Hypervigilance

In a very real sense, if you can’t meet your needs, you’re in real trouble…or even dead.

Self esteem – feeling like you can consistently meet your own needs over time – therefore, results in sense of “Okness”. That you’re safe.

In survival mode, one moment the answer is “100%, couldn’t be better”, while the next moment, the answer is a catastrophic NO.

When the answer is no, we feel threatened in a very real way. Our needs may not be met. We may perish.

But even when the answer is YES, we’re smarter than to rest on our laurels. We know that the system is unstable, so we’re always on the lookout for threats – signs that the paradigm is about to shift, and we’re no longer going to be OK.

As a result, in survival mode, people tend to be hypervigilant and tend to interpret even neutral information as threatening. Better to be safe than sorry!