Freezing is the Amygdala's solution, in addition to fight or flight, to danger. It's a reptilian response, and one that's meant to prevent annihilation.
Freezing may mean complete stillness while fight or flight may mean strong emotional responses or doing the same behavior over and over when threatened emotionally or physically. Psychologist and Emotional IQ expert, Dr. Daniel Goleman calls this "Amygdala Hijack."
An example of this is when people are in a movie theater and someone yells, "Fire!" The response is to push on the exit doors. If the doors won't open, people push harder, rather than thinking through solutions... like, "Maybe I should pull?"
In danger, the blood flow is in the Amygdala, which controls the response of fight, flight, and freeze rather than in the prefrontal cortex which allows for planning and execution.
Safety experts have mandated that all theater doors go both ways to prevent people from being locked in, given our natural response in danger to continue what we're doing rather than assess whether it's working or not.
If only life experiences could be like these doors!
But, they're not.
When you have chronic stress, like stress from family, you might enter flight, fight, or freeze modes more frequently.
Here's the thing: everyone talks about chaotic or difficult childhoods, but few professionals talk about how negative family dynamics may continue into adulthood. Connections with family members may still feel bad.
If you came from a chaotic family, you may still be going through the motions of what you did in the past to cope with the present (regardless of whether the present is better or not).
One of the main things you learn in a chaotic family is that you don't have choices. As a kid, you didn't have choices about your well-being, and yet, if there was chaos around you, the only response suitable might have been to freeze.
As an adult, you have choices, but it may not feel like it, when you go into a protective mode: fight, flight, or freeze.
Freezing is the opposite of choice.
This is where therapy can be very helpful, slowing things down, reminding you of context (past vs present options), and creating a pathway for change.
8 Suggestions for Breaking Free From Amygdala Hyjack:
1. Identify which situations create strong emotions where you feel out of control or less like yourself.
2. Do you feel like an adult, a teenager, or a child?
3. If you feel younger than an adult, reassure your younger self that you are safe.
4. Identify one way you can change to increase your sense of efficacy.
5. Practice breathing deeply during the day. Asking yourself, "Where is my breath?" when stopped at a stoplight, or in a line at the grocery store, and creating pauses for yourself brings more awareness and self-knowing.
6. Write about the ways you feel triggered and by whom.
7. Do one thing differently each time you interact with someone with whom you feel frozen, in flight or fight. Just one thing. When you're successful at this one thing, add on another.
Remember: will power is changed one step at a time.
8. Have compassion for yourself.
*****
Dr. Heather Schwartz is a relational and mindfulness-oriented psychologist in Portland, Oregon.
http://www.heatherschwartzpsyd.com
