Tending to our Freeze
Flowers are blooming, our friends are inviting us to backyard gatherings, and summer is right around the corner. It feels like there’s an explosion of energy. Newness and desire. This time of year, things feel bright and vibrant.
But what do we do if we’re not able to meet that yet?
There’s a mixture of feelings swirling around- desire to be out, excitement, anxiety, questions about safety, and for many, a feeling of just not quite being ready yet. A lot of these feelings end up being in opposition to each other. We are holding a lot right now. It’s okay if you’re conflicted. I’m conflicted too.
I find myself feeling eager to see friends and notice that my nervous system needs slowness while I integrate. I’m seeing how this year has changed me and what I’ve learned about myself and my needs and I’m seeing that even when I want to be social, I’m scared and it’s a lot for me to handle. I’m noticing that I need people to be gentle with me. Something I’ve rarely required of people before. It’s vulnerable to state that. It’s vulnerable to ask for that. And it’s new; this new me needs time to integrate into this new phase of pandemic existence.
For me it’s happening in little spurts. Because I live in a high risk household, I’ve been extremely isolated over the last year. Returning to the world has been challenging. I don’t feel safe yet. So I’m giving myself a lot of time and space. Letting friends know I have a time limit on how long I can hang out and letting people know I need to be asked to be touched- including those long awaited hugs. I space my social interactions waaaaay out. I’m being really intentional. And even with that, I’m frustrated. I get annoyed that I need to go so slowly (we have our feelings and we have our feelings about our feelings).
I overrode that need for slowness one day recently and left the house without grounding first. I just wanted some normalcy. I just wanted to buy a houseplant at the nursery up the street. “It’s fine, I’m fine, I’m tough, I’m resilient, I don’t need to be so god damn slow all the time I’m tired of being slow”.
And I am- I am tired of being slow. But I got to the nursery and felt so overexposed. I left my body. I barely remember choosing a plant to take home. I only vaguely remember checking out but can’t recall what the person behind the counter looked like. I can’t remember driving home and was non-verbal once I got there (I’m an external processor and a Gemini rising to boot so this is unusual for me- a sign that I’m not in my body).
It took me a long time to get back into my body and feel safe again. Me trying to be in control and override what was present backfired big time. And yes, sometimes we have to push ourselves out of our comfort zone to change our situation. But we can do this while we use our tools (grounding, asking for help, being intentional). I’m not mad at myself for having pushed or for that experience and how it felt pretty awful. It’s just where I’m at right now. That’s information for me. That tells me that I still don’t feel safe, even if my brain says I am. It tells me I need to move slowly and that I’m still feeling frozen.
Our freeze response exists to take care of us. Our freeze is a wise protector. It tells our bodies to get very still and wait for the threat to pass. It’s also not something we choose. Our response to a threat, or our trauma responses, are hardwired into our bodies. We can have an awareness of them and learn how to work with them, absolutely; but we can’t cognitively choose how our bodies respond. We can’t control or dominate this either. We can override it- we’re encouraged to do this, but that often ends up being re-traumatizing rather than being the “shake it off”, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, “no pain no gain” picture of success of our forefathers dreamt of. Because of this social conditioning, we really love to see people moving, going, doing and we don’t value slowness societally. We prioritize action and ascribe virtue to it.
The wisdom of the Freeze state isn’t valued in our culture. We often find ourselves feeling guilty that we froze or are frozen. So on top of being stuck, we also feel judgement (again- our feelings, and our feelings about our feelings). I talk about this a lot in my course RETURN: a deep dive into somatic awareness, and I’ll say it here too- freezing helps us to stay still until it is safe to move again. Until the threat has passed. This way, we go unnoticed by the aggressor/danger/virus and once it’s gone, we can come back to ourselves and begin to thaw. This is an animal knowing.
Sometimes, when it’s safe to move again, it takes a little while for us to unfurl. This is normal and to be expected. Our bodies might need time to understand we actually are safe. Sometimes we know this cognitively but our bodies need some time to integrate. (The opposite also happens btw.)
Many of us have been experiencing an extended freeze this last year; many of us are still experiencing this. And I just want to say- it’s okay to give ourselves time. There is a lot of pressure to get back to normal. To be shiny and bright and social again. To not make room for the messy grief. For the questions. For the let down that happens after we do feel safe. If you need time to figure out how you feel about a thing, give yourself time to figure out how you feel about a thing. You don’t have to rush this. You don’t have to override this.
We can tend to our freeze lovingly. We can sit with it and understand the shape of it as we wait for it to thaw out. As we become aware of our freeze, we can bring compassion to it. “Thank you for keeping me safe”. And we can encourage it to melt a little. We can say “hey I think we’re safe now, or safer than we were, can we try and move a little?” and go slowly as we listen to it. And as we listen, we may feel some cracking during the thaw. It might be difficult. We might feel relief and pleasure as the freeze melts. We make room for all of it and we take it as it is. If the melting feels good we go with that. If the thawing feel painful, we move slowly and offer a lot of breaks and compassion. We ask our bodies what they need from us and give that to them.
If you’re feeling similar, here are some ways to bring some compassion to our Freeze:
Don’t rush yourself (even when you feel frustrated)
Share how you’re feeling with a friend or your community
Ask for what you need from your friends and family
Go outside and be with the earth or the trees (you can do this entirely alone)
Slow down and feel into your senses in the safety of your own home. What do you smell? See? Feel? Hear? Ritualize this if that feels right.
Feel into all of the support you have available to you (even if you’re not using it)
Rely on your internal and external resources that you find supportive
Ask for help if you need it
Know you’re not alone
I’m still thawing out. Like all of us, I’m still integrating.
I went to the mountains last week to give myself a change of scenery, be with the trees which my nervous system finds nourishing, and to celebrate the birth of my partner. We rented a little one room cabin next to a creek with an outdoor hot tub under the trees. I slid into the hot tub first, alone as my partner rinsed off, and felt the heat from the water holding my tired body. I looked up at the canopy of trees and stars. I could hear the creek bubbling along with the sound of the hot tub. And I felt held and safe. And for the first time, I could actually feel the truth in “we survived”. We survived this pandemic. We lived with the specter of death right outside our window for a year and we’ve survived. My freeze started to melt as I cried and let my body feel into the sensation of having survived. The sensation of safety and support from the water, trees, and stars. Alongside the grief for those who didn’t make it through with us.
It’s not something I could have planned. And I still don’t feel all the way safe all the time. I still have days where I feel frozen or activated. But I’m listening and making space. Integrating the trauma and grief of the last year is going to take time for all of us.
We will integrate this over time. We won’t always feel frozen or stuck. It might take a while and it may come and go, but we will move through this time. And we don’t have to do it alone.