Surviving or Thriving | Mental Health Awareness Week
This year, Mental Health awareness week focusses on the theme ‘surviving or thriving’, asking the question why too few of us thrive in today’s world.
Statistics tell us that mental health difficulties are on the rise. However, the good news, according to Mark Rowlands of the Mental Health Foundation, is “people’s awareness is also on the increase”. Without awareness we are unlikely to make any changes in life.
SURVIVE VS THRIVE
To survive means to continue to live or exist in spite of danger, whereas to thrive means to grow, develop and prosper. Most of us have times in life when we have to pass through a period of survival in order to thrive. So why is it that some of us are more equipped to get through periods of survival in order to reach a higher plane and ‘thrive’?
This could be attributed to having had parents who themselves had good strategies to survive difficult or traumatic situations and these were learnt from a young age. What of the reverse, for those of us who were not so fortunate, and raised in ‘toxic environments’, leading to the development of ‘early maladaptive schemas’, and in order to survive grasped onto whatever coping strategies we could devise, but often these strategies were unhealthy and could develop into longer term problems, preventing any possibility of ‘thriving’.
How do we reach out to those who deserve a chance in life to thrive and not just survive? As a schema therapist I have had the privilege of watching many of my clients let go of unhelpful coping strategies which they used to survive childhood traumas. They have replaced them with new, more helpful strategies enabling them to survive difficult situations as adults and eventually go on to thrive.
COPING MODES
It is important for each of us to know what makes us happy, to discover what our own personal meaning in life is and to work towards reaching this. In schema therapy we call this developing our healthy adult mode. All too often we live in our ‘coping modes’ by shutting down, avoiding or detaching in order to ‘survive’.
Alternatively we may have developed an ‘overcompensating mode’ which can have a profound effect on relationships, resulting in our loved ones having to develop their own ways of coping with this sometimes angry and often difficult mode. These unhealthy coping modes block communication and can so often become ‘the enemy’ in our relationships
DISCOVERING OUR “TRUE SELVES”
By discovering our ‘true selves’ and growing our ‘healthy adult mode’ we can slowly start to let go of the shackles from the past and start to work towards a more meaningful life, bringing joy and happiness to ourselves and others.
To do this we often first have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and learn to share a part of this with our life partner, someone close to us or, alternatively, engage in therapy. This enables us to go through the process of getting to know and understand ourselves, which can in turn be a golden nugget towards making changes in life, striving towards ‘thriving’ and living a happier and more fulfilled life.
Learning to let go of what we have no control over, and planning to change what we can control, could be a first step towards achieving this.