My Nervous System Protects Me: Somatic Inquiry

Our perception of threat and danger is unconscious and we don't choose our response. In this somatic mindfulness inquiry, we’re going beyond the obvious signs of being in a fight/ flight/ freeze/ fawn survival response in ourselves and others. Freeze is when we feel numb, disconnected, and hunkered down for safety. Sympathetic arousal includes fight - internal rants, inner criticism, or expressed outwardly and flight - escape physical, emotional, and mental.

Transcript

As we're doing any somatic mindfulness inquiry,

Of course,

We tune into the physical body.

Notice what's going on in your body right now.

And as you're tuning into your body,

Notice if there's any sense of alarm or I don't feel comfortable,

I'm not safe.

Notice your experience in particular with your nervous system.

Notice what's happening in your breath.

Notice what happens when you put your attention on your breath.

Notice your whole body from head to toes and notice if there's any sense of tightness or contraction,

If there's any energy or sensations.

What's your somatic experience right now?

Where is it?

What does it feel like?

One of the things we know about our nervous system is that it's a primitive part of our system.

We share it with animals,

Other mammals in particular.

We have fight,

Flight and freeze.

And then people,

We often add looking at compliance,

People pleasing,

Fawning.

So the four Fs that we're becoming more familiar with now,

Fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Fawn.

So when we're looking at how we protect ourselves from danger,

Some of them make a lot of sense,

Especially in the physical world.

We have neuroception,

Which is our unconscious perception of threat.

And when we have a sense that there's something dangerous,

Our nervous system decides how we're gonna respond.

And our nervous system responds with whatever the best option is in the view of the nervous system.

We have a lot of ways to work with our nervous system responses,

But we don't have a lot of input into what comes up.

So that is an unconscious process.

The perception of threat is unconscious.

And whatever of the survival responses comes up is not something we decide.

It's something that happens.

So we use all of the experiences we've ever had in our life to ascertain what the level of threat is.

So if we've had a lot of alarm in our system,

And some of that is related to certain sounds or the look on someone's face or smells,

Certain experiences,

Environments,

Then our nervous system is ready to jump into action.

So it's a pretty blunt instrument.

It's not very nuanced.

It's very fast.

So a lot of the nervous system responses come in really quickly,

Way before we have a chance to really look at the situation and go,

Is this as alarming as it seems,

Or is it in fact something that's coming from my survival system?

And then we all have our own personal go-to.

If we look at fight,

Flight,

Or freeze generally,

We will usually try to get away from danger.

So flight is often the first one.

If we can't avoid the danger,

We'll fight,

Only if we have a sense that that would actually help.

And if fight and flight aren't a good option,

Then we'll go into freeze.

And then people add on the fawning or people pleasing,

That kind of compliance,

Which is another option,

Especially for social threat.

Notice what you feel right now as you're sitting with just what I've been talking about in the last few minutes.

I have a nervous system.

I don't control or consciously decide when I'm threatened,

And I don't control what kind of response my nervous system generates.

And I have a history with my nervous system,

Both in my neuroception,

My perception of threat,

And in what survival response generally comes forward.

With our neuroception,

It's very much if we have previous experience with something,

And it's known to be dangerous,

Our nervous system's gonna be coming in with a lot of certainty,

A lot of intensity,

Perhaps.

So for me,

I grew up in a home where there was no violence,

No alcoholism,

And when I went to bed at night,

I knew that my body would be safe overnight.

And that is a very different environment from a lot of other people.

So my nervous system learned different things than someone else's nervous system would have learned with a different environment.

Let's take a moment to sense into or remember,

What did your nervous system learn when you were a child?

What were some of the predominating messages?

And if you wanna keep your eyes open while you're doing this,

We don't wanna go back into the actual experiences.

Maintain awareness of your body and your breath.

What were some of the predominant messages or experiences that felt more dangerous?

What did you learn about life through your nervous system when you were a child?

One thing that might be coming up is a sense of powerlessness,

That it's useless or futile to fight,

Or that the only way you got out of trouble was to fight,

That the best thing to do was to be away from home as much as you could,

To stay away from being detected.

So freeze is one of the ways that we avoid being detected or noticed.

Almost from a few steps back,

As though we're doing a scientific study on what we learned as a child,

What did you learn about what was threatening when you were a child?

Remember to keep your breath even and smooth,

Especially if you feel like you're starting to go back into the past.

Do some tapping on your forehead,

You could open your eyes,

Put images into a frame,

Notice your feet,

Your seat,

Hold your hands,

And then notice what was your predominant response.

So we all cycle through fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Fawn,

But was there one that was more likely to come forward?

This could be from childhood,

But also really up until today.

What is your most likely survival response going to be if you feel threatened?

You disappear,

Move away,

Cut people off,

Go into a freeze or a fight response.

A fight response can take many different forms.

We can turn against ourselves.

So you might have a mean inner critic,

You might rage to other people.

Notice what's your likely go-to when you feel threatened and see what the roots of that were.

Is that a childhood response?

Is it something different that you do now than you did in the past?

Notice that we all have ways of being more grounded,

Oriented to the present now.

So what are some of the things that you do now that are different than what you did in the past?

When we were a child and something came up and we did whatever we did,

We got through it to our adult life now,

So that's good.

And what do you do now to come out of a response earlier or to offer yourself some other options?

Do you normally go into like box breathing or do you do something physically vigorous?

Do you go into some self-compassion?

What are you likely to do now in terms of helping yourself regulate?

Let yourself do a bit of regulating,

Especially if you're starting to notice that your breath has gotten more shallow or you're holding your breath or if your mind is starting to go off into something unrelated,

If you're getting kind of caught in the past,

Whatever it is you're working with,

You could do some breathing,

Hold your own hand,

Get up and shake,

Shake your body.

Do something to regulate your system again.

One of the things that's quite common is that we judge or shame ourselves for our trauma responses or for our survival responses.

It might be something like,

I should have fought back,

I should have said something,

Or I shouldn't have gone into a rage,

Now I've said that thing and everybody's mad at me.

I regret that I hurt their feelings.

I shouldn't have stayed in that relationship so long.

I must've just been in a deep freeze.

I didn't even notice what was going on.

Let's take a few minutes to sit with what are some of the words that you might use if you're shaming yourself or judging yourself or shooting yourself around your responses.

And again,

See if you can take that step back so that you're observing or witnessing what's coming up.

Remain aware in your body,

That's somatic awareness.

And then bring yourself into kind connection with yourself.

The truth is,

Is that we don't decide consciously what is a threat.

All those times when people told us to chill out or whatever the messages were,

That's not a fair thing to say.

We don't decide what our survival response will be.

If we were in freeze rather than fighting back or running away,

That is because our nervous system,

Based on its experience,

Decided that was the best possible option.

If you can bring in some closeness,

Especially if you find that you're judging yourself or that you have some feeling of I didn't do that right,

Could you put your hand on your heart or give yourself some kind break?

Notice what that would feel like.

Notice that even though our nervous system doesn't always get it right,

In the sense of we have a lot of drawbacks from some of the responses we've had.

See if there's a sense of,

Even when my nervous system is bringing up all this catastrophic thinking or all this energy,

It's my system.

It's doing its best to protect me,

Even when it's not very skillful.

And then how can we bring our adult self into that?

One of the ways we bring our adult self in is more accurate neuroception.

As we notice that we're starting to get revved up somehow or shutting down,

That we can bring our higher level self into the picture again and just,

Let me kind of work with this a little bit more skillfully.

I could do some of these breathing practices that I know now.

I could put the image of that thing in the frame,

Put my eyes around the empty space.

There's all of those different tools that we have.

And I could stop shaming myself.

I could be kind,

Cultivate some compassion.

And while we're going to finish the inquiry,

Notice that.

Notice also if you were to run a recording through your mind of what the different things were that came forward.

What stands out for you that you'd like to remember or take note of,

Maybe work with more.

And notice what it feels like if you were to take a few deeper breaths,

Become aware again of your physical body.

Notice the energy,

The sensation,

Thoughts in the mind as well.

And then when you're ready,

Take your time over the next minute or so,

Finish the practice.

Reviews

Incredibly helpful guide for me to reconnect with my prefrontal cortex during a body flashback. I have never heard the 4 Fs and the nervous system described so simply. This helped guide me out of the chaos my mind experiences during catastrophic thinking and my FREEZE reaction. Thank you soooo much.

This was uncomfortable at times but insightful. It was helpful to have your calming guidance 👍🙏

Extremely interesting and informative. Looking forward to listening to your other content. Thank you 💕

Ty for making peace with my fight, flight, freeze or fawn response.

So helpful — I gained new insight and compassion for my experiences and feel more integrated and calm. Many thanks!! ❤️‍🩹

Very insightful. Thank you for emphasizing that we do not choose our response, and non-judgement towards this is helpful. 🤍

Gently guided and shared wisdom to tap into your own knowing. With gratitude. 🙏🏼

Thank you so much for this meditation . It helped me understand my body and my nervous system better. 🥰❤️

Lots of good questions about my nervous system response to contemplate. I was able to see some patterns I have carried since I was a small child. Thank you for this session.

Lovely meditation to help cultivate new ways to respond rather than react to stimuli. Thank you 💞

Very helpful explanation and practice. Thank you 🙏🏽

Thanks Liz, wasn’t a comfortable practice, I usually do a combination of flight and freeze, what does fawning mean, you mentioned people pleasing?

I found this very helpful. Clear, calm and reassuring, especially "it's not our fault" around our unconscious/ instinctual habitual patterns and responses. I have often added layers of judgement and shame to what are survival/trauma responses.

One thing: is fawning an "add on"? I'm reading more and more trauma specialists are holding it to be a primary response to social threat, perhaps particularly for those with less physical power e.g. women, youngers. It may partly explain the epidemic of depression and exhaustion in menopausal women e.g. a lifetime of anger turned inwards, and self abandonment through patterns of people pleasing.

I had never connected my Inner Critic with “fight” mode. Thank you for that insight, and for this practice. It’s helping me reframe things.