This is what we consider the fear we experience. See here it is a chemical reaction set off by our amygdala, nothing to be afraid of. We can learn to be calm and use our breath to dissipate the cortisol.
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“Freedom From Fear” by Peyton Quinn.
1. Tunnel Vision: One’s field of vision narrows and tunnels into the perceived threat.
2.Auditory Exclusion: The hearing tends to shut off.
3. Loss of fine motor skills: Often only gross motor functions are possible under the adrenal state.
4. Tai-chi-Psyche: Everything seems to move in slow motion.
5. Increased heart rate, blood pressure and respiration.
This is the environment PTSD places us when we are triggered. Our skills have deteriorated along with our ability to respond to a delusion threat. This is why we have a daily practice, so we can stay present and observe this phenomena correctly.
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This is practice, using adrenal stress in a Survival situation. We experience the tunnel vision, hearing shutdown, loss of fine motor skills, and increase in heart rate,respiration and blood pressure? It is the ability to follow our breaths and act calmly when we are triggered. Learn that PTSD can not stop you from living your life first.
This video has some great info on the brain and the science of fear. The graphics of the brain and amygdala are the best I have seen. This is about a couple of exercises to react to fear and freeze responses.
The feeling of loss can be minimized or eliminated with a change in our perception and actions. The concept of possessing or owning is something we can explore and maybe influence.
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Next, let us explore our actions surrounding owning things, situations or people. Obligation enters our consciousness with more possibilities of loss. Do we feel guilt, if we do not fulfill certain obligations?
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A person with childhood C-PTSD brings a damaged self image with them, creating permanent loss. We feel flawed, a loss that can not be fixed or repaired.
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How can we navigate life wounded like this? We suffer without a chance at happiness.
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Realize you and I are perfect and life is not about owning or losing things or people. We have so many breaths granted us in this life. Loss does nothing but steal these precious moments.
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The equation we need to adopt, let’s go of loss and replaces it with being in this moment. Loss fades in this precious moment when we take action, present action.
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I do not experience loss, now. I accept life as it is without judging things, situations or people. Our life is to be lived and experienced without the ego’s cognitive distractions of guilt, shame, loss or doubt.
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Think of the last time guilt or loss benefitted you? Remember, what fires together wires together. Playing with the concept of loss makes it grow. Starve this sentiment of attention.
From Sharpening the Warriors Edge: The Psychology of Training;
The performance curve referred to by Schmidt is a method of measuring the performance of a skill in relation to relative levels of stress.
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For fine motor skills, or motor skills which have a high degree of cognitive decision-making, the research indicates that optimal performance will occur during low levels of stress.
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Motor skills that are moderate in motor control and cognitive complexity will produce best results during moderate levels of stress.
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Motor skills that use large muscle mass (gross motor skills) and are cognitively simple (require very little decision-making), produce optimal performance during high levels of stress.
From a physiological perspective, this principle is quite reasonable. We know that when the human body perceives stress, the body increases the production of adrenal hormones.
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The adrenal hormones increase blood supply to the extremities, thus increasing an individual’s strength potential.
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This explains why gross motor skills, such as power-lifting, can be performed optimally under high levels of stress.
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However, an increase in adrenal hormones will also interfere with fine motor skills and accuracy during event performance.
Happy and successful people have an uncanny ability to put things into perspective and see the “bigger picture.” They rarely get caught in the heat-of-the-moment or act impulsively. Instead they are calm, centered, and understanding that there is much more to the world then what immediately meets the eye.
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If something goes wrong in their life, they don’t get too upset because they know that life goes in phases, and there will always be highs and lows. No single moment in life can ever define you because you are a dynamic individual in a dynamic world.
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On the other hand, people who can’t see the “bigger picture” often get overwhelmed and flustered when something goes wrong. They are too narrowly focused in the moment, and not taking the time to step back and see the larger view of what’s happening.
-“In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.”
-Xun Zi
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“I always had a larger view. I’m interested in real life – my family, my friends. I have tried never to define myself by my success, whatever that is. My happiness is way beyond roles and awards.”
Amy Adams
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“We think too small. Like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.”
The mind, under attack from a trauma thought, becomes overwhelmed with tunnel vision, hearing blackout, followed by the loss of fine motor skills. We have a tendency to freeze up at this harrowing time.
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Bruce Siddle, in Sharpening the Warriors Edge, says that we need certain parameters, for a skill to hold up under this kind of pressure.
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The skill must be simple, quickly learnable, and accepted subconsciouslyas pertinent, so we will practice, as though our life depended on it. Your mental life actually does in this instance.
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That skill for us is the breathing track, with a concrete, simple model that will stand up and be available, when under adrenal stress.
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Practice, every day, whether we feel good or bad, if the sun comes up; we practice. Simple!
The mind, under attack from a trauma thought, has to deal with the adrenal stress of the Fight or flight mechanism. We are overwhelmed with tunnel vision, hearing blackout, followed by loss of fine motor skills. We have a tendency to freeze up at this harrowing time.
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Our reaction ranges from panic, fear, terror, avoidance, hyperarousal or high anxiety.
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Can our focus, our following the breath hold up under these adrenal stress moments?
- In the book, Sharpening The Warriors Edge, a skill to stand up under combat must be simple, easily learnable, be accepted as a solution, and does not contain fine motor skills.
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The Breathing Track meets all these criteria when developed with daily practice. I have personally healed using this and watched other improve also on this blog and in person, with Alex.
- Affirmations, Aerobic exercise, developing the breathing track and applying our focus to every thought that appears, can improve your condition in a month. In three months maybe you would not imagine the calm inside of you.
This book rounded out the fight or flight details of PTSD for me. Also the author has responded to a post.
This work is based on my 20 years of instructing both elite military teams and ordinary people on how stress affects them and how to overcome its negative effects. My training center is at http://www.rmcat.com. In particular, the biochemical conditioning properties of the adrenal release are the basis of my work. This is the very essence of how PTSD develops. But PTSD is not limited to combat experience. Everyone is in some way unconsciously affected in their behavior patterns by even relatively mild adrenal experiences. In this book the reader will see examples of their own behavior in a very new light and begin to see how they can modify that behavior in way that serves them much better. This provides a framework of thinking that can changes their world view in a productive fashion and helps free them from periodic episodes of depression, which about 40% of all adults experience. But teenagers are far from exempt as well.This work will not help everyone of course,but it has certainly helped so very many.
When we are triggered and cortisol is dumped into our systems, we frantically search for a means of escaping the anticipated danger.
How can we resist or remain calm?
In this moment, we panic without practice, handling this adrenal stress, consisting of tunnel vision, hearing loss, fine motor skill loss, and higher BP, heart rate and respiration. I sure panicked every time before my daily practice of following my breath. It enabled me to finally observe the trauma, by itself.
` It happened with awareness of thoughts and letting go of judgments. Then affirmations replaced my negative self talk. Days were long and tiring, trying to catch thoughts and stay present. Now it is habit, second nature. A thought appears in my consciousness now, it fades as my focus is on now, directing my being where I want to experience life.
Let me paraphrase Peyton Quinn, adrenal memories create a persistent and automatic responses. This occurs at the non-self aware level of consciousness. This is significant, because our response to stress can get pre-consciously programmed into our personal self-images and our personal world view.
An example is riding with another person, driving distracted, requiring us to slam on the invisible brake at a dangerous intersection. No thought involved. Let us explore the negative thoughts and comments we grasp when triggered.
Our feelings of positive personal self worth must be unconditional. Practicing the breathing track everyday and with every thought can accomplish this. Remember, on the right side of the brain words, dialogue, judgment, failure, guilt, or shame do not exist. The right side concerns itself only with the present moment.
