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WHEN WE FREEZE: A Healing-Centered Reflection on Grief and Flow

Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve. - Dr. Earl A. Grollman

There are moments when grief arrives not as tears but as stillness. A numbing. A fog. A sense that time has collapsed and breath is caught somewhere between the ribs.


For many of us—leaders, caregivers, changemakers—the instinct in these moments is often to keep going. To be useful. To be strong.


But what if strength also lives in pausing? In naming the freeze for what it is: a sacred signal of the body, asking for stillness to survive?


In the language of trauma science, this pause is not failure. It is biology.


The Freeze Response: A Biological Wisdom

In neuroscience and trauma-informed work, the freeze response is part of our autonomic nervous system's survival architecture—alongside fight, flight, and fawn. It’s governed by the dorsal vagal branch of the vagus nerve (Polyvagal Theory, Dr. Stephen Porges), which activates when we feel overwhelmed, unsafe, or powerless.


Unlike flight or fight, which prepare us to act, freeze pulls us inward. Our heart rate slows. Our body feels heavy or detached. Thoughts might feel cloudy or far away.


This isn’t dysfunction. It’s protection. It’s the body saying: This is too much, too fast.

Let’s pause.


But when grief is chronic or unacknowledged—especially in systems that reward productivity over presence—freeze can become stuckness. We may find ourselves unable to move forward or feel numb in spaces that once felt vibrant.


What Grief Does to the Brain

Research in affective neuroscience reveals that grief reshapes neural pathways. The regions involved in emotional regulation, memory, and attachment are deeply impacted.


Our brain, once wired for connection to a loved one, a role, or a vision, suddenly faces a rupture. Grief is the mind trying to make sense of a world that no longer holds the shape it once did.


For those with unresolved trauma histories or insecure attachment patterns, this rupture can feel even more destabilizing—re-activating old wounds of abandonment, loss, or neglect


The Role of Attachment and Relational Grief

Attachment theory teaches us that grief is relational. As children, our nervous systems develop through connection—through being seen, soothed, and safe in the presence of another.


When grief strikes, it often reawakens earlier attachment wounds—especially if we’ve internalized the belief that emotions make us a burden, or that we must grieve alone.


In collective cultures and indigenous knowledge systems, grief is often communal—held in ritual, shared songs, and collective mourning. But in many Western and hyper-individualist societies, grief is privatized. We’re told to "move on,” often before the body has had a chance to catch up.


From Freeze to Flow: What Healing-Centered Approaches Teach Us


Healing-centered frameworks (like those from Shawn Ginwright  Dr. Angel Acosta  Collective Change Laband the HOPE - Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences framework) remind us that healing is not just about what happened to us, but what’s possible through us.


Rather than pathologize freeze, we ask:

  • What does my body need to feel safe again?

  • What support does my nervous system long for?

  • Who or what can co-regulate with me into movement?


Healing doesn’t rush. It re-centers.


And sometimes, the first movement from freeze is not action—it’s acknowledgment.


Practices to Support the Transition

Here are gentle invitations for re-entering flow when grief holds you in freeze:


1. Name the Freeze

Use compassionate language:

“My body is protecting me right now. I am not broken.”

This reduces shame and offers the prefrontal cortex a chance to re-engage.


2. Co-Regulate with a Safe Other

Whether through a trusted friend, pet, or therapist, relational presence helps regulate the nervous system. Connection is often the bridge out of freeze.


3. Orient to the Present

Look around. Name five things you see. Feel your feet on the ground. This helps shift the system from dorsal vagal shutdown to ventral vagal safety.


4. Use Rhythmic Movement

Rocking, walking, gentle tapping—these invite somatic flow. Rhythm signals safety.


5. Practice Grief Mapping (e.g., “From Grief to Flow” Tool that you can download below)

Explore the layers of your grief (personal, interpersonal, systemic). Give it shape and voice, then gently explore:

What might be reimagined?

What’s within my reach?




Three overlapping circles ask "What hurts here?", "What's within my reach?", "What might be reimagined?". Labels: Personal, Interpersonal, Systemic.


PAGMUMUNI-MUNI (Reflections)

Grief asks us to slow down in a world that often demands speed. It asks us to feel, when numbness may seem safer. And it asks us to imagine new ways of being—even when our capacity feels like a flicker.


Freezing is not failure. It’s a pause that protects. But healing invites us to eventually move—not with force, but with tenderness.

Let this be your reminder:

You don’t have to leap. You only have to soften. To feel what’s here. And to trust that movement will come, one breath at a time.


DOWNLOAD THE FULL FROM GRIEF TO FLOW TOOL HERE




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