Surviving, Not Thriving

​We can’t thrive in survival mode, yet so many of us are just getting by. We are clenching our teeth, tensing our muscles, grinning and bearing it. We are “getting through it.” Whatever “it” may be because “it” is always something else. Have you ever heard yourself saying “once I get through XYZ…” I can rest. Then that XYZ goes from a busy work period to planning a wedding to falling on hard times to sickness to whatever it may be. We begin to feel like we are being waterboarded by life and there is no “once I get through” because there is always something else around the corner to knock us back. 

So we go into survival mode. 

We may say our body, mind and emotions are running on fumes, but what does this really mean? Well in this state, physiologically, our body is running on stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline, etc.). Our sympathetic nervous system, which is in place to innately protect us from threats, turns on and we are in survival mode. In survival mode our digestion, liver, gallbladder and even our brains stop functioning as they should because there is minimal energy left for those organs. All of our energy needs to go to surviving, moving our arms and legs so we can flee our threat, staying awake, pounding our heart, quickening our breath, dilating our pupils. 

In a primal situation, we need this sympathetic state to protect us from attackers and threats. Once the threat passes, we are supposed to come back into balance and move on. Today, we are continually triggered and activated by our lives and environment. This chronic state of fight or flight has long lasting physiological effects because we are not meant to remain this way. It fries our adrenals, imbalances our hormones, causing issues with things like fertility, early menopause, ED, etc. Without our liver or digestion functioning our bodies detoxification systems become overloaded with toxins and oxidative stress. We crave sugar, we put on weight we can’t lose. We don’t sleep and then we drink more caffeine to survive the day because we have to get through and so on and so on. 

I know because I lived this way for over a decade. I know because my body gave out leaving me in constant pain and chronic illness. I know because I numbed that pain and buried that illness and kept going. I know because I had a breakdown in 2021, sitting in a closet with my knees pulled to my chest, shaking and crying, telling my husband I wanted to run away from the world but I couldn’t. Like many people, I couldn’t just give up my responsibilities because I had bills to pay, people counting on me. A full shutdown was not an option for me. 

We cannot thrive while ignoring our body’s messages, because it will scream. We cannot heal in a state of fight or flight. We need to come back in, into our bodies, into homeostasis. We can do this by nervous system work, and we can do it while continuing to show up in our lives. In fact, we have to do it in order to show up in our lives.

For me, it is a continued practice of self-regulation, which is why I get so frustrated when I see people saying XYZ days to heal your nervous system! You can get out of fight or flight, but you still need to have continued practices to maintain that state in your own way with your own toolkit. All I can do is help you build that toolkit and teach you what has worked for me, which I will share below:

My top NS regulating tools in my own life:

• Breathwork/Breathing Exercises
• Meditation, Active Meditation, Intuitive Dance
• Frequency Music
• Writing/Journaling
• Acupressure, Massage

Keep following along for more on these topics, tools and my stories on how I got to where I am now. Also if you want to learn more about Nervous System regulation I recommend checking out my virtual class Find Your Nerve. 

Until next time, stay well!