We're not designed to live in survival mode. Our bodies need safety. Our souls need rest.
Beyond Survival Mode.
The workshop:
So many of us are stuck in survival mode.
So many of us spend our days in a state of fight-or-flight.
So many of us have spent years – sometimes decades – trapped in a cycle of inner urgency, compulsive busyness and burnout.
Living in survival mode – stressed, anxious and exhausted – has become so normal to us, we've forgotten that this isn't how humans are wired to live.
We yearn to slow down and rest – we know we need to slow down and rest – but we've been living in survival mode for so long that calmness feels like a threat.
But what if calmness is safe?
What if slowness is safe?
What if pleasure and intimacy and joy are safe?
What if you don't need to live in survival mode anymore?
What if it's safe to relax and enjoy your life?
This is why I created Beyond Survival Mode.
An educational, inspirational and actionable online workshop you can explore at your own time.
Because you've been through so much and worked so hard to heal and now it's time for life to feel good.
For you to feel safe. Calm. Free.
For you to achieve the goals you want to achieve, lead the life you want to lead and become the relaxed, empowered woman you deserve to be.
When we’ve been living in survival mode, sometimes the biggest challenge is allowing pleasure, intimacy and joy into our lives.
This workshop is for you if you...
- Spend most of your days in a state of fight-or-flight, ping ponging between compulsive busyness and utter exhaustion.
- Live with a constant sense of stress and inner urgency, and feel anxious and guilty when you try to slow down and rest.
- Feel terrified of failure, imperfection and disapproval, and arrange your life around not upsetting anyone.
- Feel like a scared child waiting for someone to give you permission to live the life you really want to live.
- Play small and stay quiet because you don’t feel safe taking up space, sharing your ideas and challenging the status quo.
- Struggle with chronic fatigue, headaches, bloating, insomnia and other health consequences of chronic stress.
- Self-sabotage whenever you get close to achieving a goal or breaking a pattern.
- Know some of the ways that you cope with stress – such as overworking, mindless scrolling and compulsive busyness – no longer serve you but are finding it difficult to release them.
- Long to make a difference in the world but don’t have the energy to fight for the causes you believe in.
- Want to move beyond survival mode and begin passionately participating in life.
Healing our nervous systems isn't about pushing through or trying harder. It's about rejoining our tribes, cultivating emotionally intimate relationships where we can reveal our vulnerabilities, and remembering how to relax, have fun and enjoy our lives.
After exploring Beyond Survival Mode you will...
- Know how to 'switch off' your stress response and 'switch on' your relaxation response by activating your body's safety system (the ventral vagal branch of your parasympathetic nervous system).
- Have a compassionate understanding of why you've been living in survival mode for so long and began separating the pain of the past from the safety of the present.
- Be able to identify when you're experiencing 'survival brain hijack' and the signs your nervous system has shifted into survival mode.
- Be aware of your triggers and built a toolbox of practices to for self-soothing and self-regulation so you can bounce back from stressors with more ease.
- Escaped the stress-reaction cycle and released dysregulating coping strategies that no longer serve you.
- Have retrained your brain to perceive cues of safety and threat more accurately.
- Know how to optimise your daily rhythms to support nervous system regulation.
- Have an embodied sense of safety – an inner mother – that provides you with a secure base to explore the world.
- Know how to cultivate more emotionally intimate relationships where it feels safe to express yourself and reveal your vulnerabilities.
- Have expanded the capacity of your nervous system to experience more pleasure, more rest, more play and more joy.
- Be open to possibilities, opportunities and dreams that you were blind to when you were living in survival mode.
- Have reshaped your nervous system so your natural set point is one of safety, calmness, openness, friendliness and wellbeing.
Healing our nervous systems happens in the small, private, unglamorous moments the external world will likely never see.
This workshop includes...
- 3 months access to the Beyond Survival Mode workshop.
- Optional 1:1 coaching for additional support.
- Gentle guidance using our unique three step formula: Inner safety + Compassionate awareness + Loving action.
- Easy-to-understand readings on the science behind survival mode, nervous system regulation, Polyvagal theory, the Neurosequential model and lots more!
- Inner Divings – our unique blend of yoga nidra, meditation and self-hypnosis.
- Breathing exercises, visualisations and lots of journal prompts.
- Self-soothing, self-regulation and emotional intimacy practices so you can translate your insights into loving action.
What you'll find inside the Beyond Survival Mode workshop
The workshop will help you escape the cycle of hypervigilance, hyperproductivity and hyperindependence so you can deepen your relationships, pursue the goals that truly matter to you and begin relaxing and enjoying your life. It includes ten modules that you can work through at your own pace and repeat as many times as you like. Just click the plus symbols next to each module to find out what we'll be exploring in each one.
Introduction
Module 1 · Feeling safe
Module 2 · Survival Mode
Module 3 · Compassionate awareness
Module 4 · Befriending your nervous system
Module 5 · The stress-reaction cycle
Module 6 · Self-protection
Module 7 · Embodied safety
Module 8 · Social and emotional safety
Module 9 · Unsafe vs. unfamiliar
Module 10 · Integration
Meet your coach
Nicola Jane Hobbs
Nicola is a feminist psychologist, stress and rest researcher and the founder of The Relaxed Woman. You can connect with her on social media @nicolajanehobbs.
