Survival mode: If you don't notice you're always in it

If you are always in survival mode, you may not notice it because you think you feel normal. After all, if you always feel this way, that becomes your normal. So then how do you notice that you are in survival mode?

That's a question I got recently when I put out a call for people to send in audio recordings of problems that I then "reply" to.

That audio recording is important because the way you say something says a lot. The tone in which people are talking says something about how they feel about the problem. Then a solution comes to me.

What is the real problem?

The cause of a problem isn’t always clear. Everyone has their own ideas about why they are the way they are.

As far as she was concerned, her survival mode was triggered by a number of things. When she was little, she nearly drowned, and later in life she had experienced a fire. Those two events triggered her survival mode, and after I asked her more questions, it became clear that it was primarily the fire that keeps her in “survival mode” now.

She also said she is always on because "something" can always happen. When someone says something like this, it does not always have to do with fire "what" can be anything.

So I asked her what all that could be and if she could put it in a chronological event.

This created a timeline where in 1991 (!) there was a fire she couldn't easily get out of, and a week later it happened again.

Normally, something happens and you think,“What are the odds that this will happen again?” Of course, those odds are slim, but if it happens again a month later, your brain goes into overdrive. That’s when the trigger kicks in.

Things happened in 1999, in 2004 and in 2022. So there were periods in between when nothing happened, but everything that happens then piles up and confirms the belief every time. This also makes that conviction stronger and stronger.

The emergence of feelings

When you are small and something happens, it gives you a lot of influence. For example, imagine you are small. You see a spider, then your mother walks into the room and starts screaming loudly.

So a phobia of spiders could have been triggered all at once. You didn’t think about it at the time, but your subconscious stored it away. Many people experience this, and it can often be traced back to a frightened mother.

It is then learned. This is possible because small children from 0 to 7 are in a state of hypnosis . The brain activity of small children is identical to people in hypnosis.

People in hypnosis take everything to be true, and small children do too. They do so because they learn quickly that way.

If you question everything then you learn nothing.

So then everything just comes in, even when your child says "no."

Changing feelings and thoughts

Questioning everything is something children do only from the age of 7 or 8. Then they start thinking critically, and that becomes so critical in some people that they are no longer open to certain things or ways of thinking at all.

Critical thinking is a good thing to do, of course, but it can also result in your inability to learn well. That it holds something back.

With critical thinking, you can think differently, but can you feel differently? Sometimes you can if you get a different idea about something. But often it doesn't.

Changing these feelings is more difficult because those feelings are installed very early in your life. In that period of 0-7 years, it goes beyond thinking.

Even with intense emotional events, it goes beyond critical thinking. In the case of the woman, she thought she was dying. That's so intense that you get an imprint of it, and if you don't do anything else with it, you keep it all your life.

It was incredibly emotional and traumatic. It can lead to PTSD , and the experience can be deeply ingrained in a single moment.

At the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands we always indicate that once something can happen, that is then coincidence, 2 times is still coincidence, but at 3 times there is a pattern.

When something violent happens and then 2 times, it feels like a pattern. All other events that are violent then feel like confirmation that "something" can always happen.

Then you’re completely “on high alert.” Always on guard, no longer relaxed, because something could happen at any moment.

In children, this can lead to the development of sleep disorders in the long term[1]. People with sleep problems are also often“wired,”making it difficult for them to relax enough to fall asleep.

Unlearning the belief that keeps you stuck is difficult with your critical mind. With hypnosis, you bypass critical thinking, and a hypnotherapist provides suggestions to trigger subconscious processes. The first step, however, is to bypass critical thinking.

If you don't want to go into hypnosis, you won't succeed.

And it stays in you because, as humans, we always "move on." Animals don't. When those experience something traumatic they first discharge it by vibrating.

So we keep going and this keeps us "on". Our brain says it's over, but the body remains in "trauma mode."

At some point, that’s going to be a problem. Research also shows that people who experience traumatic events multiple times may be more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety disorders[2].

The Solution

Hypnosis combined with cognitive behavioral training does a lot to resolve anxiety disorders and PTSD[3], but how exactly do they do it?

For this woman, the solution is going back to the first moment when it arose in 1991. This whole trauma then has to be completely discharged first, physically and mentally.

Often , simply seeing things differently helps the body start to feel differently as well.

Body and mind are connected by language. You often start to feel differently when you think differently. You start to think of new images, say new things to yourself, and then the body heals as well.

Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen, because in her case there was a whole pile of trauma piled up.

Then a few images won't help, but it's a good start.

The idea is that when the images are ok, or when you know it's going to be ok. You see a final image that it's ok, that it was over again.

You visualize that nothing was wrong and that after 2 months it was over, because there won't be another fire. You take that feeling of relief, that it's over, to the next step.

You then go back into the apartment in your mind. The fire is there and you are relieved because you know it will pass one day. You then grab a pillow and start punching out the bad feeling. Then you throw out everything in it. This can be quite intense, but you do this until you also feel it in your body, the relief, and you do this until the last image. The image that the fire is over again.

Your body will feel good.

At the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands, we also teach therapists the fast fiobia technique. Then you actually start working with a movie and mix it up and make it more light-hearted. You learn how that works during the training.

But these two steps is the beginning to solve everything. Sometimes this is enough. If you still feel something, then you're going to discharge one more time into that image that wasn't right.

You do this just as many times until you are completely discharged. You may have to do it 4 or 5 times.

In fact, you then make new connections in your brain and can control how your mental abreaction to the memory is now. That mental abreaction is your emotional response to a particular memory or triggering moment that reminds you of that memory. So you can change that reaction.

Then you start looking at the other intense events and chances are you may have to do this at 1 more moment, but it will be resolved after that.

Also watch this video:

Want to know exactly how to use these techniques to help people suffering from anxiety or trauma? Then knowledge of hypnotherapy is key.

Come join the free online masterclass to get started.

Or sign up right away for one of our events or training programs.

Sources: