Written by: Shalyn Isaacs / Communication Coaching / January 17, 2022 / 10 minutes read

Many people have experienced anxiety when engaging in communication with others. When we experience this anxiety, we all engage in different strategies to cope with the uncomfortable emotional reactions to communication. Have you ever pondered on where this communication anxiety comes from? Maybe you have come to believe that it is your fault or that something may be defective or wrong about you. 

From a trauma-informed approach, communication anxiety is a common response to have in conversations when our nervous system becomes overwhelmed and flooded with stimuli that our bodies regard as threatening. Our nervous systems are constantly scanning our environment to check for safety and danger cues to protect us from. If our bodies sense danger in our environment, we will unconscious activate our adaptive, evolutionary, body-based responses to dealing with threat in order to protect ourselves. 

Whenever we feel threatened by certain environmental stimuli, our bodies engage in nervous system responses of either: fight, flight, freeze, appease, or dissociate (Haines, 2020). Below I have outlined what these protective mechanisms mean and why they are activated at certain moments in time. Perhaps after reading them, you can identify when in conversations with others you may engage some of these responses. First, I have briefly reviewed what some of these survival mechanisms are and how they are activated.

1. Automatic, adaptive responses are activated: Protective responses from our bodies that include fight, flight, freeze, appease, or dissociate responses are  automatic, adaptive responses that are engaged to protect us from overwhelming emotional stimuli from traumatic experiences. These responses may be engaged because a present moment circumstance reminds us of a trauma we experienced in the past. Therefore, we unconsciously perceive the past trauma has taking place in the present moment. When we are faced with a trauma in our lives, we are typically not successful in protecting ourselves or escaping from the threat.  Nervous system research shows us that our bodies want to fully complete a fight/flight response that would be able to protect us, but when we can’t – we engage in freeze or shut-down responses instead.  According to somatic therapists and researchers, this incomplete protective response gets trapped and remembered within our bodies and shapes the way we see the our relationships with ourselves, other people and the world (Haines, 2020).

   These trapped, incomplete responses to traumatic events become embodied within us and shape the way we behave and engage with others. 

2. Overgeneralization of Survival Strategies: According to Staci Haines who is a somatic therapist and leader in this field: “When our natural survival reactions cannot be processed through to their completion at the time of the event(s), these reactions, and resulting shaping of the self, becomes generalized. The soma organizes itself around the experiences and the caught survival reactions – “if it happened once, it can happen again!” The intention is self-protection…yet the result is the overgeneralization of survival strategies “ (Haines, 2020, p.75). Therefore, what ends up happening is that we struggle to assess accurately for danger in our present environments by perceiving that there is danger in situations that actually may be safe. Due to feeling like the past trauma is currently taking place in the present, we rely on our survival mechanisms from the past to protect us in the present. However, the consequence can be that we end up guarding ourselves from authentic connection with ourselves and other people. 

• You may start to feel anxiety around feeling watched or judged by other people in conversations with them. 

• You may start to believe that your communication issues are your fault. 

• You may experience a feeling of being “trapped” and unable to escape in social situations (freeze response). 

• You may feel stress, worry, panic or anxiety in social situations or relationships. 

• You may feel unable to trust other people in relationships or feel that other people are intentionally trying to hurt you and therefore you must activate your defense mechanisms in conversations. 

• You may avoid interactions or conversations with others because engaging with them feels unsafe. 

• You avoid conflict. 

• You may hide your authentic expressions of yourself in conversations with others due to fear of being reprimanded or judged. 

• You may feel a need to change your communication style to be more like that of other people in positions of power and authority in order to be taken seriously.

According to the window of presence theory of the nervous system – whenever we are feeling overly activated (hyperaroused / sympathetic activation) or hypoaroused (parasympathetic activation), we can experience a sense of pleasure, peace and calm by engaging in strategies to bring us back into a balanced state within our window of presence. This happens through ventral vagal activation (Porges, 2011).

From a state of feeling calm, peaceful and relaxed – we can feel safe to engage in conversations with others, detect for cues of safety and danger more accurately and communicate from a place of self-awareness and confidence rather than survival.

REFERENCES

Haines, S. (2019). The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, healing, and Social Justice. North Atlantic Books. 

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W.W. Norton.

To work with Shalyn Isaacs as your psychotherapist (qualifying) at Well Said: Toronto Speech Therapy, schedule an initial consultation by clicking the link below or by calling (647) 795-5277.