When we are feeling anxious, it’s most likely that we have been emotionally stressed aka upset, offended, triggered even – there I said it, that “T” word !

Let’s start by defining anxiety. According to the Oxford Dictionary, “Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.” As humans we don’t choose to be anxious. It is an unconscious response to an external stimulus. It is a safety strategy.

According to Dr Joe Dispenza, “when we experience traumatic incidents in our lives, the strength of the corresponding emotional quotient turns on a survival center in our brains . That center is called the amygdala and because the experience was painful,  the activation of the amygdala serves to protect us from the situation happening again”.

 Everything that seemingly happens externally is occurring in order to trigger something within us, to expand us and take us back to who we truly are — Anita Moorjani

This doesn’t mean that the external event caused the internal trauma. It means that the external event ripped the band- aid off the wound that was already there ~ so to speak.

Ask any person who copes with anxiety, yours truly included, and they will tell you that it’s uncomfortable and that they just want it to “go away”.

Over the years, I have discovered that the force I have been using to make my anxiety go away has been rather a harsh one and as such as left much bruising and roughness in the way I treat myself. It’s not until I adopted a much gentler approach, a form of surrendering up my anxiety that I have encountered a more effective and restorative approach to my healing.

The question to ask instead is: How do I know I’m triggered when all I feel is just anxious ?!

If, from the above definition, anxiety is the sensations of the emotions in our body, can we learn to recognise what we are doing or how you are being when we are anxious?

 Surrendering up our anxiety, or any emotional trigger starts with acknowledging that it has occurred.

Emotional Intimacy Trainer and head coach Matt Lavars at The Coaching Institute, Australia teaches a 4 step practice on how to manage your emotions. They are:

Name It –          Accept It          –          Feel It    –          Let It Go

 But naming our anxiety begins with recognising the signs that we are anxious rather the strategy we go into when we are anxious.

In this 2-part article I want to focus on signs that we or others around us may display when they have been emotionally activated (or triggered) into an emotional survival protection strategy (ESPS).

It’s also very helped to know which signs apply to us so when we catch ourselves doing them, we will immediately be able to acknowledge (name and accept) that we have been emotionally activated and are in survival mode.

 Here are 8 signs that you are running an Emotional Survival Protection Strategy:

Sign #1- ATTACK

A sure way of knowing that someone is protecting themselves is when they get angry. Colorful language in real life and via email, brawls, fist fights and even tears are all emotional outbursts that signal that our ESPS have been activated.  

Sign #2- ESCAPE

Some people feel the need to get away but taking flight means more than just removing yourself from the physical space. For some, taking your consciousness away or spacing out, is a form of getting away. This is the earliest of the wounding patterns from childhood – according to Stephen Kessler, author of The Five Personality Patterns. Other forms of getting away and gaining space from emotional stress are suddenly feeling like you have no energy left and wanting to retreat to a place where you can recuperate. Other’s yet will engage in addictive activities such as bingeing on food, social media, shopping etc to escape.

Sign #3- FREEZE

Some people, upon hearing unpleasant news or experiencing an unpleasant experience will go into a freeze response. This can be both an external  “can’t move my body / I can’t breathe” type of response or an internal numbness where they can move on the outside but on the inside people complain of not being able to think, make decisions or can’t make their way out of the brain fog. In this strategy, all energy drains from our body and they are even left with ice cold extremities.

Sign #4- DENY

Some people’s survival strategy is to deny that anything is wrong. Have you ever met anyone who acted angry, but insisted they weren’t despite the obvious external signs of clenched jaws, flushed skin tone, clenched fists, bulging eyes. These are all clear physical signs of anger. Similarly, puppy dog eyes, pouty lips, welling tears are physical signs when someone is distraught yet how many times have we been warned “don’t hug me, you’re going to make me cry”. Guilty.

Sign #5- GIVE UP

Refusing to carry on, surrendering, quitting are all accompanied by feelings of helplessness and hopelessness which point to lack of control of the situation. In the old days, this survival strategy was depicted stereotypically by women who would faint when they received unfavourable news. Fainting is common physiologically when the distress is great enough to cause a drop in blood pressure preventing blood and energy from reaching the brain resulting in lose of consciousness.

Sign #6- OBSESSING

This is also known as procrastinating. This can be both internal or external. If you seem to be outwardly “over” anything -cleaning, organising, exercising, then you know you are caught in an ESPS. IF you are thinking the same thought and replaying the same event over and over again in your head like a looping thought, until your energy is exhausted, it’s time to admit that you have been triggered.

Sign #7. BLAMING

For some of us, finding fault with the external environment, the person or the situation, is a first go to reaction. “It was the person who cut me off “ or “the guy who pushed in line” or “the weather was bad” that is to blame for “my foul mood”. This strategy is safe for us because in doing so, we are not to blame (ahhh see how it works!- see how the brain is protecting us!). The danger here is by not acknowledging that it is our responsibility, we will never be able to stop this undesirable trait of not taking responsibility for our own emotions.

Sign #8. DEFENSIVENESS

If you find yourself arguing, trying to convince, pleading, complaining, gossiping or even venting (aka toxic dumping) to a third party, you have – yes- siree – been emotionally triggered.

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So, now that you know what the signs of being emotionally activated or the survival strategy you employ are:

• Do you notice the different forms of protection strategies and how they have an impact you ?
• Do you run the same strategies every time you are emotionally triggered, or do you do different strategies in different place, or with different people, or at different times?
• Do some strategies work for you, while others hold you back?
• Is it time to start working on changing that old habit and achieve emotional freedom?

 Studying what activates my anxiety, what fuels it and how I respond to it has helped me acknowledge and face the underlying trauma that it’s pointing my attention to. It has also allowed me to be more compassionate, understanding and patient towards myself and others for as the great and late Robin Williams once said :

“ Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.”

Wherever you are with yours, I hope something I’ve said here has made a difference for you.

Stay tuned for my next article which will discuss how to proceed after acknowledged that we are running an Emotional Survival Protection Strategy.  

xx Truly yours,

Amira