Ep 1. From Survival Mode to Self-Understanding

Liz Buggy: Welcome to Spicy Brain Phoenix Heart, the podcast where we honor the beautiful complexity of neurodivergent minds and the resilience the human spirit. I'm Liz Buggy, a neuro spicy certified transformation ⁓ neurodivergent coach, along with a breathwork practitioner. Welcome to the podcast. Today's episode a deeply personal one. It's called From Survival Mode to Self-Understanding. This is a story about identity, pain, resilience, and what it really takes come home to yourself. If ever felt like you didn't belong, I'm here to walk along beside you through the messy, the overwhelming and the deeply human parts of healing. you had to hide who you are. Just to fit in, to be accepted, then this episode is for you. If you've ever felt burnt out, disconnected, stuck in survival mode, or like you've somehow lost yourself along the way, you're in the right place. This space for the sensitive, the overthinkers, the feelers, the navigating trauma, ⁓ and ⁓ weight the world. One that doesn't always understand your brain or your heart. For most of my life, lived in survival mode. I felt like I belonged. Not in my family, not in my friendships, not even my own skin. It never felt safe to be myself, so I learned to adapt. I masked, people pleased, overgave. I became person I thought others needed. Here we don't rush healing. We don't bypass the hard stuff. We feel everything and we rise. we will explore the nervous system healing, self-trust, ⁓ and what really to come home to yourself so you can remember who you are beneath the noise, the patterns ⁓ and the pain. just to feel some sense of connection, or at least ⁓ to avoid Take a breath, you're in the right place. safe here. So let's begin. But underneath that mask, I had no idea who I really was, I had become. And that's the thing about survival mode. It keeps you safe, but it ⁓ you from yourself, from who you really are. Most of the time you don't even realise it's happening until one day you look in the mirror and think, who am I? Growing up I was constantly belittled, told daily that I was a fat, lazy, stupid bitch, I'd never amount to anything. As a child that sticks. And you hear something often enough, you begin to believe it. It stops feeling like someone else's opinion and becomes ⁓ your I was compared to others on a constant basis, good enough, never up. That kind of emotional and verbal abuse, it gradually away at your self-worth over time, quietly, consistently. And eventually it creates a voice inside your head. that criticises. that you do. Every thought. In case my ego became loud, harsh, relentless ⁓ and hardest part? I believed it. I grew up hating the world, hating myself. I was bullied throughout my life, at school and work. I experienced stalking on several occasions. Through I was physically assaulted and there were so many moments ⁓ where didn't want to be here anymore. Suicidal ideation just a thought, ⁓ it was constant undercurrent and had during Burnout wasn't even just being tired anymore. It was emptiness, disconnection, numbness. wasn't living. I surviving. Maybe some of you listening know exactly what that feels like. throughout my life, it was me versus me. Gradually, changed in me. I had the realization, slow, ⁓ but powerful. It wasn't me against the world. It was me against me. And that's the truth. Because it means the pain ⁓ isn't external. It also means ⁓ it's The power heal isn't external either. After several episodes of burnout, I reached out for support. I started working with a coach. for the first time in my life, I began learning ⁓ it meant to be seen, heard and understood. I started learning ⁓ to trust, ⁓ to feel safe, opening At first it felt unnatural, even Because when you've spent your whole life ⁓ hating yourself, living in a world full of self-criticism, self-compassion is definitely foreign. Slowly things began to shift. From that self-hatred self-compassion, I moved from a place of judgement to curiosity and eventually started to love myself. When I thought I had finally found where I belonged, a safe place I didn't have to ask anymore. A community that felt like home. And for a while it was, then ⁓ day it was gone. I no longer welcome in that space. The first place I had ever felt safe. It was like someone had ripped out my heart, stomped on it, broken it, smashed it into a thousand or even a million pieces. And just like that, the old wounds came rushing back. The rejection, the abandonment, not belonging, not being safe to be myself. It felt like everything I had worked for and had worked through was undone. I was at a crossroads and there were two directions. course I had spiralled, but time I didn't stay there. ⁓ Instead running, I went inwards. I started the inner work and deep inner work. I started to recognise my patterns. I questioned ⁓ beliefs that had carried my life. I started to let go of the stories that... I had believed, telling me that I wasn't enough. most importantly, I stopped accepting what I used to tolerate. The the silence, the shrinking. That's when everything to change. ⁓ Not perfectly, not instantly, but truthfully. I started becoming who I am now. A coach, a breathwork practitioner, helping others to find their way. I didn't become someone new, but someone I had always been. I became the big hearted human who's a sensitive soul, the version of me that was always there but hidden. This journey from survival mode to self understanding, it's not about fixing yourself. It's about remembering yourself, who you are, who you've always been. So if you're listening to this you feel like you don't belong, I want you to hear this. There nothing wrong with you. nothing at all. There never was. don't need to become someone else, to worthy. You just need to come home to yourself, to believe in yourself. Thank you for being here and if this resonated with you, please share it with others who might need to hear this remember, you are allowed to take up space. You're allowed to be seen. You're allowed to be heard. And you are worthy, exactly as you are.