I’ve just started, “Becoming Bulletproof” by Evy Poumpouras. I had this book in my Amazon cart for a little while. As someone who has had a life filled with battling anxiety, the title appealed to me for obvious reasons. But, it wasn’t until my most recent trip to Turkey that I felt a nudge from Spirit and a deep resonance in my soul to go ahead and purchase it. In fact it was about two days before I was to fly home back to the states that I clearly heard the Spirit say to me, “what is in your future will require you to be bulletproof.” In that moment I had forgotten that I even had the book in my cart. I was moving about my hotel room packing and began quietly mulling over what I had just heard as well examine the emotions and feelings that came up as a result. As I folded and separated my dirty clothes from my clean clothes the feelings I was able to identify clued me in on what my impending future could hold. I felt feelings of hope, excitement, being respected, admired, looked to and intelligent. Now, isn’t that an odd response from a statement to an anxiety sufferer? I thought so too. But, it’s the feelings that let me know that I have one BIG adventure ahead of me. And, I need to prepare so it goes as smoothly and as fun and interesting as possible. I’m ALL about the odd and interesting. I find myself constantly immersed in the interesting. I have stories some people would never believe or imagine.

As someone who has been in counseling for years and one who practices mindfulness and meditation I have broke with thought patterns that feed fear. I’ve trained myself to distract myself and move should I start feeling bogged down with fearful thoughts. To some degree in retrospect…in this moment actually I realize I’ve lost a big part of myself to managing triggers rather than just living in the moment. At any rate, I’m about 32 pages into this book and twice now the author has prompted me to think on my fears. First to assess what I’m afraid of and second to assess my F3 responses and determine what is my most common response. Fight, flight or freeze. Both times I’ve balked at the thought of allowing any of these thoughts into my mind. My fear was…that I would become fearful if I think about it. My training has taught me to distract and get my mind to flit across the thoughts about fear like a stone skipping across a lake. To think about my destination rather than moment. And, that has served me well seriously. Instead of getting lost in thought about a doctor’s appointment I think on what I’m going to do once I leave the doctor’s office. Because, I AM going to leave. I’m not going to stop there. I have things to do and enjoy and rewards to give myself for getting through that appointment. It keeps me moving forward and gets me unstuck. Hence, the tendency I had to freeze.

As I intentioned to go ahead and get still and allow my mind to engage my fears here is what I discovered about my F3 response. My most common is to freeze. This response “comes” to me. It is one that builds in waves as my body slows to a halt. It’s progressive. It looms like an approaching hurricane as you register that you’re in its direct path and feels like you won’t be able to get out of its way in time. But, because it comes in measures and because I’ve done so much inner work I can at least identify what I need to do to begin to steer myself to a calm harbor. In these moments movement is key for me. If I’m alone I’ll usually dance if I have a good control. Or, if I don’t have good control I’ll usually uncontrollably fidget and flail a bit. On that note did you know this is actually an evolutionary response? If you’ve ever witnessed big cats in the wild you’ll notice that just after pursuing prey, fighting or other moments of challenge they will shake themselves. This is the body ridding itself of adrenaline and getting back into a parasympathetic state. Also, did you know that our sympathetic nervous system kicks in when we need to meet a challenge and our parasympathetic nervous system kicks in to help us rest and digest. They work in tandem with each other to keep us balanced out. And they do that automatically. Thank God, right?? Our bodies our awe-inspiring and ALWAYS working FOR us. Never against us. Remember that.

Next, as the author can also relate, my next common response is to fight. This is rare but it happens if I’m surprised and don’t see the threat coming. I’ll spare you the details but I’ve often sprung into fight mode when someone is aggressive towards me, wants to intimidate me or unnecessarily comes at me in anger. Other than those scenarios I freeze.

Here’s what’s most interesting to me though. Out of all that I’ve been through. My mother’s addict boyfriends, saving her life and the life of one of my brothers and the life of a stranger who was drowning at Fall Creek Falls (I couldn’t save him by going in the water after him because it was too dangerous and I’m not a strong swimmer. Instead I screamed until someone heard me and dove in after him. Two men from India there as tourists heard my cry and immediately responded. Had I not screamed he would have been dead because it was only he and I there and everyone else was downstream of the falls.) He looked me in the eyes as he went under like I had betrayed him by not helping him. I didn’t know until that night if he actually survived. Once one of the men dove in for him I ran to my car and called 911 and never looked back because I couldn’t bear seeing his body dragged out. Thankfully, he did survive and it was my voice and the skill of a stranger that saved him. In all of these things the ONLY F3 response I’ve never demonstrated is to flee. I’ve never backed down from a crisis. If it’s a personal crisis I freeze and then force myself to move. If it’s an unanticipated attack I fight. But, I’ve never fled in all of my 42 years. And in this moment that brings into focus just how bulletproof I really am.

What about you? Do you suffer from mental health issues? Panic disorder? Generalized Anxiety? It may be worth evaluating your F3 responses. You may come away with the pure gold of more confidence in yourself if you do.