[Reflection] #33: Getting Out of Survival Mode

Recently, someone (of foreign origin) confessed to me that she couldn’t savor her successes: as soon as she achieved a goal, she felt she had to prepare for the next one right away. As an immigrant, I recognize this pattern all too well. Immigrants live in a state of permanent instability—a broken contract, an illness, a change in the law, a missing document… is all it takes to feel like you’re back to square one. And I don’t think this is exclusive to immigrants, but it’s a pattern I see often.

A friend of mine, deprived of parental love, has lived since childhood in “I’m unworthy of being loved” mode. For her, the rare signs of approval from her mother were always conditional (a good grade at school, a degree earned), never unconditional. Her self-esteem is so fragile that she struggles to accept my gifts, as if love were completely foreign to her; she feels unworthy and immediately seeks to “return the favor,” even though I expect nothing in return.

Others can’t seem to sit idle. When they were little, as soon as they sat on the couch, their parents urged them to do homework, take a shower, or go to sleep. They always had to be busy, and they never learned what it truly means to rest.

This spiral of automatic behaviors, where past protective strategies (hypervigilance, mistrust, compulsive productivity) become invisible barriers to joy, rest, and fulfillment. Indeed, once you’ve known survival, you tend to stay in it. Even when the situation improves, you remain hyper-cautious, always scouting the emergency exit in case everything falls apart. In “Gone with the Wind,” Scarlett O’Hara, traumatized by the war, stayed in survival mode even after regaining immense wealth because she was too afraid of losing her farm again.

Many of us have been there: the university years when you barely had enough to pay rent and buy groceries, the first underpaid job… But at some point, it becomes necessary to unlearn these reflexes, to truly step out of survival mode. Because by staying in survival mode,, we block access to abundance, beauty (beauty requires a mindset of abundance),), freedom, creation, and above all spiritual elevation (which is what we’re here for).

Our autonomic nervous system has two main branches: the sympathetic system, which manages activation, fight or flight, and the parasympathetic system, which enables rest and recovery. When we live in near-constant survival mode, most of our energy is drained by these stress responses: fighting, fleeing, or freezing.

That’s why it’s essential to learn to leave survival behind and activate the parasympathetic system more. The goal is to send our body the message: “I am safe now.” This comes through comfort, through giving ourselves permission to feel good and treat ourselves gently.

When we allow ourselves comfort (physical and emotional), we signal to our nervous system that we are safe, allowing a shift from the sympathetic state (survival) to the parasympathetic state (recovery and creation).

Offering ourselves comfort is within everyone’s reach: practice heart coherence (6 breaths per minute for 5 minutes daily), opt for cotton satin sheets, gradually replace your polyester clothes with cotton, linen, wool, or silk (on Vinted, I found tons of brand-new items for under €30). From time to time, treat yourself to a massage or a facial. Take time on the couch to do nothing (not even scroll on your phone, just let your thoughts wander), light candles, take yourself out to a restaurant for no special reason, only see people you genuinely like and who treat you with respect…

If you’re in the same boat and struggling to unlearn “survival” mode, I recommend the Shania Khan “Soft 60” video series, which I recently discovered. It’s aimed at “girl bosses” who are too tired of living in performance mode. Each day brings a concrete exercise to break free from this dynamic. It’s a great gateway to understanding what it means when they say “love yourself.”