We had an interesting question this week (well, they’re all interesting questions frankly!) in Stable Hours, our live Q&A in JoyRide. It was motivated by a passage from a book, where the author had listed fight, flight and appeasement as the sympathetic nervous system states. I was asked what my thoughts were on this, specifically where appeasement ‘existed’ within the nervous system understandings that I had.
Before we launch in, it’s important to say that context is (as always) everything. There are many people offering learning through the lens of nervous system understanding, but it can get confusing if you assume that the origin and focus of the information is coming from the same place. So, let’s start by me giving you a little background on the perspective that I am speaking from.
When I consider how the nervous system expresses through a human, I am considering it from the level of the body first. Much of my learning has oriented around how our posture, structure, and movement changes depending on the nervous system state we are in.
If I say ‘sympathetic nervous system’ I’m referring to the system the body activates when it perceives its survival to be in question.
For instance, the flight response has its own set of ‘structural indicators’; the way the body arranges itself to fulfil the function of maximal force and acceleration. This is true for all the survival nervous system states.
What I love about this is that it’s objective; it occurs regardless of what you feel or what your opinion is. It is part of our animal body function.
Considering the nervous system from an emotional perspective is infinitely more complicated and nuanced. The reason for this is emotions- their labels and experience- is subjective and individually dependent.
As part of my work, I recognise that there are certain behavioural tendencies that sit along-side particular sympathetic states, but tendencies are not certainties- they are ‘this is something we see a lot’ observations.
Survival patterns are a little different. They ways of being developed in childhood to get our needs me, and they can be entangled within sympathetic wiring.
But if I think of appeasement and labelling it as a sympathetic or fight flight expression, my answer is well, maybe.
And my questions back are:
– Is the person making the decision to appease through active choice?
– Or is this a pattern that plays out beyond conscious awareness, where the needs of another is consistently and persistently prioritised to detrimental effect?
The thing is (and this is just an example), I can choose to appease another as a means of ‘picking my battles’. I might recognise that the energy of speaking directly to and challenging the situation is not worth my time, and so I don’t.
Am I fight flight in this moment? Not at all.
Could I be? In a different situation, maybe.
If it was a pattern I just fell into, then perhaps yes.
Again, it relates back to agency and choice.
This is why, in part, I found so much sense and understanding in parsing apart the experience of survival and need as a physiological response (a physical, observable change in the body) as opposed to considering it through the lens of emotion and behaviour (much more subjective).
We’re infinitely fascinating, us humans.
