How I Learned the Difference Between Survival Mode and Soul Mode
(A True Story)
Sometimes it looks responsible.
Helpful.
Even generous.
Last December I spent six weeks learning that the hard way.
If you’re a painter, December is when things usually move. People buy art. Gifts happen. Momentum builds.
Instead of leaning into that, I gave it all up.
I agreed to run a six-week fine art market for twenty-six other artists.
I believed in it.
I believed in them.
I believed that if we created visibility, if we showed up, if we marketed hard enough, it would work.
The building owner gave us the storefront for free. My income was supposed to come from a percentage of sales.
On paper, we did everything right.
Great social media. Two packed grand openings. People coming through the door.
But sales lagged.
And I found myself working retail five days a week, sometimes six. Doing everything short of cartwheels online trying to get people to come in.
And when they did come in, most of them weren’t buyers.
They were other artists.
Artists who wanted wall space.
Artists who wanted exposure.
Artists who wanted me to fix what wasn’t selling.
I was exhausted.
By the end of those six weeks, I was cooked. Not just physically tired, but spiritually drained.
Then came the part that really hurt.
Some of the artists wrote me afterward.
Not to thank me.
Not to acknowledge the work.
But to tell me everything I did wrong. To tell me they should have sold more. To make their disappointment my responsibility.
Mind you, the ones who complained had sold.
Just not enough.
That’s when something became painfully clear.
I had been operating in survival mode.
Survival mode doesn’t always look like chaos.
Sometimes it looks like over-functioning.
Like saying yes when your body says no.
Like sacrificing your own work to hold space for everyone else.
Like believing hope will carry you through instead of actually trusting yourself.
At that point in my life, I didn’t have the kind of faith I have now.
I had hope.
And I’ve learned something about hope.
Hope carries doubt.
And in my nervous system, doubt always beats hope.
Every time.
Faith is different.
Faith isn’t wishing.
Faith is relationship.
Faith is listening.
Faith is being in constant conversation with your soul.
I didn’t have that then.
If I had, my soul would have never agreed to that setup. Never agreed to that schedule. Never agreed to me giving up my own art in December just to keep a storefront warm when nobody was walking the streets looking to buy anything.
People asked us to keep it open. Artists wanted a place to show their work. There were even offers for me to paint in the window.
But the truth was simple.
I don’t live by clocks.
I don’t live by calendars.
I don’t live by schedules.
I live by listening.
And at that point, I wasn’t listening.
When it ended, everything stopped at once.
The store.
My art sales.
My income momentum.
I went straight back into survival mode.
And then I lost my best friend.
In our very last conversation, she said one thing to me.
“Monica, you love to write. You should look at Substack.”
That was the last thing she ever said to me.
How did I survive those weeks when rent felt terrifying?
Toe tapping. Facebook posts. Selling a few pieces here and there. Doing just enough to keep the lights on.
Not elegant. Not inspired.
But enough.
And then, on January 11th, I wrote my first post.
But here’s the distinction I want you to hear.
Running that art market was survival mode.
Writing now is soul mode.
Survival mode is when you override yourself.
Soul mode is when you trust what you hear.
Survival mode is loud, busy, exhausting.
Soul mode is quiet, clear, and oddly efficient.
So how did I shift?
Not all at once. Not with some breakthrough moment or perfect plan.
I started with my breath.
In for four counts.
Hold for four.
Release for six.
One minute at a time. That’s all I could manage at first. Just sixty seconds of regulating my nervous system so I could hear something other than panic.
Now I do five minutes at a time, at least twice a day.
Because here’s what I learned.
You cannot hear your soul when your body is in survival mode.
Your nervous system has to feel safe enough to let you listen.
So I breathed.
And then I started asking my soul before I moved. Before I said yes. Before I made decisions based on hope instead of faith.
I stopped treating my inner voice like background noise and started treating her like the most credible advisor in the room.
Because she is.
I stopped hoping things would work out and started having faith that if I listened, I would know what to do next.
That’s it.
That’s the whole practice.
Regulate your nervous system.
Listen.
Trust what you hear.
Move from there.
There’s more to it, but that’s exactly where I began.
With this simple breath practice.
I don’t confuse the two anymore.
And when I feel myself slipping back into survival mode, I know exactly where I am.
Not because I judge it.
Because I’ve lived it.
Because I know the way back.
And maybe, if you’re reading this, you recognize it too.
Maybe you’re standing right at that edge. The one between hoping it works out and trusting what your soul already knows.
If that’s where you are, you’re not alone.
Want to go deeper?
Every Tuesday night I host a small Zoom gathering with readers who are learning how to move out of survival mode and back into wholeness.
We talk about what it actually looks like to listen to your soul, regulate your nervous system, and reclaim parts of your life that may have been buried under years of responsibility and survival.
These are honest conversations. No lectures. No pretending.
Just people showing up with curiosity and a willingness to listen more deeply to themselves.
Paid subscribers are welcome to join us.
If something in this story felt familiar, you might enjoy being part of that circle.
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