Functional Freeze as Travel Companion

It’s an unfamiliar feeling of not caring what others think. To be walking on streets I don’t recognize, stuttering in a language I don’t speak, looking lost and probably not that intelligent…and not worry at all about what others think…about me!

I know! That’s pretty Self-centered to even think. A Self-consciousness seems always to be with me. As if I’m seeing my Self through a microscope. Am I doing it “right”? And to walk around not caring if I’m “doing it right” was a wonderful feeling of freedom!

I spent the month of April thinking about this trip...

Terrified, not able to get used to the thought that I would be traveling alone…without my friend (who was the reason for me going in the first place) and without my rock, my husband…who used to take care of everything!

So, during that whole month, I stayed stuck in what I have come to identify as “Functional Freeze”. Or…maybe, in the past, I have spent a much longer time in this state than I want to admit. I may have called it different names: Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI), grief, depression….I have used all these names to avoid the truth about what this state of my being really has been – “not knowing who I truly am”.

According to Tigist Taylor, LCPC, a licensed clinical professional counselor based in Chicago, Functional Freeze can last hours, days, or even weeks, depending on the situation. I feel as though I have lived in this condition for years.

Taylor says that people may feel as if they are “functioning” in everyday life. She also says, “However, they often report feeling numb, in a fog, feeling detached from their bodies or from their surroundings, and a sense of ‘watching’ themselves move through tasks."

Taylor also says,

“A freeze response can be triggered by a variety of factors, including high levels of work or school stress, issues with balancing family life, or intense conflict in relationships.”

These symptoms and living conditions sound like “the story of my life”. I lived through it all!

Taylor explains, “The response is often automatic and serves as a coping mechanism, usually to avoid distressing emotions, thoughts, and body sensations.”

Here is where Somatic Awareness is so important! To recover and come alive, we have to address our whole body-mind! To fully find our Self, we have to become willing to fully feeeeeeel our Self.

What does this have to do with travel?

One of the benefits of having practiced Somatic awareness is that, when we are faced with fear, uncertainty, Self-doubt, or just unfamiliar surroundings, we can stay aware in the body and recognize the sensations we are experiencing without having to go into panic. Thus, we have more options of how to respond.

“Where is the airline?”, “How do I get to the hotel?”, “What bus do I take?”, “What can I eat?” I know how simple this sounds, and for an experienced traveler, it can sound quite ridiculous.

But for me…it was real raw fear! And here is where I had to “walk my talk”.

I have told my clients for years to Stop. Drop. Check…and Choose their responses. I have told them that, when in fear (if there is no physical danger), process…it’s a sensation! That’s all!

Well, Eva, how about you?

Trust me when I say I had been feeeeling my Self during this trip! I had wonderful opportunities to process my body sensations when I had to face my fears. Often it was the fear of the unknown. I just didn’t know what to do! And in moments like that (in the past), I would just let my husband figure it out.

However, during my trip, the brain took a loop and said, “Where IS he! I cannot do this alone.”

“Eva, it’s been four years! He’s dead. For god’s sake, get over your Self!”

I feeeeeel a wave of chill and panic run through my body – in the middle of Rome.

I Stop. Drop. Check. and process the sensations… and Choose my response.

I know! I have to find the hotel.

Within a few minutes, I’m out of the anxiety loop and back to the present moment.

“Eva, you’re in Rome…Ask somebody!”

People have been so wonderful and helpful. The chilling wave of panic has become less and less the more I face it and…process it...and come back to the present moment to make a decision.

Now, I can feel uncertainty, even Self-doubt, but it doesn’t force me into panic and paralysis.

This is the beauty of Somatic awareness! This is a new adventure for me with much I don’t know how to do. I have been able to feel fear without shutting down and panic, or just collapsing into “analysis-paralysis” and getting nowhere.

This trip has been a test of “walking my talk”.

It’s easy for me to tell others how to use Somatics, but how do I use it? Would it work when I feel frozen? Having been challenged with uncertainty and doubt throughout this trip, I was using body-awareness tools that gave me a sense of being more alive and more present. As a result, I felt a sense of coming out of Functional Freeze.

To learn more about Functional Freeze, I also read what Supatra Tovar, PsyD, RD, a nutritional psychologist in Pasadena, says,

“It’s not a complete shutdown, but rather a kind of survival mode where a person operates on autopilot. They’re doing just enough to function, but emotionally, mentally, or physically, they feel stuck.”

The last four years, after my husband passed, have included emotions of “heavy”, “tense”, “hard to breathe”, and many thoughts such as "no reason to live”, “no energy for writing”, “no interest in any hobbies”, “indifferent to the world”, even sometimes “indifferent to people”. However, I still took showers, worked out, swam, visited with people, gave Somatic sessions, ate well, and made sure I got my sleep.

And, the only time I felt alive was in a Somatic session with a client. Then…I was less Self-absorbed, and instead, I was thinking about someone else, and that would…get me out of Freeze…for a moment. Then I would turn off the Zoom and be right back to “What’s the meaning of it all?”

Funny, how shifting our attention to how others feel, live, and function can shift how we feel… about the world, our lives, and our Self.

I have been validated, heard, supported, given all room to grow, and still…in a bizarre way…I have stayed stuck! Stuck in a feeling of indifference, flat, with a sense of hopelessness.

Was I aware that thinking of others was getting me out of “stuckness”?

I don’t know. When we’re in it, we’re in that perspective, and our perception follows what makes sense at the time. And, at the time, my life – except when I was in a Somatic session with a client – felt absolutely unimportant and useless.

Outside my Somatic sessions, life felt as if it were too scary to move on, to let go of the familiar…my husband, my rock, my reason for living. As if the old familiar felt sad, hopeless, and hard, but still much more comfortable and safe than daring to face who I truly was – alone, without my old identity of wife and mother.

Being Self-absorbed is a dangerous trap when we are grieving. We can live there for years!! I did!

There is definite comfort in being validated for surviving our past. However, then we have to become willing to work on living our own life.

So, again, what’s the point? What does all of this have to do with travel?

I was invited to go on a trip with a friend of mine. I booked all the flights according to her itinerary, non-refundable. Now, because of the war with Iran, her flights from Australia through Dubai were cancelled. I still had to go; remember…non-refundable. No way out!

And it wasn’t until I was going through Security at San Francisco Airport that I realized I was going to need to use Somatic processing to get through this – alone!

But, first, I had to be put in a situation where I had no way out. I could have stayed home and lost the money, but then I would have had to live with my Self knowing I had allowed fear to stop me from going.

Excuses based on fear keep us stuck! As Carl Jung said, “I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”

What are you choosing to become? Are you okay where you’re at?

I have had very little experience with listening to my own intuition. My life purpose before was “pleasing”, “taking care of”, “adjusting” to what others wanted, and ignoring my gut feelings.

This time was different. On this trip, I had no choice but to move according to my internal compass, to follow what felt right at the time.

The result was somewhat scary and exciting. I flew to Rome, took subways and busses in Rome, flew to Sardinia, found hotels, rented a car, drove in the mountains of Sardinia, met centennials, made friends with the locals, and left Sardinia on a ferry to Bonifacio, Corsica. I flew to Nice, took a train to Monaco and got to see Monte Carlo. I flew from Nice to visit my daughter in Sweden.

And now, here I am, back at home, in a place I know. Safe enough to relax and look back at my weeks of travel. It feels like a dream. I am so thankful to my friend for inviting me on this trip!

And…actually thankful for having been forced to do it alone!

Because…I would never have planned a trip like this for me…alone. I would never even have had the thought to do something this “crazy and scary” all by my Self.

So…what’s the point?! The point is a question.

How do we know if we have reached our “limit of expression”, if “this is it”, if we’re “settling” because we’re afraid to question our lives? How many of us are living “a life of quiet desperation” as Henry David Thoreau talked about in his book Walden?

I guess this trip was my wake-up call. I needed to be put in a situation where I was challenged to expand my expression of who I can become – by overcoming my fears.

Who have I become now when I have no one to lean on, no one to take care of me? Can I live on my own? This trip has given me that answer, “Yes, I can!”

Don’t get me wrong. I do miss my husband, my rock, my companion! However! It’s time to live my life! Becoming willing to give up my old identity, my old life, my old Self has been scary, intense, and confusing. Some days it has felt easier to marinate in old memories.

Having faced the challenges of traveling has helped me realize that there is more to me than I had thought – that I am capable – in and of my Self.

What has become obvious to me are the benefits of learning how to be alone, truly alone, without anyone who knows me, no familiar faces, having to make decisions based on my Self, trusting that I’ll be okay even if I make a wrong decision.

After having to meet my fears head on, I have noticed something new emerging – an unfamiliar feeling of “okayness” in my body. The feelings of discomfort and fear are slowly (but surely) subsiding.

The Somatic experiences of feeling alive and okay are unfamiliar and even a little scary, but so exciting! Instead of the familiar Self-doubt and uncertainty, I am experiencing a growing feeling of “contentment”, an unfamiliar body-feeling of “Whatever. I’ll figure it out. I’ll be okay.”

This trip has truly given me evidence that Somatic awareness is a useful way of letting go of the past to become more able to be in the present moment.

For me, it is absolutely true that the more I feeeeel into my body and pay attention in the present moment, and process any discomfort in the moment, the more I am Free!...to just be…me…Eva.

I didn’t know, I didn’t think, I would never have thought, that there was more for me to experience until I was put in a situation that was “outside the box” of my perception based on the perspective that I had been conditioned to think about my Self.

I knew there was a world “out there”. I have had clients from all walks of life and know how exciting life can be…however, I didn’t see it being for me.

How about you? What can you do to challenge your Self to find more of You? Are you “fine” with your life? Do you live in “silent desperation”? Do you wonder if there is something more for you to experience? 

If you feel you would like some help finding your Self…contact me. I would love to support you on your journey.  Contact me on my website at www.evaangvert.com or email me at [email protected]