How Our Survival System Works

When I first started working with a mentor to find my path after 20 years in the corporate world, one theme became crystal clear—I wanted to help people get out of the deep, dark hole. There was also something there… about building systems—that’s just how my brain works. I love analysis, connecting the dots, and turning chaos into something functional and effective.

Here, I want to share my understanding of how the human survival system operates and why knowing this can mean the difference between merely surviving and actually living. I didn’t invent this—plenty of brilliant doctors, therapists and researchers have studied it for some time. But personally, I believe this is how it works.

Most of us (if not all) are carrying wounds. Trauma isn’t just war or abuse. It’s a mother working three jobs with no time to breathe. It’s a father quietly drinking in the evenings. And as we’re now discovering, trauma can be passed down—from our ancestors, from the communities we grew up in.

So here we are, marching through life, climbing career ladders, building businesses, raising children, telling ourselves we’ve got this. We’re strong. We fear nothing.

Until one day—bam. We lose our job. A loved one gest sick. Or we wake up and… the horse is dead. And suddenly, we’re in another universe—one of despair, pain, a future so bleak it feels impossible to face. Thoughts creep in: I’m useless. No one will ever love me. How did I raise such ungrateful kids? Fill in the blanks with your own version.

Why does this happen? Because—see point one—we are traumatised people. And trauma isn’t just a memory; it’s a beast living in our body, our nervous system, buried deep inside.

Now, a step back. We have a thinking brain—the one that makes plans, weighs pros and cons, tries to be rational. And then we have the survival brain. The reptilian brain. The cockroach brain. It doesn’t think—it just reacts. Its job? Keep us alive. Make sure we don’t get eaten.

The problem? This primitive part of our brain is broken. It doesn’t work the way it was designed to. Why? Because we are carrying trauma.

For a traumatized person, the survival brain overreacts. It takes every situation—even those that have nothing to do with life and death—and treats it as a crisis.

— Can’t land a good job in a new country? → Nobody wants me → I’m not good enough → I won’t be able to survive → I’ll fail.

— Husband is away on a business trip, and the child is sick? → I can’t handle this alone → No one will help me → If something goes wrong, everything will collapse → I’m in danger.

— Boss constantly criticizes me? → I can’t do anything right → I’ll get fired → I won’t find another job → I’ll be alone, and I won’t survive.

So what do we do? We need to get our survival brain back into balance. That means learning to “regulate” it and engage our thinking brain—to solve the actual problem instead of spiraling into primitive fears.

What helps?

— Medication. It can temporarily reduce anxiety or help pull someone out of depression.

— Talking about it. Therapy and psychology. (Though most traditional methods focus on the thinking brain, more specialists now use approaches that work with body responses, emotions, and the subconscious.)

But how do we reach the survival brain? That’s still an open field, and science hasn’t pinned down all the answers.

One thing seems clear: working with subconscious processes and the body helps. Imagination, sensations, emotions, movement—these are our tools. We need to develop a specific skill: noticing what’s happening inside us, recognizing it, and giving it meaning. 

And then? Validate it. Feel it. Process it.

Like this: Okay, the TV broke. Annoying, yes. But will I die from it? No. No one is going to punish me for this. Thirty years ago, maybe—but now, I’m a grown, kick-@ss adult. Let them try!

This is a bottom-up approach, rather than a top-down. Noticing, accepting, and bringing things back into balance—this is self-regulation. And, from what we know, self-regulation is one of the fundamentals in “healing trauma”.

It’s not quick. It’s not a one-time fix. It’s likely a lifelong practice. But the better we get at it, the more time we spend inside our window of tolerance—that sweet spot where we’re neither overwhelmed nor numb but present, aware, and able to navigate and enjoy life instead of just surviving it.