Episode 85

full
Published on:

30th Nov 2025

Designing Your Existence After Survival Mode

Survival mode doesn’t always look like chaos on the outside — sometimes it looks like the “strong one,” the over-functioning one, the one who can read the room before anyone says a word. In this episode, Tenya shares how growing up with a bipolar mother, constant emotional chaos, and unspoken expectations put her into survival mode long before she had language for it. We walk through anxiety, depression, the moment she considered crashing her car just to get a break, and how the “acceptable” healing paths — meds and talk therapy — left her numb but not free. Desperate for something different, she Googled “holistic emotional healing,” found the Emotion Code, and stepped into energy work, muscle testing, and inherited trauma release. What she discovered? She’d been carrying emotions that didn’t even belong to her. We talk about energy, grief, complicated mothers, boundaries, and the radical idea that you are your first job — not your kids, not your parents, not your partner, you.

🎙️ What We Talk About

  • How survival mode started before she was even 8 years old
  • Growing up with a bipolar mom, chaos at home, and learning to walk on emotional eggshells
  • The moment anxiety and depression resurfaced when motherhood “slowed down”
  • How she used work, TV, drinking, smoking, and distraction to outrun her feelings
  • Being offered “more meds” and “a CBT app” when she was already numb and overwhelmed
  • Googling “holistic emotional healing” and stumbling into the Emotion Code
  • What muscle testing actually is (and why your body is way more honest than your mouth)
  • Inherited emotions: carrying your parents’ and ancestors’ stuff without even knowing it
  • The difference between conscious work (journaling, therapy) and energetic work — and why both matter
  • Grieving a mother you weren’t close to, and why grief doesn’t always look like people expect it to
  • Setting boundaries with parents and family without buying into “but they’re your mom/dad” guilt
  • Redefining self-care as “I am my first responsibility, my first best friend, my first priority”


🔑 Key Takeaways

“You’re worth spending your time on. Period.”
“Our bodies want to thrive — they’re just buried under everything we’ve absorbed.”
“You don’t have to ingest something to begin healing. Sometimes you start by listening.”
“Just because someone is family doesn’t mean they get unlimited access to you.”


🙌 Why This Episode Matters

So many women in survival mode blame themselves for not “getting better” with the tools they were handed: just talk, just pray, just take the pills, just push through. This episode cracks that wide open. We talk about the parts of healing people still whisper about: when meds help but also numb you, when therapy isn’t enough on its own, when grief is complicated because the person you lost also hurt you, and when choosing yourself means disappointing the people who think they own you. If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing “all the work” but still feel blocked, stuck, or disconnected from your own body — this conversation will help you see that you’re not failing. You’re simply ready for deeper tools, better boundaries, and a different way to exist.


💬 Connect with Tenya

🌐 Website: designyourexistence.com

✨ Instagram / socials: via her site


🔗 Resources & Links:


Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

Listen for free

Show artwork for Survival Mode Disrupted with Leticia R Francis

About the Podcast

Survival Mode Disrupted with Leticia R Francis
Disruptive Unapologetic Conversations about Survival Mode
Survival Mode Disrupted is not just a podcast. It's a rebellion.

A raw, unfiltered space where we finally stop pretending we're fine and start telling the truth—the truth about the trauma we've carried, the identities they had to wear to survive, and the radical decisions we made to break free.

Because here's the deal: survival mode isn’t just a season. It’s a damn identity. One that so many were forced to adopt just to get through life, to stay safe, to stay needed, to stay sane. But eventually, it starts costing you more than it protects. Your peace. Your purpose. Your power.

This podcast is for the disruptors—the people who were told to stay small, stay silent, stay grateful for crumbs… and said “hell no.”

Hosted by Leticia, The Survival Mode Disruptor herself—a trauma recovery mentor, speaker, and woman who has lived through the fires of abuse, betrayal, and breakdown and still chose to rise—this show dives deep into the unapologetic exits from survival mode that no one talks about.

You’ll hear from women (and a few brave men) who walked away from toxic relationships, soul-sucking careers, generational dysfunction, religious trauma, cultural expectations, and the lies they were taught to believe about themselves. Not because it was easy—but because staying would’ve killed something sacred inside of them.

These are the stories of bold pivots, quiet courage, and messy but miraculous rebirths.

Each episode is a conversation—a disruption—meant to wake something up in you. Whether it’s a guest sharing the moment they chose themselves for the first time, or Leticia dropping a truth bomb that makes you question everything you’ve normalized, this podcast is here to shake the foundation of your survival mode identity and replace it with something truer. Something freer.

We’re not here for surface-level self-care tips or fake empowerment slogans.

We’re here to talk about what it really takes to:

Reclaim your voice after being silenced.

Reinvent yourself after being broken down.

Rewrite your story when everyone else wants you to stay the same.

Release the guilt of choosing YOU.

This is for those who are done performing. Done pleasing. Done pretending.

It’s for the ones ready to exit survival mode—not slowly, not quietly, but disruptively and unapologetically.

You won’t leave this podcast the same.
You’ll cry. You’ll rage. You’ll laugh.
You’ll see yourself in every story.
And more importantly, you’ll remember who the hell you are.

Welcome to Survival Mode Disrupted.
It’s not just a podcast.
It’s a movement.
And your exit begins here.

Support This Show

About your host

Profile picture for Leticia Francis

Leticia Francis

I am not here to inspire you—I am here to activate you.

As a Survivor, Keynote Speaker, and Trauma Recovery Mentor, I know what it’s like to fight battles no one sees. I also know that breaking free is possible. My work is about disrupting survival mode, exposing trauma-driven success cycles, and giving women the blueprint to reclaim their lives.

🔹 200+ podcast features & speaking engagements
🔹 Global Women of Choice Award Winner 2022
🔹 Creator of the Survival Mode Exit Plan
🔹 Host of Survival Mode Disrupted Podcast