How to get out of the FREEZE Trauma Response using somatic tools #trauma #dissociation #therapy

so if you're stuck in the freeze response of your parasympathetic nervous system you might notice that you're having trouble concentrating that you're really forgetful that you're completely exhausted even when you're getting a lot of sleep maybe you feel a lack of motivation you've lost interest in the things that you really care about you mindlessly scroll social media you binge watch things that don't really matter because you just want to escape from your life you are just flat and dissociated and disconnected from your body and your surroundings and if this sounds like you and you haven't watched my previous video please check out my previous video because I go into detail about the freeze response and why it happens and how your nervous system gets there and in this video as promised I'm gonna go over some tips to help you start to get out my first tip to help you get out of the freeze response is something that's going to sound exhausting to you and this is why I say it's not easy but you need to introduce movement into your body for somebody that's in the freeze response having somebody tell you that you need to introduce movement into your body sounds like torture because you're exhausted but doesn't have to be these huge movements to start with start with micro movements you can start by just like shifting your eyes shifting your gaze looking around the room and just acknowledging where you are if this is how stuck you are and freeze that you that's all you can do then just start there this isn't going to get you out of it today but this is something that you want to implement every single day just slight movements if you have the energy too and if you're ready to take it to the next step introduce bigger movements into your body so it could be something simple again where you're still sitting down like tapping up and down your arms I always talk about tapping because this increases blood flow into our body it makes us feel something so we're either feeling our skin we're feeling the warmth or the coolness of our bodies it introduces energy into our body so when we're dissociated we're really disconnected from that and this helps kind of bring us back it helps reconnect our mind and body so we're thinking about our body while we are tapping another thing you can do and I've talked a lot about this in my tick tocks and my reels is you can shake your body out again similar to tapping that's really helpful to increase blood flow sometimes it's just not enough and you need a little bit more so stand up and shake your body shake like no one's watching nobody has to watch do it in the comfort of your own room in the bathroom close the door and just shake if that's difficult for you and you feel awkward put on your favorite song and Shake It Out dance to your favorite song in your room as I said this is difficult this is not easy because the last thing you want to do when you're in that depressed Associated fatigued state is move but that is exactly what you have to do because your body is thinking that it can't do it it's perceiving danger even if around you you're looking around there's no danger I don't understand what my body's doing this so the way to get out is to prove to your body that you're not in danger and you prove that to your body by introducing movement and then your body and your mind your nervous system like wait we didn't die Hmm this wasn't painful okay maybe we are safe so over time that extra movement is going to help you tip number two and this one's really for people that are listening to this first step and are like there's no way there's no way I'm getting up and moving I don't want to tap I don't want to shake this sounds exhausting if you're in this boat if it's that bad for you then introduce movement when you have to so you probably have to go to the bathroom every once in a while you probably have to get a drink of water every once in a while maybe eat something so on your way to do these little things introduce more movement then so if you typically walk to the bathroom pop to the bathroom or maybe just like Shake Your Hands while you walk to the bathroom don't worry about anything else maybe you you skip to the bathroom if you if you can maybe while you're showering when you get the energy to shower Sway in the shower you know introduce some movement again doesn't have to be this huge movement to start with but introduce any movement to your body when you have to if you all you can do is get yourself to sit down this will be tip number three then try to release the energy through bilateral stimulation movement so you can do this by stomping your right foot then your left foot then your right foot then your left foot and just stomp as hard as you can you can also take your fist and you can grill a pat on your chest bilaterally you can hear my voice this is really good because it helps release a lot of the penta traumatized negative energy from your body and helps soothe and introduce the good kind of energy that you want in your body which is the type of energy that gets you to be able to do things my next tip after the somatics because you know I always talk about somatics and physical things before we get into the mental part of it because this part can be really hard if you can't even move but if you've gotten to the movement part you're still dissociating but at least you're able to get moving then I want you to start focusing on good enough okay the concept of good enough a lot of us that are stuck in the freeze response probably have perfectionistic Tendencies maybe you're constantly worried about what other people are going to think of you maybe you're not reaching out to that friend because you're supposed to call them and so you're not reaching out to them and this can be really overwhelming as we go on that cycle because we're thinking that nothing we do is good enough and if we can't do it better then we shouldn't do it at all but if you can just focus on the concept of good enough and just be like I can't call but at least I can send you a tick tock I can't go out with you on Friday night for dinner but at least I can send you a nice text and tell you that I'm thinking about you stop focusing on having that girl lifestyle or the perfect lifestyle and having everything be as it should be remove the shirts from your life and focus on this is all I can do today and this is good enough that's all I'm gonna do and last but not least half acid okay again the perfectionism part of it the good enough part of it sometimes when we want to do things for school or for work or do anything that makes us feel better we think ugh well if I can't do it the way I want to do it or the way it should be done that I'm just not going to do it so I want you to put the expectation that everything you do is going to suck and I want you to just say I know it's going to suck and I'm going to do it so it sucks and and do it sucky half-ass it you can't you know cook a full-blown meal the way it should be half-ass it who cares put some salt and pepper on that and just do whatever it takes if you're writing a paper for school and you're like I'm an a student I need to get 10 sources even though the teacher only asked for five find the five easiest sources that you can find and write the paper half as just the whole thing and there you go you've got it done right that's all that matters sometimes it's just about getting things done no matter how shitty they are one of the things I used to tell people when I was in high school was that C's got degrees and they do like sometimes yeah we want the A's but if we're stuck in that state of freeze and we cannot get those A's are we just going to give up and not do it at all or can we just half-ass everything and just get by so those were my tips but as always none of these tools because I always get these questions in my comments well I did this and it didn't work it's not going to there's not a magic tool that you're going to implement today and then tomorrow your freeze response is going to be gone this is coming after long periods of stress long periods of trauma and so it's natural for it to take a long time you can't expect this to to happen overnight you need to implement tools like this every single day almost needs to become this like I know it's not going to happen but I'm just going to do one little thing focus on just getting one percent better every single day for yourself so if today all you could do was just like move your eyes to the right and to the left as your micro movement maybe tomorrow you move your head so just slowly and do this consistently and then hopefully over time your nervous system will start to realize that you're not in actual Danger another disclaimer here is that if you're currently living in an abusive or dangerous environment or an overwhelmed environment that caused you to go into the freeze response in the first place you will not get out of the freeze response by doing any of this your nervous system your body your mind needs to be safe so we cannot heal in the environment that traumatized us so I know that sounds discouraging to a lot of people but sometimes don't look at the association don't look at the freeze response as the negative thing look at it as this is how my body is getting me to survive today and once you can get out of that situation once you get your freedom or your safety then you can focus on healing and getting out of it the freeze response is not a negative when you need it okay so remember that and if you're out of the environment and you're still implementing all these tools and it's not helping then that might be a sign that it's time to seek professional help if you have access to it sometimes it runs way deeper than being able to handle it on our own we need support we need to process the past we need to work through a lot of the traumas that we experienced and sometimes that's really difficult to do on our own so I hope that you found this video helpful let me know in the comment box below if you've tried any of these or you plan on trying any of these or if there's something else I didn't mention at all that you have tried that maybe can help somebody else and as always I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Micheline Maalouf

Views: 1,926

Keywords: freeze response, trauma treatment, post traumatic stress disorder, polyvagal theory, nervous system regulation, brain science, mental health, stress response, fight or flight, trauma therapy, healing trauma, treating trauma, fight flight freeze response, somatic experiencing, coming out of freeze response, ptsd freeze, fight flight freeze, treatment of trauma, treatment for ptsd, working with anxiety, how to stop the freeze response, the freeze response trauma

Id: _J_Kq1fTikY

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2024