I did a little time in my last post outlining some very basic features of the Flight or Fight Response, as well as how that danger management system in our bodies can take us sideways when we’re not actually dealing with physical danger.

I will finish up my discussion of Flight or Fight in this post, including some examples from my own and other people’s experience. I will also talk about specific work to continue “discounting” our anxiety and fear in the experiencing of those Flight or Fight symptoms that tend to freak us out…

Enter the Dark Side of Flight or Fight

So let’s go back to the physical responses of Flight or Fight. I know for myself that one of the things that used to rock my world during my fight with anxiety was extremity numbness (mostly in my fingers and hands.)

It scared the crap out me. Why was this happening, and what if it didn’t stop? It seemed weird, and unnatural, and I was really afraid it wouldn’t stop.

But of course it DID stop, all the time – I was just afraid, deeply afraid of it. And of course it happened when I was really worried or afraid, although often I was completely unaware, or only vaguely aware, that I was battling anxious/fearful thoughts.

Another way to say this is that it SEEMED like I was having that particular sensation, numbness, for no reason at all. I would be driving to work, I would be reading a book, I would be eating dinner, and suddenly my finger and hands are tingling, or I’m holding something and suddenly it feels small or light or I can’t feel it at all.

That scared me. There’s no other way to say it. Not only did it seem to come from nowhere, but the sensations made me think it would just keep coming , and my fear asked “what if, this time, it doesn’t stop? Or what if I have to deal with this for the rest of my life?”

It is important to also mention that the minute – literally the minute – my attention/obsessive worry about numbness or some projected scary future event was pulled into the present the numbness faded and stopped. I think about this now and I shake my head. I had clues the whole time, I just didn’t know how to put them together…

But Wait, There’s More

Another thing I used to fight was a terror (not too strong a word) of the dizziness and vertigo I’d sometimes feel when I was very afraid/anxious. As bad as the numbness was, to me this was worse.

It had begun when I was very young, in Junior High, and again it seemed like it was something completely abnormal, weird, wrong, malfunctioning, and it scared me.

This even extended to just a sense of lightheadedness – like when you stand up too quickly, for example. Or anytime I was fighting congestion from sinus trouble – allergies or a cold – I ran the risk of having this scary sensation.

So anytime I even began to feel a little bit numb, or a little bit dizzy, I could ramp myself up with a LOT of anxious worrying about what if this time it didn’t stop, what if this time it just kept going on and on and on… I suspect you know pretty much what I’m talking about.

This single symptom more than any other would lead me to end conversations, leave a movie theatre or a party, freeze up at work, and worst of all, work to avoid going to bed at night (when it was most likely to happen to me.)

Why at bedtime? Because of course that’s when I had the least to occupy my thinking, so the Worry Engine thinking could REALLY fire up…

Let me say again that I had had moments/situations where I had been numb, or dizzy, and was freaking myself out, only to be distracted by something, and then those sensations would stop. One of the key elements in this conversation is that half the battle (or more) with our fear of Flight or Fight symptoms is disconnecting the obsessive worry ABOUT those symptoms!

Nothing Abnormal Here…

I wish all to hell that someone, anyone had said at some point, “Hey, there’s nothing weird going on here. You are firing up Flight or Fight, and your body/feelings/mind are responding in ways that make perfect sense in that situation.”

And while I finally found some information that partially communicated that message (when I finally stumbled across someone who was working with anxiety and panic attacks) the message could have been a WHOLE lot clearer, a whole lot sooner.

And to be completely frank even after I found that therapist (a wonderful, compassionate, smart guy) this could have been driven home much earlier and much more effectively. Which would have in turn shaken me free of my fear a great deal faster.

You have your own preferred responses to Flight or Fight, right? Sure you do. And I’m betting, to some extent, they freak you out. Hear me now when I say that 1) You get scared of your body/feelings/mental responses – I get it – and 2) there’s nothing freaky about the responses per se. They are normal, everyday, natural human things, just the outcomes of Flight or Fight firing up.

I’m not saying that you’ll stop being afraid of your body/feelings/mental responses just with my telling you there’s nothing weird or scary in those responses. No, it takes some deliberate effort and practice on our parts to bust that apart, that fear and worry.

One of the things that convinced me that these were caused BY me (my thinking) was when I finally put together that they often, even usually, went away when I was distracted. This was a HUGE clue that I still look for today to determine if something is “real” or not.

Other Examples

It is amazing to see the range of Flight or Fight reactions that can rattle our cage. I have one friend who blushes like you’ve never seen when he’s anxious/worried/angry. He can feel the heat in his face and skin when he does that, and the moment he feels that he is climbing a tree (metaphorically), anxious to get away from whatever situation is making him respond that way.

He is, btw, VERY afraid of looking stupid or less than perfectly competent, and after we had some conversations two years ago he began to map that Flight or Fight Response to those moments where he was worried or anxious he might drop the ball (mostly at work, sometimes with his in-laws).

But more importantly he also started “discounting” the importance of his blushing – he stopped making THAT something he was afraid of, in addition to the worries/fears that were causing that response in the first place.

I know a former co-worker (from my teaching days) who starts to stutter when she is worried or anxious. She immediately gets even more anxious and worried when she is stuttering, and that just feeds the cycle for her. She used to get SO MAD when she stuttered! It would have been laughable if it hadn’t clearly been so frustrating for her!

She has told me as we’ve discussed this that initially she couldn’t bring herself to practice not getting upset when she stuttered. Wouldn’t people think she was an idiot for stuttering? Wouldn’t her students think she was dumb or stupid or something?

She could really talk herself into a frenzy if she even mispronounced a word (something everybody does) or talked too quickly and got tongue-tied (something she often did in her haste to get the words out before she would, God forbid, stutter!)

She has, however, with some practice and time, begun to stop letting the stuttering bug her so much. I will never forget the phone call the afternoon she realized that she had started to stutter in a staff meeting.

She stopped, took a deep breath, told herself that it didn’t really mean anything when she stuttered (as colleagues looked her quizzically and waited for her to start again) and then, a few minutes later, realized that she had 1) forgot she was worried about stuttering and 2) had stopped stuttering.

Interesting, yes?

Practice Makes Perfect

Bottom-line: Flight or Fight is just trying to do its job when we get worried or afraid, and we don’t have to be afraid of our Flight or Fight Response.

So what then to DO?

1) Get very clear on your own particular, preferred Flight or Fight symptoms. Mine are extremity numbness, fingers and hands mostly, and dizziness/vertigo. (I occasionally wrestle with an upset stomach too.) What are yours? Work to both identify them and just let them be what they are.

This can be scary work at the start! Just thinking about those responses sometimes can be unnerving – we often associate panic and worry with just the symptoms. That’s OK – practice makes perfect, and this takes some practice.

2) Remember that it is our thinking 99% of the time that is starting up those Flight or Fight reactions, and if it isn’t, well, something else in your body is generating that response. In ALL circumstances however those reactions don’t have any meaning IN THEMSELVES. They are just reactions. Period. They don’t signal disaster. They signal that YOU ARE AFRAID.

3) As you identify your particular favorites (if that’s the right word!) and begin to practice “discounting” their meaning you can then begin to practice experiencing them and continue that “discounting” practice. That’s called by the psychology folks “desensitization” and it is exactly the right thing to do.

That means deliberating exposing yourself to those reactions in situations where you KNOW that nothing bad is going to happen – home, safe in your bed, or in a chair, or taking a walk, or whatever works.

This is another example of what I call Triad Work – decide to face the scary thing (in this case, the Flight or Fight reaction that makes you scratchy), practice riding out the actual reaction for a little bit (30 seconds, 1 minute to start) and then practice unpacking your fear – in this case, that the reaction has any meaning other than just you’re afraid.

You’ll Get There!

This isn’t anything you can (usually) do in one sitting. It takes some time and effort. You’ll probably have better and worse practice sessions at the start of things, and you’ll have moments where suddenly you’ll have the particular reaction surface and scare the crap out of you. It is certainly what happened to me.

That’s OK. We have usually spent long months, years or even decades telling ourselves how scary this Flight or Fight reaction is – it will take some time to unpack. Be patient with yourself. Don’t try to do this all at once.

And you will be blown away at the progress you can make in reducing your fear of your Flight or Fight responses. Don’t take my word for it – try it.

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