Coming out of survival mode

Everyone’s question these days is “Alex, how are you feeling in Berlin?” and I can never seem to reply anything but “good” and “okay”. It’s not that I’m not happy but my emotions have been lets just say – stable. It feels weird if I’m totally honest. When most of your life has been to live in fear, panic, uncertainty due to the sheer amount of adversity, survival mode sort of becomes the norm and anything else feels strange. When I went to my first therapy session, my therapist said something that hit home, “you’ve lived most of your life in survival mode.” It was one of those big moments where everything all of a sudden made sense. It explained why I was constantly getting sick, run down, tired, anxious, stressed and having sleepless nights for most of my life and feeling there was never the time or space to address any of it. I wanted to share a little about the journey I’ve been on for the past two and a half years of coming out of survival mode and how I’ve learnt to cope with it.

1.    Acknowledging being in survival mode

If it hadn’t of been for my therapist mentioning it in our first session, I would have just assumed I just had a shit tonne of bad luck. But it was acknowledging the context beyond me that gave me the clarity to understand this state I had been in for most of my life. I had been parented by someone who lived most of their life in survival mode and I was inevitably going to be impacted by that. I recognised instantly that I was in a heightened state of anxiousness from a young age. Whilst there had been some level of upside to being in survival mode, being able to adapt to anything and anyone and being incredibly resilient, being in a perpetual state of survival mode was slowly killing me. Now that I knew what it was and how it felt, I could nip it in the bud in future, sooner rather than later.

2.    Finding a safe space

When I was in my last corporate job I was definitely in survival mode more often than not. I was constantly stressed, burnt out and anxious by the sheer amount of work load, expectations and a manager whose behaviour I could no longer predict. It felt like I was drowning and constantly trying to gasp for breath, for one small moment to regain some level of normality and clarity. It wasn’t until I went to therapy that I found a safe space where I could offload everything that was going on, feel my emotions and come into awareness that I was very much living in survival mode both in my work environment and at home. Having that safe space to give myself time to actually think and feel was absolutely crucial. Survival mode doesn’t allow you to think of anything but surviving, which means that getting out of it is incredibly difficult without finding the space to do so.

3.    Learning to relax and self-regulate

I have to admit I had no idea the word ‘self-regulate’ existed, let alone what it meant until I met my ex who work in the field of wellbeing. Until then my coping strategies to self-regulate, when going into survival mode, were let's just say ‘unhealthy’. My life was constantly going at 100mph without being able to slow down let alone stop, I just didn’t know how to. Self-care was also non-existent in my life. My nervous system, what's that? I didn’t know how to relax, and I don’t mean heading to the spa, I mean learning to calm the mind and body when thrown into a crisis. I was parented by someone who was never taught how to self-regulate and so that vital piece of learning wasn’t handed down. I had to in a way reparent myself and teach myself better ways of living and dealing with this state. Why we don’t teach this stuff in school, is beyond me. 

4.    Being patient with the process

It’s been about two and a half years that I’ve been slowly, gradually and progressively coming out of survival mode. It’s not a process that has happened overnight, it’s one that has been happening with gentle intention for quite a while. A process that has felt accelerated, now that I find myself living on my own for the first time and having less external influences that can potentially send me back into a survival state. I’ve recently felt a niggle at the back of my mind that I can’t help, which is “what if the shit hits the fan and everything goes tits up?” I know, I know, I shouldn’t even think about it but I’m just not used to life being, well okay. This is a new normal and it will take some time for my mind and body to understand that it is safe and stable.

5.    Staying in survival mode

I was compelled to write this last one because I think this is the slightly dark side of survival mode, it’s what you fight against on a regular basis when you’ve been in this state long enough. It’s when you consciously or subconsciously try to stay in survival mode. Yes, you can do that! You can get stuck in being attracted to difficult situations or people that keep you in that state. You can replay in your mind your survival mode movie, rehashing and embedding the narrative that you are in that state and it’s impossible to get out of. This vicious circle and also spiral into a deep and shadowy survival mode that is even harder to break free from. It’s comfortable because it’s known and it feels easier to just give into it but trust me when I say stability and peace is a better and healthier place to be.

I won’t lie, coming out of survival mode is not easy. The process is difficult, the reward is great. When we’re in survival mode, we go into flight, fight or freeze mode and we can barely do anything beyond reacting. Our mind is trying to protect us from any threats. It makes it very difficult to live life. We do what we need to do, the bare minimum to get through the day and repeat it all over again the next day. All we’re actually doing when in survival mode is existing. We need action in order to move from one state to another and that requires us to take the first step to changing where we’re currently at. It may take some time to come out of survival mode, especially right now but with awareness and small steps it’s possible.

If there was ever a time that there is a huge amount of people across the world currently in survival mode, it’s right now so be gentle, be kind, be caring both to yourself and to others.

With love and care,

#AuthenticAlex

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About me: Hi I’m Alex, after experiencing a quarter-life crisis I decided to leave the corporate world and create my own definition of success. On the day I left that job I wrote a post that went viral on LinkedIn. 

Since then I've been named LinkedIn Top Voice UK twice and have worked with companies such as Deloitte, Shell, Dyson, BP and Fiverr all through building my own Thought Leadership on LinkedIn

By day I help people grow their presence on LinkedIn, helping them find their sense of purpose and tell their own stories. By night I turn into a superhero keynote speaker and blogger under the hashtag #AuthenticAlex, knocking down one stigma at a time! 

I'm also the co-creator of #LinkedInLocal, the biggest hashtag campaign on LinkedIn that created offline communities in over 100 countries and 1,000 cities.