On Vulnerability and Survival Mechanisms
As you work hard and push through to meet major personal or company goals, my hunch is that you're also growing tired and that your survival mechanisms will begin to rear their familiar heads. Survival mechanisms are little (and big!) patterns that develop in childhood to help us stay safe and feel loved. When things are hard, it is very very common for our survival mechanisms to take over and drive the ship.
I ask you now to consider your own survival mechanisms. What are they, and are they serving you in your greatest purpose? Are they supporting you or your company in pulling everyone together as a team to win big today, this month, or this year?
If you are wondering what your survival mechanisms are, let's do a little exploration of some common possibilities. Take a look at this list and put a mental check mark next to any that sound familiar:
Over-self-reliance: "If I want it done right, I need to do it myself."
Collapse and giving up: "Everybody else is so much smarter than me. I don't have any business being here."
Avoidance or repression: "I'm always fine; nothing phases me."
Blame and projection: "Everyone is always screwing things up! We'll never get this right as long as we work with incompetent people!"
Rationalization: "I come to work and put in my hours. If it doesn't work, it won't be my fault."
As you read through the above, there might have been one or a few that resonated, or maybe they made you think of some of your go-to patterns that pop up when times get tough or uncertain. Take a moment to reflect on any of these familiar patterns and ask yourself, "In what ways did this pattern keep me feeling safe and loved in my past?" Maybe 'giving up' saved your ego from having to deal with failure after trying, or perhaps 'avoiding' helped you feel strong when everyone around you was overwhelmed. Did believing that 'it's someone else's problem' keep you from having to do the hard work of admitting that you're not perfect? Did 'rationalization' prevent you from getting over-invested and losing yourself in something you secretly really care about?
You might quietly thank the pattern for stepping in again in stressful times. Respecting these patterns as important parts of ourselves creates space for the emergence of new patterns.
For most of us, what kept us safe and loved as children holds us back and causes chaos in our lives as adults. If this is true for you to any degree, consider that survival mechanisms are likely to come out when safety and love feel threatened. When times are uncertain, the amygdala (the body's figurative smoke detector) tells us that something dangerous might be happening. It doesn't matter how actually threatening the thing is, because the detector goes off anyway. To call in your best self and most collaborative nature, you must learn to attend to the smoke alarm only when there's truly a fire. For many of us, this means soothing our nervous systems to purposely call in a sense of safety and love - even when we aren't exactly sure what will happen next.
Brené Brown has some ideas about how we might call in this sense of safety and create environments that signal safety for others. She encourages us to consider that "the key to whole-hearted living is vulnerability." She also asserts that courage is measured by the vulnerability we show. This doesn't mean bearing your soul in every work meeting, but it does mean supporting your nervous system and meeting your work with your whole heart without reaching for old patterns of attacking or giving up.
When we reveal our vulnerability and accept it in others, we can show up as our full, innovative, adult selves. When we do this as a team, we can accomplish more than would have ever been possible if we were working from a place of fear or self-reliance.