It is time to thrive. That is much easier said than done!
Human Beings are amazing at surviving.
When Homo Sapiens came into being, survival instincts are what helped us survive the wilderness. Our survival was dependent on our senses, our intelligence, our physiology (which is anchored in survival), and our ability to live in groups. Human groups are called tribes. Our tendencies which came into being because we live(ed) in groups are called “Herd Instincts”, “Survival Instincts” and/or “Tribal Instincts”. Because of these instincts and how they have evolved in modern society it may be difficult to thrive.
A huge part of our psyche is dedicated to analyzing the tribe and how we can fit in and stay in the tribe. We develop many behavioral patterns from our tribal relations. Our senses are trained to help our unconscious define everything that is happening around us in order for us to be safe and navigate life in order to remain safe. This dynamic tries to anticipate what may happen around us and then behave in such a way as to secure future safety. That is right, our natural process pushes us to try to become safe in our future when in reality, we are already safe in the present moment. This can explain why anxiety and stress have been and are constantly rising.
Most people will recognize that fight/flight/freeze/panic instincts are survival instincts, however, many people do not acknowledge the following survival instincts.
Survival Instincts
Being Fearful
Looking for what’s wrong so we can fix it
Fitting in
Acting as if we are not safe (when we actually are safe)
Analyzing if we are good enough and then trying to prove that we are
Analyzing if we are worthy and then trying to prove that we are
Self-Sabotaging in order to stunt us from evolving within the tribe which would make us a target for those who want to be in our place and because we do not believe we are worthy to be where we are in the tribal hierarchy
Defending our position (in the tribe)
Blaming others (So we do not get kicked out of tribe)
Being judgmental (so we can feel worthy of being in the tribe)
Keeping outsiders out of our tribe
Destroying outsiders for the safety of the tribe
Define our “status” to ascertain if we are secure in the tribe (So we don’t get kicked out)
Manipulate others in order to move up or stay in the tribe
Live contrary to our true selves in order to fit in
Become major people pleasers in order to be able to stay in the tribe’
Putting others down or being mean to them in order to elevate our status, shift attention to others, or get others kicked out.
Being overly concerned with others’ opinions of us
Not trying due to fear of failure
Fear of failure
This is actually a short list. A completely accurate list would be much longer. For the purposes of transcending our survival instincts in order to thrive, this list is a good beginning of all the survival traits which block us from thriving.
The point is, Homo Sapiens have been living in survival mode for way too long. It is time for us to move into “thrival “. The survival instincts and behavioral mechanisms are what block us and hold us back from thriving. These instincts also fight us and sabotage us in many of our actions and intentions. The fight and flight instincts often become self-sabotage patterns and/or become self-destructive behaviors which stop us from living the life we want to live or be the persons we want to be. So it is drastically important for us to learn how to transcend our survival instincts. This is a process. There are no switches that can be switched to turn off the survival instincts and move into thriving.
Learning to thrive involves learning how to identify the survival instincts that are driving our survival behaviors and then teaching and training ourselves to not create and perform those behaviors anymore. This often requires us to learn how to love ourselves and feel worthy or deserving of thriving. Feeling like you deserve to thrive is a great place to begin. This process is a part of the Pathwaves Neural Empowerment journey.
Submitted by G. Cole, co-founder of Pathwaves, Inc., Supermind, Inc., creator of NeuroEmpowerment™ and published author. For more information visit www.PathwavesLife.com and/or www.Supermind.us