Fight, Flight, Freeze

Listen, Then Practice

Freeze Is a Normal Response to No Available Action

When danger appears, leaving may be the least risky response. If escape is not possible, fighting may mobilize. When neither can work, freeze can protect a person through an overwhelming moment.

Children are often unable to run from or fight the adults, teachers, or social systems around them. The frozen response is not weakness. Difficulty comes when the body never receives enough safety, movement, and support to recognize that the event ended.

Triggers Can Magnify the Present

A raised voice, facial expression, smell, location, or performance situation may activate a much older scene. The present stimulus then feels larger than it is because the Primitive Brain is receiving multiple danger signals at once.

Grounding helps establish the current room, body, age, resources, and choices. Specific-event tapping can then address the older association without making the present concern irrelevant.

Tapping: Thank the Freeze and Invite Movement