How to Overcome the Freeze Response
In my search to find out about what keeps us stuck, I came to know more about the freeze response…
Freeze response: a survival strategy used when fight or flight is impossible.
Apparently, it is often overlooked in our studies on reactions to stress. What is the case is that we go into a fight-flight-freeze response every time we perceive that we are facing a threat. Our coping mechanism helps us to guard against threats to our survival. When we see a lion running towards us, we can choose to fight or flee. However, there is also the freeze response that could take place right before fight or flight.
“Based on recent literature, freeze, flight, fight, fright, faint provides a more complete description of the human acute stress response sequence than current descriptions.” Merie Friedman
We may not meet menacing lions everyday. However, there could be many situations where we perceive we are in danger. While the threat we face in our lives is hardly real, it is our perception of it that keeps it real. The illusion of danger gets played out in the physical world as if it truly exists.
Our faces turn white, our palms run sweaty, our eyes widen in shock, and our knees go wobbly. Finally, we feel as if we are drained of blood and that we are about to faint. These could be some of the paralyzing reactions that we have while we are on the verge of taking on a new project, speak in front of the public or move beyond our comfort zone. The fear can be so overwhelming that we are not able to move forward in the direction of success.
Frozen in a Time Bubble
Apparently, the freeze response kicks in due to a time bubble that we have been trapped in previously. The freeze response does not happen without a reason. We are locked in time due to some past traumatic event. Mostly, this event can be traced to a time when we were at our most vulnerable, below the age of 6 years old.
The past event in our mind is like a movie. When we hit the replay button to the movie, we are brought to the single climatic moment when we were not able to speak up or fend for ourselves. Courage had failed us when we needed it most. We were in freeze…with the same or similar reactions that we now face in our current situation.
Our bodies would store our reactions as markers associated with the trauma. In many cases, it is as if we are reliving the same trauma today. It becomes habitual for us. Even hours of sitting meditation may not help us release our unresolved emotions easily, especially when we are not guided for the process.
Time-Honored Lessons
Most importantly, it is during the event that we form a core belief. We made a critical but limiting conclusion about ourselves. When I delved into my own movies, I was looking at aspects of “I am not good enough” that I had not resolved previously. Hardly surprising! I recognize that this belief is a huge one for me and it will take repeated inner work to address it fully. It’s the belief that causes me to procrastinate on the things I need to do.
Clients that I have helped facilitate also report to the following core beliefs:
– I am such a failure.
– I am such a bad girl.
– I am helpless.
– I am not lovable.
– I have to please everyone else but myself.
We went on to dissolve emotional energy around the core beliefs.
Trapped in time bubbles of the past, we find ourselves stuck in the same patterns over and over again…even in adulthood.
What is interesting is we may consciously already know what our limiting beliefs are. However, as Dr Bruce Lipton points out, the knowledge of what our limiting beliefs are does not create a shift. (Dr Lipton is a Developmental Biologist and Author of Best-selling Book, The Biology of Belief, who discovered that genes and DNA can be manipulated by a person’s beliefs.)
A shift can only happen when there is real learning involved. This takes place when there is full integration of the lesson that corrects the limiting belief. Thus, we need to go where the lions are, where the problems arise in their origination. We need to locate the place where we were suspended energetically in time.
It is only at this point that we address what’s been left unresolved and integrate wisdom from our learning experiences.
Let’s Go Time Traveling
Are you living in time bubbles of the past?
What is causing you to go into paralysis and/or procrastination?
What is stopping you from stepping up to your highest potential?
Well, no more excuses!
If you can muster any energy at all, do this: release yourself from the the illusion of fear.
On my part, I welcome the opportunity to work with you if you resonate with this article. I hope to be your time travel guide while you get on board your space capsule. Let’s go find the parts of you that have been left behind, trapped and unsafe in a forgotten corner. They are waiting to be rescued!
Apply for a 30-minute complimentary session here.
Love and Abundance Always,
Evelyn Lim
Abundance Alchemy Coach
Download Your Free eBook on 3 Mindset Strategies to Turn Self-Doubt into Confidence When You Subscribe
