Find your inner compass and way back out of functional freeze

Functional freeze is a clever survival strategy that keeps us from finding our sense of true self and living our fullest, most meaningful life

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I spoke recently about our coping strategies when we might have experienced trauma when we were young and that the very coping strategies we acquire later in our teens, early 20s, perhaps 30s, may not necessarily help us and may bring on further symptoms and challenges that we have to deal with on top of the original traumas.

I found for myself I knew something was wrong with me back in my teens and 20s, I knew I was stressed inordinately, that I didn’t trust the world, I couldn’t trust anybody else, I didn’t know myself. I knew I had disfunction in terms of my stress levels, depression levels, anxiety levels; I knew in spite of showing up - I had jobs, I had to run a home, I had a car to run, I showed up in life, I played the kind of dutiful citizen bit. But I knew something was wrong, I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t contented within, something was distinctly off.

And I realised now, most of my energy went on trying to pretend that I was okay, when I actually wasn’t. Most of my energy went on telling people I was okay, “I’m fine” and all my energy went on showing up being the best person I could be in my life at that time.

And now I know differently, now I understand that I had abandoned myself in so many ways, that I was disconnected.

And now I understand that I was in functional freeze, showing up in life pretending I was okay, when I really wasn’t and I understand now, I had high levels of anxiety and I suffered depression and I tried to pretend that these were all okay, that I was still fine, that I was showing up, that I had a job and that everything was okay, when really deep down it wasn’t.

There was a real mismatch between what I tried to tell my brain or what my brain tried to tell me and how I felt within, how my heart felt, how my body felt. Conversely I felt nothing in my body because I was so disconnected from my body and pretended otherwise.

So now I understand.  I sourced the help I’ve needed over the last 20 years, I’ve got the help I needed, the support. I’ve employed various strategies that have been very healing for me now and wholesome and helpful, rather than the strategies I used back then which created more problems for me and generated more problems in fact.

I invite you to consider what you might need. Back then I didn’t have a clue what I needed. I was so disconnected from myself, I really couldn’t have even asked for what I needed because I didn’t have a clue…

So my invitation is to reach out, if you are looking for a guide, for support, some understanding and someone to share with what you’re going through and to support you to coming back home to yourself, creating that congruence between your mind your body, your spirit, finding your way back home, so that you can start to inhabit yourself, get to know yourself, find the anchor within that is you, and there all along waiting for you to come home to yourself. 

Sometimes we need help with that, finding our inner compass and finding a way back so that we can make sense of what’s happened to us, make sense of who we are, make sense of this world, and feel a whole lot better.

So that’s my invitation -  if this resonates with you at all, check out the details of the therapies that I do offer and furthermore if that resonates, I’m happy to have a chat with you and to see how I can support you.