Your first alert to danger comes as you move from a non-conflict state to one of being conflict aware; this occurs as your fear system recognizes an action or behavior in your environment that signals the presence of harmful intent – this intent may not be directed at you (that has to be confirmed) but it is present and real. This is the moment you become adrenalized, and it this recognition of your emotional state that lets you know trouble is potentially brewing.
Often we think that this happens in a one single moment, that you shift between these two states however your body may release adrenaline slowly, rather than in a single dramatic shot e.g. if you are in a verbal altercation that starts to get increasingly aggressive you may become gradually adrenalized, whereas if somebody suddenly points a gun at your head you will become instantly adrenalized. This can make recognizing that your adrenal system is working, especially if you’re not used to experiencing it, sometimes difficult, with your conscious understanding of the situation being at odds with what your body is telling you. This also occurs if your conscious response to the threat is one of denial i.e. this can’t be happening to me – you actively deny your adrenal state, which is most people’s firs response when trying to understand the level of the threat they are confronting.
Understanding your own body language can help you recognize your emotional state. I never spend much time trying to recognize the subtle nuances of other people’s body language, when I’m dealing with a threat, because if I can confirm and recognize my own emotional state, I can trust that to interpret and confirm their body language e.g. If I see someone walking directly towards me, I don’t watch their body language, rather I look to interpret my own; if my body is responding in a relaxed and non-threatened manner I don’t need to look to see if their arms are splaying out to see if they are a threat, my subconscious fear system has informed me that they are not. Recognizing your own body’s responses is far more valuable than trying to interpret another’s.
Often when we feel uncomfortable in a conversation it can be hard to recognize whether it is because we feel threatened or because we just “don’t like” the person we are talking to i.e. do they represent a danger to our personal safety, or are they somebody we just wish would go away. We may meet such people at bus-stops, in queues outside clubs etc – those who engage us in unwanted conversations, that have a certain edge to them, such as complaining about the lateness of a bus or that they’ve had to stand in line to long. The challenge is to work out whether the aggression in the situation is directed at us or something general (like the bus service), or something/somebody more specific like the bus driver…when he eventually shows up.
This is the big difference between the conflict aware state and the next state, the pre-conflict one. In the pre-conflict state the harmful intent is definitely directed at you. In the conflict aware state you need to make your dynamic risk assessment i.e. what is the risk level of the situation? There are two outcomes: high risk and unknown risk. If the aggressive individual sounding off about the lateness of the bus starts to direct his conversation towards you then you are in a high risk, if they don’t the risk is unknown. You can use your own body language to help assess whether a situation is high or unknown risk.
I generally check two things when assessing my own level of aggression: my eyes and my mouth/lips. If my eyes are wide open I am in a fear state, if my eyes are squinting I am in or heading towards a state of aggression. A person complaining loudly about poor public transport may elicit either response: they make me afraid or they may make me angry. Both can send out the wrong message to the person who is complaining. If they now look at me in my “aggressive” state, they may perceive me as a threat or a challenging target they can displace their anger on to – in the absence of a bus driver or representative of the system they are railing against. Equally if they pick up that I am fearful of them, they may seek to readdress their lack of control in the current situation by creating a new one – being aggressive towards me – that they feel they can control. My job in any potentially dangerous situation is to fly under the radar and not drawing attention to myself – an aggressive individual’s fear/anger system will recognize threat signals very quickly however subtle they are (which is why I allow my adrenal system to do its job and I just interpret the results).
When the lips tighten and get drawn back we are in a state of aggression. I use this cue a lot to get direction from my fear system i.e. should I be getting ready to fight. This I have found to be one of my best barometers for whether I should be looking to make a pre-emptive assault - usually confirm this by asking a question to tell if a person has lost the ability to verbally reason; if they can’t/don’t respond or jumble the words I know my body wants to fight and theirs is one step away from going to.
I like simple cues as when emotional certain reasoning functions diminish, so if I can tell where my body is emotionally (through interpreting its response) and where another person’s is through a clear, defining tell-tale sign I know what I have to do, without going through a long decision making process.