02: Stop Worrying About the Future: How Being Present Changed My Life
When you're deep in a healing journey, one of the biggest struggles is the fear of uncertainty. When will I heal? How long will this last? What if it never ends? During my 8 years with topical steroid withdrawal (TSW), I was trapped in that fear—constantly asking questions I couldn't answer, stuck on a hamster wheel of anxiety about the future. Then I learned one foundational practice that changed everything: becoming present.
In this episode, I share:
0:00 - The fear of uncertainty in healing
1:20 - Why knowing the future isn't the answer
2:37 - How I trained myself to be present (even in pain)
4:09 - The simple questions that shifted everything
5:27 - How acceptance and letting go naturally form
Content Warning: This episode discusses mental health struggles. I'm a registered nurse sharing my personal story for educational purposes only — this is not medical advice. If you're struggling, call or text 988 (U.S./Canada) or visit https://findahelpline.com/
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[00:00-00:19]
I didn't know if I was going to be scratching myself bloody for hours. I didn't know if I was going to be having a panic attack in tears. I didn't know if maybe this was going to be the rare day that wasn't completely terrible. Hi, I'm Cassie, a registered nurse. In this episode, I'll be sharing personal experiences with mental health.
[00:19-00:50]
This is my story only and is not medical, psychiatric, or therapeutic advice. If you're struggling, please seek help immediately. In the US and Canada, call or text, or visit findahelpline.com for global resources. Hey, it's Cassie, the Naturalistic Nurse, and welcome back to Healing the Warrior.
[00:50-01:20]
One of the biggest challenges that people on a healing journey tend to face is the fear of uncertainty, or the fear of not knowing what the future holds. When I was deep in my healing journey with my skin, I was in so much pain, physically, mentally, and emotionally, I was constantly overwhelmed by that very fear of uncertainty. When will I heal? How long will this go on? What if this pain never ends? When will I be able to live my life again?
[01:20-01:45]
I was constantly on a hamster wheel of these infiltrating thoughts, and it was really overwhelming and scary. This went on for so many years, until I slowly started learning small practices that made enormous change, that truthfully got rid of my fear of uncertainty completely, even with new challenges to this day. So how do you overcome the fear of uncertainty?
[01:45-02:14]
By one foundational practice. You become really present. Because surprisingly, the solution to the fear of not knowing the future isn't actually knowing the future. It's letting go of your need to know. It's moving from what's going to happen to I don't need to know what's going to happen and that's okay. And I know this is so much easier said than done, but hear me out as someone who's actually done it.
[02:14-02:37]
So for me with my health back then, I was so scared daily of what was going to happen to me. I was experiencing so much pain that I was really afraid of it getting worse or of it never ending. And ruminating on those fears and those questions without having an answer is what kept me in that place, on that hamster wheel.
[02:37-02:55]
It kept me in the space of thinking about the future, of feeding the anxiety, and obsessing over the things that I didn't know. And that I couldn't know. Because the truth is, there's no way to know the future. Nobody can or does. And this is true whether you are healthy or not.
[02:55-03:19]
And you may think you know, or you can even have a plan. But accidents happen, right? Even happy accidents or miracles. Because there will always be things in this life that are out of your personal control. And you can know this logically, but to bring that knowledge down into your body is really how the transformation takes place. And this is what takes some practice.
[03:20-03:44]
So how did I do that? How did I train myself, even with all of that pain, to become present? the number one thing that I would do is to bring my attention closer to today. Bring my attention closer to this point in time, which is really what being present is. When my health was at its worst, things were so unpredictable.
[03:44-04:09]
I didn't know if I was going to be scratching myself bloody for hours. I didn't know if I was going to be having a panic attack in tears. I didn't know if maybe this was going to be the rare day that wasn't completely terrible. That time was so tumultuous for me that the future that I had fear about wasn't even necessarily that far ahead in time. Many times it was just not knowing what was going to happen to me later that day.
[04:09-04:31]
So to bring my attention closer to this point in time, closer to the present, all I needed to do was shift my focus. Instead of asking, how long is this going to last? I started asking myself, what can I do today that will still bring me closer to the thing that I desire? What can I do in the next 5 minutes? What can I do right now?
[04:31-05:00]
Sometimes those answers were really simple, like, let me just take a breath, or let me just not stress myself out for 5 minutes and remind myself to have self-compassion, or let me find somebody that I can just vent to. One that I actually used a lot when I was really depressed and had trouble just moving throughout my day was, in the next 5 minutes, I can get up and brush my teeth.
[05:00-05:27]
I can do that one task. Even those small decisions that seem unrelated to the greater fear are still moving your energy and shifting it so that you can get off the hamster wheel and bring yourself back to the present. By practicing this small shift over and over of continuously bringing yourself back to the present, 2 life-changing habits will form. Acceptance and letting go.
[05:28-05:53]
You'll start to feel greater acceptance of where you are in your journey and without the baggage of things like guilt or pressure. And you'll start to let go of your need to know about the future because you're in full acceptance of what is now. And you might be thinking, well, if I'm having pain or unpleasant emotions, why would I want to be present with those things?
[05:53-06:11]
But notice that through this practice, when asking myself, what can I do right now or in the next 5 minutes that will move me toward my goal or shift my energy, I never discounted the pain I was in. I didn't suppress it or my feelings about it. I learned to coexist with it.
[06:11-06:38]
Because when you learn to be present in the moment, no matter what else is also present at that time, whether it's pain, anxiety, fear, you allow for that space to expand. And you give all of those things that are simultaneously there more room to air out, to breathe, and to welcome in acceptance without fear. I hope you found something valuable in this episode.
[06:38-06:58]
Let me know in the comments what resonated with you. I put out new episodes every Tuesday. Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
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