Some wonderful embodied insights from my first trauma touch therapy session today:
The freeze behavior itself is a movement. It is not not moving. In this state, I externally/consciously feel relaxed and am very still. This is probably why recently my dental hygienist kept checking on me to make sure I was okay. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights, even though I was just thinking “I’m relaxed; I’ll move if I want to move.”
But the natural state is to move. To be truly relaxed is not to be entirely still. If I want to move beyond the frozen state, I don’t need to force any movement. I had assumed that to counteract this behavior, I would need to move. On the contrary, I just need to let the freeze behavior do its thing (which is actually to move!). It just needs more space.
The freeze behavior itself is a movement, albeit constrained to a very small space. During the session, when I validated it and followed it while it did its thing, it began to flow more. It is a lot of locked-up energy (constrained movement).
Today, in this state, I went from feeling shrink-wrapped to feeling like I was inside a tiny coffin. Progress!
It’s a good thing too; I have another dentist appointment tomorrow!