Have you spoken up about something / question a lie or story / expose an ongoing lie/untruth in your relationship/ work environment/ family only to be shut down, shunned or discredited?
How about achieving something that others in your close circle or family couldn’t predict or perhaps wouldn’t expect from you? Opened a business, decided to travel in stead of having babies, homeschool, left your shitty relationship, changed your hairstyle, decided to get a boob job or chuck it all in and go live off grid?
This has probably been going on for you, for years. Whenever you stay in your lane, people reach out, talk to you, check in on you. When you don’t, you’re actively avoided… and you might even say, you sense their resentment!
Why does this keep happening, you say to yourself. Isn’t life about expanding, and evolving? Yes, yes it is.
Always remember this: The more stressed a person is, the more anti-social they become. The more you want to connect, expand and collaborate, the more you're evolving. The more you want to disconnect, control and compete, the more you're devolving.
You see, a brain that feels threatened, goes into survival mode and follows a predictable pattern into devolving: It rejects what and who they feel may well “eat” them. It’s the archaic Darwinian-mindset: Eat or be eaten.
To an evolving brain that functions predominantly from the cortex, expansion, safe social connection and collaboration is a way of life. To a devolving brain that functions from the survival centre of fight flight freeze and dorsal vagal shutdown, competition, seeking / expecting only support and avoiding any form of challenge is the way to go.
That’s because the human brain, when challenged, activates prey chemicals and now perceives you, the challenger / truth teller / mover and shaker / expander / question asker / as a predator.
When in fear of being eaten, the person who is challenged will do the obvious next thing to the ensure its own safety:
Prey-dominant behaviours in people can look like:
They discredited, disapprove, ignore and vilify the one who challenges the status quo.
Project their values at the challenger: You SHOULD do this or that …
They blame the challenger for their situation.
Actively avoid spending time with the challenger - to the ANS, it’s hard work being in survival pretend mode around someone - that’s draining.
They only see your negative and none of your positive attributes and they will, in some way, call them out to put you down (pit you).
If you, as the challenger, take this behaviour personally, you will automatically tuck your tail between your legs.
You’ll go right into the pit of despair where they have thrown you because being shut down and shunned is a shock to anyone’s autonomic nervous system. Rejection is akin to death for the Autonomic Nervous System and humans will do just about anything to avoid it!
With you down in the dumps, the prey circles the pit and feels superior - it feels it has won the round because it’s taken control of the situation… but not for long. People who don’t like being challenged are constantly scanning their environment, pretending to be OK. It's exhausting work to be in Dorsal Vagal Shutdown. Energetically, they are a magnet for more challenges to come their way, so their life is not as rosy as it may seem from the outside.
In dysregulated family / relationship / work structures this can look like:
Collusion: Ensuring the challenger remains in the pit by getting other family members/employees on board to disapprove with verbal and emotional disapproval of the challenger
Control: Attempting to control the challenger's every move (so they can’t get out the pit)
Safety: Removing their sense of Autonomic Safety and Safe Connection and Co-regulation with passive aggressive or direct threats of cutting them off from other family members, removing children, friends and colleagues/promotions/opportunities.
This is a message to anyone reading this who who are, or have been thrown in the pit for going out on your own, doing something great for your family, starting a new business, changing your physical appearance, speaking up about something / challenging the status quo:
When you challenge people, and you often do it without even realising it - you make them very uncomfortable. It's an autonomic response they can't even control. If they are unaware, highly stressed people, I guarantee you they live their life on auto-pilot where their survival brain runs the show.
In turn, they will project their values at you, and they will expect you to do as they say.
They will minimise you (pit you) and maximise themselves (sit on a pedestal) in order to feel safe.
Stop explaining yourself. They cannot and will not listen to your side of the story. They are too emotional, not on their cortex where they can be logical. They are simply occupied with their autonomic survival.
They actively want to (need to) avoid you. And when they do see you, they will throw passive or overt insults and jibes. They can’t help it, they need you back in the pit so they can feel safe again.
With you around, they have to recognise that what they despise in you (determination, ambition, fire, passion, money, children, fitness, looks, experience, etc), they either want themselves, or, it is also in them to a greater or lesser extent, they’re just too proud to admit it.
If you recognise this as part of your life and perhaps as a revolving door you keep going through, your work is to accept you’ve been pitted by someone whose brain is in survival mode and perceives you as a predator, simply because you, on some level, challenge their subconscious beliefs and intrinsic values.
Good news!
If you love a challenge, trailblaze and lead the way, not afraid to take a chance, it’s because you probably grew up in a challenging environment that forced you into juvenile independence. Do you know why that’s great? It’s only challenges that pushes you to become Authentic.
Don’t back down, don’t take their autonomic dysregulation personally. See them for what they are and keep going, keep expanding and more than anything, CELEBRATE yourself and your AUTHENTICITY! That's a Wizard Brain (cortex) developing and functioning at its best.
We delve into these Autonomic Nervous System concepts and many more during my 6w Reset Program so come along and see what you can create for yourself.
Come along for the fun!
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