Paralyzed: and steps to get "unstuck"
“Then I think about my fear of motion, of which I never could explain. Some other fool across the ocean years before, must have crashed his little airplane. ”
A few weeks ago, I was having a facial with the esthetician I’ve been working with for a few years and towards the end, she made a funny remark, “I’ve literally never had someone lay so still before.” We both laughed at this as I boastfully agreed “Yes, I am pretty damn good at being still.” Then on the drive home I thought about other situations where stillness is appreciated, and it turns out, I’ve got them all nailed too.
*Yoga shavasana. I can stay there all day without so much as an eyebrow twitch.
*Magnesium float. I’m like a corpse.
*Being homebound…never an issue.
*The morpheus “skin care” experience where your face basically gets stapled but then adds lots of plumpness? Ouch, but damn I can stay pretty still.
*Dental X-rays (though I do refuse these often, I’m still super still when needed;)
Then I traced back to the times I didn't feel so comfortable, and predictably, it’s whenever the opposite was happening….ie motion. Of any kind.
*the motion of a boat (don’t love it, it makes me sick unless it’s going really fast)
*travel (I love it when I get there, but then want/need to stay put for awhile)
*the phrase, “let’s just hunker down tonight” calms me.
There are, of course, exceptions to this. For instance, I love to walk, and find it terribly difficult to sit in front of a laptop all day, so moving my body feels good. I have tons of energy, I talk loud & fast (especially in the morning), and love to sing and dance.
I also find train travel quite soothing.
Planning trips are also fun, but the days leading up, I’m sick to my stomach. What is this all about?
Fight. Flight. Freeze.
Take your pick of one of these, folks, because in a situation where your body doesn’t feel safe, you’ll subconsciously choose one. For me it’s most commonly, freeze.
When you think about it, what’s wrong with freezing? It's a brilliant survival mechanism and how many animals stay alive. I mean who needs to stand out and leave the pack when you can blend in with the grass and stay alive? It saves energy, and it sure as hell beats fighting or running (which have issues of their own, but that’s for another time.)
Honestly, what happens when it’s not in your best interest to freeze? Well, let’s start with anything involving making a decision. This requires action, right? Every day we’re making thousands of decisions, mostly subconscious, but some of these stop me in my tracks and take up way too much energy.
Things like, “what should my workout be today?” ‘Am I going outside first or jumping in the sauna?” “Well tomorrow it may rain, so I better get outside today.” “But wait, I have a hair appointment Thursday, so I want to be sure I get a good sweat in the sauna since someone else will be washing my hair.” “No silly, don’t wait until Thursday, you just took your methylene blue, so it’d be a shame to waste that great red light.”
And on. And on. And on it goes.
“How long til my soul gets it right?”
I’ve learned some very hard truths over the years that rattled me to my core, and one of them is that sooner or later the time will come when a decision has to be made, and it’s going to be something more important than my daily workout, or what type of shilajit I’m adding to my smoothie.
Like having to break out of my shell to be an advocate for my son, or speaking up about things that instinctively didn’t feel right to me in recent years. Remember that whole “standing out” thing? Yea, I hated it, but something deep inside me knew it had to be done.
These were very difficult things to do at first, but they opened me up and helped me grow. Prior to this, (aside from making the decision to move to Los Angeles after college, and getting our dog, Willie), I don’t think I ever made a full-on, adult decision.
I didn’t even have the courage to leave a marriage that I didn’t consciously realize wasn’t working until the decision was made for me.
During this dark time, George, my therapist reminded me that in fact deciding not to make a decision is in essence….making a decision. That was good enough for me. So I waited it out, and let fate take its course.
He also reminded me of this.
*When we make a decision, we are then responsible, and when we’re responsible, we stand alone.
To be clear, George was not insinuating there was a right or wrong to me not wanting to take action, just noting that this is often why people don’t leave relationships, or are afraid of making really big decisions of any kind. No one wants to be the one who’s causing the pain. This is an understandable part of human nature, and one that I like to think is inherently kind.
But when this heaviness transcends into day-to-day decisions in the name of self-preservation, it leaves us feeling way too stuck, and downstream can 100% affect physiological healing processes. Yes, for those of us who feel we always need to “detox” from something….what is that about?
“Til we reach the highest light.”
Most recently, I’ve been in the midst of beginning the process of moving my family out of state. It’s one decision Tom and I made that feels very right for all of us, but even in the infancy of this transition, things are coming to the surface that paralyze me.
Standing there for 5 whole minutes as I hold an old toy in my hand, trying to decide if I should toss it now, in 9 weeks when we’re pulling out of our driveway for the last time, or never.
Memories rush up my body from my legs, up through my heart space until my eyelids get heavy and tears pour out. I mention this specific physical sensation, because these are questions I ask my clients all the time should they recall an event that’s keeping them stuck. I ask, “Where in your body do you feel it?” This way, (usually with the help of our therapists or referral for somatic/limbic system training), they can get to that place and learn to meet the feeling where it is, so they can begin the process of releasing it. Somatic training has become so pivotal in my practice and I’ve had so many successes after they’ve done this work as a parallel treatment to my diet/supplement/lifestyle plans.
Every day in our clinic as functional practitioners, we are melding both the science and the art of healing for every individual patient taking into account their entire history, and every single dark alley that has led to the pathology they’re currently experiencing. This is the first step in helping them untangle the web. And so often, when we’ve tried everything but we can’t quite get the needle to move, it’s often because their body is keeping them in a freeze state. This mechanism of survival is in place for a reason, it just needs to be given further instructions from our deeper selves.
Follow me to my new house, new book, all while staying healthy & sane on Instagram;)
Dr Neil Nathan, a pioneer in environmental medicine, and countless other practitioners in our space address this phenomenon often (even with our kids), since childhood trauma, birth trauma, and medical trauma are very real and need to be addressed in a place where the patient feels safe.
One modality that’s helped me get into the place of safe movement, is of course yoga. With the word yoga literally meaning “to yolk” “or join”. This way, we begin by moving the physical body, and forget the fact that the brain isn’t ready. We start here, and see what happens.
One of the reasons we have so many great successes in our clinic is because we’re using a team approach that can include cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, breath work, and yoga therapy in conjunction with supplementation and medications when appropriate.
I have big hopes that this module of care will eventually become available to larger populations, so putting out info like this can in my opinion only help pave the way.
Here are some resources that many clients have used with great success once they are completely ready to do the work.
Somatic/Brain Re-Trainings/Holistic Nervous System Regulation
And here is more information on our clinic in Hingham, MA. All of our practitioners work both in person and virtually.
https://www.lymeandpanstreatmentcenter.com/
Finally, some short, but very effective practices
Hoping this adds to your healing journey.
xo
K