Data Collectors…
Happy Monday!
Let’s talk Activated Survival Self (ASS)
There’s something I heard once that stuck with me:
“eventually everyone shows you their ass. You just have to decide whose ass you’re willing to stay with.”
This is not about good or bad, right or wrong. It’s about what’s sustainable for you. Understand in this context ass is the part of ourselves we hide. These parts come out when we are moody, tired, upset, or angry. They show up when we are suppressing our truth or when our boundaries are being stretched past our own window of tolerance. It’s the part of us that activates when we feel judged, exposed, threatened, or at risk of losing control. It’s what Jung would call the shadow self— the disowned parts of us that surface under pressure. In here, I call it the Activated Survival Self, and if I’m honest, this isn’t about spotting the ass in other people. It’s about noticing it with ourselves.
The Activated Survival Self shows up when we’re trying to protect ourselves, but most of the time, we’re not protecting ourselves from other people. We’re protecting ourselves from… ourselves.
From shame.
From inadequacy.
From the fear of being replaceable, unworthy, too much, not enough.
That’s when we avoid. That’s when we react. That’s when we triangulate instead of communicate. That’s when we blame tone instead of facing the message. That’s when we say, “Not everyone can leave,” “Not everyone has access,” “Slavery! What about that, huh?!” anytime we are faced with our own agency, instead of asking ourselves why we’re tolerating what we say is intolerable. We jump to the extremes, and those are often data.
Realizing how I am showing up in my marriage pressured, revolving in the old script and the metacognition training is showing me how my nervous system wants to blame my husband. This is what many women fall into. Doesn’t help that all we see is women scapegoat men for what they refuse to face.
Ego noise.
All the tension, pressure cooker energy. That wasn’t about my husband. That was about the version of me that had quietly outsourced parts of myself and called it “doable.” “Okay… not an issue.” The part of myself that autopilots right back into the old version of myself that over-accommodates for someone else’s comfort. When we love our partners we must be careful not to love at the cost to ourself. That love can easily become resentment. My husband and I have faced our fair share of seasonal challenges. Each time evolving us into a level of awareness that brings me back to looking at myself.
I want to start this series because well… my ass shows too. And lately it’s been peeking it’s little self out and causing me to self-sabotage, over-function, do too much. You know the drill. I noticed earlier this month when I published 9 pieces of work in 2 weeks. I needed to. Slow. Down.
That was a sign.
A sign that showed me I was in the ASS default mode network, looping and looping, and an interruption was needed fast.
This series isn’t about shaming the ass. It’s about naming it. Because once you can name your Activated Survival Self, you stop confusing it with your identity or other peoples assumed intentions. You will start noticing it as a sign that something is out of alignment with you and your inner self. Exploring what brings you back into alignment balanced and not feeling so disoriented all the time. Doing this content work only puts all my millions of ideas in a place where object permanence lives heavy. Working from home, does not help the discipline either. But it does in fact provide opportunities to build it.
The Activated Survival Self does not listen. Nope… it does not regulate. It does not self-reflect. It denies, deflects, and tone-polices.
What I am see now with people’s ASS is, It will quote therapy language, repeat buzzwords, and perform insight, but it won’t embody any of it. The ASS protects ego stability at all costs. The trap is trying to win over the ASS that is within yourself by succumbing to it, or in others by reacting to it.
Trying to explain yourself better.
Trying to perfect your tone or adjust it.
Trying to prove you’re loving enough, calm enough, patient enough to deserve being heard. All that does is condition the world that you will shrink for them… At the expense of yourself. Relationships, Marriages, Workplace dynamics all challenge us with this.
Understand, the Activated Survival Self is not relational; it’s protective. We can’t reason with someone’s defense system when their identity feels threatened nor can others reason with us. The only move is refusal. Refusal to engage the defensive behavior. Refusal to argue with distortions from other people (which much of what people say is a distortion). Refusal to shrink yourself to make someone else more comfortable in their avoidance.
You wait for the self to return. If it returns.
Now What triggers the ASS to show up?
Well that depends on you, your triggers, and your nervous system baseline. In future writings and podcast episodes we can unpacks this further. Part of my ASS is trying to Costco style everything to the point of burn out for me. 🤭
Here are some examples to see where we have fallen into ASSery
“Not Everyone Can Leave” as Identity Armor
You see an educational post about boundaries or leaving toxic environments. Your chest tightens. Instead of asking yourself why you’re still staying, you post:
“Not everyone has that option.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“This is privileged advice.”
Are structural barriers real? Yes.
But sometimes that statement becomes an emotional shield and a way to normalize endurance instead of confronting fear.
Bypass move: Reflection
Is my comment about systemic reality… or is it regulating my attachment to suffering?
Triangulating Instead of Communicating
Your ASS avoids direct discomfort. Instead of asking the person directly, you tell three other people how upset you are. You gather allies. You rehearse the injustice.
You say:
“I just need to vent.”
“I don’t want drama.”
“I don’t even care that much.”
But you do care about that really. You’re just scared of confrontation and found a way to co-regulate at the expense to never facing the issue.
Bypass move:
I’m talking about them instead of to them because I’m afraid of rejection.
Over-Functioning to Prevent Abandonment
You anticipate needs. You smooth everything over. You manage emotions for two. Your ASS believes if you stay useful, you’ll stay safe.
Bypass logic: I’m just supportive.
Truth: You’re afraid to stop and see what happens if you don’t perform.
Losing Self and Calling It Devotion
You stop asking what you want. You stop checking your own signals. You become reactive instead of reflective. Your ASS has fused with the relationship.
Bypass logic: “This is what commitment looks like.”
Truth: Commitment without selfhood breeds resentment.
As I explore my own ASS and how it shows up under environmental pressure or perceived pressure due to old scripts trying to come back online. I challenge you all to do the same. Women, for many of us, that script goes online when we are in relationships. Understand that much of the information out there is designed for the ASS to come out. Many people have their ASS permanently stuck as their baseline for functioning and have no idea why.
What I mean by this is: if you are always at an 8+ on the nervous system activation scale and 10 is the highest (meaning explosive, reactive behavior), while 3 or below is rest-and-digest, the goal state do you know what you need to get there?
Have you ever even been there?
If you have never been under a 3 on the nervous system scale, how will you know that you arrived there? What will you notice? What will you see? What will it feel like? This is training. Because if you can’t even notice your own rate fluctuating—and what environmental or internal factors influence it—how do you expect your partner to?
Your children to?
People in your life to?
That’s the ASS right there, creating an unconscious contract for others. Outsourcing the internal work.
Everyone’s ass shows up eventually.
Mine.
Yours.
Your partner’s.
Your boss’s.
Your favorite influencer’s.
The question isn’t whether it exists. The question is whether you can see it when it’s yours. If you can only identify the Activated Survival Self in other people, you’re still inside yours. This series isn’t about shaming it. We don’t do that shame business over here. The goal is to sit with it, look at it, feel it, but most importantly, name it.
If that feels uncomfortable, good. That means we’re close to something honest.
We’re not here to erase our shadow. We’re here to integrate it.
Till next time.
Come as you are, where you are 🫶🏽
when you had enough you flexed had too, but mama always reminded us why we got a beating ( This is for showing your ASS). right before you got spanked. she knew we still had to though....