How Do we Meet Ourselves in Moments of Fear
A journey of riding the Seattle Bus system
Last Sunday, something scary happened while my husband and I rode the bus from Tacoma to Seattle. We were returning from a biking adventure and family visit. Endorphins were in our system and we were eager to get home and warmup in our sauna.
The Seattle public transportation system is know to be sketchy. Full of various walks of life with different mental health and drug problems. When we got on the bus, my husband decided we should sit towards the back of the bus. My spidey senses knew the front of the bus was a safer place to be—closer to the driver and more space to navigate. Yet, in order to practice releasing control, I rode the waves and followed suit. A gentlemen who did not look well entered the bus after we sat down and of course sat right behind us. I whispered to my husband, “We should have sat at the front of the bus.” He replied in his typical calm cumber manner, “We’ll be fine.”
Yet, I could feel my nervous system become hypervigilant. I could sense the gentleman behind me. I could hear is iradkic self-talk get more intense. My heart was beating. My right leg began to bounce. My husband was scrolling his phone news updates, trying to find normalcy. We tried to engage in conversation to distract our attention away from the instability that was brewing behind us.
Then a few rows of seats to my left, another gentleman wearing green, a black hat and polka dot mask turned around, looked at the man behind us and yelled, “Can you shut up. You are being too loud.” I shook my head at him in disbelief. Yes he shared what everyone was thinking, yet I thought to myself: “Why is he trying to egg-on this mentally unstable person? What does he think will really get achieved with that disrespectful attitude.”
At this point, we are about 10 minutes into a 30 minute bus ride on a highway. The bus driver is looking at the mirror trying to gauge what’s happening. The man behind me gets up to confront the man in green who just yelled at him. The man in green, slyly flashes him a knife as a symbol to not mess with him. The unstable man mumbles some words at him and goes and sits down back behind me. The altercation does not feel complete. It’s like the eye of a storm—tension is building in the quite.
I whisper to my husband, “I want to move. The man in green has a knife.” I look to the window on my left and see the unstable man’s reflection. He is searching for something deep inside of his jacket pocket. My anxious monkey mind runs wild: “Is he going to pull out a gun?” “Is this going to get more violent?”
The unstable man gets up again and walks back down the aisle to approach the guy in green. This time he is holding a knife in his right hand. They exchange more banter and finally the mentally unstable person slowly walks back to his seat. The guy in green gets up and moves to the front of the bus and yells, “I don’t feel safe with you sitting behind me.” The mentally unstable person passes me with his knife and I jump out of my seat and grab my husband. “We are going to the front of the bus too,” I quickly demanded.
Tension continued to build on the last 10 minutes of this highway bus ride. They yelled a few words at each other across the bus. Both of them brewing in their own ways. Meanwhile, the bus driver called the incident in and had security ready at the first bus stop off of the highway. This powerful female officer walked on the bus and became the alfa. She deescalated the situation by asking the mentally unstable person to get off the bus.
When we finally arrived to our stop, my husband and I jumped off and rode our bikes home with urgency. When we arrived, I could feel the flight energy pulsating in my body. My husband hugged me and with a loving smile said, “We are home safely.” I felt my mind want to believe this and move on. Take the logical approach. Yet, my body was telling me something else. She was still in her stress reaction.
As Stephen Porges discusses in the Polyvagal Theory, my sympathetic nervous system was activated. I was in a hyperaroused state, trying to flee the situation. I then felt this desire to grab my phone and sit on the couch to distract. To numb out. Porges discusses how our human nervous systems have become accustomed to signals of threats. We are constantly on edge because we are being evaluated left and right in our lives—schools, work, doctor offices, social media, social circles and even in our family systems. Our human nervous systems have then learned how to become “numb,” hypoarousal, to help turn off this feedback loop of consistently being analyzed.
I sat on the couch in our living room. My husband sat on the leather chair. Both of us numbed out into our phones as we waited for our sauna to heat up. Once realizing what Zombie loop I got trapped in, I put down my phone and said to my husband, “I think I need to cry.” I noticed the fear was trapped in my body. Tightness in my chest. l felt like bubbles of a shook up soda bottle fluttered underneath my skin—waiting on the surface to pop.
My years of working with the nervous system, I knew I needed to self-soothe and regulate. I stood up and started to gently bounce my body. Just like a gazelle in the wild shakes her body to self-regulate after escaping a lion. I too needed to care for myself. By moving, I am letting the fear metabolize, like a tree shaking it’s dead leaves off. The vibration of movement engages the vagus nerve, which helps sooth the nervous system back to homeostasis. I asked my husband for a hug. To hold me longer. Feeling his warm chest and strong arms hold me, made me feel safe. Porges highlights how connecting and co-regulation is important step to come back to people’s window of tolerance and active the Ventral Vagal system. This is a grounded, connected and relaxed state.
This acute stressful experience reminded me how many of us humans are walking around the world in states where we are numb and in a freeze loops (aka in a hypoaroused state) or where we are activated and in a fight or flight state (aka hyperaroused). How often do we notice our nervous system talking to us and trying to communicate our needs?
Even though I could feel my nervous system wanted and needed a hug, my thoughts judged what I needed. My inner dialogue whispered: “Just suck it up. Quintin seems fine, you should be fine. Don’t be so emotional.” The conditioning to “suck it up” to move on and forget about the body is strong in our Western, North American culture. We are trained to listen to our mind and the mind can be full of false and fabricated thoughts.
I noticed this tug of war fight between my thoughts and nervous system for who gets to be the leader. Instead of trying to “figure it out” with my logical mind, I turned my attention to my need to feel safe. I laid on the couch and put my legs up the wall. The soft fabric of the couch cradled me as the weight of my body was held by gravity. The fear didn’t magically melt away. However, it felt really empowering to consciously meet my nervous system where she was at. To acknowledge her tender needs.
We live in a world where fear can easily bread in every corner. Learning to meet my own fear and self-regulate my stress reactions to the best of my ability has allowed me to build healthier relationship with myself, my husband and create more trust with the world.
What are you noticing?
If you pause in this moment and check-in with your nervous system, what is it trying to communicate with you?
Do you feel safe and connected?
Do you feel a buzzing speedy sensation?
Do you feel sluggish, numb and overwhelmed?
No matter your sensations, try to not judge your experience. If you get quite and curiously ask your nervous system: "what do you need?”
What answers do they whisper back to you? What would unfold in your life if you could meet those needs to the best of your ability?
Share your thoughts below.