Focus – Fight, Flight, Freeze: What Are You Choosing To See?

Focus

I call it the tiger in the room state.

That’s when our body goes into a state of fight/flight/ freeze because our amygdala has been hijacked. The reaction?

Well, imagine if a tiger were to walk into your room right now. You wouldn’t be thinking about what you were going to have for your lunch, or that email that needs sending, or ringing your mum; you would be staring at the animal, trying to work out if you should run for it, bop it on the nose, or stay very still and hope it hasn’t noticed you.

This is when we go into hyper focus.

This type of focus is great for when we’re working on something and want to be “in the zone”, or in a state of Flow. When we work like this it can feel effortless and we can get a lot done.

However, if we’re in a place of arousal because we’re fearful or anxious, we will focus solely on the “tiger” - the obstacles, fears or problems - and not on finding the solutions. We may be worrying about present challenges, but could also be dwelling on past failures and so trigger a feeling of stress, anxiety, or frustration.

Whether our focus is on the past, present or future, if it’s negatively fixed and convergent then we are less likely to see different perspectives and this will limit our decision-making, and our level of influence.

If we think about our tiger in the room scenario, there might be dancing bears and juggling wombats in our peripheral vision, but we wouldn’t clock them because of cognitive narrowing - when our mindset becomes convergent, fixated on the perceived threat.

Of course, very few of us are literally in a “tiger” or life-or-death situation when we experience fear and anxiety, but our body and brain don’t differentiate. We need to calm ourselves down by changing our focus. This is essentially what EMDR therapy does.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing and is a mental health therapy method freeing people from past traumas by getting them to move their eyes whilst remembering a specific traumatic incident.

 The Peripheral Vision Technique

We can do a similar thing to shift us out of a place of stress and anxiety by thinking about something fearful and then looking at a spot on the wall ahead of us, just above eye-height.

• Create a scene, which encapsulates this fear, and place it on the wall in front of you, as if on a screen.

• While you’re looking at it, start stretching your focus to either side, without moving your eyes.

• Try and see all that is on either side of you, and then in your mind’s eye take your vision farther still, round behind you.

• What you will find is your mind-set will change as your focus becomes divergent; this is because it’s impossible to stay negative when you go into peripheral vision.

Then there’s the issue of on what we decide to focus.

We can choose the lens through which we view life and this will tend to support whichever viewpoint we’ve formed.

Give yourself a “lens audit” - how positive or negative is your thought-life, and what would your friends, family, and colleagues say about how you show up; are you a light or a bit of a black hole?

How much news do you take in?

We’re bombarded daily with stories of crisis, violence, and conflict, in the news, and this can make it seem that these events are more common than they actually are. This can lead to a heightened feeling of stress and helplessness. This negativity bias can make us more cynical, reduce our trust in others, and even affect our decision-making.

And what about social media?

Various studies have found a link between time spent on platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram and increased depression, loneliness, and low self-esteem (University of Pennsylvania, 2018; University of Pittsburgh Research, 2016). We know that endless scrolling is addictive because of the dopamine hits we get from the likes and notifications, and the images we’re seeing are unrealistic comparisons, chosen to highlight the best of someone’s life, and yet it’s hard to disengage.

We need to choose to focus on the good, the worthwhile, the things that build us up, rather than the things that undermine us and make us feel awful.

This takes a conscious effort, but try taking in less news and social media; if it’s making you feel bad and you have no way of influencing the situation, isn’t it better to limit the time you focus on it?

We need to spend more time concentrating on what we’re grateful for or what excites us. This makes us feel more energised and optimistic, as our emotions and our energy follow our focus.

Conversely, if we dwell on past failures, or present problems, we become more hesitant, less confident, and less impactful in our leadership. Rather let’s shift our focus from problems to solutions, from limitations to possibilities— and we can improve both our personal power and our level of happiness.

Here’s a question for you

What are you currently focusing on, and how is it affecting you?

Focus Transformation Exercise 

• Make a note of any negative thoughts by writing them down.

• Then choose a better thought and turn it into an affirmation - a short, positive, present tense sentence with which you can re-programme your brain.

• Remember you need to repeat it to yourself 5-10 minutes each day for 21-60 days to create the new neural pathway!