As soon as we begin forming in our mother’s womb, we are receiving
information about what the outer world is like and how to be within it.
Our mother communicates to us through the mix of hormones and chemicals
that we receive, plus the electromagnetic fields of the body organs, of
which the heart is the most powerful, plus whatever we experience of the
outside directly through the mother’s body as it acts as a conduit for
sound, temperature, etc. Based on the hormonal soup that we imbibe, we
learn whether the world is generally a scary place or a loving, nurturing
place. Consequently, children who are born to mothers who experienced a
high degree of stress during pregnancy are likely to be hyper-sensitive to
environmental stimulus like touch, and may even experience wearing some
clothing like blue jeans as painful against the skin.
Once out of the womb, we continue to be vulnerable and completely
dependent upon our mother (and hopefully, the father and rest of the
“tribe”). And life being what it is, we will experience events that are
overwhelming, especially when we are youngest and can’t run away.
When we experience an overwhelming event, our primary responses are to
flee, fight, or freeze. If the event is so overwhelming that we cannot
run away or fight, we will freeze. This is an evolutionary hold-over from
when we were the prey of large carnivores. Running from a big predator
stimulates it to chase, so we learned (our bodies learned) that freezing
would sometimes save our life, and the predator would either not detect us
or ignore us.
One of the best examples of the freeze response comes from the rabbit. If
you watch a rabbit interact with a predator like a coyote, you’ll see that
the rabbit will remain motionless until either the coyote moves on or gets
too close. If the coyote gets too close, the rabbit runs, but here is the
amazing part. If the coyote can’t find the rabbit and walks off, once the
“coast is clear”, the rabbit still runs!
The reason for this is that when we freeze in the face of something
overwhelming and likely dangerous, our body mobilizes its energy reserves.
Our heart rate speeds up and adrenaline courses through our body. We’re
ready to switch to fight or flight, if need be. This tremendous energy is
encapsulated within the body by the freeze response waiting for the proper
time to be released.
When the rabbit runs, that energy is released. Afterwards, the rabbit is
relaxed and goes back to feeding and everything is normal. Similarly, if
we go through a freeze event and then release the energy through a temper
tantrum (as we see often with young children), or we break down in tears,
or we yell in anger, or do something that releases our encapsulated
energy, then we have completed the freeze cycle and we can relax and life
returns to normal.
Unfortunately, we don’t always release that energy. We ignore the wisdom
of the rabbit and bury our fear. This event then becomes trauma and it
will be a guiding force for the rest of our lives or until we release
(heal) it.
Let’s look at an example. Imagine that you are 3 years old and go to the
refrigerator to get some juice. You pull out the juice container but it’s
heavy and you are small, and it slips from your hands and spills on the
floor. Mom is there immediately, towering over you, and she yells,
“Dammit! Look at the mess you made all over the floor! Why didn’t you
ask for help?! Just go, get out of the way so I can clean this mess you
made!”
For a 3 year-old, this is a completely overwhelming event. It’s scary.
The best strategy that the body can come up with is to keep very still,
though the fight or flight energy is powerful.
Now, if sometime later, mom or dad sits with you and talks about it, and
the emotions come flooding out in big tears, there is no trauma. It will
become a learning experience that confirms that we can make mistakes and
those that care about us will still love us. It will also show us that
our loved ones can get angry and yell and still love us.
But if we don’t release those encapsulated emotions, the event does become
a trauma. Maybe we were told that “boys don’t cry”, or we remember when
we had a temper tantrum and got dragged out of a store by our angry mom or
dad. We learned that expressing our pent-up energy/emotion can turn our
parents against us, so we bury our pain. And we will develop beliefs
about our self and our world based on this event. In this case, we will
learn that it’s not OK to make mistakes, that we aren’t good enough, that
we should look to others to do the difficult jobs, and that we are a
burden on those we care about.
Because this is just one small event, it won’t define who we become later
in life. If we have many other experiences where we are supported to
express our emotions and we are reassured that we are loved no matter
what, we’ll grow up with self-confidence, kindness and an open heart. But
if we have many similar experiences to the one above, we may grow up to
have low self-esteem, a mediocre job (or a stressful job requiring
perfection), and a partner who is critical of us; in short, we’ll never
measure up.
Run Rabbit, Run!
The most amazing part of the freeze cycle, however, is that it doesn’t go
away. The emotions and energy that we locked away when we were 3 will
still be present when we are 93 if we don’t release/heal it. Our
unconscious (or spirit) will continually guide us to conditions where we
will be exposed to similar situations that elicit within us a similar
response. This is called re-traumatization.
It’s as if our spirit understands that the juice event when we were 3 was
too overwhelming for us, and allows us to “pass” on dealing with it. We
stuff away the emotions around this important event and get on with
learning other lessons in life, but our unconscious will ultimately guide
us back when we are ready. And each time we feel frustrated because
we’re in another dead-end job or with someone who treats us as inferior,
our unconscious is asking, “Are you ready yet? Are you ready to let go
of the limiting beliefs that you formed about yourself? Are you ready to
open your heart and forgive yourself and others? Are you ready to let
down your wall?”
We find people and situations that trigger in us those old wounds. It’s
most obvious in our love relationships because we become most vulnerable
in these relationships. We choose a partner who is uniquely able to bring
to the surface our most important wounds, the ones that most define our
limitations as a whole person.
So, we tend to choose partners that have the “negative” characteristics of
our primary caretakers. When we first meet our new partner, s/he may
appear confident and purposeful, yet after a while we may see that s/he is
really arrogant and uncaring. We feel pain because we believed that this
person could help us become whole (the fairytale soulmate concept), and we
felt more whole when we were first together.
The amazing thing is that this person IS helping us to become whole. We
gave him/her our trust and became vulnerable, softening our walls. Then
he/she triggered our deep wounds, bringing stored energy/emotion to the
surface to be expressed as frustration/fear/anger/sadness, etc.
Most people at this point shrink from their fears and blame the other
person for being insensitive, etc. But… WE CHOSE this person
(unconsciously at least) to help us. If we can thank him/her for giving
us this opportunity to heal, open our hearts more fully, and express
forgiveness to our selves and others, we can release our stored trauma and
be truly healed from that aspect.
Use caution, though, because our unconscious will take us into dangerous
relationships if we were beaten/raped/seriously neglected, etc. Our body
isn’t misleading us; it’s still doing it’s job. But we need to use our
intelligence to understand our attractions, and we shouldn’t blindly
follow our body leads.
So, our opportunities for healing are always coming to us as we
unconsciously create the conditions for our release. It’ll keep happening
until we “get it.” When you are finally ready to let go of your
encapsulated emotions, it will be because you made a choice to believe
something different about yourself. Remember the 2 different messages
about the juice incident? Wouldn’t you rather believe that even if we
make mistakes and even if people get angry, we are still loved and
valuable? Can you find that place within you that knows this to be true?
We don’t have to re-live a past trauma to heal it, but we do have to be
willing to believe differently about ourselves and open our hearts.
Often, the sequence of healing is anger, then tears, then forgiveness,
followed by a feeling of becoming lighter and more full of joy.
The feelings in our bodies, guided by our unconscious or spirit (or
intuition), will always bring us back to opportunities for healing. When
we are ready to open our hearts and let go of our old fears and limiting
beliefs, we will feel the stored energy flow through us.
Run rabbit, run!
Thanks for posting this article. I deeply resonate with it. There is so much we could learn from our animal relations that can help us in our own healing – if we would only listen.