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Survivorship is a Way of Life in the Face of Death.
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Survivorship is about learning to live well and thrive after crisis and catastrophe. It is both personal and public. We must aspire to it, pledge it, and work at it… like marriage and partnership: “…in sickness and in health…‘til death do us part.”
Survivorship is a positive and pragmatic approach to life that affirms the potential for quality living even after a traumatic experience of affliction, adversity or loss.
The vocabulary of survivorship is shared by individuals and diverse groups who have lived through trauma, ranging from genocide and torture to breast cancer and bereavement; from war and disability to addiction and human betrayal.
Survivorship is the polar opposite of victimhood, that is, living in the past with a victim mentality—blaming, resenting, taking and self-pitying. Victimhood is the path to despair and death. Survivorship is the path to joy and life. |
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There are three Major Threats to our well-being
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Understandably, we all spend a lot of time and energy trying to fend off or escape from three life-threatening dragons:
- Disease and disability
- Natural disaster and accidents (“Acts of God” and Nature)
- Man-made violence and abuse.
The last one—inhumanity—is particularly vexing, because it is about the pain and cruelty we humans inflict on each other. Surviving abuse and betrayal at the hands of strangers, let alone our relatives and neighbors, is the most challenging. Survivorship requires not just forgiving a sometimes capricious universe, but each other.
Every one of us will experience moments when life “explodes” and is never quite the same again. These moments divide life in two: before and after. There is no going back to how things were before the event, the crisis, the moment, the terrible news.
The “Survivorship challenge” is deciding what to do now—how to survive in the face of an existential threat. True survivors refuse to accept defeat, to slip away and die. We are wired to fight or take flight from life’s random attacks…. to at least try to survive.
True Survivorship, however, requires the courage to do more than stay and fight, to merely survive. Survivorship is an ongoing invitation for each of us to grow stronger by reaffirming life’s meaning and seeking to fulfill our potential, day by day. |
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There are the 5 Steps out of Victimhood
and
into Life
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The path out of victimhood and into Survivorship is outlined in the book, I WILL NOT BE BROKEN: 5 Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis. The book offers a roadmap to Survivorship—living with health and personal power after crisis and catastrophe.
They say what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger, but only if we choose the path of Survivorship. And we only grow stronger and thrive by resolving to follow FIVE simple steps to embrace life, even after the worst happens.
Communities in pain need constructive ways to move forward after catastrophe and trauma, rather than falling prey to depression, dysfunction and a vengeful or victim mentality. Working with thousands of war victims worldwide, Survivor Corps has found that transforming trauma requires that a survivor:
- Face Facts—about suffering and loss;
- Choose Life—living for the future not in the past;
- Reach Out—by connecting to others who have ‘been there’;
- Get Moving—by setting goals for healthy recovery; and
- Give Back—with gratitude by contributing to your community and the world.
Survivorship is mutual: You need me. I need you. We all need each other. |
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No one is better equipped to change the world than those scarred by what's wrong with it.
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Together, we are not alone. Together, we can be more. Together, surviving happens.
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No one is better equipped to change the world than those scarred by what’s wrong with it.
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