Trauma education I: Freeze state that follows fight flight survival mechanism

This is my second posting of my trauma education series:
Most people have heard about fight and flight: It’s a survival mechanism that kicks into place when we are in danger and chatting and smiling don’t work anymore. The new situation requires us to do something different: We now need to be assertive and set a clear boundary , when it’s more severe push someone away (fight impulse) or we need to turn around, walk or run away (flight impulse).

It is normal having to use fight/or flight in life and it is clever that our bodies are set up for it. Without it people could walk all over us and things would get messy very soon.

 It is just as healthy that we have access to the freeze state. It’s our oldest survival mechanism controlled by a nerve called dorsal vegal. It helps us in smaller doses to go to sleep, in big doses it helps us to survive when even  fight/flight isn't enough anymore. We then go numb, dissociate and submit into immobility - we take refuge in the freeze state. In this state nothing hurts too much emotionally nor physically. Nature intended it this way to help us for when we have an accident or when we are being attacked.

While on this survival mode systems like digestion are shut down to conserve energy.  Staying in this state too long means our digestion suffers (irritable bowel syndrome) and since we feel less pain we also shut down from pleasurable experiences. We are meant to stay in this state for short times only -  we are not reptilians who can comfortably stay frozen for hours and even days.

The thing is – and here it gets problematic – that some of us when we were young were faced by situations where fight/flight would have been necessary. But a baby can’t set a boundary or pack its bags and walk away. The only way it can escape is by physically contracting  and then by going into a freeze state straight away.

The freeze state works so well, that as babies we then become used to frequently going into the freeze state. As adults later on we therefore go into a freeze state when fight or flight would be much more appropriate. Life that way becomes difficult and complicated very quickly and can look like one big exhausting survival instead of a joyful living.

The good news is, that therapies like Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, MATES and Brain spotting can help reinstate fight/flight and support a person to become unstuck from a freeze. By following sensations and slowing things down the body can carefully be coaxed back to homeostasis. Having fight flight online again and being able to transition to relaxed social engagement translates into a much more healthy way of being. Fun, joy, relaxing and nurturing can now be a much more regular part of your life with a healthier nervous system supporting you.

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Should you have missed my pos “What is trauma?” , just check out my facebook  page “Barbara Schmidt Counselling Somatic” or have a look under the blog section on my web site www.counsellingsomatic.com.au   More info to this weeks topic: read Stephen Porges Polyvagal Theory. 

Next week I will write about “Reptilian, mammal and rational brain “speak” different languages”

Have a great day,

Barbara

 Counselling Somatic

Barbara Schmidt MAASW (Acc.)

Building new neural connections in your brain with corrective embodied experiences

What I love about my work these days is providing corrective experiences for my clients. Grieving about what has gone wrong in life or has been missing and neglected is a part of counselling, but it is also necessary to make use of the plasticity of our brain: 

Our brain can build new neural connections throughout life, especially in times of transitions (becoming a parent, puberty, moving to a new location, changes in life) and so it is really important to give my clients new positive experiences so the brain can build these new positive pathways. Otherwise one follows the old negative "highways" in the brain that always lead to worrying, fear, tension, depression and anxiety.

 It starts for my clients with feeling save in counselling sessions with me as their therapist (trust your gut instincts as a client and don't continue therapy if you don't "click" with your therapist), being in a carefully created beautiful environment, helping the discovery of resources in themselves and around them and creating or remembering safe places and supportive people in their lives. I assist remembering these with all senses so it can become a lived and embodied experience that can be taken back into every day life. Here I often use simple techniques I learnt in EMDR which strengthens the new pathways immediately. Once the new neural pathway has been created my clients are encouraged to start using this new pathway as often as possible between sessions so that an alternative inviting road can be created in addition to the good old negative highways in our brain. In the beginning the new pathway will be thin like a path only trodden once, but when you start walking down that new lane more often it will become a visible track. And the more you use it, the bigger and wider and easier to walk it will become until one day the old highways are no longer attractive. Life is so much better when you can travel on new nourishing routes. Save and happier travels!