Episode 464 · September 22, 2026 · 12:52
464: When Life Gets Hard: Is What You Turn to Helping You Face Life—or Avoid It?
About this episode
What if the thing you keep turning to when life gets hard isn’t actually helping you cope… but is instead helping you avoid your life?
In Episode 464 of Grit, Grace, & Inspiration , Kevin Lowe explores the surprisingly thin line between escape and refuge —between the things that temporarily distract us from life and the things that genuinely help us return to life stronger, clearer, and more alive.
Because sometimes the very things that look healthy from the outside—working harder, staying busy, scrolling your phone, watching TV, even throwing yourself into a hobby—can become ways of avoiding what’s really happening underneath the surface.
And other times, that same activity can become exactly what your soul needed.
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In this deeply insightful solo episode, Kevin draws inspiration from two recent conversations with surfers Alastair Thompson and Charles Webb.
Their stories were completely different.
Their connection to the ocean was totally different.
And yet, both revealed something powerful:
The place you go to get away from life can either pull you farther away from yourself—or help you reconnect with yourself again.
For Alastair, the ocean became a place of refuge during a life spent searching, traveling, and trying to understand where he belonged.
For Charles, surfing had been part of who he was until a motorcycle accident at 19 left him paralyzed. More than 20 years would pass before he returned to the water.
Two men. One ocean. Two very different journeys back to themselves.
And that raises the question Kevin wants you to wrestle with today:
What are you turning to when life gets hard—and what is it doing to you?
Maybe it’s your phone.
Maybe it’s social media.
Maybe it’s Netflix.
Maybe it’s work.
Maybe it’s constantly staying busy so you never have enough silence to think about the things that hurt.
The activity itself isn’t necessarily the problem.
The better question is:
How do you feel when you come back?
Do you feel more energized?
More grounded?
More connected?
More like yourself?
Or do you come back feeling emptier, more anxious, more distracted, and even further removed from the life you were trying not to think about?
Kevin Lowe's Own Personal Reflection
Kevin gets personal in this episode as he approaches his 40th birthday and admits that he doesn’t have life figured out either.
He still wrestles with where life is going.
He still questions whether certain activities are helping him or distracting him.
But he has learned to recognize some of the things that genuinely reconnect him with life—especially creating.
Recording this podcast.
Writing songs.
Building something from nothing.
Using creativity in the hope that something he makes might brighten somebody else’s day.
That is the difference between escaping and recharging .
One helps you disappear from your life.
The other helps you return to it.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- How seemingly positive habits can sometimes become forms of avoidance
- The difference between an escape and a true place of refuge
- Why social media and comparison can leave us feeling worse than before
- What two surfers can teach us about losing—and finding—ourselves
- Why the thing you need may already be right in front of you
- How creativity, purpose, and meaningful activities can reconnect you with life
- A simple question you can use to evaluate the things you do every day
- Why recharging yourself is very different from running away from yourself
THE QUESTION TO PONDER:
Look at the things you turn to when life feels overwhelming.
Then ask yourself:
Is this helping me escape from my life—or helping me return to it?
Because sometimes you don’t need another distraction.
You don’t need another place to hide.
You don’t need another way to numb what you’re feeling.
Sometimes you need to find your ocean.
The thing that gives something back to you.
The thing that recharges you.
The thing that lights you up.
The thing that allows you to use your gifts—not only as a gift to someone else, but as a gift to yourself.
Don’t just escape life. Plug back into it.
Find the things that recharge you, revitalize you, and remind you that even when life gets messy, there is still something worth showing up for.
Hey, it's Kevin!
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Read the conversation
Here is the opening of the episode transcript. Continue reading to expand the complete transcript without leaving this page. Choose any timestamp, or click a transcript paragraph, to start listening from that moment.
Kevin Lowe: Inside of today's episode, we are diving into the Difference between something that has you escaping life and something that helps you return to it.
Kevin Lowe: And the crazy thing is, Is that a lot of times they can get confusing.
Kevin Lowe: Because what we think Is helping us is actually hurting us.
Kevin Lowe: What we think we're doing for our good is, In fact, harming us.
Kevin Lowe: And that's what we're talking about inside of today's 464th episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.
Continue reading the full transcript: 107 additional lines
Kevin Lowe: My friend, I am your host, Kevin Lowe, a guy on a mission to inspire the world to never give up on life, even when it may feel like life Is giving up on you.
Kevin Lowe: So if you're going through hard times, my friend, let me be here to tell you, Just as a friend, as somebody who you're sitting next to.
Kevin Lowe: Who's coming through your earbuds right now, That it's all right.
Kevin Lowe: Things are going to be okay.
Kevin Lowe: That it's okay if life is messy, if it doesn't look the way you thought it would.
Kevin Lowe: It all works out in the end.
Kevin Lowe: Me and you, We just have to keep showing up, doing our best, and understand that everything is going to be okay.
Kevin Lowe: And today, I want to enforce that because so often, we find ways of trying to escape life.
Kevin Lowe: And a lot of times, escape can actually look positive, like diving into our work.
Kevin Lowe: Yes, we look on the outside as productive.
Kevin Lowe: According to our schedule, our calendar, we are super productive. We got focused goals.
Kevin Lowe: We got things we're achieving.
Kevin Lowe: People are like, whoa, man, look at them.
Kevin Lowe: They got it going on.
Kevin Lowe: Meanwhile, inside, if we want to get quiet enough to actually really get truthful with ourselves as to what's going on, We're probably just trying to run away from life. Work is an escape.
Kevin Lowe: It's not us being productive. It's us just using something to occupy our time.
Kevin Lowe: To get our mind off of Maybe the stuff that isn't going so great in life. And so what really prompted the idea of today's talk.
Kevin Lowe: Is the previous Two interviews that I had earlier this month, the month of September.
Kevin Lowe: And those interviews Were the first with Alistair Thompson.
Kevin Lowe: The second was with Charlie Webb.
Kevin Lowe: Two guys, two totally different stories.
Kevin Lowe: And yet there was one theme that ran through both.
Kevin Lowe: That was the ocean. For Alistair Thompson, if you heard his interview, you got to hear the depths of his story.
Kevin Lowe: from growing up in South Africa to finding refuge in the ocean.
Kevin Lowe: For Charlie Webb, well, His life took a turn. He never saw coming when he was just 19 years old.
Kevin Lowe: A tragic motorcycle accident left him paralyzed.
Kevin Lowe: The place that he always went to, The water, surfing, it was a part of him. And all of a sudden, it was taken from him.
Kevin Lowe: And it was taken from him for over 20 years. It would literally be over 20 years later before Charlie Webb would return to the water.
Kevin Lowe: A place that We can go to escape can either be a negative or can also be a positive, a place of refuge.
Kevin Lowe: A place that we go to escape can either remove us from life or it can help us plug back into life.
Kevin Lowe: The important thing is to identify which it is for you.
Kevin Lowe: Because so many times we turn to things that we may think are harmless.
Kevin Lowe: Like our phone.
Kevin Lowe: Yes, the very thing that you're probably Listening to me on right now can sometimes be the worst thing of all.
Kevin Lowe: The technology, the social media.
Kevin Lowe: The little app, the little icon. It's just a flick and a tap away. And there you are Escaping from life. Now, the question is, I think.
Kevin Lowe: What is it Doing for us? Is it helping us? or harming us?
Kevin Lowe: Do any of us actually get off of social media, Whether that's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, you name it?
Kevin Lowe: Do we get off of there feeling good, positive, energized, electrified, like we're ready to absolutely crush it in our goals?
Kevin Lowe: Or do we get off of there thinking, Wow, my life sucks.
Kevin Lowe: Look at everybody else.
Kevin Lowe: Why don't I have what they have? Why is my life gone like it has?
Kevin Lowe: We get in that trap of comparison, and we click off of the app once we're able to finally peel ourselves away from Our phone enough to stop the doom scroll.
Kevin Lowe: And we feel worse than when we came.
Kevin Lowe: My friend.
Kevin Lowe: Maybe it's not Social media for you. Maybe it's TV.
Kevin Lowe: Now, yeah, there's a good time and place, I feel, for everybody To get lost in some trashy.
Kevin Lowe: Crappy TV shows.
Kevin Lowe: But the point I'm making.
Kevin Lowe: Is it really good for you? Do you come away At the end of an entire Saturday spent watching TV?
Kevin Lowe: Do you feel better about life?
Kevin Lowe: Or do you just feel sucked down, brought down, left to be questioning your very existence because, well, you just wasted an entire day watching crappy TV of some horrible reality show.
Kevin Lowe: Whatever it Is, we have.
Kevin Lowe: To get clear on what it's doing for us or maybe more importantly, What it's doing to us. Is it a place that's benefiting us? or harming us.
Kevin Lowe: For Alistair Thompson.
Kevin Lowe: For Charlie Webb, I look at both of their stories, both involving the ocean, surfing.
Kevin Lowe: And yet, even Though there was that common thread that really isn't what their interviews were about, they went so much deeper than that.
Kevin Lowe: They were about finding oneself again.
Kevin Lowe: It was about finding where in the world you're supposed to be.
Kevin Lowe: One would travel all over the entire world, would end up in a place Far different from.
Kevin Lowe: Where he began. The other, well, He's actually in the same place it all started. He didn't have to travel the world, but he did have to find himself again in the one place where it all started.
Kevin Lowe: the ocean. Sometimes.
Kevin Lowe: We look so Hard to find the thing to better our lives.
Kevin Lowe: We look so hard to try to find the answer.
Kevin Lowe: The solution to our problems.
Kevin Lowe: And a lot of times.
Kevin Lowe: Most of the time, it's simpler than we realize.
Kevin Lowe: And it's not just one of those things of the answer is within us.
Kevin Lowe: It's actually the fact that I think a lot of times the answer is just right in front of us.
Kevin Lowe: We're always trying to run away.
Kevin Lowe: We're trying to find something new.
Kevin Lowe: But maybe all Along we just needed to get still. Maybe we just need to step outside.
Kevin Lowe: Maybe we just need to grab a cup of coffee and not immediately sit down at the computer and start plugging away.
Kevin Lowe: But instead we need to take that cup of coffee and go sit outside and watch the sunrise.
Kevin Lowe: My friend, I'm about to turn 40 years old this month.
Kevin Lowe: And even though I have a podcast, Please by no means think that I have life figured out, because I certainly do not.
Kevin Lowe: I still struggle. I'm really struggling getting ready to turn 40, trying to understand where my life's going. What am I doing?
Kevin Lowe: And yeah, there's times when I find myself lost in something and I have to stop and ask myself, am I escaping from life?
Kevin Lowe: Or is this activity just getting me plugged back into life?
Kevin Lowe: For me, a positive example of what I'm trying to say, something that isn't an escape, but instead is a refuge, for me is creating.
Kevin Lowe: It's creating this very podcast.
Kevin Lowe: Now, granted, there are some Times when getting on the mic and recording this podcast are a struggle.
Kevin Lowe: But every time I do it, it makes me feel good in the end.
Kevin Lowe: Same thing when I sit down to create a new song, whether it's for myself or someone else.
Kevin Lowe: I get to be creative. I get to do something. Same thing when I sit down at the computer.
Kevin Lowe: Now with me Exploring the depths of AI technology, creating websites and apps.
Kevin Lowe: It's me getting to be creative, using tools that I enjoy using.
Kevin Lowe: And it's not escaping from life or escaping reality, but it's just helping me get plugged into it.
Kevin Lowe: But more specifically, and more importantly, it's helping me plug into the very thing.
Kevin Lowe: That I believe Brings me joy. That's creating something from nothing.
Kevin Lowe: From creating something in the hope that it's going to make somebody's day better.
Kevin Lowe: That's why I do this podcast. is simply the hope that maybe someday one of these episodes I record reaches the person on the other side of the world, who just really needed to hear what I had to say.
Kevin Lowe: Maybe today, that's you.
Kevin Lowe: Maybe you've been constantly escaping from life, diving into oceans merely to try to get away from what's going on.
Kevin Lowe: But what I want you To do today is I want you to find the ocean that's going to give back to you.
Kevin Lowe: Don't just escape life. Plug into life. Find the thing that lights you up. Find the thing.
Kevin Lowe: That lets you Use your gifts to be a gift to someone else, to be a gift to yourself.
Kevin Lowe: My friend, today, I just want to encourage you that if you're struggling, don't look for an escape.
Kevin Lowe: Don't look for some way to get away from life, but instead find a way to plug back into life.
Kevin Lowe: Find a way not to escape, but to recharge, to revitalize yourself.
Kevin Lowe: That's what I want for you. My friend, today is short and sweet.
Kevin Lowe: To the point, And that's all I need to say, is I just want you to focus on what you're doing each and every day, the activities you're doing.
Kevin Lowe: Are they benefiting you or harming you?
Kevin Lowe: Get clear on what they are, If they're for a benefit or for a negative, and focus on doing the things that are a positive force in your life.
Kevin Lowe: My friend, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe. This is Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.
Kevin Lowe: I hope you have the most amazing day ever, and I will see you right back here next week.
Kevin Lowe: But until then, get out there and enjoy this beautiful day.
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