Radical Roots Somatics

adulting

When You Can’t Get Unstuck

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Have you ever felt stuck trying to do something that you really wanted to do?  There’s no real logical, practical reason why you can’t, you’ve done much harder things in your life in much less supportive circumstances, but you just can’t start?

I’ve been sitting for a week, with a list of excellent topics to write about, but I couldn’t get anything out.

My body has been saying no.  Sometimes I would sit and just blank on the words, sometimes I’d feel a bit of a headache could be forecasting a migraine on the way, sometimes I would feel my shoulders seized against my neck. 

In somatic talk, we would say that I was having a “freeze” response.  Something was triggering a little too much for this moment, and the body and mind just wouldn’t cooperate. 

I tend to write better from at least a “fight” response, and there wasn’t anything stirring the fire in me.

The freeze response is all about hiding from predators – be very very quiet, don’t move at all.  It is the exact opposite of expressing oneself, being visible, reaching out and saying “Hi!  I have something to say!”

Freeze reactions actually tend to feel pretty good for me.  They feel so very familiar.  They feel so safe. People will leave you alone when you’re in freeze, so you’re not actively getting yourself into any more drama.   

At some point in my childhood (I mean, we were all raised this way), I learned that being in freeze was a good way to navigate life without being spanked or shamed or abandoned. 

For almost twenty years, I did a lot of yin style yoga because it is so very easy to go into freeze and chill there.

I’ve learned to stay away from “the comments” of any public social media post, for horribly violent things are said (and remain posted even when reported) towards anyone who is not one the small percentage of people deemed worthy of self expression by this culture (read people of a certain skin colour, body shape, gender, sexual orientation, faith and socioeconomic status).

Freeze states are really good at keeping us safe. 

But, I need to start showing up.  I have skills to practice, gifts to share, bills to pay, a body, mind and heart that needs connection.  But how do I do any of that if no one knows I am here? 

And how do I model the life of being engaged with life and neighbours for my child if I spend so much time in freeze?

You don’t thrive in freeze states. 

Somatic fanatics like myself tend to talk about our body’s responses as if they were very simple, linear reactions.  Flight, fright, freeze and engagement.

But we are so complex.  Each person is so very unique.

These reactions are not all or nothing.  When I sat to write, my entire body could not be deep in freeze.  Air flowed in and out my lungs.  My heart pumped sending blood pulsating through my limbs.  My cells were taking what they needed in and letting go of what they were done with. 

It was just enough freeze state that I couldn’t write.

In somatic experiencing, we honour what is, but also we look for what we want. 

So today, when I sat to write about this writer’s block stuckness, I scanned my body, heart and mind for what didn’t feel frozen.  I felt a chill rise up my back.  Movement is the opposite of freeze, so that was a start.  And the words slowly started to come. 

I find this “look for what you want” teaching so very useful in so many ways, but most of all to feed hope. 

The one truth about human existence is things change.  They can’t always be like this.

In my situation, there were two ways I could go.  I could slip deeper into that freeze, into a depression, and doubled down in guilt and shame for not getting anything done and struggled with making ends meet, which could quadruple down the guilt and shame..  Or I could find what in me wasn’t stagnant, and let that get things moving. 

That craving for chocolate, the impulse to get up and go to the kitchen, to have that bitter taste that wakes up my brain, and the inevitable chats with one of my cats – none of that is freeze.   All of that is my body saying yes to me, yes to this work, yes to this life.  

There’s deeper diving one can do in somatic experiencing to heal the tendencies to freeze (or to fight or flight or fawn or any reflexive response that isn’t supportive and connecting), but sometimes we just need to shift enough to get something important done.  

If you’re feeling stuck, please resist any guilt and shame that may be rising up.  Your body is just trying a strategy which has worked before at keeping you safe. 

If you’re feeling stuck, please resist the temptation to fall into despair – this too will change, nothing stays the same forever, but especially neurophysiological states. 

If you feel you’re finding yourself stuck so much that you’re having trouble reconnecting and staying connected to hope or your desires, please find some support.  You deserve to feel hope.  You deserve to feel your longings. 

With Love,

Tanya

When Adulting is Hard

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Today, I couldn’t remember my phone number.  I spent the morning doing errands from home, and was contacting customer service of one company to arrange for a return.  I was asked all sorts of identifying questions.  I went blank on my own phone number. 

This reminded me of a woman I knew, who I will call Jane, who confided, when she was applying for legal aid, her mind went blank, and she struggled to remember basic identifying information, like her phone number.  Shame hit Jane hard – it was hard enough to accept that she needed Legal Aid to protect herself from her narcissistic ex, but for her to struggle with the application so badly was too much*.

So many of the things we consider basic adulting force us to face our wounds, triggering our physiological stress reactions.  The voices that tell us that we don’t work hard enough, we aren’t worth enough, we need much more money to fix all of our issues, but we need to be more before we can earn more…ugh, it hurts just writing about it.  I’ve checked social media three times and taken twenty pictures of my cats since starting this paragraph.  In these applications we can feel the echoes of the authoritarians of our youth who demanded that they had more power, that we needed their permission and their approval and that we only saw and felt what they saw and felt. 

What would make these situations healthful or even healing is to be met with a gentle, accepting other who witnesses and supports, who sees their role as making the process as easy as possible.  Can you imagine a medical receptionist who took a second to acknowledge how scared you must feel to be calling and asking for a same day appointment and guided you on your options when she didn’t have one to offer?  Could you imagine a customer service representative that was apologetic that their product didn’t live up to your needs and acknowledged that now you’re obliged to give time to a product you’ll never use.  Could you imagine – well, I can’t imagine what it would take for my bank app to feel like it saw just how stressful making ends meet could be after having ex’s steal from me and bosses not pay. 

And so many times, we face the opposite – we have to navigate digital systems often not tested for their user-friendliness and designed for a clean minimalist feel.  If we are “fortunate” enough to reach a human voice, it is likely someone underpaid, working in a crowded call center, who doesn’t have any support for how much pain they hear every single day.  They are rewarded for efficiency, meaning they are not free to listen and rather need to make the interaction as brief as possible. 

Of course, we’re going to procrastinate, get lost in our social media and leave things until completely unavoidable.  Of course, when we finally get started, we get overwhelmed with stress responses. 

It isn’t just you.  Adulting is hard.

But, there’s two things you can do to make it a little less hard and get that thing done. 

First, acknowledge how hard this is and that you can do hard things. Acknowledge how these physiological reactions aren’t very helpful right now, but at one point in time, they kept you safe enough to be here.  With time and support, you can teach your body new reactions, but right now, we kind of have to just push through.  Acknowledge that it may not go as it would if you were properly supported in the ways you deserve, but it will not always be like this either.  And finally, acknowledge that every moment has infinite potential.  Our wildest imagination cannot predict all the possibilities.  It may not go well, but you may be met with a miracle. 

Another very helpful thing is to have an accountability friend who can compassionately check in and see,  “did you get that hard thing done?” through a text or phone call.  Or have a kind loving presence (a friend, a pet, a teddy bear, or me – this is a service I offer my clients) sit with you, either in person, online or in your heart, while you do that hard thing.  These types of connections can help soften the hard wiring of those physiological stress reactions. 

If adulting is always hard, do know that support is available.  To learn about my work, please have a look at my “working with me” page. 

*To protect people’s privacy, when I tell stories of people other than me, I will always use the name Jane.  I also change the details of the stories such that I share the essence without giving away any identifying information of the real people involved.