In my profession, I work with the Autonomic Nervous System. The ANS is the part of your nervous system that functions automatically...it controls the functions of the body that you don't have to think about. No one has to think about beating the heart, digesting food, sending the correct hormones throughout the body, etc. The body, in it's incredible wisdom, knows what it needs to do without any help from the ego mind. It just does it. The body is a rather brilliant entity.
The ANS has two distinct personalities. One is called the Sympathetic Nervous System, and the other is the Parasympathetic Nervous System. The Sympathetic is what most people know as "fight or flight". When the SNS is engaged, your body prepares for conflict. Digestion stops, your heart beats quicker, your hair stands up, and all blood and energy moves to your limbs to either fight the attacker or to run from it. In a time of crisis, the SNS is your friend. It highjacks your head and gets you out of danger. You can think about the situation later, because the SNS kept you alive.
The Parasympathetic is the polar opposite. The PNS is what helps you sleep, rest, digest, repair, and enjoy life. Blood and energy get moved back into your core, your heart rate slows, and Human Growth Hormone floats through your blood stream repairing anything that has been damaged. This is the place of safety, with one exception: the PNS can also be in charge of the "Freeze" response, that place where the body needs to "play possum" to survive.
Freeze happens in extreme situations. This is the place of trauma. Say, for example, you're being threatened...let's take for example a car accident. You're driving along, and out of the blue someone seriously hits you. Your senses are heightened, you're tense, your pulse is pounding, but you're stuck. You can't run because you're trapped in the car, and you can't fight because you're encased in steel. You're helpless...and helplessness is the trigger for your next option: the Freeze response. Your thinking gets cloudy, you're in shock, and you pass out.
Freeze is the Parasympathetic's way of saving you. Think of the possum. A dog attacks it, and it can't run or fight back, so it plays dead. In this state, the hope is that the dog will just pass it by and the possum will wake up a bit later, shake the adventure off, and continue on it's merry way. However, if the dog begins to eat it, the possum is already one foot out the door toward a quick death...it just leaves the body, no looking back. Freeze is a planned override of the circuits...you either wake up safe, or you never see the final blow coming.
Problems happen when you wake up and you're still helpless. You can look at a child who is chronically emotionally, mentally, physically or sexually abused. They can't fight off their attacker; they can only "check out" and submit to the abuse over and over again. Or the employee who has an abusive boss that they have to submit to because they desperately need the money and jobs are hard to find. Any time one feels the perception of helplessness on a regular basis, you have the presence of the Freeze response.
People stuck in Freeze are hovering between life and death. It's almost as if the PNS and the SNS are fused together, so all communication gets skewed. Their body is confused, because it doesn't feel safe enough to repair and rebuild. Why repair and rebuild if the body has one foot out the door? My personal opinion (and I have absolutely no data to back this up) is that most chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases come from a trauma that's been locked in the body for a long time. People learn to live with it....they're in constant fight or flight, or mentally checked out with fuzzy thinking and bad decision making. Something's always off, somehow.
We live in a traumatized society. There's too much stress, too many deadlines, constant bombardment of stimulation and advertisements telling us that we're worthless unless we buy a certain product. We watch news reels that show people dying and being killed. We watch dramas that simulate people dying and being killed. Our brains can't distinguish that what we see on TV isn't real, or that it isn't an immediate threat...it just sees death, drama and torture. Our politicians are out of touch and we're helpless. Our world feels like its on the brink of destruction and we can't stop it. We want out of the rat race, but how do we pay our bills? Our PNS and SNS get out of whack because we're surrounded. We freeze and tune it out...to desensitize is all we can do.
I work with a technology designed to rebalance the ANS by calming the body down, lowering the brainwaves to a delta/theta state, and reprogramming the ANS in the process. But we can see how people's minds will fight the process. The technology is relaxing, comfortable, non-invasive...and yet, many people will come out stressed, or complain how they hate the gentle music, or maybe have an emotional breakdown that they can't let go of. Being in trauma is not a healthy place to be, and people come to us to heal. But they fight it at the same time...can they trust enough to be safe? Can they be safe enough to allow the body to flow gently back into a healthy PNS response? Is it possible to release the need, the addiction, to be constantly vigilant, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and let go into the flow of life?
It's almost like people become angry at themselves for letting go, even for just a moment. We could have been attacked in that moment! How dare we let the sentry at the gate get a rest. This is a dangerous world, after all.
Safety has become a scary place for most of us. We no longer trust that we are loved and cared for. We see danger everywhere we go...we can't even hide from the judgment of others. What are we to do, then, to let our bodies and hearts truly heal?
I think this is where the power of spirit comes in. I think a spiritual belief in something bigger than us, some big thing that somehow loves us unconditionally regardless of our ugliness and stupidity, is the answer. It seems to help me, despite my traumas...when I'm totally overwhelmed, rejected, helpless, I have to remember that there is a force that thinks I'm beautiful, lovable, and worthy, and that somehow this force will make it all right in the long run. I have to surrender, trust and have faith. I think that's what the Biblical passage of, "Though I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil" means. I am, somehow, watched over, and all that happens to me has a divine meaning, and I am loved and respected for my courage to follow the path and to submit to the bigger picture. I will be protected, somehow. And you know, I kind of always have been.
But its a hard walk, this walk of surrender. My mind wants to stay forever on the lookout. There are demons out there! And I have done bad things in my life that I ought to be punished for. Surely my sins and ugliness will betray me somewhere.
And yet, Universe keeps telling me that we have it wrong, somehow. My ugly spots are part of my beauty, part of what shapes me. If I can just stay focused on the fact that I am dearly loved, that no matter what happens in the world I will be okay, if I can just stay in that place, things begin to flow. I don't know. It's hard to feel worthy of love. But I have to believe. It's my way of not being helpless.
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