Don't Lose Hope - Conquer Anxiety

In this week's episode, host Rita Mercer reminds listeners that hope is never lost, even when life feels heavy, uncertain, or overwhelming. Through grounded wisdom and gentle encouragement, she explores how our focus shapes our reality—what we focus on grows—and how to shift from anxiety and worry toward peace and inner strength.

Rita also shares practical tools to reframe hopelessness, regulate your nervous system, and rediscover your anchor of faith, gratitude, and purpose. This is a compassionate reminder that you are not alone, you are not defined by your struggles, and there is still light ahead.

Key Takeaways

• What You Focus On Grows: Learn how to redirect your attention from fear and anxiety toward gratitude, faith, and possibility.
• Understanding Anxiety: Explore how our nervous system reacts to stress and how to bring it back into balance.
• Hope as a Healing Practice: Discover small yet powerful ways to cultivate hope—even when you can’t see the full path ahead.
• Practical Grounding Technique: Use the heart-centered breath practice shared in this episode to calm your mind and body.
• Faith & Connection: Remember that peace is not the absence of problems, but the belief in something bigger—hope, love, and spiritual connection.

🌸 Affirmations from This Episode

• I choose to focus on what I can control and let go of what I cannot.
• I trust that better days are coming.
• Even when I don’t have all the answers, I can find moments of peace.
• My heart is steady. My spirit is strong.

Resources

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (US): Call or text 988 for immediate support.
• For international crisis resources, visit: https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/, or check your local listings.
• Connect with Rita: www.DaringWell.com
  
  
• Follow Rita on YouTube: @DaringWell
  
  

🎧 Listen & Share

If this episode spoke to your heart, please share it with a friend who might need a reminder to keep going. Leave a review to help others find hope and encouragement through The Daring Well Podcast.

Transcript

Welcome to The Daring Well Podcast with Rita Mercer. The truth about hope or the absence of hope is what you focus on, it grows. So let me say that one again.

What you focus on, it grows. Here, welcome back to The Daring Well Podcast. Can you believe that we're almost at 100 episodes?

Wow, what a journey this has truly been. So we're closing on two years, closing on 100 episodes. So it's awesome.

I'm so excited. So as we think about today's episode, have you ever felt tired? Have you ever felt anxious?

Have you ever felt like you're hopeless? Or do you know a friend or colleague who could use some encouragement today? Please do me a huge favor and share this episode with them.

I want you to remind them that hope is never lost. Even when life feels super heavy and the road, it may feel like it's dark and windy with no end in sight, and the next step, it may feel uncertain. And that's okay.

Please share this with someone who could use this today. As we lean in to what it means to not lose hope, let me just remind you, you are not alone. It truly takes a village, like that old saying, it takes a village.

And so maybe your village is your community that you live in. Maybe it's your family. Maybe it's your friends.

Maybe it is your place of faith that you commune with. So think about who is your village. And if you don't have a village, it's time to find one.

Get plugged in. And I just want to remind you that we're never meant to do life alone. And so if you don't have anyone, you definitely got me on the other end.

But I know that I just want to remind you that you're not alone. And for those, so whether again, whether this is for you, whether this is for someone that you know, I want you to share this resource with them.

So if you're feeling hopeless right now and you don't know where to turn, you can reach, especially if you're in the US, you can call, you can text 988. That's it, 988. And it's a lifeline.

And it's staffed 24-7 by volunteers. And it's for those in the US. And I also will place a few other resources for those that are international.

The truth is, it does take a lot of carriage to dare to show up every day. It takes carriage to dare to live fully, to live freely, to heal deeply, to grow in wellness.

Today's episode, it's a reminder to hold on to, to hold on to hope, even when you don't know what else to do. Even when you don't know the next step. That's okay.

The truth about hope or the absence of hope is what you focus on, it grows. So let me say that one again. What you focus on, it grows.

So if you find that your mind is stuck, it's stuck replaying the same worries, the same fears, the same doubts, the same what ifs, I got you.

There's a lot of resources that we're going to walk through today to help you to find ways to lean into hope, to tap into strength, to tap into inner peace. So as humans, we default to the negative.

There's nothing wrong with you if you feel that you're stuck in this hopeless state. We're all on the same path together, and that just means that you're human. Our brains are wired.

Our brains are wired for survival, to look for danger, to protect us, to keep us safe, but that protective instinct, it can also keep us feeling like we're trapped in a loop of fear, a loop of worry, a loop of hopelessness.

But my dear, that means it also takes a lot of intentionality to be mindful so that you don't stay stuck. You don't have to stay stuck.

You don't have to stay stuck on the same negative thought loop in things in this life that may make you feel hopeless because there is more, there is hope on the other side. And so when we focus on our fears, so again, what you focus on, it grows.

So if you focus on your fears, your anxiety, or the things that are missing, that you feel that you're not complete, that you feel like you're not whole, they will continue to grow.

But when we focus on the positive, when we focus on having faith, when we focus on the small moments of gratitude, so start small. If it feels too big to believe that things are going to get better, start small.

Focus on one thing that you can be grateful for, and even believe in the small possibilities, and you'll find that your hope will grow little by little. Whatever you focus on, my dear, that's going to grow.

So whether it be positive, whether it be negative, but the truth is you get to choose. You get to choose what you focus on, the positive or the negative. So here's a gentle mental reframe that you can try.

So it sounds like a tongue twister. Mental reframe. And so when you notice that your thoughts are spiraling into this negative mindset, this negative frame of feeling hopeless, interrupt it.

Just pause and interrupt that negative thought loop. I want you to remind yourself to take a deep breath. So breathe.

Breathe, my dear. Take a deep breath and breathe. Then, I want you just to pause.

I want you to pause and name one thing. So one thing, one person, one idea, just one. So again, start small.

Sometimes I think we start so big and we go all gas, and then we quickly like fade out. But if you do little by little, you get to grow, and you get to grow in confidence, grow in your strength.

So just one, and just one thing, one person, one idea, focus on that one thing that reminds you what it means to feel safe, what it means to feel stable, what it means to feel hopeful in this moment.

Maybe it's your breath, maybe it's faith, maybe it's a friend who made you feel safe, or a loved one who made you feel seen and heard. Maybe it's simply the fact that you made it through another day and you're still standing.

You only need one thing to focus on. Every time that you choose to focus on that one thing, that one person, that one idea, you're actually going to rewire your mind to focus on the good, to focus on the positive.

And you're going to feed your mind, your body, your spirit with hope, with truth, and with positivity.

So each time that you choose to focus on, again, that one thing, that one person, that one idea, that makes you feel safe, that makes you feel stable, that makes you feel whole, that reminds you that you're seen, and that you're heard, that you're

loved. That helps to rewire your nervous system. It helps to rewire your body. And it helps you to feel grounded in the truth that you're safe, that you're in control.

Even if you don't have all the answers, right now, that's okay. Even if you don't have all the answers right now, that's okay. You can still lean into peace, even in the midst of chaos, even in the midst of a bunch of drama, and even in the unknown.

So, when you think about peace, peace is not the absence of problems. Sometimes I think that if we have, if we get peace, we think that it's going to magically erase all of our problems. That's not how it works.

Peace, it's the belief that something's bigger, something bigger than yourself. So, for me, Jesus is my anchor for hope.

And if you feel far away from God right now, and you need prayer, you need support to reconnect with your Christian faith, feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy to support you. You can send me a message on wherever you're listening to this episode.

You can also comment wherever you're listening to this episode. Also, we'll leave the contact information in the show notes. So, you're also welcome to check there as well.

I'm always happy to help you to get reconnected, especially to your Christian faith. So, when we think about anxiety, what is anxiety? And the truth is, anxiety looks different in everybody.

It looks different in any situation as well. It's very situational.

So, have you ever said or thought to yourself, I function good, I work best under pressure, and while that is partially true, our sympathetic nervous system, it jumps into from, it shifts gear from this flight mode, where I'm scared, I'm shutting

down, to this fight mode, where I'm ready to be in action, and I'm in go mode, and it gives us a huge rush, a huge rush of adrenaline and cortisol, and it helps us to meet the demands of that moment, but we're not designed to stay in that moment, in

that heightened state for a long period of time. For many people, they get stuck in that fight, in that go mode, in that ready mode, and by just telling themselves, I just got to keep pushing, I just got to keep going, and not giving themselves, not

giving their body, their nervous system time to reset, time to rest, time to recover. What anxiety looks like, it looks like worry, it looks like physical things in your body, it looks like the intents. And so anxiety, while it can be good in the

short term, it can definitely increase your sense of alertness, but it also can hijack your nervous system, making it, making you feel worried, making you feel fearful, making you feel doubtful, making you feel and think that something terrible is

gonna happen. So thinking of all the worst case scenarios, then the next thing that you know, you feel lost. You feel completely out of control and flat out hopeless. A sense of hopelessness will just like weigh you down.

And then you're ready to just give up, ready to check out on life, ready to check out on relationships, ready to check out on the things that used to bring you joy.

And so when you feel like you're ready to give up, where you're ready to tap out, let's lean in to hope. Let's lean in to the truth that there is other options out there. Our bodies are always trying to send us signals to try to communicate to us.

Our emotions, if we listen to them, they are, they're not the full truth. They're the half of the truth. So I want you to honor your emotions.

I want you to honor your truth, but I also want you to tune in to your body. What is your body trying to say to you? Many times our bodies and our minds are sinking up.

We're out of sync trying to let us know that we're out of balance. We're out of sync. And it's usually trying to crave either one of three things.

Safety, so emotional safety, physical safety, financial safety, security, like those kinds of things where it's requiring rest. So rest your mind, rest your body, rest your spirit. Where it's requiring connection.

Again, we're not designed to be alone. We're designed to be in a village, supported with others. So you don't have to stay stuck.

That's the good news. You don't have to stay stuck. Fight in all those feelings of hopelessness.

You have a choice. You can acknowledge all your emotions and allow them to flow in and flow out. Flow out of your mind, flow out of your body, flow out of your spirit.

When you take the time to acknowledge them. And if you need some support, you're welcome to reach out to me. I'm a wellness and a mindset coach.

I'm also a licensed counselor, mental health counselor in the state of Ohio.

So I'm happy to support you with finding some skills so that you can move through those thoughts, move through those emotions, and learn to lean into the truth of who you are. Learn to lean into a positive mindset.

So and giving you coping skills to do that. I'm happy to support you. You can connect with me at daringwell.com just to get started.

And so that's daringwell, D-A-R-I-N-G, wellforwellness.com to get started. So I do have another quick technique that I would like to help you to calm your nervous system. And I'm just going to encourage you just to pause for a moment.

So whether you're driving, whether you're doing the dishes, you don't have to physically stop. You can just mentally just kind of tune in to your body and just pause. And I want you if you can place your hand over your heart.

So tune in to your body. So tune in to this moment, tune in to the sense of touch. So grounding yourself with a sense of touch.

And hand over heart is just a sense of just connection, a felt sense of safety. And so I want you just to tune in. And I want you just to take a deep breath in.

And a nice breath out. Beautiful. And I want you just to remind yourself and say it to yourself, especially if you can say it out loud.

I want you to hear the power of your words. So I am here. I am safe.

My breath is my anchor. So we'll do that one more time. I am here.

I am safe. My breath is my anchor. All right.

Good job. Good job. All right.

Sometimes as we think about, again, hope, sometimes hope it's not super loud. Sometimes it's not allowed in this confident shout with all the answers. Sometimes hope it's just a little quiet whisper saying, it's going to be okay.

It's a quiet whisper to remind you that I did the best that I could. With the information that I had, with the resources that I had, with the strength that I had, with the knowledge that I had, I did the best that I could.

Sometimes hope quietly whispers, I can try again tomorrow. And so just lean into hope. What is hope speaking to you?

All right, as we start to wrap up, I just have a few more words of encouragement that I just want to leave with you.

So if you're walking through a season that feels dark, a season that feels like there's so many unknowing, again, I want to remind you that you're not alone. You are not defined by this moment. The rain, those dark clouds, that will soon fade.

And the sun, the abundance, the light, the joy, the beautiful bright vivid colors, that will come again. The sun will rise again. The colors will come back to life again.

And you will get through it. You'll get through it, my dear. Hope doesn't erase the pain, nor does it change the situation.

Hope is what gives you peace, that deep inner peace, that deep inner strength. And it's hope that gives us a sense of purpose. Hope is what reminds you that there's no more reason to worry.

Hope is what reminds you that there's more to your story. There's more to your story than the small snippet of what you see right now. Hope reminds you to keep going, my dear.

It reminds you to just keep going. It reminds you to not give up. So I want to encourage you, just keep showing up.

I want to encourage you when you don't have all the answers, just keep one foot in front of the other and just keep showing up. Hope is that sweet spot.

It's that sweet spot that anchors you to peace, that sweet spot that anchors you to healing, anchors you to truth, that anchors you to strength. So I have a few affirmations that I just wanted to share with you that I want you to speak over yourself.

So I choose to focus on what I can control and I let go of what I cannot control. I choose to focus on what I can control and I let go of what I cannot control. I trust that better days, better days are coming.

I trust that better days, better days are coming. Even when I don't have all the answers, I can find moments of peace. Even when I don't have all the answers, I can trust and find moments of peace.

All right, last one. My heart is steady and my spirit is strong. My heart is steady.

My spirit is strong. All right, that's it for today's episode. Don't lose hope.

You got this. Thank you so much for tuning in and stopping by The Daring Well Podcast. If this episode, it spoke to your heart, I'd love for you to share it with a friend.

I'd love for you to share it with someone who might need a reminder to just keep going. Until next time, keep living, keep loving, and keep daring well. Take care, my dear.

God bless. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of The Daring Well Podcast.

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