Getting out of survival mode
What I discovered when I finally noticed I was scaring myself about dangers that didn't exist
I am 62 years old, and I have been in a constant state of survival mode most of my life. This is my story about how I became aware of it and how I finally escaped it.
Noticing
I was walking in my local forest. It was a very nice day; sunny, birds singing, the forest was green, and the wind was calm. I have always seen it as a peaceful place, where I can go for a nice walk.
As I walk, my mind always warns me. “Be aware of dangerous animals.” “Watch out for snakes.” “Notice if anybody is following you.”
I know these thoughts, and I feel how my body reacts, and how I start scanning for dangers.
These thoughts happen in less than a second. I notice them, but I don’t really register them. But my body reacts, and my state of mind changes from peace to alertness. And then I do what I always do; pull myself together and keep walking anyway.
But that day something shifted. I actually noticed the madness of it.
I stopped right there on the path. What dangerous animals? There are no dangerous animals here, and the snakes are not a real threat; they flee when they feel the vibrations from my feet. And who would follow me?
These threats that I was preparing for are not real. They are not real threats!
I am scaring myself with thoughts that have no basis in reality.
And then I realized something else.
Realizing
It is not just in the forest. I do the same thing in my car, in my home, when I go into a shop, when I visit someone. I do it everywhere.
In my own house, the safest place in my world, I hear thoughts warning me: “Someone broke in. They’re hiding around the corner.” “Dead people live here, and they will take your soul.” “You left the stove on; the house will burn down.”
Or when I start a new project at work, when I enter a business meeting, when I post something online.
The situation changes, but the pattern is always the same: anticipate danger, feel the fear, pull myself together, do it anyway.
And then I realize the frequency.
This isn’t happening once a day. It’s once every ten minutes. Maybe more. This is a continuous loop of warning myself about threats that don’t exist, and then forcing myself to act despite the fear.
For years I have seen myself as strong, brave, resilient. Someone who does things anyway, despite being afraid. Despite the dangers.
But I also realize that I never really relax because I’m always preparing for the next imaginary danger.
I am in constant survival mode.
My body is tense. My mind is always scanning for threats. I’m spending my energy defending against dangers that never materialize, preparing for attacks that never come.
The cost?
I’m not really enjoying my walk in the forest. In fact, I am not really enjoying anything. Because it is always just something I have to endure until I can get away from it, get away from the dangers.
The prize was my peace and my presence. There is no peace in survival mode, and you are never really present because your mind is filled with imaginary threats.
So I started asking questions.
The mechanism
What is actually happening here? What kind of mechanism is at play?
I realized the thoughts weren’t random. They were the same thoughts every time.
In the forest: “Watch out for animals. Watch for snakes. Somebody might follow you.”
In my house at night: “Someone broke in. Did you turn off the stove? Something’s wrong.”
In my car: “That driver might swerve. That truck could brake.”
These were habitual thoughts. Programmed responses triggered by location and context.
Joe Dispenza describes the mechanism this way:
A habit is a redundant set of automatic unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and emotions acquired through repetition.
That is precisely what I was doing. I had practiced scaring myself so many times that it had become a habit. And since it was unconscious, I wasn’t really aware of it, even though it had such a huge effect on my world. I thought this was normal. That this was just how I am.
Joe Dispenza calls this “living in the past.” These emotional reactions aren’t based on what’s actually happening now. They’re based on memories, or in my case, imagined scenarios I’ve rehearsed so many times they might as well be memories. My body was living in a state of threat 24/7, even though the actual threat never materialized.
Dispenza says that by the time we’re 35 years old, about 95% of who we are is a memorized set of behaviors, emotional reactions, unconscious habits, and hardwired attitudes. We’re running on autopilot.
And my autopilot was set to scared.
Why I kept doing this
At some point, probably as a child, I learned this pattern. Maybe the world felt scary and I needed to protect myself. Children find ways to handle their emotions, but they can’t distinguish between real and imaginary. If they can imagine it, they believe it can exist. That’s how they become afraid of monsters, snakes, and wild animals, even though it’s all imagined.
Someone probably told me when I was in the forest, “Oh, be aware of wild animals. The snakes are very dangerous.” I believed these were real dangers and found a way to deal with them.
But I don’t really know how this pattern was created, I have no memory of it. But I know why it continued.
I kept accepting this pattern as the truth, and with my accept I reinforced it. And it became an unconscious pattern that would play out in my life for many years.
There’s a saying in neuroscience: neurons that fire together, wire together. Every time I had the thought and felt the fear, I was wiring that pathway a little deeper. The more I practiced the pattern, the more automatic it became.
So I was training my body to stay in survival mode, constantly scanning for threats, constantly ready to react. The body doesn’t know the difference between a real threat and one I’m imagining. It just knows: danger, prepare, survive.
What if none of it was real?
I probably adopted this pattern when I was a child. So let’s say I have 60 years of experience with these dangers.
Let’s count.
How many times in these 60 years have I been attacked by wild animals in Danish forests? None.
How many times have I seen snakes in the forest? Maybe ten times. Always in the distance. Never dangerous. Never even close.
How many times have I been attacked by maniacs in the forest? None.
How many times have I been attacked in my own house by someone who broke in? None.
How many times have monsters appeared in my home? None.
These things never happened. They were all imaginary. They were never real. They were never facts.
Jon Kabat-Zinn has a simple phrase for this:
A thought is not a fact. A thought is just a thought.
My thoughts about danger were not facts They were just thoughts. Habitual thoughts that my mind had learned to produce automatically, that my body had learned to react to automatically, but none of them were real.
I was living in a nightmare of my own creation.
Victim or creator?
When I approach this issue from a spiritual perspective , I can see it for what it really is: An illusion I’ve built to maintain a picture of myself as vulnerable and small.
What I’m really saying is: I’m a victim of this world, not its creator.
And that may be the biggest lie behind all of this. Because I actually created this whole situation for myself. I am the creator of the world where I live in survival mode. My thoughts alone created it. I created that.
But as long as I’m not conscious about it, I can keep telling myself that I am vulnerable and small. I can maintain an understanding of myself as a victim of the circumstances of the world.
I live as a victim, and my life is about survival.
Living as victim:
The world is dangerous, I must protect myself
Threats are everywhere, I must stay alert
Things happen to me, I react
I’m vulnerable, frail, limited
Life is about surviving
Living as creator:
I create my experience through my thoughts
I choose which thoughts deserve my attention
I respond consciously, not react unconsciously
I am the leader of my life
Life is about creation
Realizing this whole setup is just a trap to keep me small, I finally saw the potential of letting go of this pattern. And I made the shift from victim to creator.
This is how I did.
Choosing peace
I follow a simple process that trains my mind to choose peace in any situation. By choosing peace, I stay in my natural state of mind, and I am no longer controlled by fear.
This is mind training. And like any training, it requires practice. But at its core, it is a simple process with three steps.
Step 1: Be aware
The first step is simply noticing. Not judging, not fighting. Just noticing. It is the ability to pause before you react.
When a fearful thought arises, catch it and reflect on it. “Oh, there’s that pattern again. My mind is warning me about wild animals.”
This alone is huge. You’re moving from unconscious reaction to conscious observation. You’re creating a gap between the thought and your response to it.
Step 2: Test it
And the next part of the process is to question it.
“Is it true?” and then you wait.
Magic happens now. Because asking in this way implies that you don’t know and that you are willing to listen to the truth from a higher power than yourself. You are simply asking your soul-level for guidance. And you will get the answer because you have asked for it, and because you are willing to listen.
You will know the answer, and it will be a clear “yes” or “no.”
If you have doubts about the answer, then simply accept that you don’t know. It will suffice for you to take the next step.
Step 3: Rest in your peace
This is where you take leadership.
When you’ve determined that a thought isn’t true or that you don’t know, simply choose to not follow it. Don’t reject it, don’t fight it, don’t argue with it. Just be neutral and let it pass without giving it energy.
I use a simple phrase in these situations. I say “I rest in my peace.”
Not “I fight this fear.” Not “I push through anyway.” Just: I “rest in my peace.”
I do not allow myself to believe the thought, and I don’t allow my emotional system to react to it. I simply let it pass and stay in my peace.
This is training. It won’t work perfectly the first time. But each time you practice it, you’re weakening the old neural pathway and strengthening a new one.
Simply choose to rest in your peace and let the thought pass.
And when this becomes your practice, your world will change.
What changes
You will feel safe and comforted. You will realize that the suffering you felt before was a part of living in survival mode.
All the energy you invested in that state of alertness can now be used to maintain your peace.
You will show up differently in your relationships. Jon Kabat-Zinn teaches that when you’re mindful rather than anxious, people can feel the difference. Your voice sounds different. You’re more present. You can actually listen instead of just waiting for the danger to pass.
You will become more creative in your work. Because you’re not spending cognitive resources managing fear, you have more available for actual thinking. For problem-solving. For creating. For being.
I will surely enjoy my walks in the forest. My mind will be relaxed and present with what is, not with imaginary monsters.
I will enjoy my drive in the car, and because I am relaxed and present, I will be more ready to react if anything should happen in traffic.
There will be more peace in my life.
There will be more peace in your life.
Beyond fear
This practice applies to everything. Once you learn to question your fear-based thoughts, you notice them all.
“I’m not good enough?” Is it true?
Thoughts of shame, guilt, and doubt. Most of these are habitual thoughts that aren’t based in reality. And you will see that they are not true.
They’re just patterns we learned somewhere along the way. And we can unlearn them simply by noticing and questioning them.
You become the leader of your own life. Instead of being controlled by unconscious patterns, you become the conscious leader of your inner world. You choose which thoughts deserve your attention and which emotions deserve your energy.
You rest in your peace because now you choose peace instead of suffering.
The result is peace and the freedom to be yourself.
Start here
You don’t need to change everything or completely rewire your brain before this works. You just need to catch one thought tomorrow. One fear-thought that’s trying to scare you about something that isn’t real.
Notice it. Ask if it’s true. Choose peace instead.
Everything else follows from this.
A note on practice: This isn’t about never feeling fear. Real danger requires real caution. But most of what we fear exists only in our thoughts. Learning to tell the difference is the work. And it’s worth it.