The Journey of Moving From Surviving to Hope to Thriving

The Journey of Moving From Surviving to Hope to Thriving

As we begin this new year, I look back at the 60+ email journey I have shared with you as I think about where we began and where we are now: at the threshold of thriving.

For the next few weeks, I’ll be focusing on this healing place phase, not because we’ve arrived at some finish line, but because thriving is something that becomes available to us in quiet, powerful ways once we've fully embraced the work of healing. And in looking forward to the future, our journey together does not stop in a few weeks, because then I will be launching an ongoing 52-week process of “Living Your Healing.”

What Survival Really Means

When we're in survival mode, we're doing what we need to do just to get through, day by day, sometimes moment to moment. We're managing. We're trying to keep it together. Much of the time, we're putting one foot in front of the other, not even when we're not sure where we're going.

There's no shame in this. Survival is how we protect ourselves when life becomes overwhelming—when the weight of what we're carrying makes it hard to see beyond today. It's a necessary response, a form of self-preservation that deserves our respect.

But here's what I've learned over thirty years of sitting with people in their hardest moments: survival isn't meant to be a permanent home. It's a temporary shelter we build until light shifts enough that we can begin to see some hope.

The Bridge Between Surviving and Hoping

Shifts occur when choices become available to us.

Usually, they are very small ones at first:

• being able to rest instead of having to push through;

• help showing up instead of our handling everything alone;

• acknowledging what hurts rather than numbing it away;

• being able to say no to what drains us.

• Finding our yeses to what nourishes us.

These moments might seem ordinary, even insignificant. But they're not. They're revolutionary. Each one creates a small opening for something new—a crack that lets light in, a breath of fresh air, a reminder that you're more than what you're surviving.

This is where hope takes root. Not as a grand proclamation, but as a noticing: "Maybe things can be different. Maybe I can be different."

Hope is not superficial positive thinking or forced optimism. Hope shows up because we see even the smallest of viable options. Hope is a sense of possibility that is grounded. Hope comes from surviving. We’re still here.

The Bridge Between Hope and Thriving

Here's what thriving isn't: Perfection. Constant happiness. Having it all figured out. Never struggling again.

Thriving is far more real than that.

Thriving is a state of being that is grounded in who we are—our values, our voice, our truth—even when the world around us feels uncertain.

Thriving is trusting ourselves to navigate what comes. Not because we have all the answers, but because we've learned we can find our way, get help when we need it, and adjust course when necessary.

Thriving is experiencing genuine connection—with ourself first, then with others who see and accept us as we are.

Thriving is finding meaning in what matters most to us, whether that's in our relationships, our creativity, our work, or the moments of beauty we notice throughout our day.

Thriving emerges when we can hold our sorrow with respect in new moments of healing, then joy.

Thriving is discovering that we're not only surviving or hoping anymore. We’ve begun to live again.

My beloved husband, also a Psychoanalyst, battled Alzheimer’s Disease for 13 years before it ended his life. He managed that struggle with more grace and dignity that seem imaginable. We travelled that wrenching path hand in hand, with a great deal of help from our children and close friends.

In the early days of his passing, I was going from task to task, arrangement to arrangement, while simultaneously needing to tend to my adult children and young grandchildren, and then needing to return to my practice within ten days. Then, it hit: a fatigue I had never felt before or since. I went to work, gratefully, came home, ate a small dinner, and went to bed. I knew what I was going to be doing day by day, including spending time with our children, but I could not imagine my own future, except in terms of my daily routine. At the one-year mark, an internal vision appeared, and I began to see what my new future life could become. The fatigue lifted, and I took my first steps into it, feeling my husband’s presence with me as a support, encouraging me “to notice, notice, notice.”

Your Next Gentle Steps

As we approach the end of this series, I'd like to invite you to ask yourself one simple question:

"What would help me feel more alive today?"

Not everything at once. Not a complete transformation. Just one thing.

Maybe it's stepping outside for five minutes to feel a breeze caressing our faces. Maybe it's reaching out to someone we've been thinking about. Maybe it's giving ourself permission to create something just for the joy of it.

Whatever it is, let it be small. Let it be gentle. Let it be enough.

Because thriving isn't a grand shouting or perfect execution. Thriving is about following our own heart’s wisdom in the choices we make for meaning and purpose — reminding us we're here—fully, authentically, beautifully here.

With warmth and respect for your journey.

Courage! And thank you,

Dr. Gwyn Erwin