Coping Strategies of the Alarmed Child

The amygdala has no sense of time. It will detect anything that's even remotely close to what hurt you in the past. And it will transport you through your body, through the autonomic nervous system, through the fight or flight nervous system, back to that place where you felt helpless and powerless. We can start changing that feeling of alarm in our body. When we do that, we start gaining control of our mind. As children, we develop this sort of sense of worry and hypervigilance as the coping strategies of the alarmed child. That worked for us when we were young but not so much now.