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Trauma recovery
Recognizing survival responses
Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are not character flaws.
Your nervous system has a handful of survival responses — fight, flight, freeze, and fawn (appeasing to stay safe). Whichever one you lean on wasn't a choice; it was the strategy that helped you survive. Understanding it can help you meet yourself with more compassion.
When things feel dangerous or overwhelming, what does your body tend to do — fight, flee, freeze, or fawn?
Where do you think you learned that response?
What would it sound like to thank that response for trying to protect you, even if it doesn't serve you the same way now?