How well do you know your nervous system? Is it something you pay attention to in your every day, or is it an autopilot setting that does its thing without any additional instruction or intervention from you?
In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown defines fear as a negative, short-lasting, high alert emotion in response to a perceived threat. The threat of the now - in this present moment. I’m not a PhD researcher or a therapist, but I am a coach and have a lot of time for the brain and my nervous system. Pretty important parts of our selves, but I think a lot of us pay no mind (pardon the pun).
Our nervous system response is triggered by anything that our body or mind perceives as a threat, and a lot of those threat perceptions can be deep rooted in our bodies from experiences we had in childhood. We likely don’t even remember the things that are wired into our tissues so deeply that it brings up fear for us in ways that we don’t understand.The physiological response might occur before we have even registered that we are afraid. Frustrating, right? This is why it’s very important to be observant of your nervous system and what it’s telling you so that you can recognize and rewire yourself towards the life you want to live.
While we usually only hear about the big 2, the nervous system responses show up in 4 ways:
Fight - involving anger or aggression, perhaps becoming argumentative, cruel or even violent to defend yourself
Flight - fleeing the scene, seeking to leave a threatening circumstance asap, perhaps isolating yourself or withdrawing from what you don’t want to deal with
Freeze - involving dissociation or detachment, perhaps finding yourself immobilized and unable to act in self defense or response to that which you perceive as, or is threatening
Fawn - can be described as people pleasing, perhaps attempting to flatter or calm the other party down through lightening the mood with self deprecating humour
All of these responses serve to protect us. What our body perceives us needing protection from is there to be discovered. In a workshop I recently delivered on communicating difficult feedback, my clients and I dove deep into the nervous system response for both the giver and receiver of (perceived) challenging feedback. It can feel scary! While fear can show us things in our life to explore and discover about ourselves, why I say it is a poor teacher is because most often fear holds us back from doing things that we really want. Falling in love, going on that trip, asking for a promotion, delivering difficult feedback, or maybe sharing something personal with the world.
So what?
Like many things in our lives, fear is another thing to be alert to, appreciative of and even respected, but I would argue that the best teacher is courage. Your courage to live your life to the fullest in the most authentic and wildly expressed way which only you can do. Only you are you and can share your uniqueness with the world. Only you can convey your personal magic regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. People are going to have opinions of you no matter what you do or where you go, so go and do the things you want to do anyway! And if you’re scared, do it scared. It was Aristotle who said “to avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing” and I don’t know about you, but I refuse. For me, one big fear is being insignificant and so I put myself out there and have designed my life in service of others. When people want to tear me down, my courage demands a rebrand - you can call it criticism, but I will consider it one person’s perspective. What I choose to do with that perspective is up to me. Does it make it less scary, not necessarily but I focus on what I am gaining instead.
What is your best teacher?
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