Fight, Flight, or Feel >>>
What I’m hoping to demonstrate as courage in the former situation with the stranger and my car is present in my attempt to engage him in dialogue, with empathy, vulnerability and authenticity, over falling into ‘fight-or-flight’ mode (which is the likely basis for either of the other two strategies of defending or relinquishing myself).
Aggression and pacifism both stem from a reliance on a pattern of domination that stems from a millennia-old cultural response to a natural evolutionary adaptation for survival. What this means is that we’ve more than likely grown up learning to react to others such that, even in non-survival situations, we most typically respond at a neurophysiological level as though the situation requires a life-or-death-heavy reaction.
In the case of the stranger and my car, the situation may have gotten out of hand and may have come to a place of threat to my well-being through use of force — but even then, short of underestimating my likeliness of surviving, a strong but non-aggressive approach can prevent the possibility of either of us getting hurt.
What this requires in the first place to some extent, however, is a space of care and compassion in myself, even for someone who may wish to do me harm.
This orientation of emotional involvement with others (people known or unknown to me) is the stuff with which we are born engaged in the world.
A baby knows (in the most implicit, deepest since of knowing without even needing consciousness around it) how to express herself authentically and with complete vulnerability. Her manner of interaction is imbued with 100% emotional engagement. The baby does not respond to any “no” to her requests with desires of punishment or “justice,” only, if necessary, a willingness to continue the engagement and adjust the intensity of her requesting.
We may believe that having left our infant and childhood stages that it is important to cultivate self-reliance and independence by removing instances of vulnerability in ourselves and replacing them with the ability to defend ourselves.
As a martial artist, myself, I deeply value the skill and ability for an individual to physically protect himself from self-harm or life-threatening forces. However, such strategies of self-defense represent an instance when all other manner of conflict-resolution has failed and it’s obvious enough (in one’s own judgment) that one’s (his or another’s) life may be in complete jeopardy. It involves in this way the protective use of force as opposed to a punishing use of force (the subject of another article).
Beyond that, it is tragic to me that we or someone else would (rather forcibly) attempt to extricate the vulnerable parts of ourselves in an effort to build protective structures in us from other people (or the world at large).
As beautiful as this need is for care and protection of ourselves (or those we love), this strategy taken to this extent cuts out the very element of our being that constitutes the difference between courageous being (vulnerability to others in the authenticity to our inner truth) and what I am tempted to call “punitive bravery” — the tragic occurrence of disconnected/-ing punishment of others in achieving a goal (even of “selflessly” serving someone else’s needs) that we often praise in our culture as a “courageous act.”
I guess would be as Kierkegaard (spelling?) an authentic person. He gives an example of an authentic person as: a man taking a walk before dinner. As he walks he thinks of his wife who is cooking him dinner. He envisions her making a pot roast with potatoes. He relishes the idea of the pot roast, since it is his favorite. He then returns home to find a meat loaf on the table for dinner. He sits down and eats the meat loaf with al the relish he would have had if it was pot roast and praises his wife’s cooking as if she had prepared pot roast. As an ‘Authentic Man’ his needs were met either way and there were no regrets.
OR
A man falls through thin ice on a lake. As he clings to life a crowd gathers. The crowd discusses what to do to save the man, going over many options. One man seeing the man in the lake grabs some rope rushes out on the lake and saves the drowning man. The saviour did not pause to think of his own safety or go over the best options, rather he acted.
I guess I would not spend so much time thinking of what my needs are but accepting the circumstances of the situation. Because the situation will almost always turn out OK, or perhaps give me a learning experience from which I can profit in some way. Or dictate the course of action necessary.
It is not that I don’t have needs but that when I am in a situation with other people I tend to think, for the most part, about their needs. After all, true love is about the other not the self.
Although this may not be the best way to look at things it is how I do so. And how I do , is usually the best Way of Being. Diverse Wanderer
Jim! Great to get a comment from you! 🙂
I’m curious where you read about that story in Kierkegaard — do you recall? I’m interpreting it as “being authentic is linked with having no regrets” (which I greatly disagree with), but I’m not certain that that’s what either you or he are trying to convey… Would you let me know what it is that you see in the way the man responds to his wife’s cooking as authentic (perhaps keeping in mind that when we’re talking about authenticity in NVC, we’re partly referring to the honesty in expressing what’s really coming up for us to someone else — to varying lengths)?
I also am hearing what you’re saying in the second story as that there are times when taking time to think/feel through things could result in disaster. I totally agree with this. How we (very) consciously program ourselves in non-life-threatening situations to respond, however, may very well affect how we end up responding in life-threatening situations; so while I believe in the power of unconscious responsiveness in situations when the time to respond with effectiveness to saving or serving life is short, there’s still a lot of in-between moments when the time for careful, conscious consideration may be more life-serving than instant (“less-mindful”) reactivity. And those mindful moments could very well enhance or change our inner programming for the better so that our unconscious-response moments are all the more effective or life-serving. How does this thought land in you?
Peace to you, my friend!
The little boy came down the stairs for breakfast and announced,
“I had two bad dreams and twenty-thirty good ones.”
“What were the good dreams about,” his father asked.
“Dragons” the little boy replied.
“And what were the bad dreams about?” his father asked.
“Dragons” the little boy replied.
I love this little anecdote, Howard ^_^ Would you be willing to explain just a bit for me why this came to you (I’m guessing while reading this post)?
Missing you guys — hope all’s well out there!