Survival States Are Not The Enemy
When we feel threatened or really overwhelmed, the nervous system automatically moves into survival mode. Two primary survival states the nervous system opts for are fight-or-flight and freeze.
In fight-or-flight, energy floods into the body so that we can act with speed and power. If a snarling dog suddenly lunges at me, fight-or-flight gives me the opportunity to dart away and avoid danger.
Freeze happens when the nervous system determines that fight-or-flight won’t get us to safety; instead, we need to be still, maybe to be invisible or to go numb, to dissociate or even lose consciousness.
Say the snarling dog has me corned. Well, if I freeze, perhaps it will become disinterested in me and seek stimulation elsewhere. And if the dog does indeed attack me, the analgesic effect of the freeze response will help numb the pain.
These survival states are superpowers. They keep us alive. It’s awesome that we have them as tools to rely on when things get dangerous.
But our survival states are designed to be time-limited. They’re supposed to only last long enough to help us successfully navigate a threat to our survival. Then, once we’re safe, we can leave survival mode behind and return to a state of relative ease and comfort.
The problem is that we humans can get stuck in survival mode. Whereas wild animals instinctively allow their system to “discharge” overwhelming experiences, humans often skip this important step. The nervous system “forgets” to let go of the surplus survival energy, so we continue to feel activated.
In these cases, we feel like the danger is still present, even if the event is long over. This is because our survival mode is still engaged. We’re stuck in fight, flight, freeze.
And maybe we manage this okay. Maybe we cope well and we’re able to have what looks from the outside like a stable and successful and fulfilling life.
But that doesn’t change the experience inside. Inwardly, we’re stuck in survival mode. This experience is painful; in fact, it can be excruciating. It can make us feel hopeless and helpless. It can wear away at our relationships, our health, our vitality.
This is trauma.
The experience of trauma—being stuck survival mode—can make us fear and even hate our survival states. They can feel like a curse, like a problem we need to eradicate. But the reality is that our resistance to these states can actually make them more entrenched, more inescapable.
In trauma, the problem is not the survival states themselves; the problem is our inability to leave them. Again, the nervous system has “forgotten” how to let go of protection mode and return to a state of feeling safe and relaxed.
A big part of my somatic sessions, therefore, is supporting your relationship with your survival states. In particular, we want to start to experience fight, flight, and freeze with a bit more distance, a bit more neutrality. We can start to relate to survival mode without being re-traumatized by it.
As this somatic skill develops, we begin to experience the survival states simply as present-moment sensations and behaviors; maybe also as images or as emotional tones. Survival mode starts to feel less overwhelming and more workable.
This process ultimately gives the nervous system the opportunity to let go of survival mode and to find its way back to states of safety and rest. The survival responses are there if we need them, but we’re no longer experiencing them as our home base, as our default mode.
This is the ultimate embodied realization of somatic work: That we don’t need to make our home in survival mode anymore. Somatic work promotes nervous-system flexibility, resilience, flow. It shows us that we have the capacity to move into survival mode when we must, and then to return to a felt sense of safety once the danger’s gone.