Breaking Free from Survival Mode

So, about ten years ago, I wrote a dissertation on Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, stick with me here! As a Horticultural Science student, my advisor told me it was a bit of a stretch and joked that it was perfect for a job at the UN, which, back then, was my dream job.

While I had to tailor parts of it to agriculture and plants, the core of my research was about the people. I was obsessed. I interviewed leaders from Oxfam and Self Help Africa to find out if donations were truly helping people or even reaching them at all.

My conclusion? Yes, the residents of that particular area in Africa were receiving some aid, but rarely in the form of money. And, unsurprisingly, corruption was a massive issue (still is), with gangs intercepting the food and aid before it could get to those who needed it most.

This got me thinking

If we put corruption aside for a moment, is it aid in the form of food, livestock, seeds, etc.,
that creates change, or is it money?

Fast forward to now.

This topic has been bouncing around in my head for so long. I’ve gone down a whole rabbit hole of hypotheses about needs and how they get met. Some of these thoughts I’ve shared here and on Instagram.

The biggest shift I noticed in myself was when I started focusing on
getting my basic needs met first.

Once I did that, everything opened up—my energy, my connections with others, my mindset, my health—everything changed.

Studies show that people with lower incomes become more empowered and productive once they have enough money to cover their basic needs (Alvarez, 2018).

I've seen this with my clients, too. They often find themselves in a rut, spinning their wheels, thinking if they could just get their business to work, everything would be okay. But when you're in that mindset, you’re not empowered; you’re creating from a place of desperation.

Couple this with the changes in the online industry and the post-COVID recovery, and it’s like being in a vacuum of fear that the rug is going to be pulled out from under you. Essentially, you’re in survival mode.

Survival mode causes so many mind, body, and spirit imbalances: anxiety, anger, closed-offness, fear, egoic behavior (the negative kind), isolation, lack of creativity, and, one of the biggest, a complete inability to be who you authentically are.

And as you probably know, because I’m always talking about it…

When you are completely who you came here to be, the whole world opens up.

You might be thinking, "This doesn’t apply to me, I’m not impoverished." But what I’ve seen in clients is that they’re going round in circles, getting nowhere. They look visibly tired, spend a lot of time in their own heads, their sleep is off, and they spend hours staring at their computer screens, hoping for some divine inspiration. They don’t really love what they do, but it’s the avenue that "makes the most money" (ironic, right?).

I know this email is getting lengthy, so let me wrap up by asking you a few questions to ponder…

• Do you love what you do day to day?

• Do you enjoy your work?

• If money was no object, what would you do?

• Who did you come here to be?

• And finally, ask your heart: What area in my life requires more openness?

You might not get answers right away, and that’s totally fine.

Let these questions percolate, let them flow through your body, and see what little nuggets of wisdom come back over the next few days.