Flight, Freeze, Fight, & Feel
I have been silent for a few weeks. Partly because I haven’t had much to say, so why speak just to speak? And partly because I’ve been in ‘flight’ & ‘freeze’ & ‘fight’ mode in order to avoid the feels.
WebMD explains: “Fight, flight or freeze are the three most basic stress responses…The fight response is your body’s way of facing any perceived threat aggressively. Flight means your body urges you to run from danger. Freeze is your body’s inability to move or act against a threat. Fawn is your body’s stress response to try to please someone to avoid conflict.”
My recent ‘danger’ is a whiplash-like change. How I was saw my future has now been ripped away from me and I am left to find a new path. This is not a bad thing, per se, but it has definitely required time of not doing anything and finding something else to focus on. I’m liking some of the flight aspects, the freeze is hard to face, and the fight both builds me up and tears me down.
Sustaining Strength (aka Flight)
Just about every spring, my body craves strength training. I’ve been the most consistent with yoga and walking over the last year, easily averaging three-four times a week. Three weeks ago, a day after my last post, I started strength training again. I use an at-home program that is a mix of yoga & strength, but this time, I’m focusing only on the strength portions. My work over the last year has paid off and I’ve quickly jumped up in weights. I feel strong in my body and excited to continue. I haven’t even dealt with too much soreness until yesterday when I (finally) pushed myself.
WebMD shares some signs of a ‘flight’ response: “excessive exercising; feeling fidgety, tense, or trapped; constantly moving your legs, feet, and arms; [and] restless body.”
Color me not-too-shocked to learn that my enjoyment of this strength training resurgence could fall into a flight response. For years, yoga has helped me ground (and still does), but there is a release that comes from strength training that is tethering me here more than anything. Couple that with actually cooking again, and I am feeling strong in my body, making the days a little bit easier to get through. It’s been a joyous flight away from dealing with all of the feelings building up.
My Books are Waiting (aka Freeze)
While I started working out three weeks ago, I haven’t picked up a book until last night. I finished a reread on April 19th and only just opened my most recent ARC on May 9th. There was nothing in between.
WebMD explains ‘freeze’ to be: “sense of dread; feeling stiff, heavy, cold, and numb; loud, pounding heart.”
Any time I thought about of book, all of the above hit me hard. For me, reading can be more devil than angel. When I can’t face my emotions, I’m grateful to know that my books are always there, waiting. Because stories, they make you face everything you are feeling. It may be second hand, but even as we read the words on the page, our minds are applying it to our own experiences. As an empath, I feel everything, and when I’m reading, that can feel too much at times. So, I’ve been in freeze mode, avoiding my books and my feelings.
Use My Words (aka Fight)
Over the last three weeks I’ve written a lot of words, just not here. I am not one to literally speak unless you directly ask me, but I write every thought down somewhere. Whether or not it ever gets shared is irrelevant, but between stories, journals, poems, and reflections, the words are somewhere. This is me fighting.
WebMD has an intense explanation of ‘fight’: “tight jaw; grinding your teeth; urge to punch something or someone; a feeling of intense anger; need to stomp or kick; crying in anger.”
While I don't always feel all of these while I’m writing, they end up somewhere in my words. When I’m writing, I’m forcing the feelings out. Intellectualizing them, which isn’t the same as feeling them, but the emotions are still being expelled from my system. When I close the laptop or put down the pen, elation bubbles out of me because that knotted thread that’s been in my head is now a nice, straight piece of string. Even if my first thought is a slightly shaming “it’s about time”, I feel so much better. Some of that emotion is released and I can move on with my day. Even if what I wrote brought tears to the surface.
Flight, Freeze, & Fight to Feel
I’m a thinker and I’m a feeler, but like most of us, I will think, think, and think to avoid feeling as much as I can. But that’s not how we grow.
Flight for me has been my favorite, honestly, because my emotional strength is exhausted. That girl needed to fly away and find something else to focus on. Each rep with those weights are lifting her up, supporting the emotions while they do their thing in the background. Because right now, they’re not too easily faced.
Freeze is always the hardest. I hate when I’m not reading my books. A great sense of guilt continues to wash over me. I’m a reader, always have been and always will be. So to go through periods of not reading because the emotions are too heavy is the worst. I’ve learned it isn’t something to muscle through since my emotions are already so tired. How could I possibly handle feeling more than what I’m already feeling?
Fight is my ‘love and hate’ relationship. While I would like to share more of my writing with the world, at the end of the day, just putting it down is everything for me. These words, the ones I’m writing this very minute, are my version of fighting. I’m refusing to let the thoughts stay trapped in my mind where they twist and tangle and torment. Instead, I’m smoothing them out, throwing away the ones that are wrong and keeping on that which is right.
