When you freeze

⁃           I am ok…  I am not affected, not at all.⠀
⁃           You are safe. I am with you.  What can you feel?⠀
⁃           I can’t feel anything…⠀
⁃           What sensations are present in your body?⠀
⁃           There is nothing. My body feels numb…⠀
⁃           It’s ok, sweetheart. Let’s take a breath together. Look at me and repeat after me (slowly breathing in and out through the mouth).⠀
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In reality… her breath is short, there is a lot of tension in her body, She is hardly blinking, her pelvic floor, shoulders and jaw are all very tight. The most tricky part is that she looks absolutely normal, even pretty cool.⠀
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This is a response of the sympathetic nervous system called “freeze”. The third response alongside “fight and flight”. The “freeze” response is the least obvious hence less known and talked about. However, perhaps the most popular one. ⠀
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The brain signals the body that you are facing danger and you have to be quiet and show no trace of life.⠀
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While it may be useful to do so in face of great danger, if we don’t process the traumatic  experience we end up having lots of habitual tension in the body and a response to certain circumstances of life out of the wound, not presence.⠀
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Although you will genuinely believe that you are actually ok. ⠀
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Is this avoidance? ⠀
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We can call it such. Although it is usually entirely unconscious. So in fact it is inner little child that is having a freak out. Getting upset or angry with this person is like punishing a 4 year old for not behaving like an adult. It won’t help.⠀
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You may live your whole life thinking that you have no trauma, until you realise that the way a child perceives things is totally different than an adult. An experience of being left alone just a little too long or witnessing your parents fighting might result in a trauma that you will circle around your whole life. Sooner or later it will come to surface as an invitation to be addressed.

If you don’t address it, it will keep on manifesting as inability to trust that your partner will stay (hence manifesting partners that don’t stay) or that drama is an essential component of romantic relationships, or feeling overwhelmed by other people’s energy.⠀
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Usually we get educated about trauma when we hit our own trauma. And then… the best strategy is to go into it. Yet, without pushing. Going in means providing safety to the vulnerable part within. ⠀
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Because when we go into those places that feel dark, that are scary, where it feels like we might get drowned in our own tears and burnt by our own anger…. yet we go there holding our own hand, giving ourselves all the qualities we wish our caretakers or loved ones gave us… that’s when true healing happens. ⠀
That’s where we mature as human beings. ⠀
That’s where we start embracing the greater complexity of what it means to be a human. ⠀
That’s where our hearts open wider. ⠀
That’s where we learn what compassion actually means.