When Survival is Our Safety

Honoring the Intelligence within Your Nervous System

For those who have lived through high-stress childhoods and ongoing stress, survival is not just a response—it becomes a way of being, sometimes the only way you know how to exist without even realizing you may be locked into it. In some ways, survival becomes your safety, and trusting that there is anything beyond it can feel unimaginable.

We are all literally born fighting for our lives, and for many of us, that fight never ended. Maybe even before we had words or understood what was happening, we learned to fight for our sense of safety, to neglect our needs in exchange for conditional love and recognition, and even to sacrifice our values, beliefs and dignity. We fought or learned to disappear within spaces that didn’t feel safe or welcoming. That unrelenting fight-or-flight state—or the triggering of freeze and fawn responses—continues to shape our nervous systems and our lives today. We adapted as best we could based on the resources (or lack thereof) available at the time. Our survival instincts kept us going in the hope of creating some level of safety and a form of security.

If this is you, your survival strategies are evidence of your body’s relentless determination to protect you—to shield you from harm and carry you through. Even when we move forward, our brain and nervous system can sometimes remain stuck in survival. When this becomes our default, it’s because the nervous system doesn’t automatically update and recognize that the danger in the past has passed. It stays on guard, anticipating threats, constantly vigilant, still acting in service of your survival—though now in an overprotective way. These responses are not random, they are deeply connected to a nervous system and brain forced to adapt.

As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, explains:

"The trauma is in the body. It is not something you choose to hold onto; it is something your body chooses to remember in the name of survival.”

Research has shown that a high-stress childhood and ongoing stress careers often result in reliance on overactive defensive and self-protective strategies, such as:

• Withdrawal: Pulling away to avoid uncomfortable feelings and vulnerability.

• Fear: Hypervigilance, constantly scanning for potential threats, criticism, rejection, or betrayal.

• Aggression: Preemptive defensiveness, pushing others away, reinforcing the belief that you can’t trust or rely on anyone.

  
  

These reactions are not conscious choices but deeply ingrained survival mechanisms.

As Dr. Stephen Porges, the creator of Polyvagal Theory, states:

"When safety is compromised, the nervous system prioritizes self-protection over connection."

When survival is our baseline, healing can feel threatening because it’s perceived as “letting go” of the very mechanisms that kept us alive. But nervous system restoration is not about erasing survival. It is about honoring it while creating space for a different experience—a new felt experience of safety and inner stability that allows for choices in how we respond to life, stressors and triggers today.

We all need survival instincts when real threat and danger arises. The issue is when they remain switched on all the time, exacting a high cost on our whole well-being. The missing key to unlocking the brain is often a real time, felt sense of safety within the body—a safety that no longer requires constant hypervigilance and can give you back your present moment.

The challenge—and the real gift—is learning to recognize nervous system dysregulation while guiding it towards safety and restoring balance. Over time, this skill helps you distinguish between past survival patterns and all that is available in the present moment.

When you learn to ride the river of dysregulation, you give stored stress and unresolved distress a chance to integrate so that you can flow through life with less internal obstruction and greater inner ease. The gift lies in moving through the present and toward a future where the waters feel clearer, less treacherous, even when internal or external storms and triggers arise.

Expanding Your Capacity Beyond Survival

The goal is not to dismantle your survival strategies but to expand your capacity:

• To connect with the present moment to help you reorient the system .

• To discover that true safety can coexist with survival energy as a way of integrating it as it seeks resolution in the present moment.

• To support your nervous system in creating balance through self-regulation and co-regulation, so it doesn’t have to work so hard, fighting for your life when your life is no longer in danger.

  
  

This is not about forcing change but about gently introducing you to the intelligence that resides within you and your system—building a two-way communication pathway between your body and brain. This practice helps you attune to the vital information your body shares, moving from excessive surveillance to self-trust. Over time, this deeper connection transforms how you experience life on a daily basis.

This new way of communicating with your body, stress responses, and nervous system paves the way to soften the raw edges of survival mode, inviting a new way of being while becoming less triggered and more present over time.

The Discomfort of Healing

For some, beginning this work can feel uncomfortable, irritating, even triggering. When your body has been in survival mode or numb for so long, slowing down, sensing, and resting can feel so foreign that it registers as unsafe.

• You may feel restless or resistant when asked to slow down and pause.

• You may experience frustration or anger as old patterns are disrupted.

• You may feel grief for the time and energy lost to survival.

This is why it’s so important not to rush or force healing, but to find a modality that allows you to feel some sense of control and agency with access to supportive resources to help you restore balance.

As Dr. Stephen Porges reminds us:

"The body doesn’t want to stay in survival; it wants to find safety. But safety must be introduced gently, in ways the body can trust."

Your survival is evidence of your body’s unwavering commitment to keeping you alive. And yet, survival is not meant to be the only way you live. There is life beyond the battlefield, and your body holds the wisdom to help you connect with it.

Can you honor the part of you that brought you this far? Can you trust that healing does not mean abandoning survival strategies, but integrating self-regulation strategies so that both survival and safety co-exist in the current moment with greater accuracy? The invitation is to restore safety to your nervous system and shape a future where survival is no longer the sole occupier and gatekeeper of your body, thoughts, energy, and emotions —where you can build upon a safe and sound internal structure to help you move beyond survival mode. To resource and support the creation of a quality of life and living where you don't have to fight so hard to live, and be here as you are and who are you.