Survival Thought Conundrum

Let me just start by saying sometimes life happens. Sometimes really shitty things happen in the world and in our world, and they invariably shake us.

This event is exceedingly small in the scheme of things, and it still serves to illustrate a point.

We had a break in last week. Valuables are gone. Everyone is safe. Regardless, it’s a violation. To make matters worse, I had forgotten to lock my partner’s precious mountain bike which was the first thing they took.

I vacillated between the terror that comes when someone invades your space and the shame of being the reason it happened in the first place (which, of course, is not true!)

Afterward, we took all the steps and did all the things to make it less likely that anything happens again, and naturally, that felt good and productive at the time (more on that later). The challenging part was that even over a week later, I wasn’t sleeping, whether in the hospital delivering babies or not.  We all know it’s understandable to be afraid after an event like that, and certainly, it’s natural that your brain thinks of the worst case scenarios that could happen and relives the past that did happen. This is especially true when part of the did happen involved something that you deemed to be your fault or under your own control. The question then becomes ‘what’s the endpoint?’

I didn’t realize I needed one until I had an out of proportion reaction to a seemingly unrelated and minor event during the week. I was not being who I want to be. I could feel the same internal hypervigilance, mixed with anger, fear, and the all too familiar sprinkle of shame. I started to recognize thoughts that were circling in my brain like ‘I can never relax’, ‘I’m not safe to relax’, ‘I’m always behind’, ‘I mess everything up’,  ‘everyone else gets it right, why can’t I?’ to name a few.

Thankfully, after doing this work for awhile, I can more easily recognize when I’m missing something much deeper. What I realized was that I was stuck in the energy of being inherently unsafe (which wasn’t a new feeling if I’m honest- just intensified from it’s normal, smoldering state). Regardless of the ensuing circumstances, I was continuously concocting my own hormonal soup that reinforced the thoughts and feelings and feelings and thoughts of the original event that had passed. I wasn’t allowing myself to trust even though everything was ok in that moment.

I could tell that if I didn’t choose something different and shift the hormonal cascade in my body, nothing would change. And perhaps it would simply continue to get worse by allowing sleep deprivation to cloud my executive functioning even more. I was in survival, and I had to let my body know we were no longer running from the tiger.

I intentionally allowed myself to stop and breathe and feel.  I posited ‘Am I safe in this moment?’ …..yes……’Is there anything wrong in this moment?’….no….I honored the emotions as if they were my child’s and intentionally chose a mantra that would remind me of my inherent safety the next time I felt myself slipping into the subconscious survival programming.

This event made me realize just how easy it is to stay in survival. It’s a good reminder that we all have our patterns that exist beyond the circumstances that seem to incite them. Basically, there’s a familiar comfort in the yuck. The trick is to stop the cycle and create a different pattern that aligns with the feelings you’d like to have and the person you’d like to be in the world. Sometimes when we jump into action too quickly, we miss this step.

It’s easy to think that doing, taking action, and ‘fixing things’ will make the feeling go away. It doesn’t. You can never act or do or accomplish (for my high achievers out there) your way out of a feeling. Changing the outside doesn’t change the programming inside.

I had to decide whether this pattern was serving me and what I was willing to believe and practice in order to show up differently. I knew I didn’t want to remain a victim of myself (shame) and a victim of all the what ifs in the world.

How often do we remain a victim of our own thoughts long after the original circumstance has passed? It may be more often than we think.

This practice isn’t necessarily easy, but the agency you take back in your life and the power you recognize in yourself is worth it every time.

If you’d like help reclaiming your power within, reach out!

Love,

Coach g