When you hear the phrase, “fight, flight, or freeze,” what do you imagine? Most of us probably picture a crisis or emergency situation like a firefighter rushing towards a burning building. Honestly, this reaction can occur anytime and it is nothing but emotional flooding. This can occur during an emergency situation like a firefighter rushing towards a building. This can also occur when you are having a fight with your husband.
In such cases, you become so overwhelmed by emotion, that it triggers a physiological response of fight, flight, or freeze. That is right. When you are arguing or into a heated dispute with your partner, your body responds both physically and psychologically to the stress. This is, in therapy, called flooding and it can happen to all of us.
Simply put, flooding is our body’s alarm system that sounds when we are sensing a possible threat.
While emotional flooding is quite a normal human response to stress, emotional flooding is relationship conflict can be difficult to manage. Emotional flooding can be brought on or made worse by many destructive and hurtful behaviors that have the power to erode the foundation of every relationship. These destructive behaviors are called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
Emotional flooding is taken very seriously when it comes to couples’ relationship counselling.
How do you recognize emotional flooding?
We can definitely measure our pulse rates with some oximeters, unfortunately, we do not wear oximeters all day long to signal us that the heart rate is going high and we need to calm down. In these cases, we must pay attention to the signals our body is sending. If your conflicts feel like they typically end in a “blow up” situation, be sure to pay attention to the following:
Triggers: Are you discussing a subject matter that is distressing or has led to conflict in the past? If so, you may be more susceptible to flooding during that conversation and it is also important to know when you need to take the time out.
Body Cues: Your body responds in a certain way during stressful situations. You need to recognize that for yourself. Get to know the warning signs, which may increase your heart rate, flushing, sweating, tension in shoulders, clenched jaw, feeling out of breath and so on.
Talk to your couple’s counselor to get a better therapy, a better couples relationship counselling. Come to us and we would be glad to assist you. Talk to us today.
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