When the Freeze Melts

I’m talking about the freeze of fight-flight-freeze, our physiological survival response. Freeze has been my default in this lifetime. When you don’t have the capacity to run or fight, collapse is a natural response.

In the wild, animals freeze to protect themselves and then go through a full-body shaking process to integrate that energy. Sadly, we humans are too civilized for that, and hence the energy remains stuck.

What I’m starting to realize is that that energy which was frozen lives on inside me, like some sci-fi virus trapped in the ice, waiting for a chance to be released.

And that, my friends, is what I have going on over here this week.

It’s melting.

And with it comes sensations that I described to my bodyworker as hornets in my gut.

I’m watching my reactions.

First is the analysis- what is this, where did it come from, what did I do wrong, how can I fix this?

It’s sensation, it comes from the body, I didn’t do anything wrong, and it doesn’t need fixing.

It needs to be felt.

Then comes the resistance. Why me? Why now? I’ve been doing everything right!

Yup. I’ve been doing the inner work as my soul guides me. I’ve been healing my nervous system, meeting with my feelings- physical and emotional, and accepting all the parts of myself. I’ve been growing my capacity to be with the discomfort of not knowing, of losing the illusion of control, of becoming increasingly estranged from the status quo.

And the result of all this work? I’ve reached a level of safety and self-trust that has opened the door and allowed the ice to begin to melt. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been ready and resourced.

Then comes a whole diatribe about why bother doing the work of healing if it doesn’t feel good? If I were doing it “right”, wouldn’t I be getting more comfortable instead of less?

Here we have one of the paradoxes of healing. Healing does not equal always feeling good. Sorry, not sorry, we all need to know this. Otherwise we’ll question the journey. For me, at least right now, healing means I’m able to hold all the parts of myself as they are. That I have my back, my own best interests at heart, that I am present and kind and curious. No matter what.

And here comes the comforting part. I don’t need to do this on my own. I can give it over to the divine and allow myself to be healed rather than doing all the healing.

And! Of course it isn’t exactly that easy. What became crystal clear for me over the weekend in a group breathwork session: I can only release what I’ve witnessed and felt.

I knew that intellectually, but this was an embodied experience that felt like an epiphany.

I’d been struggling during the check-in before the breathwork session started. Lord knows, we don’t need anymore women responding “fine” to the question of how we’re doing when really, deep down inside we’re not fine. And we really don’t need more people just vomiting out their undigested emotions into shared spaces. So I chimed in to say that I was feeling really uncomfortable. That my intention for the practice was to be with myself and not push away any of my experience.

I acknowledged my uneasiness and shared my willingness to witness and express it through the breath. I didn’t try to fix it or make it go away or analyze it. I just breathed with it.

No, the discomfort did not disappear, but I no longer felt threatened by it. We were able to coexist. Later I did some journaling, and that’s when the awareness of the melting freeze arose. That this is exactly what healing looks like for me today.

That all the other stuff that came before was preparation for this deep layer of transformation.

That this is a part of the journey and not my new residence.

That this is exactly where I’m supposed to be and I have everything I need to meet this experience.

That I just need to witness and let go (ha- I said “just” like this was going to be easy. It’s totally simple, not at all easy.) and that if I don’t grasp too tightly or push it away, I can turn it over to God instead.

That I will be guided and this practice of surrender seems not to be a one-and-done situation, but an ongoing dance that comes with assignments.

See how the water flows, even though there is a layer of ice on top? It’s intense and a bit chaotic, but trying to prevent that flow would be really problematic.

So, here I go, letting the sensations flow so they can be released.

If you are having some discomfort on your healing journey, I hope that I’ve shone this spotlight so you now see that it doesn’t mean something is going wrong; in fact, something is probably going very right.