Your Nervous System Leads the Way

Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn are deep survival responses from your nervous system that not only give you the best chances of survival in acute and prolonged stressful — or even life and death — situations, they also form your life and your way of being in the world more broadly and creatively than you may be aware of.

We all have a go-to in the four F’s — Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn—that both affect our automatic responses in survival situations, our responses to outside stressors and conflicts, our choices in life and can lead the way into our more creative adaptations towards or away from pain and pleasure, and how we express our passions and vocations in life.

In this article I take you along for a dive into the nervous system and how it is formed through experiences. This moves us along to the four F’s to give an simple understanding of how humans (and animals) function at a deeper level and how this drives and forms so much of our behavior, reactions and feelings. A lot more could be said that would take us even deeper and wider, but I want to keep it to our way of being in the world — surviving and living — and give you some examples of how the four F’s can lead the way.
I’m not going into nervous system regulation, shame regulation and how to work with the vagus nerve. This is so important too, but it’s for a different article. In the meantime you can check out Alexia Rothman in the US and Ruth Culver in the UK, both of whom work from the IFS perspective and teach about the nervous system, especially the vagus nerve and the polyvagal theory.

How we respond depending on our nervous system go-to is an interesting topic to get curious about, both inside yourself and to notice in others. If you’re a Practitioner or Therapist like me, you may find it useful in your practice as well, because clients need different connection depending on how their nervous system responds in therapy, to their parts and in life.

How you respond to conflicts, to problems — and relationally in general — in the outside world, depends on what your nervous system learned in childhood.

As I have discussed in previous articles, the nervous system is formed, to a large degree, through the attachment relationships of your childhood. In this way, how your caregivers were able, or unable, to show up for you and connect with you, has impacted your way of being in the world; how you react when triggered, how you relate to others, and how you see yourself and other people.
Neither attachment styles (which we can discuss more in another article) nor nervous system reactions are boxes we can (or should) fit ourselves into. Instead they are trails and pathways into deeper understandings of the individual human psyche; being a human being inside and out, beyond, below and above consciousness.

Therefore, keep what you read here only as a backdrop of your connections with yourself and other people. Don’t let any new knowledge you acquire here define or get in the way of that.
And as always in my articles and on the podcast, only take what you can use. Give new ideas a try, chew on them a bit and spit out they does not feel true to you.
I hold no truth but my own and even that will change with time.

Who am I? In short, I’m a Certified Level 3 IFS trained Family Therapist. I’m a mother of two neurodivergent kids, creator of New Danish Parenting (NDP) and host of Parenting from the Inside Podcast. Want to know more, you can read about me here.

Okay, let’s take a dive into the nervous system!
One way I like to imagine the nervous system, is like an upside-down tree growing from inside the human body. You can see the brain and spinal cord (the central nervous system) as the roots and trunk from where so many nerves (including the vagus nerve) stretch out like branches throughout the whole body (this is the peripheral nervous system). And like a tree, the shaping, the resilience and the flexibility of the nervous system is very much depended on the external environment.

Another image I like a lot is the night sky: If you could look inside the brain and see all the billions of neurons, it would be like looking up at the night sky at night and see that vast endlessness of starts shining back at you.
And a bit like the stars send out rays of light and warmth, the neurons inside your brain reach out and connect with each other, forming pathways of connections every time you learn something new, and get stronger and faster the more the learning is repeated and nuanced.

Or as the famous quote by Donald Hebb goes: “What fires together, wires together” — You see an apple, mom says the word “apple” and two neurons connect, making the vision of an apple and the sound “a-p-p-l-e” connected to each other inside the brain. Pretty brilliant, huh?

When neural pathways are strong you don’t even have to think about it; you just ride that bicycle, drive your car, stop for red light, the fork hits your mouth (almost) every time, and your fingers dance over the piano keys once you have practiced it enough times.
This is the stuff your body and nervous system just knows how to do after experiencing it enough times.

The nervous system also learns how to be in relationships in a way that helps you feel safe, included, loved. And just as it keeps that heart pumping, keeps you breathing without you thinking about it and keeps your vital organs functioning, it know how to react in survival situations.

The nervous system and human beings are relational at the core and both living and actual survival is about just that.

In the early 1900’s American neurologist and physiologist Walter Cannon came up with the term Fight, Flight and Freeze to describe the innate survival responses of humans and animals. Later Fawn has been added into the mix. And if you’ve read psychologist and psychotherapist Janina Fisher, you might be aware of even more nuances that she has coined, some of which may fit you better than the four basic ones I’m describing. (I will not go into those in this article, but feel free to keep them in mind if that feels helpful to nuance my descriptions).

At their core Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn are about suvival. And when we are in survival situations, they can keep us alive. We have them in common with animals and you may recognize them in the huge amount of life and death situations animals face every day.
In (what feels like) life and death situations, we, like animals, will fight if there seems to be a chance of winning.
When there does not seem to be any point in fighting, we flee just like the gazelle when a lion approaches. In a fight it would not stand and a chance. It know this innately.
And when the gazelle is chased down and caught by the lion, it will “play dead” either stiffing (like a rabbit caught in the headlights of your car) or grow limp and lifeless as if actually dead. This is a form of dissociation, so that the pain of the lions claws and teeth will not be felt (ie I am not there).

Humans will do the same if for instance being attacked by a lion. And this is what the nervous system of rape victims and victims of other attacks of violence and power abuse will do to keep the damage to a minimum (both physical and mental) and to increase the chances of survival.
Going into freeze and dissociation like this is why victims of rape will sometimes blame themselves later for not having done anything to fight or escape. But it is entirely outside of your control when the survival system kicks in. You could not have acted differently.

And Freeze does increase the chances of survival, such as the cat growing tired of playing with the mouse and leaving it alone, or the lion mistaking the limp gazelle for a corpse (which it could get sick from eating) or just being unaware for a moment as it believes the chase is over. This gives the gazelle in freeze a new chance of flight; a chance to run away and survive.

The cool thing you’ll see when an animal escape its hunter or other dangers that had brought it into the sympathetic arousal (Fight, Flight) or the parasympathetic shutdown (Freeze), is that the animal will literally shake it off; It will shake its body, often violently and suddenly, releasing the accumulated energy and go back to “social engagement mode” of just being in the present without the sense of threat still stored in the body.

Human beings tend to not shake it off.

It’s a natural impulse to shake and sometimes our bodies will simply take over and do just that. But when we can control it, we often will, because it is not “socially acceptable” and we often fear that there is something wrong with us if we do shake. This is something human beings need to unlearn.
Shaking is good for you, it’s an incredibly smart system that knows exactly how to regulate back to balance. Back to the here and now.
And because human beings have learned to not regulate, many of us are walking around in a constant state of hyper — or hypo arousal. We spend a lot of our daily energy on this and of course it stresses the human system — the body and mind — and can lead to many physical and mental symptoms.

The Fawn response can be seen as a more social survival adaptation that we see especially in humans but also in animals, where we submit to an authority, predator or bully in order to survive (both in acute dangers, but also in the sense of staying in the group to survive). Most of us know this from our own need to please, to keep the peace, to caretake our caretakers and to not rock the boat by saying how we actually feel.

So there’s (1) survival responses from our nervous system when it’s real and acute; (2) survival responses from our nervous system that we’re stuck in because we don’t shake it off and then (3) there’s what becomes our way of being in the world, expressing ourselves, dealing with problems, responding to conflicts and reacting and being in our close relationships.

Based on which of the four F’s — Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn — have been most socially acceptable in your childhood home, which one was necessary to keep you safe enough and what you parents expected and needed you to be, you will have a go-to in the four F’s.
This go-to is also the one that, without you even thinking about it, leads the way in how you respond to the big and small events of the outside word. This will effect how you react in conflicts in the workplace or romantic relationships, how you participate in the politics and norms of your specific society, how you react to injustice or how you believe you can (or cannot) make a difference in the structures and “normalities” around you.

In this way the four F’s are not only active in acute survival situations, but play into our everyday lives. This is not a bad thing, but something to be curious about. It’s something that can help us understand ourselves and each other better and more deeply (including how differently other people may experience big events based on their nervous system go-to).
And when conscious about it, we can work with our nervous systems to create more flexibility and choice, and we can begin to move ourselves out of states that we may be stuck in due to past events that are not yet fully processed at a nervous system level.

One way to process past event, relationships and childhood trauma is through therapeutic modalities that include the nervous system. This can be Internal Family Systems (IFS) — you may need to check with your IFS Therapist or Practitioner that they are trained to work with the body, nervous system and with trauma — Somatic Experiencing (SE) or other somatically based therapies.

Let’s look more closely at the four F’s, how they may impact our everyday lives and how they lead our way in external conflicts.

In the below I offer glimpses into my own experiences of the four F’s and examples of how they can impact different people. This is not a complete list at all and, as everything else that is alive, the four F’s cannot always be clearly differentiated from one another and the creative adaptations coming from them can of course come about in other ways as well, so don’t let my words, experiences or examples overrule what feels true and right inside your system. You know you.

Fight
A few years ago I attended group therapy as a participant and around that time something at a political level was happening here in Denmark that many people was upset about.
My reaction to stuff like that is something along: “There is no use in fighting the “big” systems directly. No one listens.”
This comes from a deeper places that feels that: “The outer world is not safe, you can’t count on the adults to have you best interest and most of all you can’t trust the adults to listen to you even if you try, so there is no reason to yell and fight. Demos are for show, so that we can all disagree together, but no one will listen, nothing will change. Your best chance is to shut off to it, shield yourself from the overwhelm and do what you can to help by listenting to the people most hurt and affected by it.”
So that’s my go-to when things happen in the outside world. This reaction belongs in the Freeze section below.

Now, what was interesting in this particular group meeting, was that one of the other participants had a very different reaction, one I had heard from her many times before in regards to other conflicts and to what she saw as injustice and problems in the world. Her reaction was to get loud, make noise, make plans to go against and to fight for what’s right. She believed she could make a difference and she did not understand why other people did not get up and fight! Why did other people not care?! Why didn’t they do something?
It was eye opening for me back then to see the Therapist guide her back to where this Fight reaction originated and how it had shaped her way of moving through the world. I’m not going to repeat her specific story here, but just say that it was one where fighting and being loud was needed and helpful to feel seen and safe with her caregivers, one where fighting sometimes worked and created more connection (creating some kind of felt safety) to her caregivers.
As I listed to her journey back through her childhood, I did a journey of my own as well, noticing the few times in early childhood that I did cry out, did try to be heard and seen (Fight), the lack of positive response to my outcry and the negative or shaming responses I got instead. I noticed the slamming of doors, the trying to get away (flight) that was never really possible in our small apartment with three other siblings, the shaming of my attempts and thus the shut down (Freeze) that ended up being the only possible solution in my nervous system.

In Fight mode, if someone attacks, you fight back. If someone yell at you, you yell back and defend yourself. You may fight for yourself, fight for others, fight for fairness, fight for survival, fight for those weaker than you. Stuck in this mode, or easily triggered into fight, you may end up fighting those you love. And you run the risk push people away.

When balanced, Fight mode is great for feeling yourself from the inside, connecting with your anger, knowing your truth, setting clear boundaries and standing tall in your truth. There’s a lot of power in Fight.

In my experience, a lot of women are not very much in contact with the Fight mode of their nervous system (Being “the good girl” is learned in so many ways in many societies around the world) and especially after becoming mothers, a lot of women struggle, because the don’t have a felt sense of their own boundaries, who they are and what they want and don’t want (which can make it difficult for their children to really feel them). Or the anger they have never really felt before gets triggered by this new vulnerable relationship to their child (or partner) and sudden bursts of anger and rage surprises and shocks them.

The little child cries out before there is even a language, and if mom and dad hears them, they learn that it pays off to express themselves. I am heard when I call out. Some children, even if the parents don’t listen, stays in fight mode and doesn’t give up. Maybe there’s just a lot more fight in these children (It does seem that children are born with a temperament, so this can definitely play into it), maybe the child cooperate with the underlying need of the family rather than the surface need (this is a topic that I will dive into in future writings about New Danish Parenting (NDP)), or maybe the parents listened enough times, for the child to know that fighting can pay off.

The Fight mode, as I perceive it, is not just about fighting, but also about seeking, getting up, trying again, finding new ways towards our needs and our wants in relationships and in our learning opportunities, in work and in life in general. There’s a lot of power and good energy to tap into here.

If your Fight system is very reactive (or even explosive), this may indicate that you have not had enough help regulating your emotions or early shame states.
Often we fight by searching for the other person (like the child who cannot feel their caregivers): I don’t get it, I don’t feel you, I don’t feel seen! I’m not safe.

Flight
I used to hike a lot. Alone. In nature. On the streets of the world. Singing. Writing poetry. Moving away-from, and towards the unknown.

Did I have stuff to run from back in my early 20’s? Oh yes! Running from the meaninglessness of life, running from difficult emotions that I had no idea how to process — or that processing emotions was even a thing — Walk it off for about three days, then they become less pressing and you notice them less and less until someone or something triggers them back to surface level again. From Flights perspective, that’s a pretty good tactic.

I’ve learned a lot since then, but the very few times a year I get really triggered, walking (even just for an hour or so), helps tremendously. I don’t just walk it off in the same way anymore, but walking and running is in my personal experience an amazing way to process emotions (and the situations or relationships that have triggered them).
I know movement (and stimming) help a lot of us neurodivergent people process both information and emotions, but I imagine it’s helpful for the Neurotypicals as well.
This is of course not the same as Flight mode, but the movement of Flight and out of Freeze, for me, has strong connotations the the movement that helps us process instead of just shutting down and not being able to take in anything.

When there’s danger, running away is a smart move towards safety. Animals (including humans) instinctively know this. This is the natural and innate survival reaction when fighting is not likely to be favourable. And again when Flight is not possible (or favourable) Fawn or Freeze is next in line.
When humans are stuck in Flight however, they tend to run away promptly from anything that may threaten to overwhelm, to be dangerous, to create conflict or trigger into difficult emotional territory. The flight can be quite a driver into either socially accepted behaviours— like the workaholic — or socially unaccepted behaviors — like the alcoholic.

We can escape into our work or into drugs and alcohol, into food, into exercise, into hobbies, into work. We avoid by doing something else — outside of ourselves (where in Freeze we may escape inside ourselves) — we can distract away from the pain that we may or may not know is there.

This can be more or less extreme and having either of the four F’s as a go-to should not be seen as a problem in itself — instead it’s a survival-solution of your nervous system. If it’s very extreme and rigid, then we know there’s a lot of pain underneath that needs connection (often in therapy).

And in the big or small everyday situations, we want to create awareness of how we react and why we react the way we do, so it’s not just automatic (like I feel something painful, so I eat) and rigid, but more of a conscious choice we can make and an awareness of the underlying pain that needs our loving attention when we do get triggered.

When we have Flight as our go-to, our first reaction to conflict, difficulty and pain is to escape it.
This can look like avoiding situations and people that you’re in conflict with. Taking longer rutes or different paths to avoid what we don’t want to face.
It can look like not wanting to talk about difficult stuff — be it out there in the world, at work or in our close relationships— and feeling trapped when other people “hunt us down” and “trap” us (Fight), not letting us avoid. If we’re not able to escape the trap, then Fight, Freeze or Fawn may be next in line, unless we feel safe enough (regulated enough in our nervous system) to stay in social engagement mode and actually talk about it calmly. This is possible when we’re able to stay in what we call our Window of Tolerance, meaning staying regulated enough because our nervous system feels safe enough to engage.

Where the Fight system may more toward what it wants or needs, the Flight system is likely to move away from what it does not want and what does not feel good or safe. Moving away from something that is not good for creates possible paths towards something good and clears up space for new relationships and opportunities to enter into our lives.

Freeze
I was always a day-dreamer, made stories on the inside as long back as I can remember and always had a fantasy world as rich — or richer — than the one outside of myself. It was both an escape from the outer world and, without me being aware of it, way to process what was going on around me. The inner system is smart in that way and since learning Internal Family Systems (IFS), this inner processing has become even stronger, because it has become conscious, intentional and really powerful. What I used to think was just fantasies and stories (ie not real), I can now see as parts showing up, protecting me (and my more vulnerable parts), and sharing their pain, their dreams and their stories.
I have hundreds of stories, screenplays, novels, plays, poems — finished and unfinished — that I can now see in a very different light. Writing has always been my most treasured companion.
There’s a so much our dreams, our fantasies and our stories can tell us about our lives, our pain, who we are and who we are to become.

When Fight, Flight and Fawn are not options that work very well in our family of origin, the Freeze response is what the nervous system lands in.
We shut down, shut ourselves in, create our own inner world that no one else can access (and will maybe never hear about).

In my own story Freeze and neurodivergence goes hand in hand. (This does not mean that they do so for other people). Not being understood, being misunderstood, not being seen in a busy everyday life, creates a normality of shame, shut down, keeping to yourself, not reaching out, and shutting down when someone does poke at you (in a bullying way, in strict school-teacher way, or, not very often at all, in a friendly, loving or caring way). Shut down can mean I go into an actual Freeze or shame response, where I dissociate/disappear for a few seconds or longer, it can mean going blank and not knowing what to say (which then often creates a shame response on to of that), it can mean stumbling over my words or going completely pale and cold (or red and warm).

When things happen in the world that the person with Freeze response as a go-to do not agree with, there can be a process of shutting down the uncomfortable feelings and sensations. During this process (minutes, hours, days), the person is likely to not be functioning — depending on the trigger — and may get physically sick for that period.

As a teenager (and probably sooner as well) I used to get physically unwell when things were overwhelming me in school (this is actually pretty smart, because then I was forced away from the overwhelm). Today I get easily sick in general as well (as my longterm clients know) and when overwhelmed beyond my capacity, my system still reacts like it did when I was a school kid; I get physically sick.

In conflicts out there in the world, the Freeze system does not expect to be able to make a difference, since the experiences the nervous system was formed through, has taught it that it’s no use to reach out, to call for change or justice, and perhaps even that there is no escape other than shutting down and waiting for it to be over.
It’s not that people in Freeze mode don’t care, but their nervous system will often not tolerate the sympathetic arousal of fighting and will either go into some degree of shut down preemptively or if they do try to engage, they are likely to be somewhat dissociated and therefore not clear in their Fight energy, with the result that others don’t hear them, and they will probably prove themselves right; Fighting does not work. No one hears me.
They do care, but they don’t believe they can make a change through fighting. Even if they have seen it happen or been told so, the cognitive knowledge will not reach the deeper layers so easily.
If you look closer you may see other creative ways that they make a difference or at least try to do so.

In a survival situation the Freeze system is still and stiff on the outside but racing underneath. There’s a numbness and maybe confusion on top of the Fight and Flight instincts like a lid keeping it in.
When the Freeze response is prolonged, for instance in an abusive relationship, in unsafe times or when the individual is unable to release the energy after the acute danger is over, it can show up as anxiety, hypervigilance, general numbness to the world and oneself, getting easily startled by touch, sound and other sensations that others may not even take note of.
In this way Freeze has a lot of energy, sometimes right under the surface and sometimes deeper within. When the Freeze goes deeper, it goes into what we call Dorsal Vagal where the actual collapse happens. Then you’re not just the deer in the headlights but flat and floppy on the ground and not conscious to any form of connection. You’re not there.

Freeze mode in everyday life can look like being kind of numb to the world and/or numb to yourself. You may have little or no awareness of your body. Maybe it feels like there’s just emptiness there when you try to feel into yourself. This is an inner dissociation (of some degree) where you don’t read the signals of your body; you have little or no connection to your gut feeling (and intuition). Even though the gut and the body constantly sends signals and information up to the conscious brain through the nervous system, the brain stuck in Freeze is not reading these messages.
Learning to listen again takes time and practice. Remember how the neural pathways are created through practice. This happens throughout life and it’s never to late to reconnect.

Where there can be a lot of doing in Fight and Flight (towards and away from), Freeze is more connected to stillness, stiffness, inner disconnect and just being.
The stronger the Freeze, however, this being will be a dissociated one, where you’re not present to the world and relationships around you and/or to yourself.

The way I see it there’s the deep survival stages of Freeze (and the other F’s) and there’s the lighter stages and the creative ways we are formed from being in these stages.
In this way the disconnect of Freeze, especially when it’s not a total inner disconnect, but more towards a disconnect to the outside, can lead the way towards inner creativity and inner being with a different kind of presence and awareness on the inside. When we disappear from the outside, we may appear on the inside, sometimes in clouded, metaphoric, symbolic and imaginative way that helps us not sink into the rawness underlying the images and pain. And sometimes in in ways that are too scary to be with and to handle on our own.
I imagine I’m not the only writer coming from this nervous system state as a way to be with, to process and keep what I hold, and as a safe enough way to share, to connect and to belong.
The more we heal, the more this can transform and become a true journey back to ourselves.

Someone who has Freeze as their go-to may actually know themselves deeply, because their system knows how to be still. But they may not be able to translate themselves to the outer world because there’s a disconnect between inside and outside.
So working through our stuck Freeze responses and the trauma that got us stuck there, can change the inner disconnect, to inner connection.

Fawn
I remember this one most clearly in school, in my early teenage years, where trying to fit in with our peers becomes so important. For me it never seemed to work. When you’re a neurodivergent kid (I did not know that was a thing back then), with a lot of shut down (shame) in your system, pleasing and fitting in with the Neurotypicals is a losing battle.

In deep Fawn response we lay down flat and let the other person walk all over us, we lose our boundaries and may even invite the pain as a way of keeping some sense of control, which slowly leads to losing any sense of who we really are underneath it all. “I am who you tell me to be” in order to be loved and/or in order to be safe enough.

The Fawn response will people-please and take care of the needs of everybody else in order to feel safe enough. It may be hard for them to connect directly with their own needs and it will not feel safe to ask directly for what they need. Taking care of others becomes a vicarious way of feeling cared for and loved.
They get connection by giving connection, the get a sense of being loved by being loving, they can have a really hard time saying no to others, because saying no means that they will lose connection and love. Especially in the child-caregiver relationship that this is borne from, losing connection and love feels extremely unsafe.

A lot of Therapists and Practitioners come into the field because they learned to caretake, to have their antennas out and to sense into other people in a way that can be really helpful in our profession, but which will also lead to fatigue and drain the Therapist or Practitioner because they are likely to work from their Managers, to overstep their own boundaries and give from a place that get’s empty.

Therapists and Practitioners coming from the other F’s, may do so with a powerful resourcefulness of wanting to help and create change in the world of relationships (Fight), as a way of finding answers and knowledge outside of themselves (often through numerous educations and degrees), creating an excellent escape full of passion and growth (Flight) or finding ways of being in connection that has so much meaning and depth, that they never knew existed, and that feels safe enough from the Therapist chair (Freeze).

In a dangerous situation or relationship pleasing and appeasing the perpetrator, increases our chances of survival. It’s an amazing survival strategi.
In a family system where caretaking for mom or dad becomes the way to feel connected, feel loved, feeling important, getting some kind of attention (being seen for what we do), is also an amazing survival skill. Children need their parents to survive physically and they need to feel love and belonging to survive mentally. Therefore in the household where caretaking is a (implicit or explicit) demand from the emotionally immature parent, this role lands on the child and it is a competent and social (but not conscious) respons from the often very young child to fawn and please for their caregivers.

Of course growing up having to please, pleasing and fawning becomes a strong nervous system go-to because more and more neural pathways (those little arms reaching out between the neurons in your brain and body) becomes really strong and lubricated, and it becomes part of your personality. You’re someone who cares, someone who listens, someone who never says no to helping, someone who gives and never takes, someone who never complains and often takes pleasure in helping others. But there is fatigue, there’s tiredness, there’s physical symptoms and maybe illness because the body says no when you don’t.

When conflicts arise, you don’t feel safe to speak your mind (unless you’re sure the other person shares your view), you may agree with things that are not actually true to you, you keep quite to keep the peace and you get into situations and relationships that are not good or right for you.

Setting your boundaries, leaving what is not right for you, taking care of yourself instead of others, feels selfish and unsafe inside your nervous system. It was unsafe at one point and the guilt you experience points back to that. People may even tell you that you’re selfish, perhaps because you attract the type of people who like having a caretaker; like you for your role, or perhaps because you end up setting your boundaries very harshly and abruptly when you finally do.

In finding your way back to yourself from the Fawn response, you want to go slow, instead of just setting the boundaries that other people tell you tat you need to start setting, beginning to notice inside what feels true and right for you. It’s hard to set a boundary you don’t feel or that you question. Do I feel this way? Am I allowed to feel this way? Is it a reasonable boundary to have? Will they leave me if I set it? And not having been allowed to set your boundaries as a child, setting them in a way that is Self-led and clear, takes practice.

Where do you see yourself?
You may recognize yourself somewhat in one of the four F’s. Or you perhaps you don’t recognize yourself in any of my descriptions, but even so I hope you’ve gotten an understanding of the nervous system and how the four F’s can impact our survival and our living.
Or perhaps you recognized yourself very clearly in more than one of the four F’s. This is because we all have the four responses innately in our nervous systems. And just like I have described some of the ways they apply to my life and nervous system, it make sense that you may see reactions, sides or parts of yourself in the different ones.

If there’s one that you don’t recognize yourself in very clearly at all, this is somewhere you may want to get curious and explore more — For me the Fight response is the most dissociated one and therefore something I can work towards, slowly and respectfully, in order to create more choice and more freedom in my nervous system and in my life.
Or if your go-to is very strong and rigid or you easily get triggered towards survival, then this is where your work lies; this is where something is calling out to be witnessed and healed.

With all of the four F’s and being a human being in general, there are so many nuances and so much lived experience that plays into the life, the inner world and the nervous system of every single human being.
Nothing that’s living fits in a box.
None of what you have read here are definitions or ultimate truths. It’s all just words, views and ideas that may help you see and feel yourself in, or see and feel yourself against.

It’s only beneficial if it helps you find your way back to you.

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