Stop Surviving and Start THRIVING!

“I feel like post-pandemic life is a bit like walking out of your house after a storm to find that everything has been completely leveled and you’re left with a blank slate. Yes, we survived…but did anything from our previous lives make it out with us? As I look around, I’m not so sure yet. And in a way that’s terrifying. But in another way, it’s incredibly exciting and even liberating…” ~Turn Toward the Sun: Releasing What If & Embracing What Is

Last week I held a live chat on my Facebook page, inspired by my new book, Turn Toward the Sun, about five ways to stop simply surviving and start THRIVING. Everyone who tuned in asked me to please share the five tips on my page in writing, so I decided to turn them into a blog. :)

I feel like a lot of us transitioned into survival mode during the pandemic and are still struggling to transition out of that mode and start living fully again. Does anyone else feel that way? During these past couple of long, hard, often dark and challenging years…I found myself going through the motions to stay ALIVE, but not really living. I walked around with a defensive posture 24/7, my guard up, my walls up, protecting myself from the next piece of bad news or the other shoe that was surely about to drop. And in doing that, I stopped thriving and was merely surviving.

The things that worked for you in survival mode might keep you alive - but they won’t help you thrive.

So what are some tangible things we can do to shift out of survival mode and start living again?

1. Soften your posture, literally and figuratively. What do I mean by that? Drop your shoulders. Relax your body. Lower the walls and the defenses and start opening yourself up to life again. Life and love and happiness can’t find you if your guard is always up.

2. Flip the script on your perspective. Here’s a great example of that. The other day I was listening to a podcast, and Liz Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, was talking about how she shifted her perspective on living alone by changing her thought process from “I live by myself” to “I live WITH myself.” Isn’t that just a lightbulb moment? I want to invite you to shift your perspective by viewing the empty spaces in your life as a blank slate. A fresh start. A brand new fresh clean chapter to be and do and become anything you want!

3. Embrace new opportunities. One thing I’ve been really focusing on lately is my health and getting back into shape after being so sedentary for the past couple of years. Due to the pandemic, hurting my back, family challenges, and just LIFE in general, I had really stopped taking care of myself and had fallen into some very bad habits with food and lack of exercise. I am proud to say that by embracing the new opportunity life handed me to get in shape, I’ve lost almost twenty pounds in the last four months! :) I feel great, and it’s been really rewarding to work toward a goal and achieve it. Whether it’s going back to school, volunteering, joining a gym, pursuing adoption, traveling, starting a blog…whatever your dream is…set a goal and start working toward it! There are so many new opportunities for happiness all around you…reach out and grab one!

4. Do more things you WANT to do instead of just doing the things you HAVE to do. We all have to sleep and eat and shower and pay bills and go to work and go to the grocery store, etc. etc…but those are merely things that keep us ALIVE. It’s time to start doing some things to help you THRIVE! Have a movie night with your girlfriends, go for a walk, take a bubblebath, go get a massage, read a great book…stop going through the motions of living and start actually LIVING.

5. Believe that YOU ARE WORTHY. You are worthy of a great life. You are worthy of great love. You are worthy of great friends, a great career, and allllll the greatness that life has to offer. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that in the midst of just trying to survive day to day…but it’s time to remember who you are and start acting accordingly. Yes, you are a strong and capable and brave survivor, but you weren’t put on this earth to merely survive. You were born to THRIVE.

I’ll be holding a Live Book Launch Event on June 17th both to celebrate the release of Turn Toward the Sun and to share some of YOUR actual stories, my readers. I have several ladies joining me for the event and we will be talking about letting go and moving on and healing and surviving and thriving and learning to embrace life for exactly what it is instead of what we think it should be. I would love it if you’d join me. It will be a night of inspiration and enlightenment and hope and maybe even a few laughs. The event is FREE to attend, but you do need to reserve your spot, which you can do by clicking the image below.

Here’s to less surviving and more thriving,

Mandy