When the Other Shoe Just… Doesn't Drop

You did the work. You healed the things. And somehow life is actually… good. So why does that feel like the scariest part? This episode is for anyone who's finally in a peaceful season... and can't stop waiting for it to fall apart.

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Transcript

Jojo (00:08.206)
Welcome to the inside out podcast. I'm your host Jojo and this is where we will navigate the mess together that is mental, emotional and spiritual. Let's get messy.

Jojo (00:27.023)
Hi everyone, welcome back to Inside Out. If you're new here, this is a podcast where we navigate the mess. The mess structure is mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of whatever topic that we are talking about. So I'm Jojo, and I'm so glad you're here. And if you're back for another episode, welcome back. I love having you. So today is, they're always personal, but this one's gonna be a little bit more in it. Honestly,

I've been sitting with this topic for a little while because I didn't really know how I wanted to articulate it, but I've been having conversations with some friends about this overall idea. And here it is. Everything in my life right now is good. Can we just take a second? Have you ever just been able to say like, my life is really good? I haven't.

I haven't been able to just be like, wow, everything's good. Like genuinely good. Like my relationships are good. My work situation's good. My, I'm happy. I'm figuring things out. And you know, there's still, there's still stuff. Of course there's stuff, but the baseline of everything is good. It's simple. It's smooth. Even my

relationship doesn't have these like massive highs and like devastating lows anymore. There's, there's no chaos. There's no drama. And overall things in my life are just shifting in a really beautiful direction. And I should feel really great about that. Right. But here's the thing. My nervous system has no idea what to do with that. And I've started asking myself, why does this piece that I'm feeling feel so

uncomfortable. Like why does why does ease feel suspicious? Like when things are genuinely good why does some part of me keep waiting for the other shoe to drop? Can you relate?

Jojo (02:40.927)
And I started digging into this feeling and doing some research around it scientifically. And what I found has been quite fascinating and sort of unsettling, but ultimately pretty freeing. Cause I'm realizing like, this is, this is actually pretty natural to be having this, this response. So that's what we're going to get into today. If you've been in

a particularly good season of your life, but there's this weird like underlying anxiety. Tune in, sit back, because I think this episode might be for you. So let's really get into it. I wanna start by naming what this actually feels like personally for me and my body, because I think a lot of us experience this, but we don't really have a language for it. It's just kind of this like,

unrest, like when things feel calm, but your brain is almost like scanning, like you're waiting for something to go wrong, like this low, like hyper vigilance that never really turns off. And then you're like sitting there like, well, there's nothing to be vigilant about. So what?

And I will say maybe this shows up differently for you. And maybe ease, which is what this feels like for me, feels boring or flat or like something's missing. Like you need a little bit of turbulence in your life, like a little bit of drama, a little bit of spice, little stir the pot. You know what I mean? And maybe that drama makes you feel alive or feels like

things are real. Or maybe it's the sneaky feeling where you start to unconsciously create the chaos. And maybe that looks like picking a fight that didn't need to happen or overthinking something. That's totally fine. And you have no reason to overthink it. Or maybe it's pulling back from someone

Jojo (05:03.247)
when something good starts getting a little bit closer. Now listen, this is not weakness. You're not broken. I'm not broken. It is self-sabotaging and it's not necessarily for no reason, but your nervous system is doing exactly what it has always learned to do. So let's break down maybe the why this is happening.

There's actual neuroscience behind this and I think it's really important to understand it and that's why I want to get into it because then we're not going to be using this as an excuse and we can really approach ourselves with more compassion. So maybe you grew up in an environment that was unpredictable. Maybe it was emotionally volatile. Your parents were always fighting or there was some sort of conflict.

or just a general instability. Your nervous system adapted to that. It learned that that's what normal feels like. It's like high alert, scanning for danger, waiting for the next blow up. But the thing is, our nervous system is incredibly good at its job. It has kept us safe. It has helped us survive. But the problem is, it never just like

sends you notification and updates you when something has changed, when your circumstances have changed, when you're actually safe. So now you're in a stable relationship in your life or a peaceful season, a genuinely good place in your life, right? And your nervous system is running this old program or software that was written for a completely different

environment. So I did a bunch of research on this and there's a term for this. It's called hypervigilance hangover, where basically your brain is scanning for danger and it doesn't easily switch to that relaxation mode just because the danger is gone. Now there are other parts of your nervous system and I'm sure these buzzwords have been thrown around quite a bit, but

Jojo (07:26.635)
Again, I want this to be validating that you're not losing it, you're not crazy, and you're not just creating chaos for no reason. This is what your nervous system is programmed to do. So the Polyvagal Theory was developed by Dr. Steven Porges, and it's this whole idea for us to really understand our autonomic nervous system. And there's three specific stages.

There's the ventral vagal, which is that safe, connected, socially engaged, easeful, peaceful, relaxed version of us. Then there's the sympathetic, which is that fight or flight, that high activation, the chaos mode that probably a lot of us tend to live in. And then there's the dorsal vagal, and that's the freeze, the shutdown, the numbness, the complete just like...

blank out. So when you spent most of your time operating from the sympathetic nervous system or your dorsal vagal nervous system, your fight or flight, your body literally doesn't compute or understand how the ventral vagal feels. That safety feels foreign. That calm feels like, wait, what?

That's weird. Feels kind of suspicious. And our brain will naturally interpret that unfamiliarity as a threat. Now there's also another component to this, which is that dopamine connection. And I've talked about in a previous episode called, You Chasing Depth or Dopamine? I was specifically talking about it in relationships when you're building something. Is it just the constant dopamine hit of they like me and getting that text back? Or are you actually building?

something and it's not that constant reinforcement of that feedback loop of high high high high high and then crash and wait he texted me wait they like me wait she this chaos and drama create those dopamine spikes big highs big lows these intense emotions are neurochemical events and our brain gets these dopamine hits

Jojo (09:55.065)
from the drama, from the tension, from the resolution, from the makeup, from whatever it is. However, on the other hand, stability gives you a slower, steadier level of dopamine. It's not that loud, like, spike every single time. So when you move from a chaotic environment into a stable one, your brain is essentially going through a form of withdrawal.

It's used to those spikes and that steady feeling feels boring. It feels like something's wrong. And lately I've kind of been sitting in this flatness where I'm like, well, my life is seemingly going in the direction that I want it to and everything's good. But why do I just feel like meh? Why am I just kind of like, yeah, things are good. Like there's not this like.

my gosh, and then this low, low, and this high, high, like things are kind of just ticking along in a great direction and it's good, but I'm not finding the appreciation behind it. I'm not being like, and honestly, I'm thinking something's wrong and that I'm unhappy or sad or something because I'm not having these like crazy rushes, but there's research that backs this up.

That chronic stress that floods the body with cortisol and adrenaline every single time there's that high high and that low low and those spikes and everything's just, you know, crazy. Over time, your nervous system starts to expect those elevated levels of stimulation. And when that stimulation drops off or things are good or just in your life getting more peaceful, calm, and just genuinely better, your body interprets that as a threat.

My body goes, wait a second, what's going on here? When's the other shoe gonna drop? What is really happening? And then the stories and the cycles of all of the chaos and crazy starts to flood my brain personally. And I'm like, well, what if this doesn't work? What if that doesn't work? And it's like this, I put myself on the crazy train that I just got off because my nervous system has been so used to that constant.

Jojo (12:22.599)
feedback loop. There was something that I came across that put it so well. It said, if you grew up in an environment full of unpredictability or emotional volatility, your body may have learned to interpret chaos as normal and peace as unsafe. Whew. That hit me. And I didn't grow up in a chaotic household, but I chose chaotic people.

I surrounded myself after I left home with drama, with unhealed, with unhealth, with people that brought the drama, that I fed the drama. It was a constant feedback loop of chaos, whether that was friendships or relationships or what. And there's nothing wrong with that. But now that my season of life has changed to a more peaceful,

balanced existence, that neurological programming is running that outdated software. Now here's where it got interesting for me. And this is also where I feel like there's so much hope when it comes to rewiring our nervous system and understanding that this might be how we're operating and changing that. Or maybe this is just me and I'm just alone in this and no one else is doing this.

However, I still want to talk about it because I was even watching a show today and the girl was like, I'm in a healthy relationship. And I'm like, where's the chaos? I should just blow it up. Maybe I need therapy. And that was a genuine quote from this. It was a reality TV show. And I was like, it's not just me. But maybe there are people out there that need to hear this. we talk a lot about trauma and its effects. We talk a lot about healing.

as a general society. But there's a concept that I've been reading about lately that I hadn't really thought about until I started like exploring this topic. We know about post-traumatic stress, but there's something called PTG, which is post-traumatic growth. It's this idea that adversity doesn't just leave the damage behind, but it can also be a catalyst for

Jojo (14:48.147)
genuine and psychological expansion, meaning real change, new levels of resilience, perspective, connection, meaning, all of these things that we can elevate from instead of repeating or falling back into patterns. And it's not just like bouncing back. It's this whole idea that you come out of the hard thing different and sometimes

It's not just like, like, I'm different, like that changed me, but it actually is more meaningful than that because it gave you a better way to be equipped for life. And when you look up PTG, the neuroscience behind this is pretty fascinating. And research has found that the brain has this capacity through neuroplasticity to literally rewire itself and the same

neuroplasticity that you wired your brain for the chaos can actually be helped to make you feel safe in stillness. But it takes repeated gentle cues for safety and for nervous system regulation for that to actually start to settle in. And you're probably like, JoJo, what the heck did you just say? I will break it down. Let me get into it. But before I do, what we're actually talking about here is this season of life.

when things are good, but that somehow feels wrong. And it's basically the beginning of this whole rewiring process that you're in. And it's this discomfort zone of that growth. But I think a lot of us need to also realize that discomfort isn't a sign that something's wrong because discomfort is growth. When you work out in the gym, you're sore.

because your muscles are growing. When you're figuring out a new way to process life, it's not comfortable. When you move, when you change it, when you change your life, it's not comfortable, it's not easy. But you know you're growing. So let's talk about what you can actually do about all of this, because information without application doesn't change anything. Literally out loud or in your journal, say,

Jojo (17:13.223)
something along the lines of, my nervous system is looking for chaos because that is what it's learned. Peace is safe and I don't need to create a problem anymore. When I named it, when I said it, when I realized, I was like, and something dropped in for me because naming it interrupts that automatic pattern. And research in neuroscience shows that labeling

What you're experiencing, it's called effect labeling, actually reduces the intensity of the emotional response in your brain. And that's just naming it. The next thing is a little bit interesting, but it's gradually exposing yourself to calm. And this sounds wild, but your nervous system basically needs to practice being in ease.

in the same way that you practice anything else. And it's starting small, five minutes of stillness without reaching for your phone. Sitting with a good feeling instead of immediately bracing for impact or for that feeling to end or go away or disappear. It's almost like desensitizing yourself, except you're gently teaching your nervous system that calm is not a threat. Another way to practice is

And that's with obviously safe people. This one is really important. And I want to spend a moment just kind of diving into it because co-regulation is this idea that our nervous systems are not designed to self-regulate in isolation. We are biologically wired to regulate in relationship. Go into my last episode with Mike Elliott. We talk about healing. We talk about all of that.

and how you're not supposed to just do it by yourself listening to a podcast or reading a book, you're supposed to do it with other people. So when you spend time with someone who is genuinely calm and safe, their regulated nervous system literally signal safety to yours. And it's almost like your nervous system can borrow from their calm. And you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's exactly why

Jojo (19:38.171)
Certain people feel instantly soothing to be around, even if you're not talking about anything heavy, it's just biological. So if you are in this season of trying to tolerate ease, round yourself with people who already live in that space. Let their nervous system be a cue of safety to yours. Another way is noticing when you're scanning or creating chaos. Just notice it.

Just notice when you're catching yourself picking that fight that doesn't need to happen or catastrophizing over something that's completely fine or pulling back from something good or just pause and ask yourself, is this real or is my nervous system looking for chaos because that's what's familiar to me? And don't judge yourself. Replace that judgment with curiosity and just be curious.

Am I doing that again? Interesting, why? Huh, glad I caught myself. Just notice it. And the last thing that I want to bring up is just let yourself have the good thing. And this might be the simplest one, but it also is probably the hardest. Practice receiving. Practice staying present in moments of ease without rushing past them or bracing for impact against them. Let yourself

actually be in the good thing. And that's the work. It's this quiet, unglamorous, soul aligning, important work. So before we get messy, I just want you to acknowledge at the fact that you have arrived at a place of peace. Maybe you are in a season of peace.

even if your nervous system hasn't necessarily caught up yet. This is evidence of your growth. You did the work, you made different choices, you healed things that needed healing, and now you're in a whole new paradigm and it's uncomfortable. This calm feels like something's wrong, but that's your old wiring, that's your old patterning. And what you need to do now

Jojo (21:58.957)
is rewire all those little things to catch up to who you've become. So give yourself time, give yourself grace, and keep choosing that piece, that good thing, whatever that is for you, because your nervous system will catch up, will rewire it, even when it tries to convince you that it isn't real. Okay, so let's get messy with this mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

mentally, where in your life are you currently scanning for a problem that doesn't actually exist? And can you put it down? Can you just stop? Can you say it out loud and be like, I see you. Yeah, we're done. Emotionally, what does ease feel like in your body right now? Does it feel safe? Or does it feel uncomfortable? Does it feel suspicious? Does it feel dangerous?

Can you get curious about that feeling instead of running from it or creating some sort of chaos to replace it? And spiritually, if this season of peace is not a coincidence and it's actually something that you called in and something you grew into, what becomes possible when you let yourself believe that you're allowed to have it? And that's all I have for you for today. Thank you so much for spending time with me this Wednesday.

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