Instincts

The doubt consumes me, my everyday is filled with questions that I alone don’t have the answers to. All the worries make my blood rush to my head giving me the dizzy feeling only some people can understand. Thoughts confuse me, pulling in so many directions making it hard to choose which one to go down. Tunnels filled with darkness, never knowing which one will lead to the light.

So many of us can comprehend in our own way what that means. Yet, so many of us feel alone, helpless. Like the darkness has already swallowed us up. All this time we thought we were walking in circles, waiting for a some kind of sign to show us the right way. When in reality we were walking blind. No eyes to lead, only the heart to guide but the heart was also blinded by the misconception that our instincts will kick in at the right time.

Instincts are a funny thing, the generic definition is “a natural or intuitive way of acting or thinking”. I believe there is a flaws in that definition. We are all human and yet our instincts are all very different. In a situation where someone is faced with a challenge everyone has a different type of instinct.

When one comes face to face with something they fear, there are three options of what they can do. The first is to fight, stand up to whatever you’re scared of. The second is flight, to run away not wanting to face the terrorizing person/thing that had you weak in your knees. Lastly, the third choice is to freeze, become paralyzed and not able to move out of so much anxiety and panic. Not one way is right, and not one way is wrong though it does show us that the word instinct is indeed a natural phenomenon, but not necessarily universal.

One’s inclinations is not always the correct way to act. For instance, if you would see a bear what would be the right thing to do? To walk away slowly, while keeping eyes on the bear at all times. Though what would your instinct probably be? To run as fast as you can, panic to say the least. Now that’s not an everyday example, yet it still shows my point of fight, flight and freeze.

Some have negative instincts, almost like a knee-jerk reaction, or a bad habit. Where when something happens you have a negative coping skill that you automatically go to. Take negative self talk for example, when something unfortunate happens or someone disappoints you or even if you’ve disappointed yourself due to your high expectations. An automatic reaction is usually to bash yourself, whether it is “I’m stupid," “I’m fat," I’m ugly”etc. Unfortunately, the possible ways to negative self talk are endless.

One major skill to use when you’re in panic or let down or anything that leads you to feel have the natural instinct to start using negative self talk is the STOP skill in DBT. DBT stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and was written by Marsha Linehan. The STOP skill is an acronym that stands for;

Stop.

Take a step back.

Observe.

Proceed mindfully.

This skill is to prevent you from making any impulsive decisions and therefore not an instant instinctual reaction but a healthy one.

So next time you feel that dizziness, that overwhelming feeling of feeling lost with no answers to too many questions. Just use STOP. It will be hard for habits don’t die easy, it takes work and commitment. Still, just because it’s hard does not mean it isn’t worth it, that’s a talk for another time.