The survival cycle. Why we chase, escape and repeat.
I feel I need to pre-cursor this with saying being in the survival cycle doesn’t mean we are broken. We are human beings and desiring things is normal, as are bad habits. But when we are longing or automatically using something bad to distract ourselves from reality that is when we may be in a destructive cycle.
So what is the Survival Cycle and how do you know if you are in it?
Well, have you or are you hoping for a future event to help make you feel happy at or at peace?
Are you someone who drinks alcohol every weekend or more frequently to relax from a stressful life?
Do you consistently binge watch TV?
Or doom scroll social media
Do you have habits you know are not good for you?
Keep yourself busy with constant work or social plans ?
If you’re anything like me you may have done a number of these things in your life and these can be signs that you are living in the survival cycle.
Of course they are not always a sign some of these things are normal when we do them from time to time. After all we are human beings living in a sometimes overwhelming world and these things can bring us joy and escape.
But you see, when they are being done consistently or automatically in order to avoid boredom or longing that is when they are signs you may be in the survival cycle.
Let’s take an example from my life. In the past my sugary foods became part of the survival cycle for me. I remember many occasions where I would eat emotionally. Times where my uncomfortable feelings would come up and I distracted myself by eating chocolate or ice-cream.
It may have been as simple as boredom, a bad habit or as deep as longing or loneliness. This was certainly the case during my infertility journey. Eating was an escape from the longing and hard emotions. A dopamine hit, an escape. Of course it was futile it never actually worked because it was so temporary. I was stuck in a bad cycle with it . This habit and my infertility journey helped me to identify the survival cycle that I was living in. Putting my happiness in the future and trying to escape until I had my longed for baby.
You may be wondering what the Survival Cycle is ?
Let’s break it down. But first I want to repeat just because we are in this cycle doesn’t mean we are broken.
The first phase of the cycle is Desire or chasing, which then goes to longing and Striving and either achieving or failing. Then comes the emptiness, we then go into the phase of disconnect or escape. Of course this is not always linear it can be a bit more complex and nuanced but this is it put simply.
I will go into more detail now starting from chasing, you may not be in this phase currently, you may be in a different phase of the cycle.
It usually starts when a desire is big or will be lifechanging for you. Desires alone are a good thing, having good things to look forward to is good for our minds. The survival cycle is different its more destructive on our lives.
The chasing stage is next it’s the exciting stage. We have probably all heard the old saying “they enjoy the chase” said about relationships.
Their is some truth in that! When we are in the chasing stage we are full of hope we are motivated, excited and it almost feels reachable and easy.
Like when we set those New Year resolutions and in our minds have a plan and we know the goal and it feels great to think about it. This is the place that is probably the healthiest in the cycle because we aren’t necessarily thinking about it too much at this point.
The survival cycle begins when we are putting our hopes of happiness on the future event happening. Future focused happiness. When we spend our days going through the motions and longing for that thing to happen because then we can be happy and fulfilled. Like when we hate our job and we long for a fulfilling career. Or we feel lonely even when with others because we long for a partner to share life with. This brings us to the next phase of the cycle ‘Longing’
I’ll be happy when... (I go deeper into this in my previous blog)
Maybe it’s when you lose the weight, get the success, meet the love of your life or simply when you are on holiday....
Longing is different to just desiring in that it can bring up layers of unhealed trauma or negative beliefs ( also known as Strongholds in Christianity). Feelings like, I am not good enough unless this happens...
We may go through life feeling slightly empty, lonely or bored. The longing can also show up as a constant niggling of dissatisfaction that your life is just not enough as it is.
Of course it we didn’t expirence some disatisfaction or desire we would probably never strive for new things so again I am not saying we should be happy with our lives and never look for more. God puts dreams in our hearts so that we can live out our purpose here. The main thing we need to remember is the Longing stage of the Survival Cycle is when you are putting your joy into a future event “I’ll be happier when..”.
After longing comes Striving
This is where we are doing the work trying to make things happen and may be losing hope. We could also label this as “hustling” forcing ourselves to GO, GO, GO. It may be easier to just give up but we feel like we can be happen when this desire happens for us.
Often we become so busy in this part of the cycle that we don’t have time for small moments of joy or reflection we are constantly doing or distracting ourselves.
The next stage in the cycle brings us to either reaching the goal only for the high to soon subside or not bring the fulfilment we thought it would. It could also be the point of failure not getting the job, another negative pregnancy test, another fizzled out relationship, another hangover...
This brings us to the Empty Stage.
There is now an emptiness that you feel you need to fill. It may be a slight niggling or a complete disappointment. (I just want to add here this stage often also runs alongside our striving stage. When we have down time or when we aren’t taking action toward our desire we may want to distract or numb ourselves).
The empty stage can be a slight niggling of boredom or a complete disappointment. We have all been there uncomfotable at best or painful at worst. This where you will likely move into disconnect and escape, where bad habits easily arise.
It may be binge watching TV
Doom scrolling
Overeating or eating Junk Food
Drinking to get drunk or take the edge off
Busying yourself so you don’t have to feel the feelings
Of course after this stage it’s usual that we repeat the cycle inevitably a new desire comes up or the hope for the same desire comes back.
Why?
We do this because we are buying into the belief “I will be happy when..” If you haven’t read the this blog I suggest you read it next I go into my story with this cycle in more detail.
The main point is putting our happiness in the future events happening. It is hard to find happiness now when all we are focusing on is that desire of the longing for that desire.
We become uncomfortable with the feeling of want or longing, it can be a hard place to be.
Comparison against social media lives can also play into this. We often only see the highlights or lows of peoples lives we don’t see the mundane except if it is being romaticised in picture perfect homes or locations. We believe these people are not longing and maybe they aren’t but I very much doubt they never have!
We don’t always compare to others. Some of our desires are natural like wanting children, or a long term relationship. We can fall victim to trying to control our lives, planning and plotting and unknowlingly falling into the cycle.
But I have said it before I will say it again I am walking with you on this we aren’t broken. I use my framework daily to interrup the cycle as much as possible.
I would love to share this in these blogs over the coming posts.
Because we don’t intentionally live this cycle we are human beings in a very busy and persuasive world.
This week I ask you to think about where you might be on the Cycle with your current desire?
Do you have any bad habits?
and remember Live intentionally :)