How I froze, and how I got myself unstuck (and maybe you can, too)
I was frozen stiff yet I wasn’t even cold! Of course, I don’t mean literally freezing as in temperature. I mean that I recently found myself frozen and unable to move forward on an important project. (Which is why you didn’t get this newsletter sooner). Obviously, you’re getting this letter, so I’ve escaped the deep freeze. I’d like to share how I did it, so that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you can escape the freeze, too.
First, a word about freezing. When we are faced with a dangerous situation, one that we can’t escape, we may become immobilized in fright. There are different kinds of freeze. If a hungry tiger is strolling by and we can’t fight or flee, we may go rigid, our heart pounding, break out in a cold sweat, and hope the tiger won’t see us and walk past. This is an activated freeze, like having the accelerator and the brake on a car at the same time.
If, however, we feel like the “tiger” got us and we think we are done for, we will collapse, go numb, our heart rate will become slow and and our breath shallow, we may feel cold or numb or even faint so that we don’t “bleed out” should the tiger get bored and move on.
Both of these are natural self-preserving responses where the body will hijack the mind to ensure our best chance of surviving. The problem is that our body doesn’t know the difference between a scary public speech or deadline at work and that tiger. In my case, I was in an activated freeze in the face of a self-imposed deadline, and it was something I’d done many times before. I could not figure out what had me stuck. After a few frustrating weeks, I finally recognized I was in a freeze state, and could take steps to shift myself into a more resourceful state. Here's what I did.
I placed three foam craft mats I use in my work in a line on the floor as a way of finding out what prompted my freeze reaction (where the > indicates the nose or direction the mat was facing). (You can use a sheet of paper with a "nose" marked on it to indicate which way the paper is facing.) Each mat was about a step away from the one in front of it. So, current (frozen) self was facing the back of future self. And future self faced my goal, which was facing my future desired self. To illustrate, it looked like this where the brackets [ ] are the mat and the > is the nose.
[Current (Frozen) Self]> [Future/Desired Self]> <[Goal]
Moving very slowly, I attended to my body’s response (feelings, thoughts, memories) as I took the step into the future self I wanted to become (that one who finished this project!) As soon as I took that step, a flood of memories came up. In each of the past two years, challenging things happened for me around this time of year. I felt drained when I tried to step into my future self.
My goal was to launch my courses for 2022. I realized I didn’t feel I could do these courses in the way I have in the past. I needed a new way to move through these trainings. After the first moment of “Oh no!” I realized there was an opportunity here for me to do things differently than I had envisioned, a way that would be even better for me and for my students. I have amazing students, and this time, I want to partner with my students, to inspire and engage with people who are creative and who could contribute to the development of the programs in new ways. So what started out as “stuck” became an inspiring opportunity for me. And has lead my offering this coming year’s courses a bit differently than I would have before.
The very places we freeze or get stuck are also potential growth points. If we look at the triggers and freezing and all those states we don’t like or judge as bad, then we don’t grow. Worse yet, we stay stuck.
Why do we stay frozen or stuck?
Well, the most obvious, as happened to me (for a while), is that we don’t recognize that we’re in a freeze state. There are all those other “important” things to do that offer distraction (and on a small farm, I’ve got plenty of those). Or, we have negative self talk that freezes us. We may judge ourselves as lazy or bad rather than extend ourselves the grace to be human. Or, whatever has triggered us is just too scary to look at (at least by ourselves).
Once we can admit to ourselves that we’re frozen, we can look around for those potential triggers and ask questions: What is it about this situation that is similar to past times when I’ve had a bad experience? What is it I don’t want to face? Sometimes identifying the triggers is enough. We can make the distinction between our current situation and the past. And, sometimes a deeper challenge comes to light and we might want to get help.
Understanding that we’re stuck or triggered isn’t always enough to get us moving again. We often need more resources than we have at the moment we froze. Those could be:
Conceptual or mental resources, the road map (know how) out of freeze. For instance, my husband has been installing steel edging on some of our paths and was stuck on how to get this stiff metal to make a sharp enough curve. I suggested he just bend it. And, once he had the idea he could force the metal to bend, he came up with a clever way to do it.
Physical resources. This could be a home, transportation, etc.. In this case, I don’t have the upper body strength to bend a steel piece of edging. Neither did Don alone. He and our farm worker, however, teamed up, used other tools, and did the job.
Emotional resources. In my case, the reminders of the past two Fall seasons were enough to stop me cold. I was able to work through the emotional block and differentiate the past from my current situation. In the case of serious trauma, additional resources might be therapy.
Spiritual/Inspirational resources. For example, my mission to provide systemic somatic training to people who make a difference in the world inspired me to keep working on the “freeze” till I could work through it.
Relational resources. I’m lucky to have a patient husband who will allow me to talk out loud until I find my own way through a problem. Just having a kind-hearted person who will listen so you can hear yourself think can make a difference.
At this point in my life, I’m 65. My work comes easily to me, and I have worked solo for a long time. I am looking for other challenges and more people to play with. Plus, I have new projects, like Aurora Acres, our farmer incubator project, that I want to develop. So, if you want to study with me directly, and get the foundations of constellation work as I have refined them over the past 20 years, now is your chance. This program will enable you not just to do the work, but to do really good work.
Your mission - should you choose to accept it - is to be a part of an active, engaging, learning cohort that joins me in sculpting the essential knowledge and practices necessary to excel at this way of working. There are three options available starting in January of 2022.
