fight or flight Archives ⋆ Mike and Susan Dawson

Is Your Brain or Body in Control when you Fight?

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2020-03-30T23:31:10+00:00Emotion, Flood, Relationships|

“We can’t even talk without fighting.” “I get so angry, I can’t see straight.” “It’s like we go from zero to sixty!” “I don’t even remember what we were fighting about, but I know it was ridiculous.” Ever said these words or felt this way about your spouse or partner? We hear from couples whose whole lives together have been characterized by these words and these kinds of scenarios. What should just be a simple conversation or discussion becomes a fight. Couples begin to live like they are enemies and adversaries rather than friends and lovers. The problem is likely “Diffuse Physiological Arousal” according to John Gottman, more commonly called [...]

What Happens when your Greatest Nightmare comes True

A close friend recently told me about her greatest fear fleshed out in high def. She’d recently moved to a retirement community with wonderful amenities and better security than she’d had while living alone. The transition to living apartment style is a good one and most everything has proved to be more than she’d hoped. Except for one thing….. Living alone there had always been a fear of waking in the night and hearing someone in her home and not being able to defend herself from the intruder. One of the amenities of this facility is a panic system to call security in an emergency. This particular system has some [...]