Living in survival mode can make for a hellish life. Sadly, many targets of bullying go through day-to-day life surviving instead of thriving. Not only can it have an impact on your successes with your family, relationships, and opportunities, it can affect your mental and physical health as well.
Personal power isn’t only essential to personal freedom, but also the last vestige of power we have. Without it, we’re completely powerless. So, what are the ways that being in survival mode can rob you of your personal power?
1. It exhausts you both physically and mentally.
And when you’re exhausted, you’re only running on fumes. You need extra sleep and have trouble getting out of bed in the mornings. You go into work or school at 8am dreading the day. Your butt drags around like an old, tired dog. You have zero energy, and you constantly feel sluggish. Living off raw adrenaline every day is never good and can cause health problems, such as autoimmune disorders, hypertension, and heart issues.
2. Instead of living, you only exist.
Instead of living a purposeful life, you only go through the motions. You’re being forced by circumstances beyond your control (i.e., bullies and their sycophants) to just get by. You have no chance of reaching your full potential and happiness quotient. And if you feel you can’t reach those levels, you don’t really live.
3. You either don’t have time to think about personal goals or you give up on them altogether.
When you busy living in survival mode, you’ll more than likely give up on your goals. Once you resign yourself, then the goal simply becomes just to survive and get through the day. If you do think about your goals, those goals are only passing thoughts. Or you wish for your goals to materialize.
But here’s the thing about wishing instead of goal setting. Wishing denotes a spirit of lack instead of the spirit of abundance. A spirit of lack only invites more lack to come into your life. Thoughts and feelings become our circumstances. What we think about, if even subconsciously, comes about.
Sadly, getting out of survival mode is a lot easier said than done. So, how do you do it?
Realize that when you’re constantly in survival mode, it usually means that you either live in a toxic environment, work in one, or go to school in one. And where there’s a toxic environment, there are toxic people.
Again, how do you get out of survival mode so you can finally relax and begin to enjoy life?
1. If you can, get out of the environment.
Getting away from the toxic place is a sure-fire way to reduce your stress levels and restore your mental health as well as your personal power. However, some people can’t leave because they have circumstances that prevent them from doing so. So, if you can’t leave, what else can you do?
2. You drawn strength from your faith.
Remember that prayer works. It works wonders.
3. Go for a walk or take a break.
This works wonders as well. Going for a walk or taking a break gives you time away from toxic people and the environment you’re stuck in. Even five minutes of time away can reduce your stress levels. In just doing these things alone, you can exercise your personal power, or what little of it you think you have left. And it feels exhilarating!
Know that you always have a choice, you may not have many of them, but you have at least one choice. Find out what your options are and use them. Only then will you feel a degree of personal freedom and, therefore get out of survival mode, if only temporarily, so that you can finally breathe again.
With knowledge comes empowerment!
I am on extended disability for the next 6 months- but prior to that, I was working in a toxic workplace with high employe turnover. I tried everything to stay and make it work for my clients, but my boss was unsupportive and a manipulator. My case load by many was unreasonable- but I stayed for the kids! Dynamics changed when I was given a volatile person with a toxic home life and was provided with very limited supports. Not only did I have to protect my other clients BUT my colleagues as well since the boss was ineffective in that area and afraid of community reaction. As imagined, I soon was beyond exhausted from not just juggling the environment, but filling out paper work and dealing with constant ridiculous issues that were truly beyond my domain.
One day, out of inspiration or desperation (as Anthony Robbins says,) I asked the universe to grant me time to heal, rest and reacquaint myself with myself and my dreams. I can now tell you that The universe provided- BIG TIME!! I am now off due to surgeries and this “downtime” has given me much time to rest, read and reflect plus enjoy your blog and virtually hang out with folks like me who are dedicated professionals who have been targeted for doing their job well via another site. The Universe has helped me truly breathe easily and see the light- my eyes are wide open and I know how to proceed! I so enjoy your daily posts and reflections, YOU ARE A GOD SEND, dear Cherie!!
Aww! Thank you so much sweetie! And I’m so glad you were granted the time off you needed and away from those creeps at your job. Enjoy your leave and give yourself lots of TLC! Sending you lots of love and light! 💖💐🌹🦋🌞
This one is really important and hits home with me. So many of us have and maybe some of us currently are, go through the motions. We technically are breathing but we aren’t living. We are dissatisfied with our lives but lack motivation to do much about it. And the thing is there is no guarantees in life. Not to sound morbid but any one of us could fall over dead today. Everyone think about your own lives and how many times you probably cheated death or serious injury. Life is to be lived! I apologize for the length of this post but I wanted to make some points to add to your excellent post.
1) Relationships-How many of us date someone just because of fear of being alone but we know that person isn’t right for us or secretly we are in love or attracted to someone else. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is very possible to be attracted to multiple people but be sure about the person you are with and if you have someone or multiple people on the side, you have no business being in a relationship. That is survival mode.
2) It is all about the money. GUILTY! I have had jobs that were all about the benjamins and absolutely no passion in what I did before. Usually it came from burn out which is natural but sometimes I didn’t give to craps to begin with. It was all about the check. That is being in survival mode. Sometimes it is necessary if you want to eat but it isn’t sustainable. I have even been in a few relationships where I was going it more because I was “being taken care of” then me really being into it. Very wrong of me.
3) One’s True Self. There have been times we all try to fit in with the rest of the crowd and we aren’t really being ourself or we avoid situations because it may go out of our comfort zone.
4) We make excuses and never go out. This especially happens in relationships. We want to go to a movie or concert or whatever but our partner isn’t into it so we stay at home wishing we were out on the town. Yes, respect your partner but your partner should respect you and sometimes do things maybe they aren’t into for their partner or tell you to go and not to be jealous. A lot of jealousy is a red flag and when we spend our time not ever letting our hair down. Survival mode!
5) Suck as a Friend. Guilty! In this life we have very true friends and when we get one what do we do with it? Often times we spend no time with that person (And another tip if your significant other is jealous of other men or women WATCH OUT). Or we make excuses and don’t even acknowledge them claiming we were busy. I am bad about being slow to respond to friends on Social Media or not giving them more than two minutes (I understand being busy but stop and give others your time), never stopping by, always declining invitations and never inviting them to do anything. Why would anyone want to maintain a true friendship with someone who only wants to associate with them when it is convenient?
6) We let the negative nellies talk us down. Guilty! I believe all people have talents and when one has talent and dreams there are also those people sometimes our own family that find an excuse to try and talk us out of doing something. You want to sing? Sing! You want to write a book? Write one. You want to join a Gym? Join One. You want to Paint? Paint. But we let others talk us down or we talk ourselves out of it. That’s surviving not living.
This may sound like a weird example but I always say we need a bathing suit mindset if we want to live. Ladies this may apply more to you then the men out there, but since it is summer we all are thinking about the Beach, swimsuit season and all that. And the pandemic hasn’t done most of our waistlines any favors lol. So what do we do. Don’t go if we can afford it or we won’t put on that bathing suit because we are completely worried about others and we are worried about how we are in our mind. When we buy a bathing suit, we go conservative. What we should do is buy that one that fits us that is right for now but we should also buy that one we have a goal of fitting into later, maybe something a little sexier, a little more skimpy if that is your thing.
Put it this way. I don’t know if any of you have done this but you ever tried on a swimsuit and realized it looked fairly good on you but you keep it your own secret. Or then you show it in front of your friends or significant other and can tell they really enjoy it? That is changing your own mindset. That is what survival versus living means. Putting on some new clothes because you know you will rock it and keep working out to rock even more in the future.
Excellent points! It doesn’t sound weird at all! I love it- All of it! 😍😍😍