Self-Regulation Toolkit Part 2: Fight or Flight

Welcome back to Sex Love Power. I'm Michelle Lisenberry Christensen and I invite you here each week to join this conversation. Because if we're going to have amazing relationships in this intense climate, and given how complex, bright, ambitious people are, we need to talk about the nuances of love and sex and power and our own wild hearts, bodies and minds. This podcast is where I drop the seeds that grow our crucial conversations. You talk back by dming me on social media, leaving a message at 206-659-9865 or inside the episode thread on our mighty network, which you can join@society.lizenberry.com the number and the link are in the show Notes. Today we've got part two of our conversation about your nervous system and how to make the most of it so that you can settle down. Today I'm sharing the second part of my conversation with my dear friend Jessica Pullens, Ph.D. about your nervous system and how to take the best care of it. Jessica's a clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment of trauma self regulation. Learning how to calm down is a big part of what she does with her patients. And as the two of us talked about our own experiences with self regulation and how to use our whole nervous system to move ourselves up the ladder of self regulation from a frozen state to be able to access a fight or flight state, and ultimately to be able to access the most responsive, connected places, we broke our conversation up into two episodes. This is the second part of that conversation. Enjoy.

Great to be back. Michelle. Hi.

Hey, Jess.

So last time we talked about Polyvagal theory, we talked about the three different sections. The upside down traffic light was the image that we used. The green light at the top is the social engagement place in the nervous system where we feel safe, where we can connect with others. We feel at ease. We're really our best self in that space. The yellow light is fight or flight. The red light is the freeze response. That's what we spoke about last week in a lot of detail. Not only what it feels like and looks like, but ways you can sort of hack that response if you've decided that you aren't actually facing a serious threat and you can sort of move your body into a place of better regulation and ultimately to a place of safety. So today we're going to spend more time focusing on the fight or flight response, how to recognize it in yourself, what to do when you're in it, and also some ways that, like we spoke about last week, it can impact our personal relationships and our Intimate relationships, probably in ways that we don't intend and we don't like.

Yeah.

So if you're in fight or flight, your amygdala has decided that you are not in mortal danger enough so that you have to freeze. You're not necessarily in enough shame so that you have to freeze. But there is a threat present. You've perceived a threat, and there may also be an emotional threat present. I think of this more in the sort of guilt zone rather than the shame zone. There's a whole range of emotions that can trigger someone into fight or flight. But fight or flight looks like either a person getting up and leaving flight. Right. A person running out of the room, or it looks like a person charging at you, essentially. And that could be physically or that could be verbally. If a person is raising his or her voice, they are in fight. Okay. They're in fight or flight. And let me say it's really important, actually. Our brain does this split second decision making process when there's a perceived threat. The brain says, can I outrun this? Because it wants to do flight first. It's the least expensive for your body. It's the safest for your body.

It's the rabbit or deer approach, right?

Yes, exactly right. Can I outrun this? Can I escape it? If the answer is yes, you escape it. If the answer is no, then your brain immediately says, can I overpower this? And if the answer is yes, you go into flight. And if the answer is no, you go into freeze. I can't escape it. I can't overpower it.

Okay, so if I can't escape it, I'm a run. If I can't escape it, I'm going to ask, can I overpower it? If I can overpower it, I'm going to fight.

Yes.

If I can't overpower it, I'm going to shut down.

I'm going to shut down and try to protect my vital organs and survive. Right. I freeze.

I'm going to go fetal.

Yeah, I'm going to go fetal. Exactly. And so that's the process that happens every single time we have one of these states turn on. Okay. So if you're in flee, you have decided that you can escape this threat. And so you're either getting up and walking out of the room or you're sort of saying, no, I don't want to talk about this, and you leave. But you're getting yourself away from the perceived threat. If your mind has decided that you can't get away from the perceived threat and that it thinks you can probably overpower the threat. You're going to come out swinging, probably verbally, probably by volume, hopefully not physically. Right. So a raised voice, a puffed up, big body posture, big movements. We have facial expressions that go with fight. Right. Raised eyes. Is that right? Do we.

I just made big eyes at her.

Doing it right now. We're thumping chest right now. Right. Just think about any time you've seen two men in a disagreement, they go right up to each other, chest to chest, face to face, hands balled into fists. They are in fight mode and their brains are deciding, can I overpower this? Right.

Or can I at least make this person think that I can overpower them?

Yeah.

And it's subtler in intimate relationships because our ways of overpowering have more to do with our detailed maps that we all have about what will back my partner off.

That's right. What button can I push that is going to get this person to crumple? Right.

I'm just going to kind of kneecap out.

And we aren't doing that on purpose. I can just sneak out, get them.

To back off or at least buy some time.

That's exactly right. And we again, to sort of use the same idea that you used before with the stonewalling. When we're in this state, we're not trying to hurt people. We're not thinking, how can I? Well, that's not exactly true. We actually are trying to think, how can I hurt people? But that's not because that's who we are. Our nervous system is. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right.

An example from a client from the other day, like they got into an argument and he said, I don't like it when you do this to me. And she said, well, but you always do that to me. So if I can shift the blame, I'm feeling blamed. That's got me in a fight or flight reactivity. And if I can deflect the attention over to things you've done wrong, then maybe we don't have to talk about what I did in this situation or how it made you feel.

That's right. That's right. And one of the ways I know I'm in fight or flight and it is such a dick move, is that my voice will actually get very calm and steady and I will bust out the biggest vocabulary words that I know to try to intimidate the other person. And I used to do that to my. A previous partner who I knew would get scrambled by that. And it's Such a dicky thing to do. But it was a way of overpowering. Right? I can out. Thank you. I'm going to demonstrate right now that I think I'm smarter than you. You cannot win this fight.

Yes, well, and it takes a lot of self awareness for you to say that, because I think a lot of articulate people would go, what? I'm just using a calm voice. I'm being reasonable. Oh, do you want me to use a smaller vocab? I need to dumb myself down to relate to this person.

Right.

So you could really claim this, like, unassailable moral high ground there. But you have enough self awareness to recognize, like, be it as it may, I have a big vocabulary and I'm capable of speaking calmly even when I'm upset.

I just weaponized that that's exactly what I was doing. And so I know now when I. When that starts happening, wait a minute, I'm in fight. I need to do something to regulate myself. Nothing good is going to come from this conversation. And I might actually corrode my relationship with this person.

Yes. That phrase, nothing good can come saved our relationship. It was probably not long after we got married, maybe 2002, 2003, Kurt and I began to recognize that we would get into fight or flight. And we would have these horrible, horrible arguments. And I didn't want to let him go. Maybe I thought that I could overpower him. So I wasn't running. I wasn't going to run.

I didn't care how late it got.

We were going to hash this shit out all night. I think Lionel Richie has a song about it.

All night, all night long.

But it's not a party song in.

Our case at all.

It was so bad, and it was such a relief. We still didn't know what to do instead, but it was such a relief to get out of fighting all ding dang night and to recognize, oh, no more good can come from continuing to talk about this. Now. Both of us are flooded. We're triggered. Our lids are flipped. And now I know, like, dorsal vagal, right?

No, you're in fight in that mode.

Okay.

Right, you're in fight. You're not in freeze because you're fighting. You have words. So you're in fight. You're fighting for survival.

Frozen. Yeah, we're fighting for survival.

Yes, he was frozen. He was frozen. You were in fight because you were. You were still going for it verbally, right? And the more he froze, probably the more you fought. And the more you fought, the more he froze, more the More. Yep. The more, the more, the more I do that.

Yeah. And so just if you can relate to that story, just know that that's really a good first step is just to recognize, oh wow. We do this dance over and over and it only and always ever makes things worse.

Absolutely.

We're damaging our love and we're damaging our will to go back with each other and try again. And so please.

And you're damaging your bodies. Yes. There's a cascade of stress chemicals that happens whenever we're in these states. It does actual harm to us. It's expensive. And so if you're locked in battle with your partner all the time, it's costing you, it's costing you physical health and longevity to be in that state. So if you think about it by calling a timeout or saying, let's take a break, we'll come back to this when we're calmer. That is to your mind, escaping, all of a sudden you've gone back up the decision tree. I get to escape from this threat. I'm going to just go into a different room, lie down with a blanket, do some deep breathing. He's going to go over there, go to the man cave, whatever it is. Your nervous system gets to start calming down when you are out of each other's presence, when you're unlocked from the fight and you start regulating, you go back up to, I've just escaped the threat. It's one of the hardest things that people learn in couples work and in relationships is when you are in battle, stop. Go to your corners. That's right. Nothing good will come from continuing it. Cooler heads prevail. Go get regulated. And with time you'll learn to co regulate, which is magical. But go get yourself regulated so that you can return to this person who you love with love to sort these things out. Right? Yeah.

The journey of becoming that co regulating source of comfort to one another, even when one or both of you are upset, begins with stopping the bloodshed.

That's right.

People who are in that place where that's just what they're learning how to do often think of this as like, I can't let go. If I let go of this, I'm conceding that it's okay that he's so toxic for me. Like it's not that he's toxic for you or that you're toxic for him. The dance you two do is a toxic, toxic dance. So let's quit that. You have gorgeous shoes, both of you. We're just doing the wrong steps. Here. And it's. I just want to extend so much compassion because we learned this stuff in homes where maybe nobody knew how to communicate effectively. And maybe you inherited a really intensely sensitive, reactive nervous system like I did. Or maybe yours is a little less jangle prone than mine. But regardless, if you haven't known how to get through emotionally stimulating situations without dropping into these states that are less resourceful, of course you've repeated the same patterns. So just very.

You don't have a choice right here.

Yeah, it happens.

Yeah, you don't have a choice. And I like to think of it as once you become aware of yourself in these states and the ways that you might stay stuck in them because of engaging with a person around and around. I like to think of it as, I'm going to choose not to participate in this anymore in this way because it diminishes me. Me. It diminishes him, and it diminishes me or her. It diminishes me. I don't like who I am in this state. I want to bring my best self to this relationship. To do that, I need to be regulated. Because when I'm regulated, I am at the height of my self awareness, of my compassion, of my soul. I can bring my best self when I am regulated and feeling safe. And that's what I want for my relationship. So yes, yeah, yeah.

I want my behavior to match my identity. Right. I identify that bigger, loving, generous, spacious, resilient person. And then when I get like this with you up in the middle of this stuff, I don't like who I am or how I am. And I need to be able to stay in a place of my own integrity.

Let's loop back quickly just to our sort of opposite idea with fight or flight. So when we're in fight or flight, our faces are kind of squished up in a grimace or a threat. Our fists are bald. Our balls might be fisted too.

Balls are fisted.

We are having rapid, shallow breath. Our hearts are racing, our muscles are tight and tense, preparing to either run for our lives or to physically fight. And so start thinking about what are the opposite things to that. If we're having rapid, shallow breath, we need to be doing slow, steady, deep breath, preferably belly breathing or diaphragmatic breathing. Probably the first thing, most effective thing we can do to stop the fight or flight progression. If your hands are in fists, notice that open your hands and relax them. Even shake your hands. I'm shaking my hands and my arms right now. Shaking, shaking, shaking. Shaking is actually A way to get out of fight or flight because it kind of starts to discharge the stress chemicals from your body. Another thing you can do is, if you're in tight, tense muscles, because you're in fight or flight, is to try to go someplace and flop. Flop on a couch, flop on a bed, flop on the carpet repeatedly if needed. Flop, flop, flop, flop again, flop again, McFlop again. Warm, loose, wet spaghetti muscles is what you want, right? And then because your mind reads your face and your body to know what state it's in, relax your face, smooth your forehead, smooth your cheeks, unclench your jaw, move your jaw around, loosen your face. If you can do that. If you can get into a posture of relaxation when you're in fight or flight, while you are diaphragmatically breathing, your body is going to decide, oh, she could only be doing this if she was safe, so she must be safe. I'm going to start calming down now. Yes.

And quite literally, the face and the ears are directly connected to the vagus nerve and so or the other cranial nerves. And so by rubbing and pulling on your ears or smoothing your face with your hands, you can directly soothe those nerves and talk back to your nervous system to say, we're safe, all is well. We don't.

I love it. One of my other favorite tricks for stimulating the vagus nerve is called vu breath. And so when you're doing your deep breathing, see if you can actually say the word vu while vibrating your throat. That will massage your vagus nerve and it will turn on a parasympathetic relaxation response. So nice deep breath. And I feel it in my throat. I can feel my whole throat vibrating. I would do that for like maybe five minutes at a time. Nice, deep breath in. Vu, breath out. Om can do it, right? Yep.

And gargling.

Gargling can do it. Gargling, gargling liquids.

Which is fun.

It is fun. And my favorite of all time, laughing. Guess what laughing is? Laughing is stimulating the vagus nerve. So if you are in a situation that you're so enraged that you can't laugh, take a break, do some breathing, flop your body, and then go turn on a funny movie or go turn on stand up comedy. My boyfriend, when he is having insomnia due to stress at work, he will turn on stand up comedy, start laughing. He's asleep in five minutes. It's because the laughter has turned on his relaxation response.

Isn't that amazing how we're designed?

It's incredible. And it's incredible that all these things that we do are all little secret wonderful keys to self regulation and we're not even aware of it. Singing and especially singing joyful music with your arms up in the air will actually get you out of fight or flight. So like gospel music or like Beethoven's Ode to Joy or some wonderful song that makes you sing with your whole body with a smile on your face. Anything?

Michael Franti yeah.

That'S exactly. So that's going to get you up into your social engagement safety part of your vagus response.

Awesome. Well this is such a great little toolkit that you've introduced and in the show notes you'll find the links everybody to get to some I'll make a condensation of the tips that Jess has given so that you can begin to build these into your day for non emergency situations and that you can build a little toolkit that you can kind of break the glass in case of emergency when you're finding that you're in freeze or you're in fight or flight and you want to get back to that state where you can connect and stay connected to yourself and to your partner. So thank you so much Jess. What an amazing conversation.

Sounds good. You're a rock star. Yay. So are you.

Thank you.

I wish I could. Thank you. Hug, hug, hug. Bye. Love you. Bye bye. Love you too.

I hope you've found these two episodes about your self regulation valuable. The more you practice noticing what state you're in and using the right tools for the job to move yourself up from a freeze to an activated response and on up to a connected place where your best self is accessible, the easier it's going to get and the more resilient you'll feel. My entire outlook on relationship changed when I began to learn and practice these skills. I hope it does the same for you. Now for a concrete written set of these ideas that we discussed here, please download the handy guide that we'll link to in the show notes. I also want to invite you to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. Please go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and hit the subscribe button so that you always get notifications of new episodes each week. And if you've enjoyed this or other episodes, what would help me and the podcast immensely is if you would leave a review, particularly in Apple Podcasts because those are a huge help in finding new listeners and growing the positive impact these conversations can have. So please go leave a review right now with a few words about what the show gives you. I would so appreciate it. That's it for this week till we're here again. I'll see you in the secret society@society.lizenberry.com or you can leave me your stories and insights at 206-659-9865. I want so much for you in love, in bed, and in your sweetheart mind and body. This podcast is how I do my best to help you have more pleasure, more centeredness, more resilience, and more aliveness. Thank you for the honor of your time to listen. I hope today's listen has given you inspiration, clarity, and ideas for how you can grow your capacity for self regulation. I'll see you back here same time next week. Until then, may the light within you illuminate the world around you.