Freeze mode.
A natural response system, one that I am all too familiar with.
A survival strategy where you are unable to react to a stressful situation because your body won’t allow you. A feeling of constant overwhelm, regardless of the demands and in constant worry of the past or what may happen.
The stop in your tracks, lose track of your thoughts, numbness and dissociation from yourself/ out of your body, lack of memories, low circulation, body clenching (nervous system fraying), pain you feel.
Compassion to all parts of yourself.
&a note of some hard things being discussed throughout. 
Chronic freeze suppresses the immune system, leaving the body less able to fight infections, heal wounds or regulate inflammation.
Freeze mode can develop in a variety of ways, starting back before we born … living a womb of a woman in a stressed state maybe; starting our lives being torn away from our mothers body (for various reasons) .. a lack of connection to ourselves or love from the get go; trauma in our younger lives where we were literally just surviving.
A note that for this very reason, your natural response system is at no fault of your own; you’ve been doing the best you can with what you know how…
I used to blame myself for being sexually assaulted. I once held (and am still working through) so much shame in my body here. Going through the motions of deserving it because of other choices I was making; questioning the truth of this because how could I have went along with something so trechorous that I absolutely did not consent too? Shame in how I handled it … or rather, didn’t handle it. Lack of trust in self and others because of not initially being believed or stuck in anger at nobody giving me tools or suggestions on how to help me move through what I now know was deep sadness.
&so it got burried and most definitely played a role in my lack of respect for self in further choices I made in relation to men I allowed around me.
Until I found somebody who treated me the opposite of what I had previously welcomed in. Who started to thaw me out and begin healing the wounds I once forgot existed.
With deeper stories that I am still unpacking of my own freeze mode, it is important to recognize that we don’t just come out of it and are healed. As with all healing, it is a process of unraveling the deep betrayal we may have once felt within ourselves; the stories that have been frozen in our bodies, adding layers of icicles to move and heal and forgive through.
“Allow yourself to melt and soften through the pain; we are safe in our bodies now”
The Connections:
TO PAIN: When your body is in prolonged freeze mode, a natural response is for you to clench your body … when you are constantly clenching, your nervous system reacts, is in a state of hypo arousal (see below) and becomes prime for inflammation … being the cause of much pain when it comes to chronic illness’.
TO EMOTIONS: Deep freeze mode is correlated to a deep disconnection (heyo .. this was me). When we are disconnected, we don’t feel safe within our bodies… which carries emotion like shame, fear (anxiety).
When we are disconnected from our safety, many part of us may too be a part from who we are (not who the world tells us to be). A mistrust in self. Covered in being overly emotional (me too lol), or the polar opposite and being closed off to emotions, being overtly sexual (same), or making compulsive actions.
Deep wounds of our worth.
Counteracted by the things we “allowed” to happen to us; as I believed for so long.
Taken From Chaos to Calm; a program to start your process.
When your body is in deep freeze mode, you are afraid to soften and be vulnerable … with yourself and others;
you are needing to control the outcomes and everything you can; you feel sexually suppressed or guilt and avoidance. A connection to being in wounded masculine and feminine energies (where we go in our work together).
A deeper connection on a science level, the hypo arousal that our nervous system sits in; when our parasympathetic (rest and digest) is underactive. Where your energy does not have enough room to activate and so instead you completely shut down.
Signs your living in a constante state of freeze:
You “allow" things to happen
You feel frozen when it comes to speaking your opinion
Having no energy or desire to connect with others
Feeling hopeless
Depressed
Struggle to set goals
Feeling flat or numb
Feeling the urge to do something but not knowing what to do
Procrastination
Avoidant
Expert, Peter Levine states it like your nervous systems having one foot all the way down on the gas pedal and the other all the way down on the breaks.
Tools to support your movement out of freezen mode:
Awareness is good, but a mind therapy does not have the ability to bring your body out of freeze mode. It is within your nervous system.
Building capacity within your body by working with a Somatic practitioner (like me 😉)
The connection to body and learning to be in the present moment is key and will take time and layers of unravelling
Building your window of tolerance through a regular practice of Breathwork and other nervous system support modalities and tools.
Dance
Move your body through other modalities like yoga, pilates, cardio, strength etc.
Stomp your feet in to the ground
Consciously commit to choosing yourself every day.
Compassion to yourself and forgiveness for all of the parts that kept you here prior to knowing any better.
