Overcoming Survival Patterns
Since around April 2024, I’ve been in a deep excavation of my survival patterning, which has led to many dark nights of the soul, followed by burgeoning feelings of renewal and hope. Without going too much into my past, I’ve had several watershed events through which I developed certain coping patterns. The process of awakening has helped me to uncover the tight grip of these outdated coping strategies. My belief for why this happens is that once we pop into the frequency of the present moment, all other frequencies within your soul’s container must eventually be synced back into the frequency of unconditional love. That’s one reason why awakenings can be so challenging: the soul wants to live in love, but the other parts of you don’t know how to let go, so there lives this kind of push-pull dynamic between ego and soul that creates a lot of tension and chaos until you learn how to dissolve, release and surrender that tension back into the present moment.
Here are some patterns of being in survival and several signs that you are coming out of survival that I have noticed:
The need for speed followed by lethargy, procrastination, sloth, or dissociation.
I used to have to do things as quickly as possible (to get them over with). This was a kind of dissociation. And then after I got my to-do list done, I would crash and numb out with TV, food, or scrolling — or sometimes all three! Polyvagal theory explains this well, however, until this information becomes embodied, all of these visuals are just words on a page. Healing involves learning to balance the parasympathetic and sympathetic forces within the body.
Photo cred: https://www.bodymindbrain.co.uk/polyvagal-theory/
Fixation on fixing others or yourself.
Seeing things in other people that triggered me made me feel like I needed to fix them or continuously offer advice. Once I figured out that there were sensations arising in me that I needed to learn how to soothe first, the need to fix every little thing started to dissolve. Safety is first created from within, not from controlling other people or your environment.
Discomfort and unease with feeling bored.
I used to dislike being around people I thought were boring or dense. Once I discovered that their density was causing me to have to feel things inside of myself that I did not want to feel, I learned (or was rather forced) to confront my avoidant patterns. As I became more and more comfortable feeling the sensation of boredom (which is actually peace), I realized that healthy people actually live with quite a lot of boredom and that this is a good and healthy approach to life!
The inability to sit still.
This pattern came directly after my Dad died of stage 4 lung cancer 9 years ago. It was a highly charged and stressful time and I simply did not know how to sit with my overwhelming grief. With lots of down time and sleeping, I’ve slowly learned to teach my nervous system that it is okay to sit still. The tiger of grief and terror is no longer chasing me. I can sit with a tsunami of feelings and not get destroyed.
The need for stimulants to feel alive (eg. caffeine, fasting, cold plunging, intense exercise, holotropic breathwork, constant need for new experiences/connections)
The entire field of biohacking and psychedelics is full of dysregulated people using highs as a way to keep underlying feelings at bay. Don’t fall for the hype! Or, fall for it, like I did — and eventually evolve your way into more peace and calm. Of course the middle way is best, but sometimes you have to ping-pong between extremes to find the middle. This is especially true for complex trauma survivors.
Signs you are healing from being in survival:
Feelings of exhaustion, anhedonia or dysthymia.
After all of the excitement of chasing highs or running from pain, it is normal for the body to need to compensate with more sleep and feeling empty for a while. When we rush to pathologize every thing little that isn’t perky, upbeat and positive, we delay the natural process of healing. I have had many moments of feeling completely disinterested in the things I once enjoyed. The key was that I understood this was all temporary and I let myself ride out the feeling until it passed. We suffer more through resistance than through what is actually arising, which I believe is a tribute to our brilliant imaginations! You are not depressed, you are trying to heal and rediscover who you are in the void.
Excitement no longer interests you.
Calm and steady wins the race. It’s better to be the tortoise than the hare. For example, I love pickleball, but even that sometimes works me up too much. Learning how to play at 60% rather than 90% has had a lot of benefits and can be used as a metaphor for other aspects of life, too. You can choose when to dim or brighten your light. Dimming is helpful for longevity and doing mundane tasks.
Relationships based on quid pro quo or people pleasing fall away.
This was a really hard one for me. I blamed myself for a lot of friendships that fell away, but in reality, people will vibrate in and out of your life because life is based on frequency and flow, not control and manipulation, which in the end, a lot of human relationships are based off of. The ones that stick are the real ones.
You prefer feeling calm over feeling stimulated.
I avoid crowds, but am always proud of myself when my nervous system can take a little more chaos than usual. This is a sign of improved vagal tone and self-regulation.
Longs hours of unstructured time no longer make you feel guilty or scared (no more FOMO).
This one also really troubled me. Going from working all the time, to an abrupt awakening, to then re-evaluating my identity before going back to work again was (and still is) tough. The old you can’t come along for this new version of your life, which sometimes means long periods of what I am calling re-buffering. The best I can say is that it’s okay to let go and trust something better is on its way. In the silence and uncertainty is where the strongest alchemy and change happens.
Taking naps or sleeping more without guilt or shame.
After awakening, I have slept a lot and still do. While I try and view sunrise everyday, this doesn’t always happen. Rosicrucianism talks about the importance of going to sleep and allowing your subconscious to work things out that you can later perform in your waking life. Iboga is the same with its half-wake half-asleep state that it produces. Through extended periods of rest, I have learned to trust that I am being pulled into a deeper alignment with Soul.
Trusting more in life and that life always has your back.
This one I continue to work on every day through a mantra: I am always taken care of. Growing up in a chaotic environment that didn’t mirror my needs has made it extremely difficult to trust that life has my back and that I don’t need to control every little thing. This one is definitely a work in progress.
There may come a time when the things you used to do no longer work the way they used to. This isn’t a punishment, but an opportunity to learn how to live in more ease and grace.
What did I miss? What have been some of your survival patterns? Which ones have you been undoing?
Join the discussion in the comments below!