The Awesome Power of Freeze

I have come to find that trauma responses are superpowers. The biochemistry of the response itself is one of incredible force. Your adrenals fire up, your body tenses, a huge amount of electricity moves through your nervous system.

The purpose of this is to propel you into a fight or flight response so you can fend off a predator, or escape a threat. However, sometimes, this power is used to shut you down. This is the power of freeze.

Freeze response is what happens when your body realizes it cannot fight off or run away from the potential threat or danger. In a nanosecond, your body chooses to shut down.

To stiffen up, curl inwards, and protect yourself. In addition to this physiological change, dissociation quickly sets in to detach you from the experience sensationally. So you will freeze up and go numb simultaneously.

Why would your body do this? To spare you of any unpleasant experiences before you die.

As dramatic as that sounds, it’s the truth. It’s why freeze exists. If something is about to eat me, kill me, or if a semi is about to barrel into my car and I cannot stop it, my body will tense up to protect my internal organs and remove me from the experience.

Dissociation and numbness are nature’s way of sparing us any unnecessary suffering in moments where we cannot use our agency to escape possible threat.

How benevolent is that?

There’s one more thing you should know about freeze. It’s called collapse. Collapse is another option for the body depending on the inescapable situation.

With collapse, we lose our vitality. Instead of the body using all of its strength to tighten up, it relinquishes power to soften and become lifeless.

This is the playing dead mechanism you see prey doing to survive being caught by a predator.

What’s brilliant about our bodies is this: freeze and collapse are meant to be temporary strategies that the body uses until the threat has passed and then our bodies mobilize into fight or flight.

But what if your body confuses threat with stress and overwhelm? What if your body sees the pile of laundry or bills like a predator?

Let’s explore that now.

Because freeze literally stops you from moving, you’re going to have a hard time getting anything done when you live from this state.

You’re going to forget your words, have a hard time forming sentences, feel slow and heavy, and need extra sleep.

You’re also going to find yourself using screens – A LOT. Binge watching, endless scrolling, and phone addiction are common expression (and causes) of freeze because you’re stuck there taking in all this stimulus with little to no movement.

Don’t worry, there are ways to move through it and I’ll get there, but let’s first explore why those of you in freeze are so damn tired even though you’ve “barely done anything”.

Try it now. Take a deep breath and then hold your breath.

Now clench your fists.

Now your jaw.

Now your butt.

Now your toes.

Hold for a few seconds then let go. Wasn’t that intense?

Living in a state of freeze means working overtime, because all of this energy inside of you wants to express itself, yet your body contracts against it.

This outer repression that meets your inner expression causes serious effects in the body.

High blood pressure, muscle tension, headache, chronic inflammations, and painful joints are some of the most common things I’ve witnessed in my clients who live in freeze.

Lacking motivation, procrastinating, not being able to access your creativity and needing extra sleep are many ways freeze and collapse manifest.

Why? Because the whole purpose of these is to make your animal body appear dead or stiff. It’s to not move.

This is why it’s so frustrating to want to do something yet not have any energy to do it.

And pushing through it is the main way we tend to deal.

Someone whose body lives in freeze will rely on stimulants to push through the body’s desire to shut down. These include skipping meals, caffeine, excess sugar, nicotine, and lots of chocolate.

These foods and practices help the body adrenalize so that it can mobilize out of freeze and into action.

It works – I’m not throwing shade at it.

And… it adds to the exhaustion of your body.

Because your body is already working overtime. It’s already adrenalized and the system is shutting down.

Stimulants effectively break the body’s boundary to protect by collapsing or freezing and then, when it wears off, you’re even in greater freeze or collapse, and you can add adrenal fatigue to the menu.

Pushing through is necessary when you must do things. Raise kids, make dinner, work to earn living – it’s important. We don’t all have the luxury to not.

We offer a 6-week series that will teach you about freeze and teach you ways to begin moving through it, but first we must respect it.

When you hate your body, judge it for being slow, or shame yourself for procrastinating you’re only adding to the freeze.

Your animal body is now trembling and protesting itself against your own self-criticism.

It helps to see freeze for what it is: a sophisticated protective response to overwhelm a potential threat.

It’s a signal from your body that you’re beyond capacity and you need some tending. So I’m going to give you my favourite practice for tending to your freeze right now for free.

Step 1: Grab a pillow and sit on a chair or couch so your feet are firmly planted on the floor.

Step 2: Hug the pillow onto your belly and chest and give it a good squeeze.

Step 3: Say out loud: “Body, you’re just trying to protect me and I appreciate that” and notice what your body feels in response.

Step 4: Take a breath, press your feet into the ground, and notice what part of your body wants to move.

This can be emotional movements, sensational movements, or actual physical movement and expression.
This is the beginning of the thaw. This is the beginning of supporting an exhausted body to begin moving, slowly, out of stillness and repression.

You also may have no movements. Just embodying and getting to know the freeze in a kind, supportive way can be just as effective.

Practice this for 5-10 mins each day throughout these next 3 weeks. You can even do quick drop ins for 1-2 minutes when you notice yourself stiffening up or shutting down.

If we don’t see this freeze response as a way the body is trying to help us we will continue to hate on it and the body will continue to freeze up.

How is your freeze response helping you to avoid more overwhelm? 

How does it protect you from feeling and doing more when you’re already at capacity?

Please ask these questions and look for the answer in your body throughout this week. Share your response with me here.

Notice whenever you feel unmotivated or you’re procrastinating. Sit down, take a breath, and notice which parts of your body feel tense and constricted, as well as lifeless and weak.

This is the beginning of somatically tracking freeze and collapse in your body.