Unlock the Power of Attachment Styles & Survival Instincts: How They Shape Your Relationships

Ep 99. In today's fast-paced world, how we interact with our environment, the stressors we face, and our relationships—whether personal or professional—are deeply influenced by our attachment styles. This powerful psychological concept shapes the way we respond to both positive and negative experiences. Understanding your attachment style is key to improving your emotional well-being, relationships, and decision-making.

But what drives our behaviors in these high-stress situations? The answer lies in our survival instincts, often referred to as the "F's of survival"—Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn. These primal survival drives dictate how we react to the challenges and threats we face in life, from personal conflicts to professional pressures. As modern humans, our survival system has adapted to living in a complex, demanding society. The higher the stress, the more intensely these drives will shape our reactions and choices under pressure.

By recognizing these drives and understanding when they emerge, we can develop strategies to navigate difficult or threatening situations. Whether it's confronting a challenge head-on, avoiding danger, or finding a peaceful way around it, the key is awareness. How do you respond under stress? And how can you better relate to others and overcome obstacles in your life?

Take the time to reflect on your own responses, recognize your attachment style, and discover how your survival instincts shape your interactions. The more you understand yourself, the better equipped you are to make thoughtful, empowered choices in every area of your life. Look deeply within,  thrive, walk with purpose, and walk well. 

Transcript

Welcome back folks to episode 99 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast with me, your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor, and an adjunct professor at a local community college. What we're going to be discussing today are going to be some base survival drives and actually how they impact our best attempts at self-regulation, especially when things are really difficult. And these are things that are forebears in the caves a long time ago, developed over

millennia eons and yet this is part of our genetic inheritance but at the same time these inheritances aren't always to our best benefit yes they keep us alive but sometimes they can complicate a modern person's world and relationships so what we're going to be looking at is what was affectionately called in the 70s and 80s

the four F's of survival. They have since been expanded and other some extras that I'm going to put in there to kind of round out the idea of these survival responses when things get really stressful and they kind of relate to how we relate to not only people, but situations, paradigms, circumstances, and consequences. So with that, we're going to start with F's of survival.

So let's start the discussion with starting with the traditional view as in the last 40 years where we looked at the survival drives within the context of the four F's, which would have been fight, flight, flee, and fornicate, which is sex. For those of you that aren't aware of what that is, I didn't want to use the F bomb, but

What I'm going to add is that freeze is something that we've recognized as part of that response. And there are some people that think that these are choices, but what they are is actually lower level autonomic reactions in our body. But I will tell you that, feed also falls in there, but feed doesn't happen as a reaction in the sense I'm trying to survive whenever it's immediately dangerous, even though it may be a drive that makes us seek and, and forage for food.

armando (02:41.133)
And that could be another F, but more like a, maybe a sub point F, but, we're going to round this out here in a little bit, but, the fight flight, freeze, flee and procreate, are the things that were originally known as the primary survival drives that if we were to break down behaviors,

in the general duress of survivability in an environment, whether it be human, whether it be animal, we tend to be able to categorize our behaviors under those little banners, so to speak. But what I'd like to really point out is that there's been some adjustments to this, and I don't disagree. I think that there are really sub-qualities that fall within those primary responses. But what I'd like to start off with is the freeze response.

in particular. And whenever we have a sudden fright or a shock, often, not always, but often, we see somebody either, they either strike out or run, or they yell, but often they will shudder in space, and their hands will go up and there will be an aghast look on their face. And often there is motion of feet, which means they didn't freeze, but maybe startled for a moment, but there is a momentary freeze of

sorts till the other programs kick in. Then there are those that actually freeze and they get stuck in fright and shock and they can see what's going on and they can think about what's going on.

But it's all conceptual. There's no talk going on here and they can't move. They feel like their feet are nailed or frozen down to the floor. Now what they further identified is that there are those that do experience that freeze response once again and that can come with a terror or just a shock or even a surprise somebody jumping up from from behind the sofa or something like that and surprising you. But the important thing is here's the physiological response and the reactivity. This is where all social paradigms

armando (05:07.613)
the window

is uncomfortable state to be in. But there's also a subcategory that occurs with some people that freeze. And it's been identified as flop, to put it in the F of survival category. But what it actually is, when somebody might faint as a result of shock, and that may be as a result of blood pressure going up in the body just can't stand it. And one goes into syncope is what they call it. And that can be unconsciousness. And then there are those that fall and they say,

that they're playing possum because that's the only thing they can do if they can't run they will fall in place and That is a reasonable higher thinking in your head response, but I would say that there are those that actually do genuinely flop they they actually do faint I've seen people faint as a result of shock and stress and Also, just extreme exhaustion and tired and these are also environmental Responses that fall within the categories of the survival F so to speak where the body does

was autonomically override as a result of what's going on externally that is beyond the ability to cope or regulate on the outside or even self regulate internally the shock and the physiological response heart rate going up, blood pressure rising, that sort of stuff. And these are things to keep in mind, because the further we get into the discussion, we're going to make some correlations with how it is that we relate in our social scheme and also with our environment.

But also how we relate to ourselves after the fact and that's not always so fun. So the next part after flop They have added fornicate in the sense that usually when there is a shock and this is something that People that have gone to war that have gone through a shocking Survival experience where maybe they were in a car wreck and thought they were gonna die or maybe they almost didn't came back and Maybe they they kissed the Grim Reaper and said hey, I'll be back next time this sort of thing But yet they're still here

armando (07:10.271)
whenever we have that sort of experience that actually touches our mortality our sense and expectation of life being the very in abrupt potential ending Then there's a change in our perspective after the fact But one is the the rise in the survival drive to want to procreate. So the fornicate F has been Elucidated upon as a result of shocking responses, but this is something that many military folks

whenever they do go overseas the military has not really a class per se but there's an implication of the family the spouses in particular male and female both that

tell them that there are going to be risks involved physically going overseas or if firemen and first responders, policemen are out and about and doing things that are dangerous and risk of harm to the body and the individual that the libido will go up usually in a spike after these experiences have occurred. And this is beyond a normal baseline once again. And it's something to be expected, but also as a result, many times of stress,

many relationships go awry, many relationships go awry as a result of somebody does have their libido jump and there are people of either sex that are in that combative situation there is a desire to bond with that person if they live through something with you and that's something that you share with them and that bond is unique and it is hard to explain and whenever one comes back to regular society one is bound by

the and guidelines of the assumed social regime that we are within the social situation that we believe in and our ethics and morals and stuff now start counting again. Not that they didn't before, they did. The fact of the matter is when it comes down to live or die, those are just assumed roles and guidelines that we take on. it's a, it's a darker aspect of survival often, and not to make this out to be a bad thing, but

armando (09:24.843)
more so an identifier because sometimes whenever we're Trying to regulate ourselves in an environmental situation our lives that are difficult What are the things that we deal with these are some of the underlying drives? That kind of twist and distort what it is that we call our best thinking or best attempts at doing things and then we wound up Looking for answers in other people saying hey, why can't I do this? Why can't I succeed? Why do I always fail and often is chalked up as self-savvy?

and I would say that that's largely incorrect I would say that much of this is driven and To say self-sabotage means that one is intentionally trying to derail themselves when in actuality It's really a deeper base or drive that can override our best thinking our lower brain can hijack our best thinking not unlike when somebody is addicted to drugs and One has a family and knows that one has a mortgage to pay but yet one uses all one's earnings to go and

high and do what one does because one is essentially

being hedonic to access one is pursuing the lighting up of those what we'd call pleasure centers and When we do that, then we're doing the most basic thing to soothe whatever stressor we have that we're Struggling with in our environment whether it be paying the bills whether it be somebody's trying to hurt me or harm me or doing things maybe illegal or On the edge of things that we would call society's norms, but yet I'm trying to hide this and even hiding

Has a component of eating up extra mental emotional capital because that's extra work we have to do and those are lies and fallacies and illusions that we're trying to keep up so that we can continue with Continuing to pleasure ourselves in a sense to a fault and that can become a very addictive and unhealthy thing So these drives they are often reflective of the things that we do Whenever we're under duress and we're thinking life death, but not always life

armando (11:28.955)
but sometimes it's impacting our life to the point where you have maybe death is involved at the end sometimes as a result of shame and guilt because and all of sudden the social paradigm is is what we are being punished by often we hear in the social media now that the way to see how a politician is taken down now is through power money sex and Influence power is something that's very strong and and what minutes

and drive for to be able to have influence and have strength and on both sides of the sex line male and female power and money are things that are appreciated there there also things that brings more dormant and attention that we like but also gives us social status that is more elevated thus given us a

in the older sense of within the four F's that means my genetics would go into the next generation more successfully with men it would be more often with women it would be more successful with the higher level hunters so to speak that seem to be healthier and these are what I would call analogous to those simple survival drives but they're not so far from what it is that we do whenever we are living in simpler times

The next thing, the flop aspect we talked about, there's also one that's called Fawn. And to Fawn, F-A-W-N, one is actually doing what looks like a fanboy, fangirl look. And often if it's under duress, this is one that actually placates, whether it be a predator or somebody that was going to try to victimize an individual or somebody that's really strong arming a situation, whoever somebody may feel threatened.

they don't want to lose what they have or if they do lose things they want to recognize this individual and have them know by their behavior that they respect them they fear them really there's that's not respect they fear them and they will do whatever they need to do to make them happy and that is a self-survival drive and we were talking about mob mentality and group think but whenever we're looking at mob mentality often this can be distorted into somebody pushing somebody around and we start developing what looks like

armando (13:56.407)
In the clinical sense

codependent behavior where one is just chasing around and everything you want anything you want is good with me whereas the the leader or the individual that is dominant or powerful is the one that's getting the benefit of this and they can take or leave or even push this individual away but this individual will continue to try to placate and that is part of the fawning process and that is a survival strategy so to speak but that is also one that falls on on the heels of what we call the

and befriend.

that we would do whenever we're together with tribe. But what if we try to do it under stress? Often if it's under stress, it's more so the fawning capacity may keep one from getting hurt and allow one to survive into the next right now. And some would call that cowardice. Some would call that sucking up or brown nosing. But fact of the matter is it's a survival trait that one develops. if one is under that kind of stress often enough and, it's actually a state in many cases, but it becomes a survival trait.

more correctly over time as we practice and get better at it, especially if we know that we are weak or we don't have much to offer other than be able to provide some sort of value and whether it be extra food, maybe be able to get information, this sort of stuff in the social paradigm that can become very valuable. But the fun aspect is something that's been added once again to the F sub survival, so to speak. Now, what I'd like to talk about now, and this also

armando (15:32.04)
it comes close to that but in the sense of let's say we're in a group if we're in a village or a tribe or even a family or home often some of things that we share there have to do

with the more basic aspects of the foref's and that has to do with feeding. Feeding is the thing that no matter what at some point if you don't feed enough you'll get weak and if you're weak you'll get picked off and then you'll be more likely in fight, flight, freeze, fawn or flop more likely, flee if you can but what if you're too weak to do that because you've not eaten. You can't do it and the predator will pick you off and you're the baloney sandwich by default. We try to avoid that.

Now the feeding aspect is very closely tied to something that is not enough, sounds close enough that I'll use it. And it's that's affiliate. Whenever we do the friend and be friend, that means that we're trying to create.

a relationship that puts us in greater numbers that increases our survivability by default. That means that we need others to keep us safe or to have a feeling of safety. But often that is shared. We bond with people we feed with whenever people talk about breaking bread, there is a bond that is spoken about. And there's also one that's unspoken often when we are able to eat with somebody or near somebody, there is a level of comfort and safety that occurs, not perfectly in all occasions.

and

armando (17:25.326)
in

see

and

more affiliations you have, the greater possibility that you have of survival if they're nearby. But also there's a greater possibility of you being able to get the things you need, especially if somebody's a specialist, if somebody's good at doing something that maybe you're not as good as, and you're better at getting things that they may find valuable, you'll be able to find the beginnings of what looks like barter and trade within simple relationships. And we do this every day. People know economy and we're thinking about government level type stuff.

matter is all economies they interface at the human individual level and we even do this with our animals whenever they seek to be around us they seek to get fed and take care of us and they're also bond with us and keep us safer now some important things about this now all these drives and i'm going to reiterate them right now that includes fight flight and flee and those have been flogged into an ungodly powder poor horse and yeah that one's been beaten and also the flee

armando (19:55.086)
freeze response have been spoken out about quite a bit on social media but also the flop and fornicate now the flop and fornicator things that are now kind of hitting the scene is not anything particularly new but they're being delineated a little more effectively as we find out that there are subcategories of reactivity under stress now

Why is all of this important and how does this help me understand self-regulation and those are good questions mind you

Well, I'll start off with whenever I speak to people generally, and this is not necessarily just as a clinician, but also just people in general. Often I hear people talk about being in relationships and often having a style of attachment. And this is something that's immediate honey and new and lately we've been seeing a lot within the last 20 years. It's not that new, um, that really focuses on different types of attachment. And these are important things to know. But if we take into consideration all these survival drives,

and Essentially consider what it is that we call an attachment style. We look at the fight aspect We tend to have a very reactive attachment style. That means we're very sensitive and people may Walk on eggshells around us if it's a flight and flee reaction

Type that we're talking about that we're looking at somebody may be more avoidant and there are sub levels Of avoidance depending on situation, you know You may be avoidant in the relationship when you're talking about certain things versus just generally avoidant of anything that is stressful which is also an attachment style to and one would say it'd be the unattached attachment style, but whenever things get kind of Heated some people may just shut down and not talk and that would be another type of

armando (21:48.602)
maybe a freeze response wherever somebody just

sits in and does nothing doesn't respond one way or another and even some passive aggression would be like a fight flea kind of amalgam but then we have the fun aspect sometimes whenever there's an argument where somebody just completely capitulate to says okay whatever you say whatever you want we're gonna do that and that is an avoidant and an inversion of the avoidant type but one where they're more active but unwilling to be in conflict and then one comes up

if one is going against this feeling like somebody's inauthentic and not being genuine so that can have its problems and often as far as the the flop if somebody is relating with somebody and if there is any kind of

being terrified often people will talk about I got the papers or or I'm getting an anxiety attack this or stuff wherever they're literally feeling the entirety of the stress but unable to go anywhere they may shell uphold themselves and hug themselves and bend all their creases and then their little ball of anxious experience and that's not good these are things that may be resembling these

reactionary responses when we're under stress and yes there are those that do even swing the way of the procreation aspect to fornicate more correctly under these kind of situations and they use this as a way to placate an individual that may be stronger in ethic and what is really kind of curious is the fact that we look at the higher primates like the baboons and the higher primates like the chimpanzees and the bonobos there is also

armando (23:33.978)
Always.

a presentation of the backside for instance to show that the other person is submissive and this is not too different from that we do similar things as human we submit and we also have those that fight and those that run so these are once again reflective of attachment styles that we so happily given these clinical names to but the very deeply seated within our genetic inheritance as human beings

point out that has to do with safety and once again I'm going to refer to the book I've been talking about in the past called the fruit the tree and the serpent by Lynn a is bill and I love the stuff she's talked about as far as the visual system but there is one in particular that's particularly interesting that has to do with how whenever we're in a group our visual system is designed to perceive motion like snakes in our lower field the lower aspect of our visual field and we're more sensitive to things that are

armando (24:43.17)
and that is something that

is hyper reactive to patterns that look like diamond shapes almost like the shapes of snake scales and this sort of stuff and also for creeping motions that are slow that may look slithery or anything that might appear to be creepy crawly on our lower visual field and that's really important to know now why is this important to what we're talking about well this kind of interlaces what we're talking about with the the friend and befriend and being in a group in that

Whenever we sense things at that lower level field where it could be a venomous snake or or poisonous insect this sort of stuff we tend to be able to look at things and Point them out literally point our fingers and this is something that even primates do they point? But the pointing activity that indicates to others which is the benefit of living in numbers Where those singular things can't take you by surprise as much?

that only occurs in a social group. Generally, if we see something and we're gassed in shock, we don't stand there and point at it to identify to ourselves. We've seen it. The identification with pointing is a social response. And not unlike this, whenever we're in a group setting, these reactionary responses are kind of like that.

Chimpanzee or that monkey pointing and letting other people know in the group that there's something wrong and there it is the identification and it's a very deeply seated thing Some say it's learned I would like to say that it's probably partially learned but largely inherited more nature than it is nurture in my opinion, but of course that is my opinion and It's a very fascinating thing

armando (26:33.398)
but also whenever we're in reactive states and we have attachment styles often we will point in the direction of where our stresses are so these are things that help us identify how I regulate within my environment and how I become dysregulated environment in the sense that those things that push me to become reactive are the things that also point at how I attach and how I relate

From a deeper sense and it's not always what people say and how they behave but rather the stress level I perceive as a result of the behaviors and often how sudden those things come on So just some deep thoughts today and it seemed like I was rambling a little bit but these are all things that will be tying together a little further as a podcast moves on and Here about next week. I was a little tardy on this episode had some things pop up We're gonna be doing the century mark. We're gonna be hit an episode 100 really kind of excited about

that. So we've been on going on about a year and a half and I am going to continue doing this and I certainly encourage any feedback you might have for me send it to the email at

running man get skills project at gmail I'd love to hear from you also you can look up the podcast on YouTube and I'd love to have you like subscribe and share then Share that as often as possible, please. I'd love to see it grow some more. I've gotten some good views on YouTube Also, this podcast is available on all platforms that podcasts are found on and I certainly appreciate your listenership I'm taking a long weekend and I'm hoping to hear from y'all. Maybe even see a couple of y'all and

Maybe if you want to give me some ideas to what you'd like to hear, please do send those to me. Take care walk. Well