How to Stop Struggle Mode and Move into Living Mode – A Mental Health Perspective
- Brainz Magazine
- 1 hour ago
- 8 min read
Written by Lorraine Kenlock, Holistic Psychotherapist
Lorraine Kenlock is a Turks & Caicos-based psychotherapist specializing in trauma, ADHD, and mind-body nutrition. With advanced training in EMDR and somatic therapies, she helps clients across the Caribbean heal through culturally-attuned online and in-person sessions."
Many people move through life in constant survival mode, bracing for stress even when nothing is wrong. This subtle addiction to struggle keeps the nervous system on alert, making rest feel unsafe and joy unfamiliar. In this article, we explore where struggle mode begins, how it shapes the mind and body, and the practical steps needed to shift into a healthier, more fulfilling way of living.
The subtle addiction to struggle
As a therapist, I often meet people who are not broken, but tired of surviving. They wake each day with good intentions to rest more, slow down, and find joy, but something inside keeps them on edge. They move through life as if bracing for an invisible wave to crash upon them.
That, to me, is struggle mode. It is not simply about overworking or stress. It is a chronic internal stance of vigilance, a psychological and physiological habit of preparing for the worst, even when nothing is wrong.
Struggle mode is that quiet hum in your body that never stops. It makes you check your emails at midnight, apologise for needing rest, or feel uneasy when things are finally calm. You want to relax, yet part of you believes rest is unsafe.
The truth is, many of us were conditioned to live this way. Our nervous systems learned early that stillness could mean danger, that comfort was temporary, that peace was fragile. So, we live in perpetual readiness, mistaking tension for control.
Where struggle mode begins
The roots of struggle mode are rarely found in adulthood. They grow quietly in childhood, in homes where love was inconsistent, emotions were unspoken, or security was unpredictable.
For some, it began with parental neglect, not always from cruelty, but from emotional absence. For others, it came from early responsibility, such as being the caretaker, the achiever, or the peacekeeper before they ever learned to rest. And for many, it is intergenerational, a legacy of survival passed down through families that endured poverty, migration, colonisation, or systemic inequities.
In the Caribbean context, for example, survival was woven into our DNA. Our ancestors did not have the luxury of rest. Safety was earned through endurance. So, even today, rest can feel like betrayal. Pleasure can feel frivolous. Joy can feel unsafe.
When we understand that, we stop judging ourselves for being tired. We realise this is not weakness, it is conditioning. The nervous system is doing precisely what it was trained to do, survive. This recognition empowers us, giving us back control over our lives and our well-being.
The neuroscience of struggle mode
From a psychological and neurobiological perspective, struggle mode is a state of dysregulation, often oscillating between hyperarousal, the fight-or-flight response, and hypoarousal, shutdown or freeze.
When the amygdala, the brain’s fear centre, remains overactive, it constantly signals the body that something is wrong. Cortisol and adrenaline surge, keeping us alert. Meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex, the rational, reflective part of the brain, has less access to calm decision-making.
Over time, this leads to what trauma therapists call “nervous system hijacking.” You might appear calm externally, but your system is scanning for threats internally, even in safe moments. This is why many people describe living in a survival autopilot.
Your mind may say, “You are fine,” but your body whispers, “You are not safe.”
How struggle mode feels in daily life
Struggle mode does not always appear chaotic. Sometimes it is high achievement dressed in exhaustion. It can look like:
Always having something to fix or someone to save.
Feeling guilty when you relax.
Being drawn to emotionally unavailable partners or draining situations because calm feels uncomfortable.
Constant multitasking and inability to be fully present.
An internal dialogue filled with “shoulds” and “musts.”
Physical symptoms include tension headaches, digestive issues, chronic fatigue, insomnia, and anxiety.
I often tell my clients, your body keeps the score, but it also keeps the truth.
The shift: Moving from survival to living
The journey from struggle to a state of living is not about forcing yourself into positivity. It is about retraining your system to believe that peace is safe, that rest is productive, and that joy is not a setup for disappointment.
Living mode is not a destination. It is a practice, a daily act of self-trust. Trusting yourself and your body's signals is crucial in this journey, and it will lead you to a more peaceful and fulfilling life.
Part 1 – Awareness: Naming the pattern
Before we can change what we are doing, we must see what we are doing.
When clients tell me they feel “stuck” or “drained,” I often begin with psychoeducation, helping them understand the stress cycle. Once we name it, the shame starts to dissolve.
Ask yourself:
Do I feel uneasy when life is calm?
Do I equate being busy with being valuable?
Does relaxation make me anxious?
Do I rest only when I am sick or burnt out?
If you recognise yourself here, you are not broken, you are adaptive. You learned to survive in systems that rewarded struggle and minimised softness. Now, you are unlearning.
Part 2 – Regulation: Teaching body safety
Our first task is to teach the body that it is safe enough to slow down.
1. Grounding and somatic practices
Gentle grounding techniques can reorient the nervous system to the present.
Try this daily practice: The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Reset
Name five things you can see
4 things you can touch
3 things you can hear
2 things you can smell
1 thing you can taste or imagine tasting
This practice signals to the brain, “I am here now. I am safe.”
It moves you from thinking safety to feeling safety.
2. Breathwork and polyvagal reset
The vagus nerve connects your brain to your organs, influencing your mood and stress response. Gentle humming, slow exhalations, or singing can stimulate this nerve, creating calm from the inside out.
Even 3 minutes of slow breathing, in for 4, out for 6, can shift your physiology from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest.
3. Body-based self-compassion
Place your hand over your heart and say:
“In this moment, I am safe enough to pause.”
“My worth is not measured by how much I endure.”
These small self-soothing rituals, done repeatedly, help rewire the body’s relationship with safety.
Part 3 – Cognitive Shifts: Rewriting the inner narrative
Our minds create loops that keep struggle mode alive. Using principles from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, CBT, we can begin to rewrite them.
Common Thought Traps:
Catastrophising: Expecting the worst before it happens.
All-or-nothing thinking: Believing you must either be perfect or a failure.
Over-responsibility: Taking on others’ emotions or outcomes as your duty.
Productivity bias: Believing rest equals laziness.
Each of these distortions keeps us in vigilance.
Reframe examples:
“If I slow down, I will fall behind” → “When I rest, I recover clarity and strength.”
“I have to do it all myself” → “Accepting support honours my humanity.”
“Nothing ever works out for me” → “Some things have not worked out yet.”
Healing begins in language. The words we speak to ourselves either reinforce survival or invite restoration.
Part 4 – Emotional processing: Feeling without fear
One hallmark of struggle mode is emotional suppression. Many grew up in environments where sadness, anger, or fear were dismissed. So they learned to cope by not feeling. But what we suppress, the body expresses.
Somatic therapy, EMDR, and Internal Family Systems, IFS, all teach us to befriend our emotions, to see them as signals, not threats.
When you feel anxiety, ask: What is this emotion trying to protect me from?
When sadness arises, ask: What part of me needs to be witnessed?
Living mode does not mean constant happiness, it means emotional fluency. It is the ability to ride the wave instead of drowning in it.
Part 5 – Boundaries and the art of receiving
To exit struggle mode, we must confront one profound truth, many of us do not feel worthy of receiving. We overgive, overfunction, and overextend to prove our value.
But boundaries are not barriers, they are the architecture of peace.
They teach your nervous system that you can exist without constant depletion.
Try saying:
“No is a complete sentence.”
“I cannot pour from an empty cup.”
“I am allowed to take up space and still be kind.”
Healthy boundaries retrain both your body and your relationships to respect your energy.
Part 6 – Joy as a healing practice
One of the most profound steps into living mode is reclaiming joy and pleasure as birthrights, not rewards.
Neuroscience shows that joy releases oxytocin and dopamine, which counterbalance the stress hormones of struggle. Simple pleasures, dancing, nature walks, laughter, cooking nourishing meals, listening to music, are physiological correctives.
Ask yourself: What activities make me lose track of time? Those are clues to your aliveness.
Joy is not the opposite of pain, it is proof that pain has not won.
Part 7 – Integrating the mind-body-spirit connection
As a holistic psychotherapist, I believe healing is not only mental, it is embodied, nutritional, and spiritual. You cannot regulate a nervous system on coffee and cortisol alone.
Nutrition and rest matter. Foods rich in magnesium, B vitamins, and omega-3s nourish the brain’s calm chemistry. Herbal supports like moringa, ashwagandha, or tulsi, when medically safe, can help the body cope with chronic stress.
Movement, such as gentle yoga, walking, or swimming, helps discharge stored energy.
Sleep hygiene supports neural repair.
Mindfulness reconnects awareness to presence.
And spiritual grounding, prayer, meditation, and time in nature remind us that we are held by something greater. When we see ourselves as part of a larger ecosystem, we stop fighting the flow of life.
Part 8 – Rest as resistance and reclamation
Especially in cultures built on productivity and colonial inheritance, rest is radical. To rest is to reclaim your right to exist without proving.
Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry says, “Rest is resistance.” I often share this with clients who struggle with guilt around stillness. We heal not by doing more, but by allowing ourselves to be.
Rest restores clarity, repairs tissues, and rebalances hormones, but more than that, it restores dignity. It tells the body, You deserve peace, not only purpose.
Part 9 – Reparenting the self
At the core of struggle mode lies a wounded inner child, the part that still believes safety must be earned. Through inner child or reparenting work, we learn to give ourselves what we never received, permission to rest, play, and exist without fear of rejection.
A gentle exercise:
Sit quietly, hand on heart.
Picture your younger self, perhaps age 6 or 10.
Whisper: “You don’t have to try so hard anymore. I’ve got you now.”
This act of internal caregiving begins to release the compulsion to overperform.
Part 10 – Living mode: What it truly means
Living mode is not about perpetual serenity. It’s a flexible nervous system that can face challenges without collapsing. It’s being able to laugh after crying, to rest after effort, to hold both joy and grief without losing yourself in either.
In living mode:
You take breaks without explanation.
You trust timing instead of chasing control.
You choose connection over performance.
You make peace with enough.
It’s the art of being fully present, body, mind, and soul aligned in the exact moment.
Journal prompts for integration
When did I first learn that rest was unsafe or undeserved?
What does “enough” look like for me now, not by society’s standards, but by my body’s truth?
What small rituals remind me that I’m alive, not just surviving?
What emotions do I still equate with danger, and how can I approach them with curiosity instead of fear?
Who am I when I’m no longer fighting to prove my worth?
A gentle closing reflection
Healing from struggle mode is not a race. It’s a homecoming. Each breath, each boundary, each moment of stillness brings you closer to the self beneath the striving. The truth is, you were never meant to live in constant fight-or-flight. You were meant to experience wonder, connection, laughter, and rest. You were meant to live, not merely endure. So today, take one small step, pause. Feel your feet on the ground. Inhale deeply. Let the body know, “We are safe now.” That’s how it begins, the shift from surviving to living.
“The struggle was never meant to be your home, only your teacher. Now, it’s time to graduate.”
Read more from Lorraine Kenlock
Lorraine Kenlock, Holistic Psychotherapist
Lorraine Kenlock is a psychotherapist specializing in trauma, ADHD, and the mind-body connection, with a unique focus on Caribbean mental health. Blending EMDR, nutritional psychology, and culturally attuned therapy, she helps clients heal from chronic pain, grief, and shame—both in Turks & Caicos and online. Her groundbreaking work bridges island traditions with modern neuroscience, offering a fresh perspective on resilience.
