Fight or flight, were always considered the responses to life altering decisions.

Fight or flight are great mechanisms for dealing with situations where a saber tooth tiger is trying to eat us, or the errant lion was hungry and we were the closest food source. These two responses today only work for those that live close to the land and deal with life threatening situations such as bears, snakes and lions.

For the other 99 percent of us in cities, those that have never seen a bear, mountain lion or rattle snake in real life. Watching on the discovery channel is not counted as facing a life-threatening situation.

Most of our real life situations revolve around the loss of things that we want through our own misdeeds or the wrong actions of others. Our new car that is destroyed by an inattentive driver running a red light, a bad lender cheating us on a mortgage loan then foreclosing, a tank of gas that wipes out our budget for the month, a boss that treats us without respect or a teacher that grades us unfairly.

The list is endless of things that can go wrong in modern life, and there are news stories every night of people facing difficult life choices because of situations that have occurred.

Our possible responses are limited due to social constraints and laws to two – we can take action to protect ourselves, or we can release the situation and let it go.

Which should you do in a given situation – Like Fight or Flight, either Action or Releasing are both valid given the situation.

In today’s society if you fight, then you will be the one that ends up in jail and losing everything. If your response is flight, then you will look as if you are guilty and will have to live with the label. Law enforcement has long held that those who run are guilty, that is the only reason to run.

The proper responses today are to go into Action mode and gather all the information, then find the proper course of action to be the winner in the situation.

Equally valid is the idea of not reacting at all and letting it go. No anger, fear, retribution, swearing or high stress, just let it not bother you Release it.

If we are going to go into action mode we must do a few things and put some effort in. When the situation happens remain calm, if you become angry then your potential responses later are limited, the person who has committed the offence will tell everyone how you blew your top, exploded and reacted improperly.

Determine first if you should call the police, in the case of a car accident or other damage of person or property it is always good to be the one that called the police to report it and stay calm when on the phone with the dispatcher. Take photos, most cell phones have cameras on them and after you call the police take a few photos for the record.

Even if the police do not send a car, you have a report on file, that you called and were not a raving lunatic.

If the situation is personal, spouse cheats, boss fires you, bank makes an error, friend lies to you, child uses drugs, and on and on, you will have to look deep within yourself for the answer.

When a spouse cheats you may need to take action, calmly move out and find a divorce attorney. Being angry, and starting a fight will not solve anything and may end up with one, or both of you in jail for the night.

Choosing to leave the cheating spouse is a positive action, later you must release the situation so that you can both live beyond the pain. Carrying around the pain and not releasing it will destroy you, and do real physical damage to body in the form of stress.

Fighting, revenge, holding anger, insulting, tormenting – none of these work and any feeling of accomplishment will be short lived; you must release, or take calm clear action.

Granddad would always say to “scream it on a mountain” – drive up a mountain and when all alone, scream and stomp around like a five year old with a temper tantrum, throw rocks and kick the dirt. When you are done, calm down and release it, let it go, take calm action and never yell or fight about it again.

A child that takes illegal drugs or drinks at a young age requires that we take action to stop the behavior, you can not simply release and let the child continue to damage themselves. It is important when we take the action, that the action is not seen as attacking, or based on anger, we are not fighting the drug use, we are taking action so that drugs and alcohol are not used again.

Children with these issues need to be watched more carefully. Finding a good counselor that the child can confide in helps. Often school districts offer programs or there are teen groups within organizations like Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous.

Watch for others trying to create a reaction from you that they can use against you later. Recently a friend talked about a discussion with their boss. The boss was extremely derogatory and demeaning during the conversation and it was out of place. When the friend reacted with anger, they were fired for showing anger in the work place.

It was cheaper for the company than laying off the employee and having to pay unemployment benefits. Yes, it was a management decision and my friend reacted just as they had hoped and lost not only his job, he lost his unemployment as well.

If the friend had not reacted in anger he would have had a good legal action against the company, but when he got angry he lost all his power.

I look forward to discussing this with you in the comments, or you can email me.

Thanks