Always find yourself feeling threatened? Can’t understand why you react the way you do when threatened? Struggle to calm down and feel relaxed in certain situations?
It can be helpful to figure out what your go to F type is. We are all HARDWIRED to use the 5 responses to SURVIVE. These serve a very important function to keep us safe and often happen automatically. As soon as we detect DANGER our adrenaline kicks in and we assess which is the best approach to take. What I’m trying to get across is that these feelings aren’t abnormal – they are very natural to all of us.
However, if you are suffering with anxiety these threat responses have become overprotective. Your THREAT DETECTOR is likely misfiring and kicking your body into action when it isn’t necessary. With anxious clients they will start to depend on 1 or 2 of the F’s. See which ones you identify with the most – which responses do you tend to take on?
This exercise won’t resolve the problem but it will give you guidance on better understanding your threat responses, your typical thoughts, feelings & behaviours. Once we understand ourselves we can develop strategies to manage them.
