What’s your natural response when something just won’t work?

As long as we’re working with technology in any form, there’s no getting around the occasional technical glitch or failure, like your email refusing to load or an app that keeps crashing when you try to load it. Even the most robust software or hardware is going to have some hiccups from time to time. For that matter, even if you’ve decided to live without power in a hut in the woods, you’re still going to be using some sort of machine at some point – it’s going to rust, the gears are going to jam, a screw is going to come loose. Nothing is perfect – and that is the nature of reality, however frustrating we may find it.

When we’re stressed enough and feel we’re faced with a threat, we tend to default to the classic trauma responses of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. If you’ve got a critical work deadline and the email that you’re trying to send just won’t go, that could be enough to push you over your threshold and set off one of these responses. This might manifest for you in one or more of these ways:

• Fight: blind fury, swearing at your computer or throwing your phone, repeating the same actions over and over again with increasing anger and frustration
• Flight: shutting the laptop lid and walking away, not wanting to think about it, putting off dealing with it until you absolutely have to
• Freeze: staring at the screen in paralyzed confusion, unable to decide what to try next
• Fawn: blaming yourself, thinking you must be dumb, being ashamed to ask for help or apologetic when you do ask

Which of these feel the most familiar to you? Do you tend towards one response, or a combination?

None of these responses are wrong or bad (although throwing your phone is especially counterproductive and can result in you having more problems than you started with).

They’re just not very useful responses when you’re trying to problem-solve. And sometimes they can make it hard to recognize whether the problem is truly urgent, or just feels urgent.

Being aware of our own default natural responses can help us develop healthier coping strategies. The very first step is to notice that we’re in a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn state. In order to do that, we need to be able to recognize what it feels like.

Think about how you feel when you’re in the familiar trauma response state you noted above. What is going on in your body when that happens? Does your heart race, or your skin go cold? Does your chest or throat get tight? Do your thoughts spiral around in circles, telling yourself stories of impending disasters? Do you feel distant and numb?

The next time you run into an upsetting problem with your phone or your computer – and I hate to break it to you, but it will happen – see if you can notice it while it’s happening. Take a moment and turn your attention to what’s going on for you. Notice if your breath is fast or slow. Let the spiralling thoughts float by without buying into them.

If it’s an option, step away from the problem for a few minutes and let your nervous system settle down. Take some slow, deep breaths; go for a walk; move your body in some way; feel your feet on the ground. Focus your attention on your body rather than on your thoughts. 

Once you’re feeling more balanced again, you can return to the problem and figure out how to approach it, whether it’s by methodically investigating the problem yourself or asking someone else for help. In future posts, I’ll talk about better ways to approach troubleshooting once you’ve calmed down enough to think clearly.