Get Nourished & Thrive Again
With all that’s happened this past year, many of us are living in a constant state of fight, flight, or freeze. It’s been months since the pandemic has impacted our lives, and the effect of prolonged stress and disconnection is taking its toll. The good news is, there is a way out of survival mode. What would it feel like to give yourself a spa day for your soul? Read on to see how you can find that connection again and get back to feeling like yourself.
What is survival mode and how did we get here?
One of the issues with navigating a world impacted by the pandemic is that life looks so different from how we might have expected it at the beginning of 2020. We’ve had to adjust to massive and sudden life changes due to COVID – changes like job losses, managing online school, working from home, and being cooped up in the house non-stop with family. You might feel as if you have to walk on eggshells around your kids and your partner, and that you’re getting on each other’s nerves much more than usual.
On the outside, we appear to be “fine” and we try to keep it together and stay positive. However, on the inside, we are suffering under the weight of fear, uncertainty, and anxiety. Or, we become unpredictable and defensive, snapping at our loved ones. On the inside, we’re feeling a real loss of connection, especially those of us living alone. Loneliness and disconnection are like shriveling: like shrinking inwards and losing our inner spark, mixed with feelings of fear, anxiety and sadness.
The truth is: survival mode is starting to take its toll on all of us.
Survival mode steals our joy.
For many in our society, this constant feeling of heightened anxiety has turned into chronic stress. We’re just trying to keep our head down and make it through, but it’s trapping us in a constant place of fight, flight, freeze – our innate trauma responses that emerge when our nervous system is running on empty.
There is a physical impact on us too when we live in constant survival mode: we hold stress in our bodies, in our necks and shoulders, feeling tight and uncomfortable. Our fight or flight mechanisms have evolved to deal with things like mountain lions – not a pandemic that has been wearing us down for months.
At the same time as feeling that bodily tightness and tension, we’re also feeling very lonely and disconnected because we’ve lost our outlets where we can be together as a community. All of us are missing those distractions – dinners with friends, a night at the movies, going to our favorite sporting events.
For some of us around the world, there’s literally nowhere to go at the moment, and it truly feels like the pleasure of life is just gone.
We Can’t Forget to Take Care of Ourselves.
When we’re living in this state and dealing with survival mode, we don’t give ourselves permission to do something yummy and wonderful for ourselves because we’re flat out just trying to hold it together. It feels like there’s no space for sensuality and joy, for filling ourselves up and charging our batteries because we’re running on fumes all the time.
All this stress takes an enormous toll on our central nervous system, wearing down our defenses bit by bit.
How does this manifest for you? Does your nervous system shut down, making you numb yourself just to survive? Or do you express your overwhelm by getting defensive and irritated with your family and loved ones? Or do you put yourself last with a fawn response, running yourself into the ground whilst you look after everyone around you?
No matter how your trauma response manifests, it’s a sign that we’re desperately craving connection and calm.
How to Fill Your Cup Again (And Keep it Full)
When we take a moment to slow down and prioritize ourselves – really prioritize ourselves – and put that heavy bundle down, we can begin to slow down and reconnect to the goodness of ourselves and the goodness of the world.
What would it look like to nourish your soul today? Just drop out of your body, step out of that tension and not have to TRY? What would it be like if you took time to unravel your frayed and damaged nervous system, and come into a space where you can just…. be?
How would you feel?
Restored. Held. Lifted.
You don’t have to keep pushing, keep giving and keep wearing the mask. You don’t have to pretend. We hold space for you to let yourself be supported and attend to what you are craving on the deepest level.
Join us for a spa day for your soul
If you’re ready to go to your tender places, or longing for your cup to be filled and to be held in the presence of others that see you – we’d like to gently open that door and invite you to our Women’s Immersion Weekend.
You can join us from the safety and comfort of your home. By being in a space where you can have really supportive connections to fulfill those needs, you can navigate your way out of survivor mode, charge your batteries, and really reconnect to your goodness.
Our next Women’s Immersion Weekend will help embrace yourself and rediscover your wholeness. Joining this workshop will help you uncover false beliefs, tend to the parts that have been hurt or unseen, and truly reclaim your gifts as a woman.
Find out more or join us for our next completely online weekend workshop by registering here.
