“Correctly identifying a negative emotion takes the brain out of fight-or-flight mode and into problem-solving mode, out of tension, anger and confusion and into ease, calm and clarity.” – Sam Owen

The intellectuals who know a little bit of human behaviour, put people into three different categories when one is faced with high stress and high-pressure environments. The concept of: Fight, Flight or freeze mode.

We regularly have emergency drills at work. Fire, evacuation and flood control. It’s always interesting to see how people behave in such drills. Even though most people are well aware of the fact that it’s purely an emergency drill – there is still a small amount of pressure involved.

You learn a lot about people in such situations. Who are the fast decision makers, who forgets protocol, who sticks so severely to procedures that they become incapable of making decisions, who stops responding, who takes charge. The purpose of these drills is to highlight the shortcomings – but more importantly – to fix it.

We always go through life, finding ourselves in a bit of hot water or some type of high stress situations. This is not necessarily a real-life dangerous situation, but how you act when you are faced with troubles or some unwanted occurrences. Some created by ourselves, other the repercussions of other people’s decisions. Regardless of what the circumstances was, leading to this specific unwanted event – we are in it.

But how do we deal with it?

We have the fighters. The best way I can describe it, is either lashing out or defending. You use words and jabs to get your point across. The tone of your voice changes, it’s sharper, words are spoken in a staccato manner. Tentacles of defense lash out to protect yourself and or others. It’s the fast thinkers and the quick problems solvers. Not to say that the solutions are correct, but because the action is definitive – it might seem to the unknowing eye that the person is in control.

Flighters is a whole different ballgame. You either hide, or run away from the situation. Remove yourself from the situation entirely, regardless of the consequence. You can either run away physically or emotionally. Not being able to deal with the mountain that is in front of you right now. Or just physically try and get away from the situation – start afresh. Where no-one knows you.

Freezers. When everything happens in slow motion and you can neither fight or run away. Pretend that it’s not there. You simply cannot deal with the situation; therefore, you simply just don’t make any decision at all.

I don’t like anyone of these ‘f-words’. For some reason, all three of them has a negative connotation to them. Now, fair enough – the reference to these modes is in high risk situations, similar to an actual flood or fire. However – we all tend to have one of these behaviours, when we find ourselves in a bit of a predicament. Fighters don’t know when to stop or when to back down. Flighters run away without giving themselves the opportunity to see if they are capable of dealing with difficult situations; and freezers – the situations will not go away, whether you act or not.

I have always been a fighter. Not physically; I mean – I can’t punch to save my life. When you are in a defensive mode, the defensiveness can very quickly become the aggressor. You lose your ability to listen, because you have already made a fast decision – or assumption, if you wish. When I was younger, my natural inclination was flight – but honestly – I just couldn’t afford to run. Literally – I was just too poor. So, I either had to escape into the pages of my books, or I had to learn how to deal with certain situations. I have never been frozen, but I have felt that I did not want to make any decision or ignored the existence of some situation – for whatever reason that may be.

The reason why I feel that I don’t like the F-words in today’s little chit-chat, is because all three of these things have their benefits – if you just ever so slightly change the words. What if you don’t fight – but take action – in a thoughtful and decisive manner, without the need to lash out or be defensive? What if you don’t flee, but simply take a step back and assess the situation from a distance to get an objective perspective. What if you don’t freeze, but take a breather – to allow yourself to calm down and get the facts – but not remove yourself mentally from the situation in order to complete the cycle.

We all deal with some kind of emergency on a day to day basis. The level of emergency can range from slight irritation, to life changing events; and everything in-between. No one is exempt from some sort of crisis. However, if we see the small things as ‘drill’s’, we surely can identify the weaknesses and attempt to fix it.

Now, I am well aware that the idea of this is a lot more influential than the reality. I am still a developing country when it comes to this. The one thing I do know, is that there will always be some hot water rowing down your cozy life. No one said that everything in life will be easy all the time. It’s how we deal with the situations and how we understand ourselves and our natural reactions. What we learn from our reactions yesterday, will determine how we react tomorrow.

Life is a constant ebb and flow of emergency drills – but it prepares you for that occasional real emergency situations.

So, whatever you are naturally inclined to do – take note that it’s not your only option. You are not a puppet to three words in high stress environments. All stressful situations are also not life threatening.

Once you’ve managed to make even the smallest bit of improvement – to get to that nice and peaceful place, even when there is chaos around you – know that you have taken a giant leap of improvement into your own future.

Happy fluffing!