Fight, Flight and Freeze Response and Tapping

I've had questions asking to explain what the freeze response is, so I will answer that question here:

Freeze response is a direct reaction to abuse or trauma, if we don't activate fight or flight. We have no real control over which mechanism the subconscious mind (SC) chooses. These responses occur in fractions of seconds.  Which of the 3 the SC chooses is predicated on what other abuse, including our parental attachment, or lack of, or the trauma we have already endured years ago.  When life threatening danger comes our way, we do one of 3 things - we fight, we run, or we freeze  (neither running or punching to get us out of the dangerous situation). It is actually healthier to fight or to run, as we release/blow off/negate the built-up "energy" (hormones & neurochemicals) in our nervous system. Animals (and humans) shake after experiencing a life-threatening event. The shaking expends the reaction in that moment, blowing off those unwanted chemicals, so the horrific experience isn't trapped (freeze response) in the body to cause us to relive the trauma over and over again for decades. Never STOP a shaking person. Let them shake!

Freeze is the part of our inborn safety mechanism where the emotional pain gets stuck in our nervous system where it rattles around, remaining active, triggering us whenever some sensory input reminds of us of the original abuse or trauma. When wild animals freeze, think "playing possum", they can sometimes avoid being killed because the predator looses interest in "dead" prey. We humans do our own version of the freeze mechanism for the exact same reason. We hope the human predator forgets we are present!

While in the Freeze response we are flooded with endorphins (natural anesthetic), as this article states, so that if we are wounded (or eaten for animals) the pain is numbed. That is why people with horrible wounds can jump up and run out of danger's way or save another human. The endorphins have numbed the excruciating pain in the moment. Later they collapse, screaming, when the endorphins wear off.

Eventually, the way God created our bodies, once the immediate, short-term danger is past, the body "recovers", resuming the sympathetic response (SNS) where we will feel hungry, breathing normalizes, heart rate slows, desire for sex returns, thinking processes come back on-line (this is the same response kids with "test anxiety" have & it's why they cannot "think" during a test). Short-term stress in humans is fine; it is long-term on-going hidden chronic stress in us that eventually causes diseases.

Slower parasympathetic (PNS) is where we want to live. We don't need on-going trauma memories, as that eventually is going to cause our physical bodies to get sick. We need to use tapping to process the abuse and traumas we have endured. It's all about HOW our hormones react, so we can stay physically (and emotionally) healthy.

Yes, the bottom line is your SC thinks you are still in the on-going trauma and abuse, if you haven't processed by tapping (or other somatic technique) the abuse or trauma you have endured. The SC has no sense of time. SC "lives" in the present tense. So, any of us with an abuse/trauma background who hasn't yet used a technique to "inform" the SC to let the negative stuff go, allowing forgiveness to replace the pain, is constantly still right now reliving that abuse in the present day as if it just now occurred. You may not feel consciously like you are , but your SC is holding the emotional pain for you in the background of your mind, and it continually runs that abuse "movie" over and over again 24/7/365.

Our behaviors and reactions occur because of and due to our emotional pain being held by the SC. Our SC mind hides our abuse memories from our conscious mind to keep us functioning day to day. But the trauma is still there. Eventually, we lose control and we don't function well!

We are still in CONSTANT freeze until we tap and process whatever has happened to us. Bottom line is the PNS will take care of itself, if we have tapped and calmed our responses to the negative things that has happened to us.

Chapter 2 of the original EFT for Christians explains this process in detail, as does the physiology chapter in the EFT for Christians, Tapping in Peace & Joy, chapters 2 & 3.

Tapping is one of the emotional tools to help regulate our emotional pain. Consider giving it a try.

Remember, EFT is not a substitute for medical help, so please consult your own personal physician when physical or emotional help is needed.

Sherrie Rice Smith

Certified EFT Practitioner

EFTforChristians.com

Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Notes and Thoughts on Victim Blaming and EFT

Dr. Stephen Porges has a socialization theory that ties in so well with why EFT works!

Here is one of his articles.

And here are my thoughts and notes based on this article. Please read the above article and then check out these notes.

Immobilization =freeze reaction = trauma. Dr. Peter Levine writes about this, too, because it is in the freeze response that the trauma gets "stuck" in our nervous system. When we "fight" or flee, we blow off that "energy", often ridding our system of much of it.

When we think we are going to die when attacked, we are flooded with endorphins (think natural morphine), so we are numbed for the possible attack. Endorphins have a relaxing effect in addition to their painkilling effect. The body's biochemical reaction here is really interesting.

In court, women who don't fight off their attackers can be made out to be complicit or "they were looking for it". It's not they didn't want to fight, they cannot fight due to the body's chemical reaction to the attack. Try punching hard when in a semi-sleep relaxed state!

We tap about our perceptions and reactions to the event(s). It's the perceptions, not necessarily the event, that is important and driving our biology. How do we feel about it today? The emotional answer to that question is what fuels our behavior today. Tapping works so very, very well for these memories! When we can pull the emotional content out of a past event, we can heal because the memory then just becomes a neutral, non-biological memory! And that is what tapping does!

We say this often - "trauma to one person is not trauma to another." What bothers one of us doesn't bother all of us. This often is fueled by our own personal history. Chemical biology builds up our experience implanting our perceptions about people, places and things around us. Our reactions to future events is all based on our past epigenetic chemical reactions. These are learned patterns. Not learned in the sense of our thinking brain, but learned by our subconscious mind - learned to keep us safe, a safety as the subconscious mind understands it. The subconscious mind keeps us safe based on past experiences - the subconscious mind isn't interested in whether these "safety" patterns are helpful to you personally in life. Many of our personal habits are safe from a neurochemical perspective, but they still run our life in a disorganized and erratic manner, leaving us feeling stuck and unfulfilled.

A practitioner's job while tapping is to hold that sacred space for the client as they work through the past trauma events. Certified Christian practitioners have been taught skills to keep the client SAFE while doing this work. Unless trained, don't tap big T traumas alone!

ACE score is indeed incomplete. I've said this from the very beginning! Death, medical procedures, natural disasters, accidents, fires, witnessing trauma being inflicted on others, bullying, etc. aren't part of the scoring system. These all can be big T traumas, too.

As practitioners (and even just a friend) we need to listen in an impartial manner without judgment. It's not our life or our trauma when others are telling you their story. Just because we might think that the story is no big deal, it obviously is to the one who experienced it. It's still trauma!

But YOU as the listener can be a huge help in the healing process. The positive social engagement is a big part of this. Connecting with another human being who doesn't judge and tell us "to get over" whatever has happened to us can make all the difference.

Smiling and positive non-judgmental understanding can also deliver oxytocin, a healing/connecting/love hormone, to the one who has experienced trauma.

Remember, EFT is NOT a substitute for medical advice or help, so please contact your own personal physician if medical assistance is needed.

Sherrie Rice Smith

Certified EFT Practitioner

EFTforChristians.com

Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series