I'm a Survivor, But Not For Long

Getting from Survival Mode to Living Mode

How can we tell when we are getting stronger? When do we come to the realisation that, yes, we are going to be ok?

When and how do we go from surviving each day to living each day?

There’s a lot of talk about being a survivor. When life throws you a huge heavy curveball and it hits you right between the eyes that’s all you can think about.

It’s all you can do.

Drag yourself from one day to the next, relieved when you sink into bed that you’ve managed another 24 hours.

I'm a survivor
I'm not gon' give up
I'm not gon' stop
I'm gon' work harder
I'm a survivor
I'm gonna make it
I will survive
Keep on survivin'

Destiny’s Child

When I first learned of my husband’s betrayal my world didn’t just implode, it vanished. Everything that I thought I could count on just disappeared.

I’d finally learned to trust someone with my heart, with my deepest thoughts and wishes and it had been ripped away from me.

Those next few days became a lesson in surviving the basics. I was in a place I’d never been before. It had never been so dark, so cold and so lonely.

I’d drag myself out of bed after a few hours of fitful sleep, make myself a cup of tea trying not to think about how I never did this as it was something he did for me every morning without fail. Write in my journal because that was the only way to stop my head from exploding. Desperately trying to make sense of things as I wrote.

I did other things too like making myself go for a walk in the forest. Remembering to eat something. Checking my emails because I had to keep my business going now that I was on my own with no backup.

I wrote lists. Short ones at first.

Write. Shower. Get dressed. Eat. Walk outside.

That was as much as I could do. I crossed them off one by one. It made me do the things.

Then they got longer and I added a few more things.

Meditate. Read. Call a friend. Drive to the supermarket. Accept the dinner invite.

That was the first clue.

I could do more. I didn’t need the basic lists anymore. I was functioning again without them.

Gradually I added more to my days without really thinking about it. A trip to the supermarket didn’t seem so daunting. Meeting my friend for coffee was no longer something I had to make myself do, I wanted to. I was able to meditate for longer and deeper.

I started going to yoga twice a week. For that hour and a half, there was nothing but the breathing and the poses. It gave my head a break from all the overthinking and trying to figure out my life, or what was left of it.

I started enjoying reading again. For a while and for the first time in my life, I couldn’t concentrate on reading. But now I could.

I’ve always set goals. Planned where I wanted to aim for. I started doing that again.

I wanted to wake up happy. Although that seemed like an impossible goal.

My sister kept asking me to go and visit, but I couldn’t plan. I couldn’t think ahead. And then one day I could. I could bear to leave my home and go and stay with her for a few days.

Nothing seemed to come gradually and also it did. I would suddenly realise that I’d gone a whole day without crying, then a week, then I couldn't remember how long it had been.

It crept up on me, the surviving. I didn’t plan it at first, I just knew I needed to. Then one day I realised that I was doing it. I was slowly not just surviving, but making a new life.

The goal had never been to survive.

I wanted to at some point start living again. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life surviving.

Then…

One day I didn’t cry.

One day I woke up happy.

One day I didn’t remember the date I found out.

One day I found a reason.

One day I knew I’d be ok.

One day I realised just how fucking strong I am!

I wrote a short book about this process in the hope that my experience could help others to get to the other side of surviving. You can download it on my website here or click on the picture below. If you are a paid subscriber you can of course use your discount code to get this for free.

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You can browse my book on the 'Books' tab at the top menu bar.

All paying members can use their exclusive discount code to get any of the other eBooks for free too! Check out the ‘Books’ tab at the top menu bar.

It was a series of daily practices, repetitions and goals that weren’t magical and they didn’t work overnight. It did happen gradually, without me seeing it, until it hit me one day that I was different, I felt different, I acted different.

Soon I had a morning routine that hardly ever varied, and still doesn’t. Write, study, meditate, yoga. I made sure to spend time with my friends and family. I had and have a self-care routine, I started to make our home into my home. I did hard things for the first time and that gave me confidence that I could do more.

I had a daily, multiple times a day, gratitude practice. That was a game-changer. We can’t hold a negative thought and a positive thought in our minds at the same time, so I found things to be grateful for. No matter what, there is always something. Small things.

I found little pockets of joy that sustained me.

I wrote. Oh did I write?!! 1000s and 1000s of words. I wrote about how I was feeling. I wrote letters to him that I never sent. I let the words pour out and as they did so I would feel a bit lighter and less anxious.

Sometimes, especially in my journal, I would write without thinking about the words, I’d just let them come out. It wasn’t until I read what I had written that I often understood how I was feeling.

I came to the end of that dreadful year and had an aha moment, an epiphany. I just knew that it was time to start living again.

I’d done enough surviving. it had served its purpose, but it was now time to get out of that mode.

I like symbolism. Like writing all your pain onto paper and then burning it. Or planting a tree to mark an occasion. Or getting a tattoo (not that I’ve ever been brave enough to do that!) I wanted to say goodbye to my old life, to let it go, so that I could start this new one.

It seemed huge. A monumental task to be able to do this. To move on. But I knew if I did something big I could have a symbolic before and after. My life before and then my new life after.

So I went back to my roots. I went back to Wales for a month. I rented a cottage by the sea on Airbnb and found somewhere I could rent a car. This whole plan served so many purposes.

My house in France had become my sanctuary, my safe place. It was becoming an easy life. Nice quiet village, with good neighbours, and good friends, one daughter just 30 minutes away, working from home. I was firmly entrenched in a very nice comfort zone.

But there’s no growth in a comfort zone.

I had never rented a cottage all by myself before. I had never hired a car and it had been many years since I’d driven in the UK. I was leaving the safety of my home to go somewhere I hadn’t been for almost 10 years.

It terrified me.

I knew I had to do it.

I knew I wouldn’t come back to France the same woman who had left.

So I packed my suitcase and my daughter drove me to the airport an hour away.

The Airbnb was at the end of a private driveway, right on the beach. It looked lonely but to me it was solitude. I could walk into the nearby village to the little grocery store or to one of the restaurants.

I walked on the beach every single day, no matter what the weather was. Did I mention that it was February?! In the UK! I had no family, no friends and no neighbours. It was exactly what I needed.

The strong winds, the rain and the often crashing waves seemed to help me wash away my previous life. One day I picked up a handful of pebbles and threw them one by one into the ocean and along with them hurts, disappointments and future plans.

Some days I walked along the beach with tears falling down my cheeks, talking out loud to my sometime-soon-ex-husband, pouring out my anger and sadness.

But then there came a day on the last week I was there. I’d walked to the farthest end of the beach, and I just knew it was finished.

I knew the switch had happened.

I was going to be going home as I planned, a new woman, ready to start living.

You have to survive sometimes, it’s all you can do, but there has to come a time when the living starts. Because staying in survival mode is living a half-life, not a whole life and we all deserve to live whole wonderful lives.

Rhosneigr Beach, Anglesey

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I’ve started this newsletter for the same reason that I built my website and wrote (and write) books. Simply to share what has helped me in the hope that it can help others too.

I also know from experience that when we are at our lowest, reading the words of someone else who has been through the same, is incredibly comforting. I helped me and now it is my turn to help others.

I know without a doubt that the things I write about and teach on my website work because it has worked for me and other people that I have spoken to, interviewed and worked with.

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