What do you DO when you are threatened?

July 25, 2021

When you encounter a threat what do you do?

What is your first reaction?

First let’s define “threat”. 

There are two kinds of threats.

Real threats to our safety and survival or false threats the ego perceives as dangerous to our survival.

A real threat is something akin to our ancestors encountering a saber tooth tiger 🐅 walking in the brush.

Imagine the modern day version of that. Perhaps you are out on a hike and encountering a bobcat.

You can imagine how you might respond.  The body will likely tense up, adrenaline and dopamine will begin to course through our veins and ALL of our attention is focused on how the hell to get out safely. No Instagram post or text has a chance at getting our attention at this moment.

Close your eyes and take a moment to imagine what that might FEEL like in your body?

Notice where the tension or constriction first occurs. Is it your mouth/ jaw or your neck? Maybe your hands ball up?  Perhaps you notice a pit in your stomach. Or holding your breath.

These are automatic. The body knows how to prepare when in a threatened state. Notice we don’t have to give the body directions or instructions on HOW to respond when faced with a threat. It is intuitive.

Now here’s the deal. Even when we are faced with a false threat, our body will have all or some of the same responses. 

Now imagine your significant other walks in the door and says I lost my job, I’m sick 😷, or I’m having an affair, or your kid tells you they are not going to college or just crashed the car 🚗 or failed a big test.

The first thing you likely notice is your fear based thoughts. 

“Shit! I can’t believe this is happening. Now what?”  And you and your mind are off to the races. 

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NORMAL!  IT IS NOT A PROBLEM. 

The problem?

We are so busy paying attention to that head of ours and all those fear based thoughts that we don’t notice what is going on in our body.

We are unaware. 

We’ve normalized things like a stiff neck or tight jaw or pinch in our back. We don’t realize that the body is always talking to us and when we don’t pay attention.  We miss important and valuable information that can be helpful to us.

However, when you are truly present – you give yourself the gift of awareness.  From presence, you tune into the body first and allow all the conditioned and unconscious fears to move through you before getting wrapped up in the cognitive emotive loop of fear that occurs in the head. 

From this place you can see more clearly and make choices and decisions much more easily and consciously,  not driven by the ego’s false perception of fear.

Stay tuned next week where I’ll share what one of my young adult clients learned when she tuned into her body and trusted herself. 

Get to know yourself better. Learn HOW to discern the difference between real fear and false (ego based) fear by tuning into the wisdom of your body with my Check in meditation.  Practice daily and see what you notice in your body.

With gratitude,

Annmarie Chereso
Author, Speaker, Coach, & Meditation Teacher

PS:  Feeling stuck and want a little more support? Let me know. I have a couple of 1:1 spots available this month.