Fight, Flee, Freeze, Attach Or Submit

Dr. Jeffrey Rutstein talks to Kacey about our 5 responses to stress and trauma. Fight, flight, freeze, subit and attach. The things is, you can get stuck in one of these stress response patterns, long after they are "age appropriate"! Learn how to recognize the responses and interact with your own nervous system to calm yourself.

Transcript

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Shine On,

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It's your time to shine on.

Hi it's Casey.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Shine On.

What kind of state are you in right now?

Dr.

Jeffrey Ruttstein,

A clinical psychologist,

Has developed a program that will help us understand how to work with our own nervous system.

And we're happy to say this labor of love is finally coming to fruition.

Yeah,

Which sounds true.

I've been working on this program for two years and it's really aimed at helping just normal people,

Average people,

Learn how to deal with the upset and stress and trauma that's either happened in their past or that's ongoing right now with the pandemic or economic loss or loss from the pandemic.

We wanted to give tools to people to really help them manage and navigate this time.

That's one level of it.

The other level of it is that on a deeper level,

My view is that just like if I got on the phone and I was in a fight state with you,

Right?

Angry and surly.

You'd certainly get in a fight state back just because we're human.

And what's happening now is if one of us is Republican and one of us is Democrat,

We go into the same state and we go into the same state when we feel someone's taking our parking space or doing something else.

In other words,

I think that a really big piece of the ongoing divisiveness and violence and basically the vision is based on us mistaking these states for who we are.

Wow.

Wow.

That's huge.

Does that make sense?

I want you to repeat that because I want this to ring as clear as a bell.

If you could just say that again.

Well,

I think that what happens on an individual level is easily extended to a group level,

Community level,

National level.

And that if we,

As we often do as humans,

Get into these defensive state activations like fight,

That fight only begets fight.

I think the Buddha said this,

Hate will never be stopped by hate,

But by love alone.

And he did this before we knew anything about neurophysiology,

Right?

And don't you feel,

I feel like this is such a great time to be alive because we are waking up to mental health,

Which we've shoved down and avoided for centuries.

And now people are understanding how their brain works.

And isn't this fabulous to understand that a defensive state is just a defensive state.

Can you briefly tell us about the other states that we experience when stressed or traumatized?

Sure.

So there are five basic states that mammals share.

And most people have heard of fight or flight,

And they're pretty self-explanatory.

I'm going to fight for my life or I'm going to flee.

I'm going to run away.

And the more minor versions of those two is I'm angry and irritable for fight,

Or I'm anxious and worried and preoccupied and nervous for flight.

Those are some of the more daily experiences of those.

The next one that people have probably heard of is freeze.

And that's a state where our bodies don't look like we're doing much.

We look from the outside like we're just kind of stuck or frozen.

But on the inside,

Our brain is working really fast.

We're trying to figure out what to do.

I'm afraid to take a step to the right,

But I'm afraid to take a step to the left.

I'm not sure what the right decision is here.

And so we kind of like the old pinball machines,

We go tilt and we just stop functioning.

In that moment,

We're in freeze.

We can't really think clearly.

We can't make a decision.

And normally what happens in a freeze response is that the outside situation continues to escalate because someone's like,

Say,

Yelling at you and you're not responding.

You're not interacting with them.

And so they get more activated.

The more activated into fight they get,

The more you get slammed into freeze.

These are our three pretty well known defensive states.

There's two more,

And that is attach and submit.

And attach,

The easiest way to think about attach is that it is like a child crying,

A baby crying for help.

It is looking for,

Desperately looking for a connection for safety.

It's very,

Very fearful,

Terrified of abandonment and rejection,

Being on their own,

Projects a very innocent quality and really,

Really,

Really creates someone to depend on to take care of them.

So this state has some evolutionary benefit.

If you've been raised in a violent or threatening or unsafe atmosphere,

Say,

For example,

At home,

Then if you're kind of,

You know,

Asking for attention and trying to make yourself sweet and cute and appealing and crying,

You sometimes can get a positive expression from your,

From the parents.

They may not attack you as much.

They may not see you as causing waves.

They may actually feel a little pull to protect you a little bit,

A little bit.

And so it's positive is that it can try to help you navigate a safe,

A situation of non-safety or potential danger and to help tilt it towards a more safe or predictable moment.

And it's done by sort of putting us in this one down position where we are looking for someone else to be our savior,

Our caregiver,

Our home base.

What happens with that though,

Right,

Is that if I have to assume that posture,

Right,

And I have to give up all of my strength,

All of my independence,

All of my own thinking,

Because right now I've just got to make sure that mom or dad or my boss or whoever isn't too upset with me.

I need to be connected with them.

And some people will identify this with this in romantic relationships.

I've worked with a lot of people over the years who say,

You know,

Like with friends and all,

I'm totally fine.

But the moment I get romantic feelings towards someone,

Then my entire life becomes wrapped up around,

Are they going to like me tomorrow?

Are they still going to like me today?

Are they going to find someone else you're going to like more?

And our lives become a whole fixation around trying to make sure that this other special person remains connected and attached to us and we to them.

So it's good as a survival strategy and it also has limitations.

It decreases our autonomy,

Our own authentic power and our ability to take action.

We're talking to Dr.

Jeffrey Rustine and we're talking about trauma responses,

Among other things,

Fight,

Flight,

Freeze.

And I have never heard this before,

This attach response.

While you were speaking,

I just had scenarios and people rolling through my mind because we've all seen this in action.

We've all seen,

You know,

The person who shows up at the event and there's always a crisis and there's always tears and there's always someone coming to the rescue and they're always in a weakened state.

Now I'm understanding that's called an attach reaction.

People can get stuck with that,

Like for a lifetime?

Well,

Are you talking about the person who's using this as a coping mechanism?

Yes.

Yes.

There are people who adopt this in most situations.

I've had many folks I've worked with who have done that too.

And again,

It helps me understand this is something they had to do to maintain safety or to maintain attachment,

Which for many people is equivalent to maintaining safety.

I need to maintain my relationships,

My connections.

And so there are some people who sort of slide into this space as a lifelong adaptation.

And there are many people who don't use it all the time,

But frequently find themselves moving into this space.

It may not be all the time every day,

But especially in situations of tension or conflict or threat,

This defensive state can arise quite quickly.

And moving on,

There's another state to learn about,

For me to learn about anyway.

What is that?

This final state is called submit.

Submit is,

I think it was,

Was it Eeyore?

Who said,

Thanks for noticing on Winnie the Pooh.

I mean,

Thanks for noticing me.

Right.

It's kind of like really hang dogs.

Submit is it's most accompanied by shame.

Most often that's the affect or emotional experience that goes along with submit.

A posture that often goes along with it is kind of rounded shoulders,

A little bit of a collapsed spine.

And this feeling of,

Okay,

All right,

You want to go there?

Fine,

We'll go there.

In other words,

They're submitting of all different levels to not make waves,

To not make things worse.

So it could be as surface level as,

Okay,

I'll go to wherever you want for dinner,

Or we'll watch whatever movie you want to watch.

In more extreme levels,

It could involve someone submitting to an act of violence,

Say a sexual assault,

In the hopes that that will save them from being killed.

Submit comes on in a way that,

Again,

Try to help you avoid worse trauma,

Worse pain.

But it also limits us,

Just like attached us,

It limits us to a kind of disempowered self.

Many people who adopt submit try very hard to be the good girl or the good boy in all their relations.

Sure,

I'll do that.

Oh,

I'm happy to do that.

Sure,

That's no problem.

And there are some people who are sincerely like that,

But there are many people who feel like they need to be like this,

And they're not being true to themselves.

No,

It's not okay to do this,

But I should be a good guy or good gal,

So I'm going to say,

Sure,

It's fine.

We end up betraying ourselves a bit.

So again,

We don't cause more fight energy or rejection in the other person.

Submit is designed like attached to get our needs met and to not make waves.

Submit even more so than attached.

Submit is,

If I could just disappear,

That would be best.

Then I won't interfere with whatever you want.

Wow.

Does that make sense?

Yes,

I love this topic so much.

Dr.

Jeffrey Rustine is our guest.

Fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Attach,

Submit.

These are reactions to stress and trauma and also coping mechanisms that people can use well into their adulthood,

Right?

Absolutely.

Wow.

Absolutely.

How do we check ourselves to know we are in our strongest,

Healthiest state and not in one of these response modes?

So that's a great question.

And actually that is,

I'll give a longer and shorter answer.

The project that I've been working on that's going to be coming out with Sounds True in January is called the Healing Trauma Program.

It's a nine-month intensive program designed to really help people understand their nervous system to learn how to actually navigate their nervous system.

Most people mistake their states.

Fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Submit or attach.

We mistake these for who we are.

And the truth is these states aren't who we are.

We are what's here when we're not in one of those defensive states,

When we're in what we call the social engagement system or the tend and befriend system.

So distinct from the five defensive states,

Which are specifically to protect us from danger,

The social engagement system is a neurophysiological state or collection of state that actually helps us connect with other people.

It's the opposite of the defensive states.

Defensive states are isolating.

They protect us from pain and hurt.

But in a defensive state,

You protect instead of connect.

You cannot do both at the same time.

So defensive states are primarily protective,

Which means I'm not going to be in connection with you.

I'm going to be trying to make sure I'm okay.

And even in attach,

I'm not going to be in a mutual connection with you.

I'm going to be really screaming and wailing about you need to take care of me.

So the social engagement system,

Which is also called the tend and befriend state,

Is a state where we are able to connect,

Express affection,

Collaborate,

Cooperate,

Be co-regulating to one another,

Be able to point out to someone like a good friend.

Say you're in regulation and you notice a good friend of yours is talking a mile a minute and really stressed and their eyes are wide open and you could just say to them,

Wow,

You're really upset.

You're really activated by this.

You're really,

Really tight about this.

And again,

Not saying it in a critical way,

But saying it in a way that just helps someone be aware of,

Oh,

I'm in a state,

Right?

Because otherwise,

Again,

We feel the problem is us and then we have to fix us.

Instead of it's a state,

It's information.

We can understand the information and learn how to work with it,

But we also can learn how to first identify that we're in a state.

Most of us don't even track when we're in a state.

So this course,

Which sounds true,

Called the Healing Trauma Program,

Is really in some ways an owner's manual for your brain and a map for how to get from stuck places and fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Submit,

Or attach to help you move from those states to a state of connection,

A state of balance and regulation,

And where you can experience and enjoy life.

In other words,

We can't be present when we're in any of the defensive states.

We're too anxious about the future.

In any of the defensive states,

We're anxious about what's going to happen next,

The next moment.

Are you going to hit me?

Are you going to leave me?

Are you going to run away?

Am I going to have to submit to this?

If I'm going to tend and befriend,

Kind of like you and I are right now in this conversation,

We're connecting,

Right?

We can feel each other's warmth a little bit.

It feels pleasant to be connected that way.

This is the state where we're most capable of being who we really are,

Where we can allow our enthusiasms out and our attachment out,

And we can be affectionate.

This is a state where we have more reserves to be kind to ourselves.

If we can help people to identify when they're in state,

To be able to just get the essential information from that,

For example,

If I'm angry,

You say something that makes me angry,

Right?

The essential information is,

Wow,

I got angry,

Which means I probably also got hurt,

So something happened here.

I'd like to look at that,

Okay?

But the other piece of it is,

If I still am angry,

Like four hours later or a day later,

What am I doing,

Right?

I'm stuck in this state.

I'm not processing it,

Right?

We're just ruminating,

Sort of pouring more gas on the coals continually,

Continually,

Every time we bring it up.

And this is what we do with worry or anger or fear.

We just keep ruminating over it and going through it and going through it.

This is where the state pulls us away from being present,

Pulls us away from what we're really doing,

And it's running this very compelling movie in the background of our mind,

Rehashing that event or rehashing that hurt or going through all the things they'd say.

I'd say now,

I wasn't able to say to you yesterday in that fight,

But now I have all these things I want to say and sort of reawakening us into that state,

Keeping us in that state.

That not only causes tremendous suffering for me if I'm always angry or afraid or shut down,

But it's going to cause suffering for my relationships.

And like we were saying earlier,

This is the exact same thing that operates in relationships,

In communities and in nations.

I think that one perspective is that humanity right now is at the most or one of the most dysregulated points in our history ever,

Ever.

And part of this is as mammals,

Right?

We are born with this sense.

It's been called neuroception by Stephen Porges,

Who was in the 90s,

Sort of developed and articulated the polyvagal theory,

Which has given us a lot of understanding about this.

This neuroception picks up safety and danger.

We're always scanning for that.

Our nervous systems are not even consciously.

But this skill also gets us,

It's the same thing like 10,

000 elk at a watering hole.

They're all happily drinking.

And a twig snaps and 10,

000 heads in unison turns the left,

All together.

What's that?

Eyes wide open,

Right?

In other words,

As a group,

They have all gone into a flight response.

They are alert,

Watching for danger and trying to be very ready to run.

Well,

In the world right now,

For example,

The pandemic has affected the entire world.

And so just from that alone,

There's more shared anxiety,

Shared anger,

Shared submit,

Shared fear than we've ever had before.

We're marinating in this.

So even if you're not consciously thinking about it,

It still is in the body,

The nervous systems of people around you.

And then if you add on top of that,

Racial inequities,

Political divisiveness,

The violence,

The harshness,

The meanness that is being displayed,

The fight energy that's being displayed so publicly right now,

Across all different countries and across all different matters,

Political and otherwise,

Is further sending us into these states of fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Shut down.

It is doing this to all of us,

And it's doing it even to people who haven't had trauma.

If you've had trauma,

Going through this time is even more challenging.

If you haven't had trauma,

This is an experience of being part of a global kind of traumatic time.

And so I think there's nothing more important that we could start doing than to begin to identify when we're in a state.

Again,

Not to criticize us for it.

It's natural.

It's human.

It's human to see the states are information,

But they don't have to be lived in.

I don't have to live my life in fight or in flight.

And many of us do.

You know,

Like today,

Getting ready for a call,

I was worried that I might not call right at the same time.

And so I found myself getting a little activated about that ahead of time.

It's not a big deal.

It's a phone call.

But the fact is my nervous system is still treating it,

Even though I know this is just the conversation,

It's treating it as if it's something more than that,

Potentially dangerous if I'm late.

This is just one teeny example.

We do this when we're rushing to work,

When we're trying to meet a deadline,

When we're going to be late to meet some friends for dinner or a movie or something else.

Our nervous systems get into these states,

And then we feel bad about what's wrong with me?

Why am I so angry?

What's wrong with me?

Why am I afraid over this?

It starts this avalanche of criticisms and self-blame and shame.

Thinking about our states,

Learning that they're evolutionarily wired to protect us,

Also helps people understand that these struggle points are not your fault or a sign of weakness or some inadequacy.

These were wired in to save our lives.

They're excellent at that.

It's just that right now they get turned on when it's not actually a matter of life and death.

Right.

Neuroception.

Neuroception.

We're always scanning to look for danger.

Yes.

Polyvagal.

Polyvagal.

Yes.

Polyvagal.

This means?

It used to be that we thought that the nervous system had what was called the autonomic nervous system,

A part of the nervous system that was devoted to regulation of breathing,

Blood pressure,

Body temperature,

Balance,

Sleep-wake cycles,

Stuff like that.

We believed it had two branches,

The sympathetic branch and the parasympathetic branch.

We thought that they were basically just one function each.

What we realized is that in the sympathetic branch,

Which controls fight or flight,

The activation states,

That is basically a straightforward mechanism.

In the parasympathetic state,

What we used to call the rest and digest state,

We found there's a vagus nerve that's a central player in helping the body shift into different states.

That there's two branches of this vagus nerve.

Because there's two branches,

He called the theory polyvagal,

Poly more than one vagal,

More than one vagus nerve because of the branching.

The older branch of the vagus nerve is reflected from our reptilian brain,

The oldest part of our brain.

It's the brain stem in the back.

This controls the shutdown energies,

Shutdown,

Collapse,

Disappear,

Fain death.

These are the things that reptiles would do when they're in severe stress.

That other branch of the vagus nerve actually helps us lean into the social engagement system to enter the tend and befriend state.

One sort of closes us down and separates us,

One branch.

The other branch opens us up into connection.

With connection,

And we have a biological imperative for this,

Humans desire to be connected and we are healthiest when connected because for many things,

One of which is we can co-regulate.

Meaning that we can help restore balance to one another.

That's what friends do all the time.

That's what good friends do during this time of massive upheaval.

What if you and your friends are all kind of inside terrified about this going on and also not really sure what to do with it and not really wanting to talk about it because it's too upsetting or you feel powerless about it or you don't know what else to do.

All of you could marinate in this state,

But if you were to wake up and go,

Oh wow,

I think all of us are kind of in this little survival trance.

We're all kind of just worried and afraid and kind of hyper vigilant.

If you begin to notice that,

Even talk about that with your friends a little bit,

In that moment you would be switching yourself and your friends closer to social engagement,

Closer to a place where you could help one another.

And here's part of it,

Like a tip for parents,

Right?

A dysregulated parent can never calm down a dysregulated child.

Right?

We've seen that.

We've seen that in the mall.

And exactly.

And this is the same with our friendships as adults,

With our relationships.

If I'm dysregulated,

I can't help anyone else get regulated.

If anything,

I'm going to help them get dysregulated.

So when I'm dysregulated,

What I actually need is someone who can help me gain some perspective and to sort of also shift back to a place of more balance.

That doesn't mean that I'm going to forget what I'm angry about or sad about or threatened about.

It means that I won't be hijacked by it.

I won't be so consumed by it that I can't see anything else but the fear or the rage or the shame that I can see it as a staple.

Dr.

Jeffrey Rutzstein,

I think what I need you to do is to let the world know that we don't hate each other,

You know,

With all the divisiveness in politics,

That we're just in our separate states,

And that really we could find some common ground and have a conversation.

That makes me very hopeful.

I am hopeful about this,

Too.

I really feel like just like we have to get creative about carbon capture and other things to be able to help avert the worst of the climate disaster.

I think that we need to get really creative about the quality of our relationships and understanding the place that our nervous system has in either ensuring connection or ensuring disconnection.

That's Dr.

Jeffrey Rutzstein.

I just feel so much better after talking to him.

And he's even going to come back next week and tell us more about the vagus nerve and even how to interact with it and calm ourselves down.

I'll give you a preview,

Make your exhales longer than your inhales.

Nice relaxing exhale calms the vagus nerve.

More next week.

Visit DrJeffreyRutzstein.

Com,

DrJeffreyRutzstein.

Com,

And you can download two free meta-meditations.

And visit SoundsTrue.

Com,

SoundsTrue.

Com,

And search on Jeffrey Rutzstein,

And you'll find his program,

The Healing Trauma Program,

That's starting up soon.

Thank you for tuning in to Shine On.

For all the retreats that are coming up and Zoom sessions,

Check out kc.

Co.

Our thought for the day is from Aristotle,

Who said,

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

Shine on.

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Reviews

Interesting guest. Informative and helpful for those who struggle with trauma responses
Thank you.

Really informative, thank you

Helpful, useful information

Life changing but simple explanation to identify STATES of being in myself and others!
Thank you!🙏

Excellent talk on neuroregulation in today's world!

Informative. Thanks

Really great! Thank you! 🙏💜

Insightful and helpful — thank you 🙏