Part 2: Reconnecting with Ourselves: Learning and Integrating Somatic Skills

Dissociation of the Freeze Response: Understanding Our Body’s Reaction

[Read Part one here.]

The Freeze Response Explained: When faced with trauma or significant stress, where we are unable to experience body and emotional responses or act fully, our bodies may respond by “freezing”. This is a state where we feel physically stuck or emotionally numb. This response can be protective in the short term but damaging if it becomes a long-term solution to dealing with stress.

The freeze response is an acute way to deal with stress and trauma in the moment but it can become a habitual pattern and eventually a constant state. The mammal that cannot  fight or flee will revert to mimicking death to hopefully survive an attack. Well, we may not be attacked by a lion, but our nervous system will use one of three behaviors to deal with a threat. The first two, fighting and fleeing, are actions. The third, freezing, is a non-action and disassociation or a disconnection. When the freeze does not melt, when we do not release the charge, we remain frozen, setting us up for PTSD.

Impact on Health: Chronic dissociation can lead to a range of emotional and physical health issues, from anxiety and depression to somatic symptoms without apparent medical causes. Understanding and addressing this response is crucial for healing and health. The new diagnosis, alexithymia — not feeling or expressing emotions — originates from being frozen from past trauma, stress, or education. Grant you, we are rarely told directly not to feel; most of our training comes indirectly from modeling others or dealing with situations with limited skills or support.

The Compounding Effects of Past Trauma and Current Stress

Layered Stress: Unresolved traumas do not simply fade away; they layer over each other, compounding and exacerbating our stress responses and making it more difficult to healthily respond to new stressors.

Somatic Practices as Solutions: We emphasize somatic practices that integrate body awareness with emotional processing, helping to untangle these layered stresses and promoting healing and resilience.

Core Somatic Skills We Are Missing

Essential Skills Overview: The core somatic skills we advocate for include:

• Awareness of the body’s responses: Learning to notice what is happening within your body in different situations and then moving from awareness to a full experience. This is moving from observing to experiencing our bodies. Observing and being aware is the first step. We can be aware of a tub of water. Stepping into the tub and immersing yourself in the experience is a full sensory experience.
• Feeling and expressing the body-emotional connections: This is more than understanding how your emotions affect your body and vice versa. A new perspective beyond the Cartesian model gives us a new frame. The critical step is allowing ourselves to slow down and drop down into our bodies’ responses. Often, this means forgoing our mental control to experience what we trained ourselves to avoid.
• Noticing how interactions impact your body, emotions, and relationships: Recognizing the somatic signals during interactions and their effects. As we observe, understand, and experience in new ways, we can do all this with the interplay of all aspects of our being. We step beyond parts to a much richer whole than the separate parts could ever be.

Skills for Better Living: These skills are vital for utilizing emotions and enhancing life quality. They include:

• Stephen Porges’ Neuroception: Experiencing how our bodies perceive safety or threat unconsciously is crucial for working with our stress and feeling secure.
• Somatic Mindfulness and Self-regulation: Developing these skills can profoundly change how we handle stress and interact with others. When we stop not being aware or feeling, it may initially be overwhelming, but gradually, what may feel like too much becomes exciting. Waking out of the anesthesia of being frozen reconnects you to your birthright of a life of full experiences.

Learning and Integrating Somatic Skills Today

Modern Learning Venues:

• From Parents to Schools: More schools are now incorporating mindfulness-based stress reduction programs, acknowledging the need for somatic skills. As we embody a whole existence, we naturally and unconsciously teach our children.
• Institutions and New Communities: As traditional community structures like churches become less central, new organizations like MELD are stepping up to fill the void, offering spaces where community connection and support allow us to avoid isolation. Feeling that we are not alone makes us feel safe and thereby more able to leave a threat state for a relaxed, connected state. When somatic education is added to the mix, we travel to new places of connection with ourselves and others.

MELD’s Role: We offer workshops, courses, retreats, and group sessions designed to teach these essential skills, helping individuals integrate somatic practices into their daily lives.

The journey toward somatic education is not just about personal growth; it is about cultural transformation. By learning to reconnect with our bodies, we can address the roots of many of our personal and societal challenges. We invite you to join us in our commitment to this profound journey of reconnection and healing.

[1]  Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health, by Casey Means, MD, Calley Means describes how this model has affected our health and what we can do about it.