You Can't Passively Thrive — It's Going to Take Some Practice

As I’ve written before, most of us feel like we are living through a frenetic time. It feels hard (or maybe impossible) to meet all the demands of life. These modern pressures have led to a phenomenon social scientists call “languishing” — the middle ground between depression and thriving. The most recent surveys show that only one in six Americans describe themselves as “thriving.”

Since embarking on my own healing journey and spending thousands of hours working with clients, I’ve been deeply contemplating what it takes to truly thrive. There’s so much advice about how to live a “good” life, but most of it is reductive — focusing on isolated inputs: go to therapy, find purpose, make friends, exercise more, have better boundaries. While this is all good advice, we humans are complex — and truly thriving requires more.

The truth is, you can only thrive at the level your nervous system allows. Every practice, habit, or intervention that’s ever helped you — from therapy to exercise to meditation — has worked because it supported your nervous system.

Our systems were built for purposeful contribution, physical movement, restorative rest, and close relationship with the natural world — conditions our modern lives rarely provide. Recognizing this helped me connect the dots and create a framework that meets our most fundamental needs — the ingredients that make thriving possible.

Rest, Exercise, Social Connection, Touch Nature, Open to Curiosity and Play, Root in Meaning, and Engage with Awareness.

The beautiful thing about this framework is that you can engage with it at any level. A quick glance can remind you of what you might want to emphasize or newly incorporate into your life — or you can dive deep and systematically audit and address each category.​

The principles are universal, but the ingredients are personal. Thriving requires curiosity and intention — a willingness to experiment and a commitment to stay with your own unfolding.