Coming Back to Life: Healing the Freeze & Shutdown Response Through Somatic Experiencing
Have you ever felt numb, spaced out, exhausted, overwhelmed, yet frozen or like you’re watching life from the outside? Maybe it’s hard to feel your body or emotions, and trying to “get motivated” just doesn’t work. You might feel stuck or like you just don’t care, have given up and just can’t handle things like you used to. This isn’t laziness or disinterest—it might be your nervous system in a freeze or shutdown state.
In Somatic Experiencing® (SE), we understand freeze not as something “wrong” with you, but as your body’s brilliant survival strategy—a last-resort protection mechanism that helped you survive when fight or flight weren’t possible.
Let’s explore how the freeze response works, how to recognize it, and how SE offers a pathway back into connection, vitality, and choice.
🧠 What Is the Freeze Response?
The freeze response is a biological state of immobility, dissociation, and low energy. It arises when the nervous system detects extreme threat—and neither running away (flight) nor fighting back (fight) are available. It’s the body’s way of preserving life by shutting down, playing dead, or numbing out.
This is deeply wired into our survival brain, inherited from animals in the wild who "go still" when caught by a predator. Sometimes, humans go into a similar state during trauma: accidents, abuse, surgeries, emotional overwhelm, or chronic childhood neglect.
🧭 Signs of a Freeze or Shutdown State
While everyone experiences freeze differently, here are some common signs:
Feeling numb, “checked out,” or disconnected from the body
Low energy, chronic fatigue, or lack of motivation
Difficulty making decisions or taking action
Foggy brain, spaciness, or zoning out
A sense of emotional flatness, apathy, or dissociation
Feeling invisible or like you “don’t exist”
Going still or “freezing” in conflict, stress, or intimacy
Freeze can be misunderstood—even by ourselves—as depression or laziness. But it’s not a character flaw. It’s a nervous system pattern that helped you survive something overwhelming.
🧬 Why Does Freeze Get Stuck?
In a healthy nervous system, we might move briefly into freeze during intense stress and then naturally come back out. But when we experience trauma—especially as children—and don’t get the chance to complete that survival response or receive support afterward, the freeze state can become chronic. When fight, flight or trying to get through an event by talking through it doesn’t work, our nervous systems can go into a freeze or shut down/ collapse response. There are 2 types of freeze responses: In Polyvagal theory, you can tell that you are in freeze because there is still some sympathetic activation, a sense of overwhelm yet a sense of being frozen & unable to do anything about it. It feels like your feet are on both the gas and break pedals at the same time. If you are in shutdown/ collapse, there is little or no sympathetic energy, you are fatigued & lifeless and everything feels hard to do. It feels better to withdraw and to engage as little as possible with anything or anyone.
This freeze response kicks in when:
There was no one safe to help us co-regulate
We were unable to get away from something or set boundaries
We learned that action equals danger (e.g. standing up for ourselves made things worse)
We had to shut down emotions to survive a chaotic environment
We were constantly overwhelmed with no escape
Over time, the body forgets how to come out of freeze. And trying to “think our way” out doesn’t work—because freeze doesn’t live in the thinking brain. It lives in the autonomic nervous system.🌀 How Somatic Experiencing Helps Unwind Freeze
SE offers a gentle, body-based path out of freeze—without forcing, pushing, or retraumatizing. We don’t need to re-live the past. We just need to help the nervous system remember how to move again, how to feel again, how to trust that it’s safe now.
Here’s how we approach it:
1. Safety First: Building a Foundation
Before anything else, we help you feel safe in your body and in the present moment. This may include:
Grounding practices (noticing the support under your body)
Orienting with the eyes (looking around slowly, finding what feels safe or pleasant)
Resourcing (connecting to supportive memories, people, places, or animals)
This helps create the internal conditions where change is possible.
2. Tracking Sensation Gently
In freeze, it can feel hard to feel anything at all. That’s okay. In SE, we track sensation slowly and in small doses, helping you notice tiny shifts in temperature, tingling, tension, or breath. You might feel more from the neck up at first—and that’s okay too. We start where your system is available.
Even the smallest flicker of sensation is a sign the body is waking up.
3. Titration & Pendulation
We don’t dive into intense emotions or stories. Instead, we pendulate—touching into activation or freeze in tiny “sips,” then returning to safety and regulation. This helps the system discharge trapped energy without overwhelm.
For example, you might feel a wave of heaviness in your chest. We stay with it just long enough to notice it, then return to a pleasant memory or grounding sensation. Over time, the nervous system learns to flow and move again.
4. Following Impulses for Movement or Expression
As the freeze begins to thaw, you might notice impulses to:
Wiggle your fingers
Stretch or move slightly
Sigh or yawn
Cry, shake, or feel warmth
These are signs of discharge and completion—your body coming back online. Sometimes the fight or flight energy that was blocked beneath the freeze can emerge too, and we welcome that slowly and safely.
4. Completing the Fight/Flight responses underneath the Freeze
Underneath the freeze response is almost always a fight/flight energy that was thwarted- when these defensive strategies didn’t work- we couldn’t get away from the threat or set boundaries against it and so were forced to go into freeze/ shutdown. As we come out of freeze you might notice more sympathetic activation starting to come on line. Examples would be:
Agitation, sensing you want to get away
Anger & a sense of boundaries coming back online
Suddenly you want to do something.
A feeling of more empowerment
6. Integration & Empowerment
Healing freeze isn’t about pushing through or “activating” yourself—it’s about reclaiming choice. When freeze unwinds, you begin to feel:
More connected to yourself and others
A return of emotion, motivation, and vitality
The ability to say no or take action
A sense of “I’m here. I’m real. I matter.”
This is your birthright.
You’re Not Broken—Your Body Protected You
Freeze is not a failure. It’s a deeply intelligent response to something your system once couldn’t handle. In SE, we honor that. And we offer the tools and support to help your body thaw, move, and heal—at your own pace.
You don’t have to do it alone. ❤️
