Trauma Style - Freeze

Becks - Journey to Wellness
Jul 26, 2024
4 min read

Updated: Jan 23

So, you took our quiz and found out that your trauma & threat response is freeze 🧊

(Didn't take the quiz? 👇🏼)

Looks like your trauma response is Freeze. This threat state is driven by the dorsal vagal branch of your nervous system. It can leave you feeling shut down and stuck, often mixed with a bit of stress energy (hello anxiety but not actually being able to do anything about it).

When life gets overwhelming or you’re triggered, you might find yourself shutting down, feeling helpless, losing motivation, and thinking, “What’s the point?” or "I just can't keep going".

How the freeze response might show up for you:

Struggling to get going when stress arises or life feels too much. You might slump on the couch, isolate yourself, and feel low. 🛋️
Feeling “tired but wired”—bouncing between stress, anxiety, and crashing into exhaustion.
Spacing out, like sitting in your towel for ages after a shower or sitting in your car outside your house at the end of the day. 😫 Or.... doom scrolling... for hours...
Dissociating—losing track of time, what you were doing, or where you were going. 🚗
Experiencing brain fog, fatigue, and gut issues.
Feeling disconnected from your body, sometimes even forgetting to eat, drink water, or rest.

And here’s the thing:

What you think will help—like forcing yourself to push through or just “snapping out of it”—can actually make it worse. 😬

No amount of denying yourself rest, pushing yourself or trying to 'think positive' will heal this.

But there’s good news: you can gently unthaw your freeze response, create a felt sense of safety, and release stored trauma.

The deeper layers:

At the root of a freeze response lies a nervous system that does not feel safe.

It is trying to keep you safe - and the only way it feels it can do this is by shutting you down, numbing you, disconnecting you, making you stop & be still.

But we push against this right? Our lives don't allow for this! We don't have the time - we're mothers, grandmothers, business woman, friends - we have bills to pay and sh*t to get on with!

BUT (and i'm sure you know this all to well) - you can only keep pushing on for so long. Freeze will catch up to you.

It creeps in looking like burnout.

It sulks in looking like doom scrolling. And emotional eating. And not wanting to get out of bed.

But it's not stress management or motivation or will power that you need 🙅🏼‍♀️

A freeze response is signalling a deep felt sense of lack of safety.

This often comes up for people after years of pushing through, unprocessed trauma & emotions stuck in their bodies. Too much, for too long.

Imagine this...

You’re no longer stuck in a freeze state. You feel energised, connected, and empowered. Your brain and nervous system feel safe and calm.

Sounds amazing, right? ✨

Maybe you can't even imagine it? Yeah - freeze will do that to you - suck the joy, creativity & positivity right out of you.

Your brain doesn't prioritise those things in freeze. It does't care about art, or fun, or play or relationships. It cares about how much it wants you to crawl into your bed and never get out.

You're not alone

Many of our members are working on healing from a freeze or functional freeze state - and inside I've developed courses and classes to help you do this (it's like therapy without the price tag!)

We have oodles of classes & courses - but the ones I'd start you on are:

Freeze to Freedom – Move from feeling stuck and hopeless to feeling embodied and empowered.
Soma & Soul – A toolkit of somatic practices to reset your nervous system in just 15 minutes a day.
The Trauma Toolbox – A 31-day guided journey to heal trauma, leading you through the 4 essential steps to release trauma trapped in your body (exclusive to our membership).

To get a taster - scroll down for a free 6 minute somatic practice!

In these courses you're going to learn:

✅ How to wrap yourself in deep, core level compassion & understanding

✅ Ways to connect to gently regulate your nervous system that are EASY to weave into your day

✅ How to manage negative thoughts & low mood

✅ Techniques to release trauma & threat responses at DEEP unconscious layers

✅ Tools to feel safe & embodied

Our membership gives you access to a huge library of resources on trauma, somatic practices, dealing with low mood, boundaries, anxiety & overload ... and every other emotion you can think of. Plus, you'll get: