Polyvagal Ladder: Fight
The goal of our nervous system is to keep us safe.
Neuroception is our unconscious perception of safety and threat. We don’t control this with our conscious mind, so telling ourselves we’re safe doesn’t work. Our nervous system has a history, and our predictive brain has a negativity bias (it notices danger more).
We build safety and resilience by having and noticing (through direct perception) experiences of safety. We move up and down the ladder all the time. Where are you on the polyvagal ladder at the moment - fight/ flight/ freeze/ fawn?
Fight is fiery and has intense, stormy energy
Someone who is emotionally flooded into a fight response can be scary to be around. Lashing out verbally or physically triggers fear in others. We walk on eggshells to not set them off.
The brain likes electrical stimulation and feeds on anger like kindling. Instead of feeling overwhelmed and scared, someone in a fight response feels like they are taking action and protecting themselves.
These are typical signs of being a fight response. We “go off” into a rant. We feel stirred up and indignant. Those thoughts easily spill out onto people around us. Venting our rage takes the edge off for us, but it lands on the other. Sometimes two or more people rant together, ramping up the anger.
To a person in a fight response, it can feel like they are fighting for their life. They say things they later regret, but that other people have trouble forgetting.
A fight response can show up as a mean inner critic. We are scornful and nasty, always criticizing ourselves. Sometimes we also direct that outward to others.
Am I in a fight response or feeling anger?
“Fight” is a survival response generated by the nervous system perceiving social or physical threat - we can’t stop it arising, and we can learn to manage how we express it.
Anger is an appropriate response to injustice and harm.
If we can’t afford to feel our anger, we suppress (push it down) or repress it where it continues to burn underground. Unfelt and unexpressed anger makes it more likely we’ll “blow our top” in a fight response.
Feeling anger
When we feel safe enough, we can use somatic inquiry to get to know and feel anger in our body. We sense the hot burn of anger in our gut, or the coldness of holding an implacable grudge.
Expressing anger is a separate step from feeling it
We acknowledge we are angry, use grounding and orienting to stay present to ourselves in this moment, and express our anger through gestures and words.
We use the energy of anger to come up out of freeze and into sympathetic arousal.
To come up out of a freeze response, we don’t need to provoke an uncontrolled fight response. It is healthier and more productive to allow ourselves to feel and express our legitimate anger.
We may then choose to take external action. We might set boundaries in relationships. We could find others who share our anger and fight for social justice.
We cool off by going from a fight response into feeling and expressing our anger, then we go up the polyvagal ladder to ventral vagal, a state of calm and connection.
We can stop shaming ourselves for our nervous system responses. We can learn to reduce the intensity and duration of our fight response by feeling our legitimate anger.
We connect with attuned empathy to the part of us who is hurt, feels powerless, and has gone into a rage. We take some deep breaths. We put our hand on our heart. We no longer need to rage in order to stand up for ourselves appropriately.
We become safer for ourselves and for others. We experience the cooling balm of authentic, safe connection.
“Trauma decontextualized in a person over time can look like personality, trauma decontextualized in a family over time can look like family traits, trauma decontextualized in a people over time can look like culture.” Resmaa Menakem
Watch the clips and interviews in this playlist from Dr Stephen Porges, Polyvagal Institute and Deb Dana LCSW Rhythm of Regulation
Click here to join our Sunday free community class. February 19th we are inquiring into our fight survival response.
Click below for the somatic inquiry from class.