Many clients come to me in survival mode, needing support to begin to regain daily functioning. This may include learning or remembering skills or behaviours that support them to manage daily life with energy and enjoyment.

Once they begin to feel better and start operating in a way that feels aligned, they often want to continue the work to thrive, and even to optimise their life experience.

However, for someone who has been operating in survival mode for a while, it can be difficult to know what thriving would even look like.

Some ways I support clients to connect with what thriving looks like for them, include:

Using the ‘Miracle Question’ from Solution Focused Therapy. I ask them what would be different if they woke up in the morning and were no longer surviving, but thriving. This can be challenging, so it’s further supported by the offering ‘if I were to make a documentary about your life when you are thriving; if a camera crew were following you around, WHAT WOULD WE SEE YOU DOING DIFFERENTLY?’
Asking them to explore what surviving currently looks like, and then to consider the opposite of this.
Asking them to think of people they know (or don’t know), who they would consider as thriving. What do these people do? How do they see them thriving?

In this process, I’m seeking to draw forth activities. E.g. the alarm goes off and they get out of bed rather than hitting snooze, they walk around with their head held high and shoulders back, they are smiling, they have a go at something they’ve wanted to try.

4. Using imagery. Recently I had a client who is visual and uses digital drawing and they/she used imagery to help determine what thriving is for them/her. You can see an example of how they/she visually expressed surviving vs thriving later in this post.

Each of these approaches helps to engage the creative part of the brain, and can help you to begin to bring to life the vision of what you want, or what thriving looks like for you. This can be a good starting point from which to more easily begin to describe your vision in words. From this place comes more clarity around what your vision for your future is, and what you want.

Once you’ve described this vision of your thriving, you can then bring it further into your life by describing how you would be spending a typical day, when you are thriving; including:

Your actions and behaviours
Your body language, and the words you would say to yourself and others
How you would spend your time
The techniques you would use when triggered or overwhelmed
The environment you would be creating and living in, and the people you’d spend time with
The situations and people who would be supporting you in your thriving, and those times or situations where you may need strategies to support you from reverting to survival behaviours and attitudes.

Note: Life is not all thriving, 24/7. It’s okay to be in survival mode and to make decisions from a place of juggling too many balls for your liking, or a place of stress and tension with the life events you’re managing and navigating. What we are aiming for is to not become stuck in survival mode, instead remaining able to move more freely back to doing things that support us to grow and flourish.

By bringing these activities, behaviours, and relationships into your conscious attention, you can become clearer on both your survival behaviours and attitudes, and what supports you to move to, and stay in more of a thriving state. This awareness can help you to manage a glitch on your own, and to reach out for external support when needed.

If you’d like to reconnect to what thriving looks like for you, I’ve included some inspiration below to get you started.

You can do this activity with pen and paper, coloured crayons, a chalkboard, or digitally (see below for an example).

Set aside time when you won’t be disturbed
Get your things ready – pen/pencils/crayons/computer
Take a moment to pause. You could do a short meditation here (such as this one) as a way to prepare
Give yourself permission to be creative and not limited by your inner self critic
Begin to sense into, or imagine, what thriving looks or feels like for you.

Example of a visual way to explore what thriving looks like for you

Start by drawing an image of what surviving looks like for you.

Surviving:

After drawing the image, without judgement or expectation, describe it, for example:

“I’m hiding, almost shrinking and am not seen (yellow dot). I have all this noise - anger, angstiness (made up word!), noise in my mind and daily life (the red and black sharp lines). I have no energy, no desire, or ability, to find the desire to see opportunities and possibilities. It is taking all my energy to try to cancel this noise and to try and stay stable, steady and just survive until it is over. I feel alone.”

Now create an image of what thriving looks like (or an image that represents the opposite of surviving). Thriving:

After drawing the image, without judgement or expectation, describe it, for example:

“I am owning my presence, no longer hiding (yellow line across different aspects of life). There is lots going on, as in surviving however it is calmer, smoother, more contained (the smooth, colourful thick lines), less jagged and noisy. I’m able to separate myself from situations and events (red and black lines) and pick and choose what I want to spend time doing (colourful stars) and how I wish to have fun. I’m clearer on what brings me joy and am having fun and laughing. I feel connected with my values and my life has meaning and purpose.”

If you’ve found the ideas in this post useful, you may also find my post on the Dropping Anchor exercise helpful. This is a great skill to draw on when we’re faced with challenging thoughts and feelings. You can find the post and guided video here.