Why do I react without thinking?
When something hurts us, whether it is physically or psychologically, the natural thing to do is create strategies to minimise the chance of it happening again.
This keeps us safe from harm.
Our subconscious keeps us safe by scanning our environment and pattern-matching any experience to what is happening to us now. It does not have to be an exact match for our nervous system to alert us to a potential threat.
We will generalise our experience to pick the potential of a new threat to ensure maximum success in keeping us safe.
This is how a one off experience with an aggressive dog can lead to a fear of all dogs in some cases. In more extreme cases it can lead to a debilitating phobia.
The subconscious is exceptionally good at being vigilant and keeping us safe!
The more threat we perceive or have had in life, the more hypervigilant our alarm system will be to potential threat.
A study showed that if someone has had repeated traumas in life, when shown a series of picture of facial expressions which showed a range of positive, neutral and negative facial expressions, people who had experienced more trauma or adverse experiences perceived a neutral facial expression as threatening. They perceived there was threat where there was no real threat.
If there is a potential danger, spending time considering your options, dwelling and pondering, is detrimental as by then the sabre tooth tiger will have eaten you!. To save time, your unconscious mind will deploy the strategy which will get the quickest result in keeping you safe. This all happens in a split second. Much like you dropping a hot pan before you are aware you have burnt yourself. Our nervous system is wired to react in an instant to keep us safe.
Unconsciously our nervous system will give us thoughts and behaviours based on the belief around what the threat is.
It uses these thoughts and consequent behaviours to build a defence strategy. It is worth noting again that it is likely you will be unaware of the new program running under your conscious awareness. At the first inkling of the threat, or a similar threat to us, we will deploy the strategy without having to choose to do so. You may think afterwards ‘why did I say that or act that way?’ You may notice the residual feeling that arises afterwards.
Our unconscious patterns are helpful when the threat is life changing or imminently hazardous. However, it can become troublesome when unbeknown to us, it is the thing that is now keeping us in a pattern that is stopping us from moving forward to what we do want.
If you have a sense that something that is running automatically is keeping you stuck, there are ways to change it.
Depending what it is, you can do this on your own by challenging the thoughts when they come up for you, noticing if they are holding you back from what your heart does desire.
If you find that you are relapsing or finding if difficult to rewrite the pattern, working with someone who is able to support and facilitate while you work through the strategies and beliefs you would like to change may be helpful to you.