How to Get Out of Survival Mode & Build The Business (and Life!) You Actually Want

Over here in India, the Lunar New Year is the new moon/Amavasya, the darkest night of the year. . 

I celebrated it at the Isha Yoga Center, with an all-night festival of music and dance performances, two meditations (one at midnight, one at 3.40am), surrounded by pools of granite, lights,  garlands of flowers and so many lotuses.

It goes without saying - 

No drugs.

No alcohol.

It just felt really good to let go of the routine I was in, and step into an energized space. 

And, turns out, after the last few weeks it was exactly what I needed… 

Sacred, high-level, energetic space.

The Isha Yoga Center is like nothing else. For 30 years they’ve cultivated a sacred, high-level energy space.

Everything about it: the architecture, the way they plant the flowers, the trees and the blossoms -- everything is designed to support vitality, beauty and the senses.

It’s hard to explain how other-worldly it feels: how profound and luminous.

How uncompromisingly intentional.

The way the place is designed the energy flows from masculine to feminine -- from logical and linear to cyclical, and earth-based. Connected to the rhythm of the seasons, and the rhythm of the day.

It is a supercharged space for conscious leadership, transformation, yoga and meditation. 

(If you sit and close your eyes, it feels amazing.)

Now I’m sensitive to the unseen quality of spaces - the energy, the history, the presence. I’ve travelled across Europe. I’ve stood in churches and cathedrals, but I’ve never quite felt the way I did here. 

On the way home I sat on the back of a motorcycle. We rode up through the Nilgiri Mountains in Southern India.

As far as the eye can see there are rolling tea plantations. We sped past women in bright beautiful saris picking fresh tea buds. We saw wild elephants. The intense smell of petrol and fumes followed us as we climbed ever higher. 

The masculine. The feminine. 

And it felt so good to be out there seeing, feeling, experiencing the world rush through me…

So good in fact, sometimes, I was literally in tears.

This Feels Rather Like a Tangent…

Now if you’re reading patiently, wondering, “But what has this to do with being in survival mode?”

My answer would be: everything.

(But bear with me a moment longer.) 

You see, now that I’m back at my laptop, typing this to you, I can reflect on how unconventional my life may sound. And often, how hard it is for me to express…

And draw an invisible thread to you, when our worlds can be so very different. 

You see, back in the U.S. I recall life being so often controlled and linear, organized and… proper.

So much so, we stayed head-down on our treadmill. We rarely stop, or deeply reflect.

(And we never allow ourselves to go off on a tangent.) 

But here? 

As you can see, it’s real, and it’s raw. It’s dirty, and it’s dynamic. 

It’s magical. 

It’s a rolling up of sleeves, it’s putting our fingers in the dirt. 

It’s picking tea leaves in a bright orange sari. It’s tire tracks on a dusty road...  

It’s masculine, it’s feminine.

It’s getting down to what’s real.

And it’s evolving my work in ever new, expansive ways.

… So, let’s get back on track. ;)

At the beginning of this newsletter I hinted that life had been a little pressured of late.

“After the last few weeks it was exactly what I needed.”

And it’s no exaggeration.

I’ve been juggling commitments and client work. I was head down on my business -- and it took a weekend of disconnecting and being out traveling to take me out of my work groove, and realise:

I was partly in survival mode. A little caught up in Masculine push. 

What is Survival Mode? What does it look like?

Well, “Survival Mode” can look and feel like a million different things. But if you’re in it, you’ll know… 

It can feel like playing catch up, or never being present. It can feel like bees buzzing in your head.

It can feel like dissociation or burnout.

It can feel like constantly being on edge, or in “fight or flight.”

And it can feel like the longest, darkest night.

For me, it felt like being too much in the masculine -- the mode of strategy, building, executing, growing my team, getting more content out in the world, working with my clients, getting the rhythm down… 

Writing to you. 

I was putting a huge amount of pressure on myself. Until I finally realised.

Stop. 🖐️

There’s enough space here for me to take a step back and reorient.

There’s enough space for a “feminine” pause. 

Because here’s the thing… 

Each of us has a highly sensitive, cyclical cosmic computer of our physiology. And if we’re always striving -- 

Push. Push. Push.

Do. Do. Do. 

Go. Go. Go. 

Accomplish. Accomplish. Accomplish.

It doesn't work. Our health breaks down. 

So instead, I needed to take stock, dig deep, and redonnect to the deep, beating heart of all I know to be true.

I needed to recover my masculine and feminine balance. 

(And last weekend? Boy did I find it.) 

So, how do you get out of Survival Mode, and build the business and life you actually want?

Well, as you can see by now, that’s quite the question.

But the answer lies in everything we’ve been talking about.

It’s learning how to:

Climb off that treadmill. 

Be uncompromisingly present. 

Put your hands in the dirt.   

Go off on that tangent.

Ride on that motorcycle.

Feel the world rush through you.

In other words, it’s finding the balance between masculine AND feminine that’s the true way to climb out of Survival, and into the life and business you want.

This has been my journey. Years of learning to integrate both - to lead and rest, to create and receive, to move and be still.

And now, it's the work I guide my clients through. It's deep. It's different for everyone. And it's absolutely worth it.

＊＊＊

Okay, that’s all for now.

This week felt a little off-script, but oh my it felt good. ;) 

So I’m curious to know what you think.

If it resonated with you, if you loved hearing about  my experiences in India, if you know how it feels to be in survival mode (or just like you're in the darkest night of year) please hit reply and let me know. 

I read every response.

Love and Blessings, 🙏🏻💛🪷

P.S. Wherever you are in the world -- India, Europe,  the USA or somewhere in between -- I can help you with this work.

Learning how to recognise your Masculine and Feminine Energy balance, so you can grow your next level of business (and live a full and happy life in the process) is something I help all my 1:1 clients master. 

Applications are currently closed, but sign up to the waitlist, and you’ll be the first to hear when they reopen. 💛