The fight or flight game
LeaderShe positioning and solution
Recently we had elections in Romania, Austria, Germany, USA.
I’ve witnessed more the Romanian electoral campaign as it is my mother language and country. I’ve experienced an aggressiveness at unprecedented levels.
I’ve had clients who got separated from their life partner, due to extreme polarity and aggressive fighting, each one defending his view and blaming the other of being wrong. I myself got excluded from an old friends’ group.
What if we would look at this micro to macro relationship conflict from a different perspective?
What if our tendency to assign blame is more than just a reaction; it serves as a valuable feedback system?
Read the entire article on the link below
Have you ever wondered why people are often so quick to blame others for the events in our lives?
Let’s start by looking at the brain, particularly the amygdala, so you can understand how it influences an individual’s tendency to project blame or credit onto others and themselves.
The Role of the Amygdala
Inside the subcortical region of your brain, sits the amygdala, it’s part of your limbic system. This area is involved in processing incoming sensory perceptions by assigning valency to your perceptions which result in your polarized emotions and survival impulses and instincts. Your amygdala is a legacy from your animal origins, featuring two primary functions:
- SEEKING mechanisms to pursue what you desire (impulse); and
- AVOIDANCE mechanisms to evade anything you perceive as being a threat (instinct).
It is the example of animals in the wild, where they will seek prey and avoid predator. You possess the same tendencies – however, you may not be conscious of them and how they playout in your day-to-day life.
When you encounter something you perceive to be desirable, say, a delicious meal, you tend to perceive more positives than negatives. In these moments, your brain’s parasympathetic system activates, allowing you to relax, digest, and enjoy the experience. This reaction tends to build your body positively or anabolically, with you giving credit to these perceived positive food experiences for the way you feel.
Conversely, when you face something you perceive as threatening, your amygdala triggers an avoidance response. You then tend to see more negatives than positives, leading to a tendency to assign blame. Whether it’s an external challenge or an internal conflict, this perception of more disadvantages than advantages, more losses than gains, tends to steer you towards blame.
The Dynamics of Blame and Credit
Your life is a continuous interplay of giving credit and assigning blame, not just to others but also to yourself. When you believe you’ve supported someone, you’re likely to feel pride and give yourself credit. But if you perceive your actions have led to more disadvantages than advantages, you may feel shame or guilt.
This dynamic extends to how you perceive others. When you admire someone, you’re likely to overlook their flaws and credit them with more advantages, desiring to impulsively seek them.
On the other hand, if you perceive someone negatively, you might discredit them and focus on their faults and feel resentment, desiring to instinctually avoid them.
Society often pushes the narrative of being either more one-sidedly positive or one-sidedly negative.
Perhaps you were taught by a parent, teacher or preacher to strive to always be kind, never cruel; and generous, never stingy. But if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll likely recognize that you embody BOTH sides. You can be both kind and cruel, positive and negative, peaceful and wrathful. It’s a misconception, as well as a fantasy, to believe that you, other people, and the world should only embody positive traits.
Come to one of my LeaderShe programs, where you can practice being centered, being align with yourself, being the balanced better version of yourself.
When asking the ladies or men from different countries, coaching clients I work with why they consider themselves (always) nice, (never) mean, or mean never nice, peaceful never wrathful, or wrathful never peaceful, etc. The results are consistent, that when people dig deeper into their own lives, they are highly likely to acknowledge they have both positive and negative traits. The result of this realization is a one of certainty and authenticity, as opposed to the uncertainty and hypocrisy of trying to live up to unrealistic, one-sided ideals.
You will only have sense of certainty when you authentically embrace both sides of your own being.
- Trying to get rid of half of yourself and be one-sided is futile.
- Expecting someone else to be one-sided is futile.
- Expecting the world to be one-sided and not both-sided is also futile.
However, when you acknowledge the dual nature of human experience, as opposed to the fantasy of a one-sided world, you tend to be more poised, present, purposeful, productive, resilient, adaptable, objective, and empowered.
When you see both the positive and negative aspects of people and events, you transcend the amygdala’s reactive survival mode and activate the executive center in the prefrontal cortex of your brain. This shift allows you to more frequently operate from a place of objective truth where you are free from the constraints of blame and credit.
It may surprise you to hear that the obstacles you perceive as being terrible and worthy of blame are actually FEEDBACK MECHANISMS.
These obstacles serve to shatter your attachment to unrealistic fantasies that an individual or situation “should” have all positives and no negatives. While these fantasies may be enticing, they are fairytales and not rooted in actuality. As such, when you chase these illusions or fantasies of a one-sided world or individual, your intuition subtly reminds you of the potential downsides to help guide you back to a more balanced, objective perspective.
Your forebrain’s executive center is uniquely equipped to turn your fantasies into achievable goals. Yet, when societal expectations press upon you to be consistently nice, never mean, kind, and never cruel, you may unknowingly set yourself up for a one-sided fantasy.
This unrealistic pursuit can lead to frustration when life inevitably presents its other side. In these moments, the tendency to blame others or yourself arises not as a fault, but as a signal – a feedback system indicating your expectations may be unbalanced.
In other words, you are not just a ‘nice’ or ‘mean’ individual; you are a complex human being capable of a wide range of responses. If your values are supported, you might show kindness; if they are challenged, you may react meanly. Recognizing and embracing this duality in yourself and others can transform your life and help you set realistic expectations, reducing the likelihood of blame and disappointment.
Blame, in this context, is not just a reaction but a distraction, pulling you away from living a truly meaningful life. As I mentioned earlier, blame most likely arises when you pursue unattainable one-sidedness, whether in yourself, others, or the world. To live authentically and fully, it is wise to embrace both sides of your nature and the nature of others and balance your expectations.
Action steps
When you align your life with your highest values and priorities and set realistic objectives, you engage the medial prefrontal cortex – your brain’s decision-making center. This focused approach often results in fewer distractions from the unproductive cycle of assigning blame or giving undue credit.
Remember, the infatuations you credit and the resentments you blame are often the very distractions that prevent you from leading a truly meaningful life. They take up space and time in your mind and distract you.
Aristotle spoke of finding the mean between extremes. When you chase after others you infatuate with, attempt to adopt their set of values, or strive for a one-sided existence, you will end up crediting those who support your illusion and blaming those who challenge it.
It is wise to recognize that you have the power to set balanced objectives, which pave the way for a greater degree of adaptability, resilience, and presence in your life.
On the other hand, pursuing unattainable ideals and trying to avoid the unavoidable can lead to unnecessary suffering.
The key is to prioritize your life, seek objectivity, and set balanced goals. Strategic planning your life or a project, career stage involves anticipating potential challenges and preparing for them, helping you to see both sides of any situation. Foresight, in this context, is far more valuable than hindsight.
By adopting a balanced perspective, you reduce the likelihood of being caught in the web of fantasies, nightmares, and the dualities of pleasure and pain. Being present in the moment allows you to engage in activities that you love, find meaningful, and that inspire you, leading to greater productivity and fulfillment.
The art of seeing and aligning both sides
In our couples more than at work we display the most aggressive. Impulsive reactions on one another. Mainly our closest persons suffer of our unfiltered anger. Couples, families, parent – children relations become often a battle field or power fight.
What breakthrough your significant relations might have if you would train yourself into transforming an “attack” of your significant one into an opportunity for growth through understanding the other (his pain, his, fears, his values, his believes) and responding with wisdom?
How important would be for you, as a mature woman to tackle into your femininity and select your inner capabilities of being kind, understanding, loving?
Wouldn’t be a dream to transform fights into lights? Or war into understanding more?
How would it be to dance and be balanced with your husband, children, bosses, working peers?
How about your role in peace creation? How you see yourself and your children in couple of years? Feeding contradictory opinions, feeding conflict and attacks by being polarized with one sided view?
Or you can activate your inner wisdom, train yourself for becoming align with yourself for achieving a commune goal result? A relation of harmony inside yourself, with your couple, with your family, with your colleagues, community?
How important becomes to prove that you are wright in your opinions in a world which is on the edge of war and destruction?
Isn’t it more important to find bridges of understanding and communication for PEACE creation? For giving our children a chance to live, to have a life in this world, on this planet?
Transform fights not into flights, but into dance! One step left, one step right, one backward, one forward becomes a training of learning complementarity, balance and cooperation! Man and woman, husband and wife, one sided opinionated with the other sided. By understanding the other where he comes from with his opinions, values, perspectives you enable his amygdala to get relaxed, in finding a sense of security in the relation. After stress hormones stopped to be released in the body, the other person might be capable to understand your point of view.
You can learn to see beyond the immediate reaction of pleasure or pain. When you encounter situations in life that seem either entirely positive or negative, it is wise to remember that there are two sides. This balanced view is not about giving credit or blame but about understanding that every external event mirrors an internal aspect of yourself.
Let your significant one look into your heart. Open your feminine loving heart and create harmony around you.
Be LeaderShe! Be a PEACE CREATOR!
The next online programs will be
“LeaderShe Femininity” – October – December 2025
“LeaderShe Abundance – January – February 2026
“LeaderShe Relations – March- May 2026”
We have also three opportunities to meet live and practice mindful relaxation, self-connection, inner integration, energizing our body, mind and heart, at
“LeaderShe Retreat, Friday to Sunday, at Cabana dintre Vai, by Potcoava Mountains Hideaway, Leaota Mountains, two hours drive from Bucharest, Romania. Check which one of the following dates suits you:
25th – 27th of July
1st – 3rd of August
10th – 12th of October
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