Freeze is a primal response that happens in the physiology as a result of overwhelming events. It’s not something that we do but rather something that happens in the most reptilian part of the brain. It’s an imprint of early childhood trauma, particularly pre verbal and developmental trauma.
Freeze is an overlay on reality. A dampening down of the senses. A kind of deadening. A confusing disorientation that says, “I can’t feel myself connected to the aliveness of this moment”. This is the core wound of separation.
Freeze evokes a sense of being homesick. Homesick for the simple and ordinary sounds, smells, sensations, emotions and images that let us know that we are alive. That we belong here. The sound of birds chirping; the smell of coffee; cool air on our arms; the taste of strawberries and even the sweet tears of grief.
Freeze creates a sense of absence from reality. A longing. We know it’s here but we can’t feel it. It’s from this place that we begin to seek for something outside of ourselves to free us from the agony of this absence.
Because seeking a cure for this sense of absence can’t be found outside ourselves, many of us have, or will face a “crisis” in our lives when everything we have built to create a sense of safety and belonging will begin to crumble. It has to crumble because it doesn’t have a reliable foundation. It’s built on top of a primal trauma response, layer by layer, in a way that most people don’t fully realize until the whole structure falls apart.
What I’ve discovered from my own experience and in working with clients is that the cure for freeze is in the freeze itself. It calls us home to ourselves.
Healing happens slowly and it needs to happen slowly in order to digest the overwhelm that is contained within it. It’s tender, sweet and innocent. It’s protected. It often requires the support of a skillful and compassionate practitioner who knows how to go slow and build a foundation of safety and trust. This takes time. What was once the source of separation becomes a portal back to the home we left so long ago that has been quietly and patiently awaiting our return.
Freeze is similar to the way I experience the death of a loved one. “I know you’re there but I can’t feel you.” As the portals open our connection with all beings is restored.
“In response to threat and injury, animals, including humans, execute biologically based, non-conscious action patterns that prepare them to meet the threat and defend themselves. The very structure of trauma, including activation, dissociation and freezing are based on the evolution of survival behaviors. When threatened or injured, all animals draw from a “library” of possible responses. We orient, dodge, duck, stiffen, brace, retract, fight, flee, freeze, collapse, etc. All of these coordinated responses are somatically based- they are things that the body does to protect and defend itself. It is when these orienting and defending responses are overwhelmed that we see trauma.
The bodies of traumatized people portray “snapshots” of their unsuccessful attempts to defend themselves in the face of threat and injury. Trauma is a highly activated incomplete biological response to threat, frozen in time. For example, when we prepare to fight or to flee, muscles throughout our entire body are tensed in specific patterns of high energy readiness. When we are unable to complete the appropriate actions, we fail to discharge the tremendous energy generated by our survival preparations. This energy becomes fixed in specific patterns of neuromuscular readiness. The person then stays in a state of acute and then chronic arousal and dysfunction in the central nervous system. Traumatized people are not suffering from a disease in the normal sense of the word- they have become stuck in an aroused state. It is difficult if not impossible to function normally under these circumstances.” ~ Peter A. Levine
All of Candace’s services are Trauma, PTSD, Complex Grief, Chronic Illness and Benzo withdrawal symptom sensitive.