Surviving to Thriving

Surviving.
That word means so many different things to so many different people. The reality is—we often don’t realize we are in survival mode until we aren't. And the longer we stay in survival mode, the longer it takes for our minds to stop operating as if we still have to be there. It becomes ingrained in the way we react, plan, and think.

I was in survival mode for decades, and I didn’t always know it. When I was in my late 20s, I got married, and we were making really good money. But emotionally? I was just surviving. After that marriage ended, I started over again, on my own, back in financial survival mode. I was much happier emotionally, but the financial strain was still there.

Throughout my adult life, I’ve often felt stuck—whether in a home, relationship, or job—until something shifted inside me. I realized that it all came down to one thing: my thoughts.

That sounds cliché, maybe even contrived, but it's true. Once I stopped thinking about my situation—whether financial, relational, or professional—as something happening to me, and started thinking, “This isn’t what I want, AND I can change it…” everything began to shift. Fear had kept me in situations longer than I should have. Fear of failure, fear of what others would think, fear of doing without, or what I might miss out on.

I knew I wanted more, but I wasn’t yet ready to take the steps to make it happen.

I remember being 22, a single mom with an 8-month-old baby. We had just moved to California, and I was determined to finish my degree. The community college was 45 minutes away, in another county, and I didn’t have a car. So, I figured it out. I mapped out the bus lines, grabbed an umbrella stroller and a sling, and took two buses each way, 5 days a week.

It never occurred to me that I couldn't do it. I just did. And it was hard. There were cold, foggy, rainy days—but we still went. Backpack, umbrella, stroller, baby in tow.

The discomfort of those months on those buses, in the dark and cold of a Northern California winter, pushed me to find a way to get my car from the East Coast. I took on gig work, retyping scientific briefs—800 of them—charging $1 per page. It took me a month on top of being a full-time student and a single mom. But the day my car arrived on that truck? It was worth it.

When we get irritated or frustrated enough to push past our fear and discomfort, that's when the change happens.