What are you afraid of...part 2

A couple of nights back I had a very close encounter with my amygdala, when a surprise attack hijacked my (normally) rather logical brain.

I was watching a live-stream on my phone when there was a sudden loud explosion outside my house, followed by a series of rapid gunshots and flashes of light. It sounded like a bomb had gone off and someone was running up the road firing a machine gun. There were flashes, bangs, our two dogs barking running around scared, one ran into the dining room and the other ran out to hide in the bushes at the bottom of the back garden. I didn’t know whether to call the police or find the dog first – was it even safe to go outside? I went to the back door and stepped out: nothing happening in my neighbour’s garden. No sign of the dog and she wasn’t coming to my calls. Something landed on me: water? (it's not raining) sparks? The dog came in as the noise subsided. I closed the door and comforted both dogs. My breathing was shallow, my heart pounding. I was confused. I went to the front door and saw a man picking up something across the road – I thought that a neighbour’s house or car may have been hit by debris.

By this time I realised it must have been fireworks and, thankfully, it was over quickly. I looked on the Facebook community page for any information: there were jokes about ‘here it comes’ and comments about ‘the firework police’. I looked on the Nextdoor page: here were angry people commenting about being woken up, home-schooling three kids and work in the morning. Terrified pets. Inconsiderate.

I was angry. I was scared. My rational brain knew there was no terrorist attack, no gunman, yet I could feel my stress level through the roof.

My husband was already in bed and had also heard the noise. He simply assumed it was fireworks for an 18th birthday party over the road – he’d seen balloons outside the house.

I was angry with him for being so unconcerned. I was angry with the neighbours for no advance warning – last year they had put a note through warning us there might be party noise for a 17th, yet this year nothing about a terrorist attack...

Deep breath. Again. Again. I could still feel my cortisol and adrenaline levels were way up, even though the perceived threat was gone…

Have you ever had that happen in work? Maybe you've been bullied, or humiliated, or yelled at. Something winds you up, you’re angry, embarrassed, frustrated, you feel powerless, you want to scream, or yell, or run, or hide…but you also want to keep your job.

This of course is fight or flight, when our prefrontal cortex (the rational bit of the head brain) goes offline, so our body can prepare us for reacting to the ‘bad thing’ – we’re going to fight, or we’re going to run like hell.

Imagine how that might affect our decision making. Is there any chance we’ll come from a place of wisdom with those stress chemicals flooding our body?

A long time ago, following a work-shock that flooded my system, I allowed myself to carry the stress around for almost three years. I functioned OK and continued to do my work well, but I was very unhappy and started to look for another job. Something exciting showed up – a tale for another day – but the thing here is that I also acquired some resources that helped me gain a completely new perspective and handle a series of life-changing events with calmness and grace.

Since then I’ve added even more “mindset and resilience” resources to my bag and these are what I accessed to release the stress of feeling under attack. My first response was to sleep – the fear had left me exhausted, although I did a bit of breath work before nodding off. Next morning I could still feel a bit of a stress hangover, so I tapped* along to a 15-minute meditation for shock. Making sure to hydrate after this, I decided to do another tapping session, this time the meditation was to feel safe and grounded in my body. (This one is part of a series put together for coronavirus stress, but the languaging works well for any stress and grounding). Throughout the day I continued to hydrate and felt completely at ease going about my business.

My anger had subsided and (as I don’t believe in coincidences) there was a note through the door apologising about the noise. For their first experience of home fireworks the neighbours across the road had ordered online during ‘lockdown’ and had no clue about the decibels they were about to unleash on an unsuspecting community. They have no plans for a repeat performance. Thankfully.

* Tapping, or EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) involves tapping fingertips on acupuncture points on the surface of the skin, whilst tuning in to the stressful emotion we’re feeling. There is now a significant body of scientific evidence showing how this simple practice reduces cortisol and other biomarkers for stress, including studies helping military veterans with PTSD.

Having used tapping for over 10 years it’s my go-to for a fast-acting ‘change of mind’ when something is niggling at me. It’s also a tool I can easily share in coaching conversations – indeed, one client came to me asking if I “still do that tapping thing?” After only three sessions we cleared what had been keeping her stuck and, when I checked back in with her about 6 months later, she described herself as totally happy and “living the dream” which is a rather lovely outcome!