Why you shouldn't feel guilty about 'just surviving' instead of thriving
It can feel like slashing your way through an emotional jungle sometimes
There’s a lot of talk in personal development and positive psychology about thriving; living your best life, fulfilling your goals, your desires, hailing the successful ones, the achievers, the people who are ‘not just surviving but thriving’.
That puts an awful lot of pressure on us. Especially when surviving and thriving is a cycle - most of us will go through periods of being up and happy, and periods of hanging on with our fingernails.
I don’t think that living your best life is inconsistent with sometimes holding on when there is nothing in you ‘except the will which says to them - ‘hold on!’’ to quote Kipling. In fact, I think there has to be a commitment to those periods - that they will show up and that we will get through them.
I want to hail the survivors. There is nothing ‘not just’ about surviving. Surviving is everything. There is nothing weak or pathetic about the bravery and humility that comes through learning how to crawl through dark days on your hands and knees, going on for no good reason other than the courage not to give up on everything just yet.
There is nothing ‘not just’ about living on that brink, where the pain is consuming and there are no answers. When even the questions that surface threaten to take you over the edge. Where all that feels is hopeful is that things will not get worse.
These times are not wasted. They can feel like a kind of death, or it can feel like everything is burning down, but my experience is that what is left when everything goes is absolutely inviolate and completely true. We can shed a lot of things that aren’t useful in this place.
ARE YOU IN SURVIVAL MODE? Tips for emotional survival mode
In survival mode, you are gripping on for dear life. Emotionally, it’s a dark storm. Or you might feel like you’re on fire. The pain is excruciating. You frequently wonder how much more you can take. Both future and past look bad. Everything feels like a lot, even thinking about what to eat. The only thing worse than being in bed is getting out of bed, if that is even possible.
Remember when you are overwhelmed all you know is you are overwhelmed - you can’t know anything else - the mind struggles here.
Hold your hand on your forehead for a minute. This helps blood flow to the front part of your brain which will help clear thinking.
Try and return to the present moment - one trick for presence on the go is listening for the furthest sound away you can hear - it creates a kind of alertness which brings us out of the pain.
Look for the space in between the feelings : there will be a space in between the feelings, the waves of sensation, the thoughts, even for a moment, watch for it and take that second as a relief
Stay in the day - or the next fifteen minutes, or the next five minutes. Don’t try and live your life from this space, or plan from this space. You only need to make sure the next five minutes and five feet around you is safe.
The only thing that will make gripping on for dear life even more intolerable is panicking about how shit you feel, and beating yourself up for not being a grade A student and super productive. YOU ARE FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE! You do not have time to worry about your performance. Can’t save your arse and face at the same time.
If there is a trusted other, share how you are feeling, and keep in touch with people - it’s good to get out of our own heads here.
Cold showers, or hot baths can help to alter our nervous system into a state that is more manageable - there is a lot that could be written on our nervous system here, 578 breathing is also very good - if you want more tips, reach out :)
In survival, we relearn the basics, how to keep ourselves safe, we start to rebuild our lives, day by day, from the bottom up. We learn humility, because there’s so much pain that we can’t add to it by comparing, or blaming, or saying we should be anything other than who or where we are. Humility actually comes from the Latin word for humus which means earth. So humble just means close to the ground really. And that’s a safe place to be - because we can’t fall if we are already lying down.
Survivors can only be authentic - there is no energy left for pretence. This is life or death. We stop caring about that which we did not need to care about, because we can’t afford to. We stop saying yes to things that are killing us, spiritually, mentally, emotionally - hurting us or robbing our energy - we only have the capacity for things that help, that we care about.
We rediscover our own resourcefulness. We might learn that rock bottom is somewhere quite a lot of people have been, and we aren’t alone. We learn how to stay close to the ground, to be patient; we expand our capacity for pain but also for receiving love and for gratitude - we lean on others, we listen and we remember what is important. We construct foundations - and we begin to know what is most true.
Of course quite a lot of the time, we don’t see this when we are in it. That’s where both the pain and the power comes from - darkness is dark. We can’t see a damn thing down there. It takes all the more strength to carry on when you don’t know and you can’t tell.
Survival is the bedrock of learning how to thrive. Survival is more than enough sometimes. Survival is the talent of being able to go on living. And to paraphrase Jon Kabat Zinn - as long as you are breathing, there is more right than wrong with you. As long as your heart is beating, you are here, and the world is incomplete without you.