52: High-Functioning Survival Mode: Why You Feel Anxious Even When Life Looks Fine

Let’s say it plainly.

The fear of being fired.
The fear of being left.
The fear of losing income.
The fear of losing love.

Different scenes.
Same root.

In this episode of Rooted & Rising, Tara calls out the quiet survival pattern driving high performers and deep feelers alike.

When fear runs the system:
• You overwork to stay valuable
• You overgive to stay chosen
• You edit your truth to stay secure
• You live bracing for loss

It looks like responsibility.
It feels like control.
It is survival mode.

This conversation dives into job insecurity, workplace anxiety, abandonment fear, and the illusion of external safety — and what shifts when you stop building your life around “don’t lose.”

Because a life built around not losing
is very different from a life built on purpose.

If you’re ready to stop living on edge
and start standing rooted, this episode is for you.

Transcript

Reframing What Safety Means

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if you don't feel safe in your relationship because you handed someone else the job of being your ground? What if safety isn't something a man or a woman provides you, or a paycheck guarantees, or a company secures? What if safety is something you either embody or abandon? Want you to listen to this episode. Here we go. Welcome to Rooted in Rising. I'm your host, Tara Michelle, intuitive guide, storyteller, and fellow traveler on this wild path of becoming. This is a space for the soul led, for the ones unraveling old stories tending to their healing and rising, not perfectly, but powerfully into who they are here to be. Here we explore what it means to live with intention, to love with depth, and to trust that even the hard things are shaping us. I'll share pieces of my own journey, the cracks, the beauty, the breakthroughs, and invite voices who are walking this path too. Because I believe life isn't happening to us, it's happening for us. So come as you are, root in and rise up. And thank you. Truly thank you for being here. Welcome back to Rooted in Rising. I'm Tara Michelle, I'm the host of the show. And to those of you who've been walking with me for a while, thank you. Truly thank you for being with me. And for those of you that are new here, this show is for the ones who are done performing. You're done shrinking, you're done outsourcing your worth, you're done calling anxiety chemistry, and control love. This is a space for truth. We talk about selfhood, sovereignty, relationships, patterns, power, the kind of inner alignment that changes your outer life. This isn't surface surface level. This isn't surface level inspiration. This is about rooting into who you actually are so you can rise from there. And today we're talking about safety. We say things like, I just want to feel safe. He makes me feel safe. She makes me feel safe. I don't feel safe in that relationship. I'm not secure in my job. And what I'm seeing in myself is that every time I put safety out there, I give away the throne. I give away my queendom. I give away my sovereignty. And I do it in the area of career, in leadership, in income, in titles. And I have lived a season of my life scanning. Am I about to lose my job? Am I about to get laid off? Did I say too much? Did I speak too boldly? Is this secure? And underneath all of that is the same whisper, I'm not safe. So, but here's what's shifting for me. Even if I get let go, laid off, fired, whatever you want to call it, I'm safe. Even if a relationship ends, I'm safe. Even if something collapses, I'm safe. Not comfortable, not immune to consequences, okay? But safe. There's a difference. So when we say I don't feel safe with him, or I don't feel safe with her, or if we say something like, I don't trust myself to be steady if he falters, that's the piece nobody says, because it sounds more noble to say he's inconsistent or she's inconsistent. But what I'm recognizing for myself is this when I didn't feel safe within, I hovered. I double-checked, I pre-corrected, I withheld full trust just in case. Here's the part that stung a little. When I don't own my safety, I subtly collapse the masculine around me. I want you to really hear that for yourself. When you don't own your safety, you collapse the masculine energy around you. Now, whether that's a partner, whether it's a colleague, even my own son. Okay. If I'm gripping the atmosphere with what if this goes wrong, no one gets to stand tall around me. No one. The household feels it. When I truly settle into that I'm safe regardless of the outcome, the air changes. There's a space for others to rise around me. Now let's talk about work because I feel work is a tricky one. It's sneaky, you know. We tie safety to our careers. We tie safety to companies, we tie it to our salaries, we tie it to our title, the benefits, even your manager's opinion. You tie all your safety to that. And we live like the ground is always about to disappear. It's a true condition. I almost feel it might be a pandemic. But the ground was never the job. That's what we need to see. Is that the ground is actually you. If you lose the job, you are still you. And you're safe. If you lose the role, you are still you. You are safe. If the system shifts, you are still you. Not with arrogance, no, but with embodiment. And I say this because I am processing this and looking at how will I truly embody that I am safe? What does that look like for me? So safety is not the absence of risk. I want to make that clear. Okay. Safety is the knowing that your essence, the soul within you, cannot be harmed. You're operating inside of a body. You know, this body, like my body is Tara Michelle. Your body, put your name to it. Your essence, your soul operates within that. You operate inside of a timeline. Right now we're in the year 2026. We're on a timeline. You operate inside of your circumstances. Take a look at all the circumstances around you. You're operating, your essence is operating inside of those circumstances. Not to be confused with or not to be collapsed with, you are not. How do I say that? That's not that's not accurate. What I want you to get is that you are not your circumstances. Okay. But the core of you, like, who are you? Untouched. Because we've been trained to scan for threat all the time. Open the news, it's not safe. Open social media, scroll, scroll, scroll, it's not safe. See a spider on the wall, it's not safe. Oh my gosh, here comes a bee, it's not safe. The programming is constant, but the deeper truth, you have always been held. You have always been safe. You have been, and I can hear people saying, no, I was in this situation and I wasn't safe. That is the circumstance. But you, the essence of you, is always safe. And when I connect deeply, not to the distant God outside of me, but to the highest, purest intelligence that lives through me. There is only ever safety. Only not because nothing bad can happen. Bad things can happen. But because I remain intact, the essence, the soul within me, that's the piece that's safe. And that changes how you walk, that changes how you lead. That changes how you love. And I'm not preaching this from a mountaintop. Please hear. I am not preaching this from a mountaintop because I am in this. I'm really looking for myself. I'm watching where I still flinch, where I still tighten, where I still want guarantees. Like I want the guarantee so I can feel safe. And I'm asking myself, what would it look like to move from embodied safety? Not imagined safety, not spiritual bypass safety, but actually embodied safety. What would my life look like moving and operating from that space? What are the choices that I would make? What are the things that would be different? Like where my shoulders soften, where my voice steadies, where I stop bracing for loss. You know, like in the previous episodes where we're constantly checking for, you know, the pre-rejection. That comes from a place of not feeling safe. Because when I own my safety, my entire household shifts. I literally see the shift within him. There's something about when a woman who knows she's safe, and men, I'm talking to you too if you're listening, but me being a woman, I'm talking from this perspective. When when a woman knows she's safe, that stabilizes the room without saying a word. That is pure power, not dominance, it's a presence. Now, if this is landing for you, this is exactly why I wrote the e-guide. You can find it in the show notes. It's about rooting into your truth, shedding the layers that told you, hey, you're not worthy, you're not valuable, you're not secure unless someone chooses you. Which is bullshit, by the way. This e-guide is going to dismantle the patterns where you wait for someone else to validate your ground. Don't wait for anybody else. Don't wait. The link is in the show notes. If you are ready to stop outsourcing your worth, the guide will meet you there. And I'm going to tell you, I know this. I wrote this because I was that. Outsourcing my worth all over the damn place. Okay. So next week, we're going to go somewhere a little unexpected. And I giggle because it's like, well, this transition into where we're going is a little odd, but it's something that occurred for me today, as a matter of fact. And we're going to talk about embodiment. And this morning I was actually on the phone with a dear friend, having our little philosophical one-on-one that we we tend to connect every couple months and have this long, like two-hour pow-wow on the phone and get all deep and philosophical. But as I was talking to her, I was walking outside in my yard and um actually on our property, and I put my hand on one of my oak trees. Not metaphorically, but literally. And I felt something. I felt connection. I felt the energy surging through my hands, into my arms, into my body. And I began to feel a sense of rootedness. And it was it was a steady pulse. And I could feel the energy as I was talking to her. And I started telling her, oh my God, people need to hug trees more often. But in that moment, as she was talking, I embraced the tree and hugged the tree, literally hugged it. And I felt this energetic embrace. I felt a connection. Like skin to bark, skin to rootedness. And I felt in that moment that I could lean into this tree, and it held me. People walk past trees every day. This is what I recognized. Every day you're walking past a tree and you're disconnected. You're disconnected from the very natural world that stabilizes you and roots you. And I invite you, the next time you're outside and you walk by a tree, stop and put your hand on it. And some of you may do that, and you may have I feel nothing. I'm gonna assert that when you feel nothing, that's just how disconnected you've become to the natural world. Okay. And disconnected. When we are disconnected from that very thing that stabilizes us, because we are so plugged into that material world and unplugged from the natural world, it's a no wonder we feel not grounded in this life, in this moment, in this present moment. And it's no wonder we don't feel safe. So in the next episode, we're talking about embodiment and the elements and what happens when you reconnect to the earth instead of scrolling for reassurance. Because safety isn't just a belief, it's something your body remembers when you let it. So you don't need someone to make you feel safe. Okay. FYI reminder. You need to remember that you already are safe. So sit back on your throne, take it all back, right? Stop giving your power out to that over there and let the room reorganize around you. So I will see you next week. Stay rooted, keep rising. I want to thank all of you for listening, and I'll see you on the next episode. Have a blessed week. Take care. Thank you for rooting in and rising with me today. If something in this episode stirred something in you, take a breath, take what you need, and let the rest soften. Be sure to follow the show so you don't miss what's next. And if you feel called, share this episode or leave a review. It helps the space grow and reach others on the path. Until next time, may you walk with trust, speak with love, and rise in your own time. I'm so grateful you were here with us, and thanks for being here. We'll see you on the next episode.