune the noise out,

I get to control my environment a lot which is very very different than working in a cubicle space with 15 other employees.

So,

Now I have a paycheck.

Now I have time.

And I'm starting to find this little itch within me that wants to spoil myself.

I feel really guilty about it,

Because I feel like I should be saving my money,

Not spending it again,

There's the old survival instincts,

But also I'm so excited to start this new chapter of my life that is focused more on me and what I want and what I need.

What is Janine want in a day,

What do you want in a day.

How do you want your day to look,

What are things you want to try for me,

I'm starting to let myself explore the idea of going to karaoke nights once a week,

Or even maybe,

Maybe becoming part of a band one day.

I didn't realize that watching the band kids growing up and just loving watching them.

That was my inner child wanting to do it as well.

That wasn't me just like really being appreciative that my friends were into music,

That was my inner child saying,

I want to do that teach me.

So now knowing this about myself looking back on all these different areas of my life that I wanted to be the best,

I wanted to be that person.

I didn't want to just be friends with that person I wanted to be them.

Now I get to let myself do that I want to be a professional curler for example I love curling it's something I've done since I was like 12.

And I took 10 years to get back into it during university age like 17 to 27.

I was so scared to go to a rank where nobody knew me.

Maybe I'm not good enough,

Who's going to want me on their team.

I held myself back.

And I don't want to say that in a negative way I want to be really compassionate with myself when I say that because I wasn't holding myself back to spite myself,

I was holding myself out back to protect myself.

I felt like I couldn't do these things,

And be safe and safety came first.

So I stayed home,

I tried to say,

Stay small but eventually this part of me this inner child has been bubbling up saying,

Okay,

I want to do this now that we're safe.

Can we do this stuff.

So I want to learn to horseback ride better I would love to show jump.

Fun little fact I'd love to be an Olympic level show jumper,

I have no idea how to ever do that,

But just knowing now that I'm not going to die.

By time I'm 30,

You know that was my,

I didn't realize how much of that played in my head.

When I was younger,

Especially having gone through medical surgeries and nearly dying when I was 13.

I really didn't think I was going to make it to even 2825 was kind of the cutoff that was as far as I could imagine 28 was like,

Oh,

That would be a nice long life.

And that's just the reality sometimes with us with PTSD we don't imagine that future it's so hard to predict or to picture and to visualize because we haven't been there yet.

I always say our brain kind of needs.

It needs the facts it needs the data.

It needs the evidence.

Did this work well,

Did this go well,

And sometimes those initial evidence gathering moments where we step out and we go do something for the first time in years,

Or we ask for our wants and needs to be met in a new relationship.

Those first few moments of exploring again are really terrifying,

But it does get easier because our brain starts to say,

Oh well it worked out last time.

So it did work out for the last two years I found curling teams,

Not even just one but multiple teams that were really happy to have me on the team because of my curling experience.

I found this position that was really excited to have me because of my human resources experience,

Because of my agriculture experience I grew up on a farm.

This position is in farming.

So,

It's so interesting that we can start to build up a bank of memories in our mind that are really negative because of the survival mode and the PTSD and the traumas we've been through,

But we can also build a positive memory bank,

Practicing things trying things with safe people finding safe therapists for example or doctors or finding that safe confidant a friend or family member,

We can start to build up those experiences where our needs were met,

Where we did get to try something new,

Where we did get to explore something.

And I think that's something that's this idea with healing,

Is that suddenly we arrive,

Suddenly we get to healing.

And what I'm finding is it's almost like we get to our destination like we get on the plane.

We're flying somewhere doing all this healing work,

And then we land.

We land we put our feet down again on the floor,

And we look around going,

Oh my god I'm in a new place.

I am in a completely different space than what I was.

And I feel confident and stable,

Question mark.

I feel good,

And I maybe don't feel too anxious today.

And we don't even know what to do with ourselves.

We didn't have anything planned for when we got to the healing space because we were so busy trying to just heal,

Trying to just live in that you know original location that original fear the original trauma.

It's going to be really hard to picture anything outside of this.

So I just wanted to share that today about my experiences how I'm now trying to spoil myself and live a little and give that inner child what she wanted and desired in the singing lessons and joining a curling team again this fall,

And working a nine to five job with me and making me feel safe,

While also allows me plenty of time to run my business and make podcasts and create meditations and create healing content and advertise my content and grow my business and I get to have it all.

And that's something I don't think I've ever allowed myself to experience or think yet because I was in survival mode.

So if you're in survival mode.

You're out of it and you're on the other side,

Also trying to explore like what is my new life look like.

Welcome to intuition awakening,

You're welcome to check out my social media pages.

You're welcome to apply to work with me one on one.

You're welcome to take my courses,

I hope that you find the resources you need on my website which is intuition awakening.

Com,

Or you can find me at intuition awakening on Facebook,

TikTok,

YouTube,

Instagram and insight timer.

I have plenty of resources because I know how hard sometimes it is to find resources.

So feel free to check out my content,

Feel free to message me or email me at info at intuition awakening.

Com if you're curious just like message me and let me know what resonated today.

I always really look forward to getting those emails or messages so no matter what time what year you're viewing this,

I will be seeing those emails and I really appreciate your feedback and just connecting so feel free to say hello.

I hope to see you again next week.

I'm going to be watching you an awesome day and stay updated on my social media pages I will keep you posted on how the singing lessons go.

Take care my friends.

Reviews

Thanks for sharing! Inspired that the next right step seems to appear when the time is right for me too. ❤️✨

Wonderful! Really interesting. And so we’ll presented. I hope your business is successful and rewarding. And your singing.

Very good! Thank you! Been in Survival Mode for a very, very long time. If it's not one "crisis" it's another. Much food for thought re PTSD re employment & being good to myself.

I’m glad things are going so well for you! Great insight and advice - thank you.