The freeze response is one of our natural, involuntary stress responses. It happens when the parasympathetic activation starts to overpower the sympathetic arousal. The sympathetic signs of high muscle tone are still visible as an underlying energy, but we moved down the polyvagal ladder into immobility. Imagine that the foot that carries your weight stepped down the ladder into dorsal vagal activation with Moe but you still have the other foot in sympathetic arousal with Izzy.
Some also like to imagine the nervous system like a car where the sympathetic activation is the gas pedal, the parasympathetic nervous system is the brake. In case of Freeze, we still have our foot on the gas pedal while we hit the brake hard. The car stopped moving, but the moment we let go of the brake it will jump forward with flight/fight energy. If we let go of the gas completely the body would go into shutdown/dissociation, where the muscle tension drops.
The sign of a freeze response is the inability to move voluntarily, the body seems frozen in place, the muscles are tight. This can be accompanied by feelings of fear and a tangible heart beat. We are usually still aware of our surroundings, our consciousness is not turned off.
When we go into Freeze, we might get stuck there. Our body freezes, the brain recognizes that as a sign of danger, so it signals back to the body that we must be in danger. The body intensifies the stress response, which sends more signals back to the brain that the situation must be dangerous. The feedback loop reinforces itself. We might slip into Shutdown from here.
The hard way out
Because we are frozen it seems like there is little we can do. We can’t interrupt the feedback loop by simply moving.
For many years I was taught that the only way to manage this situation is when someone from the outside intervenes and uses smelling salts to force me out of the freeze state.
This rather aggressive approach introduces extreme stimulation that the body identifies as potentially life-threatening. It lets go of the ‘brake’ so we can defend ourselves.
For many survivors this feels like an act of violence. Our T becomes this person with two faces. Usually caring and understanding, they become a source of adverse stimulation and more stress when we are most vulnerable because we are already in a stress response that feels like a loss of control. How are we supposed to trust them when they sometimes hurt us ‘for our own good’. And how are we supposed to tell that apart from what abusers said and did.
Even when smelling salts are applied we are not automatically regulated. We are just back in flight/fight. Without a chance to regulate, say because the smelling salts are applied for too long without any co-regulation, we might feel trapped in another abusive situation where we can’t get away and therefore go into a full shutdown this time, to escape.
Don’t get me wrong, this technique works. But is it a good one? And is there really no better way? One that has more to do with regulation, since our problem is dysregulation, and less with force. Since when has force healed trauma or helped the body to feel safe.
The gentle alternative
Turns out there is another way. It takes a little longer because it is based on natural regulation, but it works entirely without force. And even better, we can use it ourselves without the need for an intervention by another person. We change the feedback loop that is happening between body and brain by guiding our awareness.
Our new feedback loop will be focused on everything that is working, everything that tells us that we are safe and that the situation is ok. (This technique works for freeze where we are still conscious, not a full shutdown.)
First we need to check what resources are still available for us.
Does the mind still work? That is necessary.
How about our senses? Can we see, hear and sense?
Is it maybe still possible to move the eyes? Or feel the belly move with our breath?
Then we take our awareness and start to focus it on the information that reduces the stress.
Using movement
The easiest situation is one where we can still move our eyes.
We can start to move them however we want, slow and fast, up and down, looking in every direction, while we pay close attention to the fact that not everything is frozen. We can move something! When we take in this felt sense of being able to move something voluntarily and focus on that alone, it usually doesn’t take long before we notice that we can turn the head a little bit. The freeze response is slowly melting away.
Then we focus on how we can turn the head, move that around and we keep noticing the felt sense of being able to move the head. Whenever a new body part unfreezes we focus our awareness on all the movement that is possible. It can take a couple of minutes. But once we are unstuck we are almost back to our regulated self.
Using senses
Sometimes small movements are not available but we can still use our senses. That is when we start to scan our environment in search of something beautiful, something familiar, something common or something neutral. Maybe we happen to look in the direction of something that is pleasing to the eye. Then we can use our awareness to take that in. Our body responds when we look at beautiful things. If there is nothing beautiful to be seen, maybe it is something from our every-day life, something that signals that everything is like it is always.
Even taking in the felt sense of looking at something boring will change the feedback loop because we are now sending signals from the brain to the body that nothing exciting or threatening is happening, while the body sends signals of whatever safe thing we are looking at back to the brain. We can make this exercise more efficient if we can use our other senses as well to increase the amount of input into the feedback loop. Then we could add birdsong or a pleasant smell to the felt sense of things being ok. When there is sensory stimulation that triggered us we don’t put our awareness there, we just keep searching for something that is at least neutral.
Some people experience Freeze regularly when they are in bed (not speaking of sleep paralysis here). That is why using anchors around the bed is so useful. It gives us something to look at, something to work with.
Using the mind
Sometimes we are already rather deep in the parasympathetic response and we can’t move anything and we can’t use our senses properly. Then we still have our mind and access to positive memories, fantasies and imagery. Using The Safe Place is usually not the first thought we have when we go into Freeze, but it surly isn’t a bad idea. Any guided imagery could introduce new inner pictures to the feedback loop but ones that include movement could be especially helpful. Our body responds to inner pictures the same way as to real situations. It can’t tell the information apart, that is why imagery works so well.
We could also use memories of being safe and especially those where we felt connection and co-regulation.When we use memories the effect is increased when we remember how our bodies felt at that moment. I like to imagine the felt sense of cuddling with my dog. There is positive body memory too. It can be strong enough to overcome Freeze within a moment. Any memory of connection and safety we can add to our experience is a resource we can use to interrupt a negative feedback loop.
And yes, you can mix these different tools and move from one to the other while you regulate your way out of Freeze.
Cycles of regulation
Whenever we use any of our resources we focus our awareness on it and then after a while we can gently scan our body to check if there is something that feels a little bit better or that can move a little bit more. Then we can pay attention to the little bit better and enjoy how that feels. That too adds positive and safer information to the feedback loop. We just notice. Notice the change, notice a softening, notice a deeper breath, notice how the body regulates gently. No pressure at all. Then our brain signals to our body that we are relaxing now, so the body can relax some more and the brain can notice even more relaxation, a new feedback loop. We let the felt sense of that sink in.
This technique takes a little longer, but we regulate our way out of Freeze instead of scaring us out of it. We can feel powerful and strengthen our sense of agency when we manage to find our way out all by ourselves. Working with resources will also increase our window of tolerance because we learn how to naturally regulate and that will become automatic over time.
Ts can apply this technique by guiding their clients awareness to resources they can use to create a new feedback loop. Their own voice could be such a resource when it is calm and caring. The smelling salts are still there in case this fails. But it might turn out that they are not needed anywhere near as often as they are used. There is a gentler way.
More on
I’ve been frozen in a violent encounter. Thankfully my martial arts training kicked in but it just as easily could have remained in the back of my mind. I couldn’t move, I had tunnel vision, went deaf and time slowed to a crawl like in the movies. What does one do in a hard freeze like that?
One dissociates. The body picked the stress response it considered best and as long as the dangerous situation lasts it reduces brain activity to the point where acting intentionally is impossible. A lot of people feel guilty because they froze and couldn’t do anything. But you literally can’t do anything. You wait and survive. Military training aims at reducing freeze responses by preparing people for extreme situations. You might find an answer there.