Understanding the primordial fight or flight mechanism of the brain puts you back in the “driver’s seat” of your behavior, perceptions and fulfillment. Dying to know how, huh? And perhaps that is the point; this fundamental, physiological response is motivated by an organism’s – that would be you – need to feel safe and protected from harm or death. However, problems occur when this impulse takes unwitting control in your affairs and hinders more than it helps. As you gain dominion over this response you move forward in your life with greater ease, progress and fulfillment. (Dominion is not the same as ‘control’; but rather, dominion is an act of insightful understanding regarding a matter and as a consequence the matter doesn’t control you; on the other hand, efforts to control are often motivated by fear).

This primordial fight or flight response of the psyche is a good thing for obvious reasons, however – and it is a BIG HOWEVER, when this “pre-programmed” response (existing before the ensuing programming absorbed from one’s environment and conditions) informs and permeates almost every experience of one’s life, one finds themselves engaging – in the most subtle of ways – this response behavior. And that continual heightened stress response from fight or flight is very taxing and draining. Your body is not designed to remain in a perpetual state of fight or flight!

In my hypnotherapy practice I often witness certain clients who unknowingly are operating from this perpetual state of flight or flight. And mind you, it’s a relative state of being. In other words, one can have what appears to others as, “everything,” and remain in constant fight or flight (“FF”) because of how their perception filters experiences. And speaking of perception, it is the culprit that triggers the FF response. As I was researching in preparation for writing this article, the internet’s Wikipedia page describes the FF response, “… physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival.” And therein is the rub; since it is our perception of things that trigger the FF response then the first order of business in regaining dominion over this response is to shift our perception of the experiences that are unnecessarily triggering the FF response. Dominion over the FF response occurs when you no longer default to the automatic FF-triggering perceptions of your life and affairs. Please remember that dominion occurs through emancipating understanding (of the dynamics in play) instead of energy-consuming efforts to ‘control.’

Pragmatically speaking, you would be surprised at the subtle ways the FF response informs your behavior when it is running the show. It is well known that recreational substance abuse is often a form of “escape” people willingly admit to as such. Well, what else is that abusive behavior except a reflection of “flight” mode triggered by a fearful perception of self or circumstances? Combative arguments in relationships (intimate, professional or social) is the fight response triggered when one perceives they are not being be heard, understood, recognized or valued; one is “fighting” to be understood. (Particularly when one settles into defensiveness – defense is a primary component of fight – as one becomes very sensitive to the dynamics in play, that sensitivity is a reflection of a hyper state of FF). When you notice yourself exhibiting withdrawing or isolating behavior it is because your perception of things is triggering the “flight” response and so you flee from connection. Still think your FF response is only being classically used to protect you from a mugger? Think again, my dear.
The key to gaining or regaining dominion over the fight or flight impulse freeing you from reactive thinking is, as referenced earlier, in your perception of things. As you enable your capacity to shift your perception of what confronts you – not through denial but intentional choice – how you are going to view a matter in ways that confer either neutrality or empowerment, you increasingly disengage from hyper fight or flight reactions giving your system a break from habituated or frequent FF impulses. For example, let us say that due to circumstances your mortgage or rent has increased. Your perception of that occurrence triggers judgment, concerns, frustration projections, etc. These reactions to the “perceived” threat of what this occurrence means to you is the fight or flight impulse in action. You either want to bitterly complain (a reflection of the ‘fight’ response) or you ignore (the ‘flight’ impulse) the reality by perhaps putting off determining the adjustments or accommodations that can make the situation agreeable in your circumstances, and just start paying the increase (or make other decisions about it) while absorbing the toxic bitterness and resentment into your system.  On the other ‘perceptual hand’ so to speak, you instead perceive the occurrence neutrally by taking a deep breath and reminding yourself, “things do increase (from milk to rent) as a natural process of living.” This re-framing perception shift of the mortgage/rent increase will not trigger the FF response and, therefore, not block your availability to the clarity, confidence and possibilities for resolving the impact of the increase.  Again, this disengagement of hyper FF occurs through dominion (understanding that perception of the matter is what is causing the sense of threat) and not through suppressing the fear or efforts to control the fear while maintaining the threatening perception. You cease attempts to control the feeling of threat wrought by the perception of the event, and instead, you shift the perception of what the occurrence represents and there is no triggered fight or flight to manage or be victimized by. What follows are some potent means that enable you to consciously shift your perception of matters, releasing the debilitating FF response from interfering with the well-being of self and affairs.

Meditation – From a therapeutic vantage point I encourage individuals to strip the sometimes intimidating or off-putting spiritual connotation surrounding this activity if a spiritual context does not particularly resonate, as the essence of the act of meditation is really about disengaging from the mind’s rote, programmed reaction to things. In actuality, this process (disengaging from rote programmed reactions via meditation) is what actually allows availability genuinely to perceive your circumstances in ways that empower (and for many, the meditative engagement permits availability to spiritual identity; however, if that particular recognition is not calling itself from you; do not throw out the baby with the bathwater.) This is why secular, psychological and medical vantage points increasingly encourage meditation to release and reduce stress (it is the disengagement of the rote mind programming facilitated through the meditative act that actually results in the stress relief and release.)

Therapeutic hypnosis – or hypnotherapy as it is termed. Hypnotherapy is a most direct and efficient tool for realigning the subconscious mind with perceptions that empower rather than sabotage from the unnecessarily triggered FF response. Many of my hypnotherapy clients strongly indicate how the “hypno” treatments allow them to feel that a burden has been released. This feeling that an existential weight has been lifted is merely (yet, profoundly) a reflection of perception shifting through the hypno treatments and thereby – for some for the first time – releasing the FF response that sustains and promotes taxing stress.

Time in Nature – Any natural environment – whether it be an environment filled with plants and fauna or the beach, these environments by sheer virtue of their independence from conditioned perceptions confer and connect with that dimension within our own nature that is free of maligning perceptions and can promote a degree of FF impulse release.

Reserve the flight or fight impulse for when it is really necessary by methods that reinterpret or re-frame that which is perceived as threatening. You are not your reactions nor are you your perceptions. You do, however, possess the irrevocable capacity to realign these characteristics on behalf of what empowers, motivates and nourishes your well-being.