Physiological Drought: Why We Struggle to Thrive

Flourishing depends on more than abundance

This secret garden’s been my respite.

Hello, Friends—

Recently, I witnessed a woman unravel over finding her way to a bistro—she was confused and frustrated, then anxious, angry, and blaming. She took it out on the nearest person, ultimately ending up in tears. A torrent of anxieties spilled with her words. It was hard to witness; the intensity of her distress seemed so profoundly out of proportion to the situation. And, from what I know of her life, she has considerable freedom and sufficient resources to care for herself.

And yet.

In trying to make sense of it, I found myself thinking about plants rather than psychology. A phenomenon displayed by plants seems applicable here: physiological drought—a condition where plants suffer from water deficiency despite an adequate, or even abundant, supply of water in the soil. It occurs when physical or chemical factors—like high solute concentrations in surrounding soils, low temperatures, or extreme chemical conditions—prevent the plant’s roots from absorbing available water. Water is available, but the plant can’t access it.

This is different from the very real external drought conditions plaguing much of the country this year. The American West is in extreme drought: this spring, snowpack across Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming hit record lows. In August, Lake Mead’s surface dropped to its lowest level since the reservoir was first filled in the late 1930s. These conditions are persistent and unprecedented. (Hello, climate change, anyone?)

Under external drought conditions, plants respond via several distinct mechanisms: drought avoidance (closing stomata, rolling leaves, and growing deeper roots), drought tolerance (accumulating solutes to hold cell water), drought escape (completing the life cycle early), and drought recovery (dormancy followed by resumed growth and rehydration).

Unsurprisingly, people respond similarly. Children raised in high-stress environments—with challenging socio-economic, family, health, and other circumstances—develop survival strategies that almost directly mirror those of plants: behavioral avoidance (hypervigilance, people-pleasing, and perfectionism); tolerance (emotional numbing and compulsive self-reliance), escape (dissociation and escapism), and recovery (post-traumatic growth and therapy/healing). To some degree, we all rely on survival strategies, some more maladaptive than others. (Remember the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti: It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.)

Society has reached apex stress conditions. Nearly everything we rely on is fraying at the edges, and a steady diet of digital exposure keeps us in the know. There are countless reasons for objective stress.

Still, it seems that many people are suffering something akin to physiological drought. They exist in a world of plenty, but somehow, someway, they are failing to thrive. No doubt underlying survival strategies are being amplified by modern pressures. But there’s something more: many have been abandoning their own needs and desires—often for decades. This appears to be the case for this woman and many others I know. Midlife, for many reasons, seems to bring a reckoning: the toll of people-pleasing, self-abandonment, lost opportunities, lack of agency (and often a lack of ownership) becomes overwhelming and no longer containable.

Back to plants. Of course, we have far more mobility—and perhaps agency—than do plants (though possibly far less knowing). Over the course of our lives, we make thousands of decisions—some deliberate, others through inaction, avoidance, or habit. Still, these are decisions. Together, they gradually shape the habitat in which we live: the work we choose, the relationships we cultivate or continue to tolerate, the pace of our days, the boundaries we keep or surrender. We choose whether we create, seek beauty, spend time outside, make room for solitude, or allow ourselves to rest.

All of these decisions, taken together, create the conditions—the habitat—of our lives.

When we create conditions that support our wellbeing, we’re more apt to celebrate the blessings we have, more likely to be resilient to external stressors, more willing to express ourselves. And, when we don’t? We end up more desiccated, friable, fragile—more likely to unravel at seemingly small stressors.

I’ve found myself increasingly unsure how to be with people living in physiological drought. Of course I feel compassion. I also understand these are not my problems to solve. And the most skillful response I know—simply holding space without trying to rescue or fix—ultimately becomes exhausting. It’s as if watching someone stand beside a clear stream while dying of thirst.

Thriving is not simply about abundance—it’s a matter of relationship. Water can be present in soil, but if plants are too cold, they can’t access it. If we’re too overloaded, we may not have the capacity to act on life-affirming opportunities when they arise.

It all leads me back to the question I asked in What is Your Suitable Habitat?: Under what conditions do I come most alive?

It’s a question our culture rarely thinks to ask, but one I’ve found to be profoundly important. None of us has a perfect habitat. No one is insulated from grief, uncertainty, loss. But we do have agency over many of the conditions that allow us to nourish ourselves with the water available to us.

To your agency and mine,

xo Wendy

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