From Surviving to Thriving: How EMDR Helps Your System Remember Safety

Have you ever felt that surviving is how you actually learned to live??  This is true for more people than you might ever imagine. 

We learned to keep going, no matter what. To stay alert, to overperform, to keep the peace, to hold everything together. Somewhere along the way, our nervous systems decided that constant vigilance was safer than rest, that control was safer than connection.

Survival is wise. It’s not a flaw.  It’s brilliant.  It’s the body’s most elegant design. It’s how your system protected you when you didn’t have other options.  Learning how to survive, for some, is in fact life-saving….until it’s not.  Until the cost becomes too much and too small for life you really want to live.

The Subtle Signs of Survival Mode

Survival mode doesn’t always look like crisis. It can look like busyness that never ends, like anxiety that hums just beneath the surface, like an inability to fully exhale.  It’s the part of you that stays prepared for the next hard thing, even when nothing’s wrong.  It can also look like a set of behaviors that are often times rewarded in our society.  Show me an organization that does love someone who learned to earn love by over-functioning? 

When clients come into EMDR therapy, they often describe feeling stuck. They’re aware that the danger is over — but their body hasn’t gotten the message.  That’s because trauma isn’t stored as a memory of something that happened once. It’s stored as a state of being.  A lived experience that can get trapped in the nervous system.  We respond to that cultivated, encoded, state that is rich with limiting beliefs and a series of behavior that causes harm to our souls when we are not needing to stay safe as an adult.  See end of article for a more complete list of behaviors you might recognize as something that feels familiar to you. 

How EMDR Creates Space for Healing

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is one way we help the body and brain reconnect to a sense of safety. Through a process that engages both hemispheres of the brain, EMDR allows old experiences to be reprocessed and this means your system can finally realize, “That was then. This is now.”  You don’t forget what happened. You simply stop living from it.  The memories lose their charge. The body softens. The mind quiets. You begin to respond to life, instead of reacting to the past.  This is when you see what else is possible when you are not stuck in survival patterns. 

What Thriving Feels Like

Thriving isn’t about perfection or bliss. It’s about freedom.  It’s when your body can rest without guilt, when connection feels safe again, when joy doesn’t feel like a threat.  You begin to move through the world differently.  You can trust yourself and others a little more, breath again, and feel a little more spaciousness inside.  Thriving is what happens when your system learns that life is no longer something to endure.

Coming Home to Yourself

A few months ago I saw a picture of myself that was taken at a joyous event.  I was in the middle of a genuine and deeply embodied laugh.  When I saw the photo, the words come home to yourself ran through my mind.  It was the metaphor to describe what thriving feels like.  When we begin to embody joy, clarity, self-worth, autonomy over our decisions, a deep sense of belonging. 

If you’ve lived in survival for a long time, it’s okay that thriving feels unfamiliar. Your system may need time to trust that safety is real.  EMDR helps your body remember what it once knew before something happened in your life that taught you to mislearn information about yourself.  Your healing doesn’t erase the past; it rewires your relationship to it.  You stop organizing your world around pain, and begin building it around possibility.

One last word about trauma therapy and EMDR.  Your body already knows how to heal….we just need the right circumstances for our bodies to move towards healing.  EMDR therapy helps our body remember what we have always know and have been unable to access. 

With light and love,

Allison

For anyone interested a longer exploration of survival behaviors please see below:

🧠 Hyperactivation (Fight / Flight Patterns)

These show up when the nervous system stays stuck in “go” mode and always scanning for danger, needing control, or avoiding stillness.

·       Overworking or overachieving to feel worthy or safe

·       Chronic anxiety or restlessness

·       Perfectionism and fear of failure

·       Controlling environments or relationships

·       Difficulty relaxing or trusting others

·       Emotional reactivity — anger, irritability, or defensiveness

·       A tendency to anticipate rejection or criticism

❄️Hypoactivation (Freeze / Collapse Patterns)

These emerge when the system learns that shutting down feels safer than fighting or fleeing.

·       Emotional numbing or disconnection from the body

·       Feeling flat, foggy, or “not really here”

·       Procrastination, lack of motivation, or self-sabotage

·       Withdrawing from relationships or isolating

·       Dissociation or zoning out when overwhelmed

·       Feeling powerless or invisible

·       A sense of hopelessness or chronic fatigue

❤️ Fawn / Appease Patterns

This is the nervous system’s way of staying safe through compliance and connection.

·       People-pleasing or avoiding conflict at all costs

·       Prioritizing others’ needs over your own

·       Difficulty saying no or setting boundaries

·       Over-attuning to others’ moods and needs

·       Losing touch with your own desires or preferences

·       Feeling guilty for resting or taking up space

🌿 Functional Patterns That Mask Pain

These are behaviors that may look “successful” or “fine” from the outside, but are actually adaptations to trauma.

·       Becoming the caretaker, rescuer, or “strong one”

·       Using busyness, productivity, or helping others to avoid feelings

·       Staying in relationships that replicate early dynamics

·       Avoiding vulnerability or emotional intimacy

·       Seeking adrenaline or intensity to feel alive