Survival Mode

​Are you living in survival mode?

I believe most people function day to day in survival mode. Life is so full-on countless levels that remembering to breathe is all we can do each day.

These words hit me hard every time I read them, survival mode. I imagine I am not alone. I have lived most of my life in survival mode with brief moments of trusting the present moment. It has been a tiresome balancing act.

Do you know what it is like to live in survival mode?

Survival mode is a short-term mode of thinking that one will choose when their fight or flight response is triggered.
This defining mentality can lead one to either attacking or retreating during stressful times rather than finding the positive communication and the ability to embrace the situation at hand.

When we find ourselves resting in survival mode, we can spend more time focusing on the fears that we miss out on the opportunities. Imagine what would happen if we were able to take it in stride. It is easier to point out the struggles, the pain or the conflict that occurred than to take in the lessons that can be learned from those traumas. The lessons often carry arduous work and introspection to heal.

It is a cliché, but the truth lies deep in that there is something to come from every situation that we enter into or experience. I firmly believe that anything and everything happens with reason and lessons for the journey forward.

When we find ourselves resting in survival mode, we turn off a part of human story that chooses to take risks, embraces imagination, goes with the flow and instead fights this reality by staying in a safe zone. In this zone we hold on to regrets, resentment and control.

Can you imagine living in this state most of your hours within a day?

Your mind, body and spirit will suffer so deeply over time that you will suffocate into your pain, rather than breathe into your natural rhythms of life.

When we live in survival mode we can find ourselves comparing our pain to others. We can go down the hole of thinking we are less than someone else for how we to choose to walk through our struggles. Our sense of identity is often defined by others.
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We live and die by fear of the unknown from what others think of us to what could be possible for our futures if we were to risk living outside the box that we built ourselves into. If we are not residing solely inside this box then we are spinning in circles of a downward spiral questioning and second guessing our lives at every turn.

We are not living, we are merely surviving  

I read recently about a new phenomenon, thrival mode. Thrival mode is exactly what it sounds like. Embracing thriving in your life and on the journey forward. It is visioning intention and what you want for your life. It is finding ways to implement simple changes to guide you out of the darker times that you may face. It is seeing the light and color in your life before the negative can take over.

My challenge for you today is to thrive in one thing. You choose. Whatever trauma, emotion, pain or struggle is holding you, I challenge you to release it and commit to thriving just for today.

Let in the possibility that life could be lived beyond just surviving.