What to do when trapped in a room with a predator

What do you do when you are trapped in a room with a predator?

For many, this is a haunting question. It feels like there’s no easy answer. Even considering the question can be psychologically disruptive.

Perhaps it’s because we are taught from an early age to seek security and to avoid unnecessary risks. The phrase “better safe than sorry” echoes in our collective consciousness.

“Just keep your head down!”

Yet, what if our understanding of safety is flawed? What if the very act of avoiding the predator, and the risk of confronting it, is itself the most dangerous path?

The Grizzly Bear in Front of Me

This is the conversation I imagine having with myself if I ever find myself cornered on a remote path with a grizzly bear. I know we’re advised to stand our ground if we ever encounter a bear.

Don’t freeze.

Instead, stand tall, make noise, and make yourself appear as large as you possibly can.

Easier said than done.

I’m not sure what I would do if I encountered a bear while walking alone in the woods. I hope I’d stand and fight because I sure as hell know that I couldn’t outrun it. I can’t climb trees either. So, I know I’d have a difficult choice to make.

I don’t want to disparage bears, especially since a bear appears on the state flag of my beloved California. Maybe bears aren’t even real predators. But bears, and other animals that can eat me alive, help explain a dynamic that’s happening all around me right now.

I feel as if we’re trapped in a room with a bunch of predators. Maybe the real struggle is not my relationship with the predators, but with myself.

The Crisis of Playing it Safe

I’m talking to myself here, but I’m also hoping to reach the millions of other people who recognize the predators in our midst right now.

Let’s begin with self-compassion, but let’s end this conversation with a call to action.

First, our instinct to avoid risk is deeply ingrained. Behavioral psychologists Kahneman and Tversky illuminated this tendency through their research on loss aversion. Humans fear losing more than they desire gaining. This bias explains why we often freeze in the face of uncertainty. We cling to the familiar, mistaking stillness for security.

But inaction carries its own risks—often more insidious and enduring. Missed opportunities, eroded relationships, and slow decline are the hidden costs of safety-as-inaction. The consequences may not be immediate, but they accumulate like rust on a neglected machine.

The question we must ask ourselves is not “What might I lose if I act?” but “What might I lose if I fail to act?” Safety is not found in standing still; it is found in preparing ourselves to move forward.

The Illusion of Safety

Playing it safe is often an illusion. Inaction is not the absence of risk. True safety is not the avoidance of danger. Safety comes from the development of a mindset and skillset that allows you to navigate uncertainty with courage. When safety-as-inaction fails us, we must reframe our relationship with risk, challenge our loss aversion, and anchor ourselves in the pursuit of what we might gain, not merely what we fear losing.

This is where I choose to start, with the recognition that true safety is not insulation from harm; it is the ability to navigate uncertainty. Preparation, not protection, is the foundation of resilience.

This is the wisdom of seasoned mountaineers. They know the terrain can shift, weather can turn, and routes can vanish. Their safety lies not in avoiding the climb but in being ready to adapt. They carry the right gear, train their bodies, and trust their partners…and maybe a little can of bear spray in their back pocket.

Preparation and Foresight

We, too, must ask: “What do I need to move forward, even when the path is unclear?”

Preparation equips us to act despite fear. Preparation often begins with a willingness to peek around the corner, to anticipate what’s ahead.

This is what is called foresight—the ability to anticipate the cascading impact of the actions and events ahead of us. Foresight is not something people who cling to caution are comfortable doing. Foresight requires you to let go and to look toward the horizon.

This is particularly uncomfortable when you find yourself in the presence of a predator. There’s no time to look for an exit then. You would need to know where the exits were before you encountered the predator.

Safety comes from knowing your surroundings, from paying attention to what’s happening. Don’t walk with your eyes closed. When you finally open them, you might not like what’s staring you in the face.

Keep your eyes open and notice what’s around you. That is my first reminder to myself when I find myself walking alone on that dark path where visibility is poor.

Optimistic Imagination

Safety also requires imagination—a capacity too often dismissed as whimsical or impractical, especially in times of uncertainty. Yet, imagination is not an indulgence; it is a muscle of resilience. It is the inner force that allows us to see beyond the predator, beyond the constraints of what is, to glimpse what could be. When fear commands us to shrink into the present, imagination defies it—stretching our vision into the future and reminding us that the reality before us is not the only one possible.

Imagination is an act of defiance against the despair we feel in the presence of predators. It is a deliberate choice to believe that the conditions we face—whether personal hardship, organizational stagnation, or communal division—are not fixed. It is choosing to reject the lie that survival is the best we can hope for. It is insisting that flourishing is still within reach, even when the path toward it is obscured.

When we activate imagination, we transform our relationship with risk. Risk no longer becomes a void to fear—it becomes the space where new realities can be born. Imagination invites us to ask: What might be possible if I act with courage? What could we achieve together if we dared to move toward something better?

These questions reorient us away from guarding what we fear losing and toward pursuing what we might gain—together.

Faith as an Antidote to Paralysis

Another tool I will remind myself to call upon when faced with a predator is faith.

For many, faith is the invisible hand that steadies us when the ground shifts. Faith is the shield during our encounter with predators.

But faith need not always be religious. It can take many forms—it can be trust in our own capacity to learn and adapt, belief in the resilience of our team, or hope in a future that is still taking shape beyond our current sightline. Faith is what bridges the gap between what we know and what we cannot yet see.

Faith is not certainty. It is not the absence of risk. It is the conviction that, though we cannot see the entire path, we will find the next step—and that we will discover the tools, the people, and the strength we need along the way. It is the belief that we are resourceful enough, resilient enough, and supported enough to move forward, even when we cannot predict every twist and turn.

As Hebrews 11:1 reminds us, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This passage captures the essence of faith as trust in what is not yet visible—believing in the path and the outcome even when they are beyond our current sight.

Faith is what keeps us from freezing when fear demands we stand still. It whispers that uncertainty is not the enemy—stagnation is.

Faith tells us that safety is not found by gripping tightly to the ground beneath us but by trusting that we can walk, stumble, and still find our way.

A Path Forward: From Hesitation to Movement

Ultimately, I’ve come to accept that safety is action, and that courage is not the absence of fear; it is movement despite fear. It is the refusal to let uncertainty dictate my future.

Action requires equipping myself with new skills, seeking knowledge, and building support networks to handle new terrain. It demands that I ask not “What if I fail?” but “What if I succeed?” Safety is not avoiding the path; it is learning to walk the path despite the fear.

The tension between safety and risk will never fully vanish. It is not a problem we solve once but a dance we must learn to master—a rhythm we return to every time the ground shifts beneath us. Safety is not the stillness that comes from avoiding risk. Safety is the resolve to move through risk—with courage, imagination, and faith. It is found in our preparation to act, our ability to envision a better future, and our faith that we will find what we need along the way.

This is a letter to myself, but it is also an open letter right now to the scientists and the attorneys; the technologists and the war fighters; the teachers and aid workers; the investigators and auditors; the program officers and deputy directors—and to all of us.

What action have you avoided because it felt risky? What is the cost of your inaction? And what might we all gain if you choose to move forward? The answers to these questions will shape not only your future but the future of all of us. The choice is yours.

About the series: What To Do When is a series designed to offer new perspectives, insights, and suggestions on how to respond, symphonically, to a wide variety of situations and scenarios that make collaboration and collective difficult.

About the author: Dr. A.J. Robinson is the founder and CEO of Symphonic Strategies, a firm that specializes in collective action, leadership development, and systems change. Symphonic Strategies align teams, measure impact, and equip employees to overcome challenges—so organizations thrive and deliver results.