The apex of the fear reaction is Catatonia. Having exhausted other options, all animals tend to hold still and wait for the danger to pass. This instinct often allows individuals to evade predators in the wild, or at least delay an attack until a viable escape plan can be formulated. Further, the dissociative component of the frozen state can reduce the effects of traumatic physical injury. There is a time and place to hide and wait for the danger to go away on its own. If it doesn't, we are now out of options.

Like fight and flight, freezing is an absorption state that is not easy to shut off. Once the danger has passed, there is no "All Clear" signal that tells us to come out of our shells. This leads to what is known as
PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Trauma exists in every walk of life, even down to animals that do not think as much as us. Abused dogs will cower at the lifting of a hand or stomp of the foot. The precursors that are associated with danger become unconscious triggers for the freeze response, and the individual loses choice in how they react.

Freezing is the most dangerous of the three fear states. It leads us to close ourselves off from the world. Our muscles stiffen, leaving us less able to act when action is necessary. Freezing is not a choice, but a habit of our old minds that has entered a tuck and roll mode. We no longer see elegant solutions to our problems, and we are bracing for the impact of a negative situation. Freezing is a giving up on the grandest scale, which makes this state the fast lane to the worst-case-scenario.

There is a time when holding still is the right choice. The problem comes when the behavior is driven by unconscious processes, rather than deliberate willed action from the brain's frontal lobe. Interestingly, studies have shown that this is the first area of the brain to stop functioning properly when we are afraid.

When we switch to instinct mode, we lose choice in how we react. Yes, the instincts have appropriate contexts. Otherwise they would not have been passed down to us through genetic memory. Fitness of form and function is what selects these things. Nevertheless, when we allow our actions to become dominated by our unconscious processes, we are no longer in control of ourselves. This becomes a real problem when the response is contextually "maladaptive", and will get us killed. The key to preventing fear from causing such an unconscious set of behavior patterns from taking place is the learn how to relax while under stress and therefore kick in our parasympathetic systems.

There is a sane aspect of the freeze response that can help us to regain our center. When we stop completely, we open the door for a new direction of motion. If we awaken in our static state and assess our situation, we can recognize the truth of our predicament, and discover the solutions that we want to implement. By stopping, calming down and clearing our heads, we regain access to our inner wisdom. Stopping is the ending of what has been, and the potential for the beginning of something new.

The previous is an excerpt from Brian Germain's Book: Transcending Fear, The Doorway to Freedom
Click here to Order Now