It hit me on one of my morning walks with my daughter. The crisp air, the smell of gum trees, and the familiar sound of her giggles as we visited Jet – the horse she’s completely obsessed with. It’s our ritual. Our reset.
And during one of those slow, grounding walks, a realisation dropped in, as it often does when my nervous system finally has space to breathe: there’s shame in being in survival mode.
Not just stress. Not just exhaustion. Shame.
We’re being fed the message – again and again – that if you’re in survival mode, you’re doing it wrong.
Parenting from survival mode? Fix it.
Working from survival mode? Get out of it.
Living in survival mode? You must be failing at something.
But here’s the thing no one’s saying loudly enough: of course you’re in survival mode. You were wired for it.
And there is zero shame in that.
Your body isn’t broken – it’s brilliant
The first part of your brain to form in utero is the brainstem – the part responsible for survival. It doesn’t care about your career, your to-do list, your morning affirmations or how aligned your parenting is. It cares about one thing: keeping you alive.
This system developed to respond to real, physical danger. And while we may no longer be facing the same threats our ancestors did, the body doesn’t know the difference between a lion chasing us and the fear of losing a job, a partner, control, or certainty.
Your nervous system responds the same way.
And instead of honouring that? We shame it.
We shame ourselves.
We start believing:
- I should be more grateful
- I shouldn’t feel this overwhelmed
- I should have it together by now
- I’m the only one struggling this much
But what if survival mode isn’t a sign you’ve failed?
What if it’s proof that your body and brain are doing exactly what they were designed to do?
Survival mode is natural – the world we’re living in is not
Let’s zoom out. We live in a culture that is constantly asking us to do more, be more, achieve more, give more – with less and less support, rest, community, or spaciousness.
We’re disconnected from the land, from our bodies, from our rhythms. And we’re bombarded with messages that tell us if you just tried harder, meditated longer, or got more organised, you wouldn’t feel like this.
That’s a lie.
You feel like this because you are alive in a system that doesn’t support aliveness.
The problem isn’t you. The problem is a world that glorifies productivity over presence.
And yet, because we’re women – because we’ve been conditioned to be agreeable, capable, and palatable – we internalise this. We make our nervous system a personal flaw. We don’t speak it. We don’t show it. We carry it quietly and then ask ourselves, “Why can’t I cope better?”
What if nothing is wrong with you?
This is the question I’ve been asking myself and the women I work with in Becoming Her:
What if every part of you that feels chaotic, scattered, controlling, avoidant, people-pleasing or emotionally reactive… is just trying to help you survive?
What if the procrastination is a survival tool?
What if the overthinking is an old form of control to avoid failure, shame or rejection?
What if the people-pleasing helped you feel safe in an unpredictable home growing up?
These aren’t character flaws.
They’re intelligent, ancient, body-based responses.
And the more we shame them, the louder they get.
Shame keeps survival in the driver’s seat
Here’s what I’ve noticed – in myself and every woman I’ve worked with:
The more we hate a part of ourselves, the more power it holds.
The more we resist, the more it persists.
Shame locks the nervous system in place. It keeps the body hypervigilant. It says: there’s something wrong with me and I have to hide it.
But when we meet these parts with curiosity – when we learn to befriend the procrastinator, the snappy mum, the exhausted version of ourselves – we make space for something else to lead.
We let our higher self – the conscious, soul-aligned version of us – step into the driver’s seat.
And we begin to live, not just survive.
You don’t need fixing – you need compassion
I’ll say it again: there is no shame in survival.
You were built for it. You’ve been doing it your whole life. It’s kept you alive through hard things. It’s part of your brilliance.
And the path to something softer, freer, more grounded?
It’s not through fixing yourself.
It’s through reclaiming all parts of you.
We do that through presence. Through practice. Through intimacy with self. Through allowing nature, stillness and slowness to become teachers again. Through finding safe spaces to unravel, cry, laugh, scream and be seen – without judgement.
And from that place, the noise begins to settle.
The shame quiets.
The softness returns.
And you remember: I’m not broken. I’m becoming.
