112 – Herbal Support for the Freeze State

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host, Nicole Rose from the

Solidarity Apothecary.

This is your place for all things plants and

liberation.

Let's get started.

Hello. Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.

I hope you've been enjoying this mini series all about different nervous system states and

herbs that have an affinity with them.

As I mentioned in the other episodes, please listen to the introduction where I introduce

some of the kind of disclaimers and nuances around this stuff about, you know, these

nervous system states aren't inherently good or bad or, you know, there's no kind of

binary.

Like you're not in one and not in the other one, if that makes sense.

Like, yeah, they're just like a way of us trying to kind of understand our evolutionary

history, if that makes sense, and how that kind of is expressed in our bodies and how we

can shift those states.

So, yeah, all right.

And you know, just side plug, like, I do dive

into these states in like, much, much, much more detail in the herbalism, PTSD and

traumatic stress course.

But today I'm going to be talking about the freeze response, which I like one of the most

challenging states,

and I will explain why.

I think it's also really,

again, really gendered.

And this one, I think is really interesting in

terms of like, where we are in history with information overwhelm and social media and all

of this interesting stuff.

But anyway, I will get into all of that.

So basically,

what freezes, it's like an interesting blend of a lot of energy in the body.

For example, this fight or flight activated energy where, you know, we've got this

adrenaline and we've got extra blood sugar and, you know, we've got this kind of desire

to flee, like to flight or a desire to fight,

but for some reason we're not able to.

And therefore we kind of freeze.

And it doesn't mean just like freeze on the

spot.

Like that's much more kind of like functional

than this.

But basically it's kind of like immobilization

in the face of danger.

So I, you know, like, I talked about the guy in the screen mask coming.

Sorry, this is like such a horrible, like ******* misogynist patriarchal movie

reference.

But like coming to get the girl first, she.

She flees.

Like she just runs ******* away as far as

possible.

But unfortunately for us, she runs into the basement and then she fights, right?

Like she's in fisticuffs with this guy trying to kill her.

The freeze response would be, for example,

if that hadn't happened.

And she's hiding in a kitchen cupboard waiting

to not be discovered like it is.

But she is full of fear and energy and

adrenaline, but is kind of like immobilized.

Does that make sense? Obviously this is a really extreme example,

but we see,

obviously it's a spectrum and we see like minor examples of this, like through, you

know, through daily life.

So, yeah, their free state is often described as like a blend of kind of fight or flight and

shutdown.

But yeah, but that kind of energy can't get.

Get released.

And that's why it can be kind of like very terrifying and confusing.

So yeah, when the freeze response gets stuck, it can show up as regular feelings of like,

panic.

And, you know, we'll really see a lot of panic

attacks, I find with this state.

And maybe someone doesn't even feel safe enough to have a panic attack and release

feelings.

It's more like feeling on edge of a panic

attack.

Regularly.

There's often like a sense of dread, a sense of terror isn't on, you know, is an unusual

confusion or just kind of like genuinely feeling trapped, even if you're not actually

physically trapped.

And yeah, in this kind of state, if you're in like a freeze response, like, the world would

generally feel very unsafe as, you know, all our kind of sympathetic fight or flight states

feel the world feels unsafe and threatening.

But I think what's interesting with the freeze response is like, things can also feel very,

very unpredictable.

And so like that can look like in the body, kind of like stiffness.

So I mentioned in the shutdown state, it's more of like a limpness.

But someone in a kind of like functional freeze, as I call it,

often has this kind of like rigidity in their body and like a muscle tension that just will

not shift.

And you know, I've mentioned panic attacks.

There might be kind of like phobias and like avoidance behaviors of,

for example, like really extreme social anxiety of, I can't go, I can't do that, I

can't do this.

Someone might go into a functional fees.

My best.

My poor mama.

I'm just referencing her in these podcasts,

but for example, the other day she for the first time offered to pick Lee up from nursery

and she couldn't fit him in the car seat because I don't know why he didn't fit,

but she couldn't adjust the straps and she just went into like a hardcore functional

freeze.

And I'm, you know, haven't been tattooed in

like two years and it was like a big treat to myself.

Like some Mum time on my own, getting tattooed and then I was trying to give her instructions

over the phone.

She just couldn't do it.

She was just shut down to those instructions because she was really in this like intense

like freeze state.

So yeah, like there is this kind of like terminology of like functional freeze where

it's not safe to release the kind of activation and the emotions because you have

to keep going.

So for example, when someone dies, but you have to organize the funeral or something kind

of like so challenging emotionally has happened but you can't feel those things

because if you did, that feels like a threat to you being able to function.

So for example, my ex had a very big relapse while I was like heavily pregnant and I

couldn't even.

Now I'm still processing what had happened.

But it wasn't safe to like open that box when I had an imminent newborn baby.

Does that make sense? And I have to like keep my **** together for

that baby.

So that's why I say like the freeze response

is like hyper, hyper hypogendered often because it's not always safe for people to

express their feelings.

Like not every child feels safe to cry or to scream and then, you know, that carries on

into adulthood of it's not safe to express feelings.

And so people can be really in a kind of like frozen like functional state for a really long

time but be experiencing the distress of that freeze response through like hardcore anxiety

and a constant feeling of dread because that activation is still there,

it hasn't shifted.

And you know, in order to get into this kind of like safe and social state, we need to be

able to like release that activation and move to kind of like a place of safety.

And yeah, like a lot of people will have heard of like the fawn state or kind of appeasement

it's also called.

And I really hate the language around it, which is why I don't always use it.

But it's where this kind of like quote unquote, people pleasing phrase I ******* hate

kicks in.

But basically to like avoid conflict so that

you can ensure safety.

So for example, if I'm a little kid and mum has an abusive boyfriend who is like

frightening and overwhelming, my goal as a child is to not trigger him, you know, to

tiptoe around him and his moods, to not say the wrong thing, to not express my needs

because of fear of safety.

And that's why I'm talking about it being really gendered in terms of, you know, male

violence.

Obviously all genders can be violent and

abusive but yeah, there's this kind of, like,

learned response of how do I manage other people's feelings and emotions to prevent them

from, like, escalating? And that is, like, very commonly connected to

this freeze response.

And a guy called Justin Sincere, I don't know if I've pronounced his name right, he's got a

podcast called Stuck, Not Broken.

And he's like a polyvagal practitioner.

I've read his books, I've done a few of his courses, and I really rate his work for

clarity and how he's organized things.

And,

um,

he talks about the fawn response as like, a really, really, really deep freeze response

where that kind of freeze has been there for so ******* long that it's kind of like,

metamorphosized into this kind of more fawning pattern.

And as soon as I heard that, like, I literally thought about it for weeks afterwards of,

like, oh, my ******* God, like, that.

I feel like if you grow up with, like, kind of

car in your childhood around,

like, unsafe people,

I like the world not feeling safe like you do, that becomes so normal.

And that safe and social state is so unfamiliar, but really, like, it's not safe to

express feelings.

And so you are in this freeze response, but it

just get.

Gets layered and layered and layered over

time.

And so,

yeah, it's almost become so buried that it's, like, invisible, if that makes sense.

So, yeah, I really interesting.

And I think the freeze response is definitely

the.

The nervous system response that takes the

longest time to shift because people,

like, have to develop, like, attunement to what it feels like.

And they have to feel safe enough to be in a more fight and flight state.

And they also need to become familiarized with a safe and social state.

And I think when you've defaulted to freeze so often,

it's very, very difficult to not go there again.

And there's often, like, a real, like, timeline delay in terms of being able to,

like, shift out of that pattern.

For example, with like, my recent situation of my partner unfortunately relapsing again and

having to move out and then actually us ending our relationship.

Because I. I personally don't think you can have a healthy relationship with someone in

kind of really intense, active addiction,

you know, because of the trust and the lies and all the things and the dysregulation.

But, like,

I thought at the time that I was, like, really coping and that I was, like, almost thriving.

Like, oh, look how sort of, you know, when I'm coping, I've done this and I've put All my.

On subscription and blah, blah.

And then it's taken me, like, a few months,

basically, to catch up and be like, wow, that was a show.

Like, I'm devastated of not having my partner anymore around and my baby not having his dad

there every single day.

And,

yeah, I wasn't.

I was so much in a functioning role, which, again, is super ******* gendered,

that.

That ability to express those feelings is very difficult for a lot of people, especially if

they can't afford things like counseling and stuff like that.

So, yeah.

So, anyway, so freeze, like, trips us up is

what I'm trying to say.

It's a very interesting state, and I would

love to hear other people's experiences of freeze.

So the plant medicine that I wrote in soothing survival that's often indicated for this state

is Rose.

And the reason I included Rose is because,

like,

it basically helps you open those doors.

Like, turns on the tap so that you can drip,

you know, so you can cry.

Like, sometimes it's like ******* floodgates.

But I feel like there's something energetically with Rose that makes you feel

safe to feel your feelings,

especially if they're feelings like sadness and grief and pain or like core wounds of

feeling, like, unlovable or undeserving of love or support or whatever.

And I feel like there's something really compassionate about Rose that helps us, like,

soften.

And I think with the freeze response,

it's not always, like, this dramatic release of fight or flight energy.

It's actually like a softening into safe and social.

And I feel like Rose does that really well,

just kind of, like,

therapeutically.

Rose is very cooling.

It's a relaxant, so it will help relax our kind of central nervous system and our

sympathetic nervous system.

When it's, like, highly activated, it will

help release that, you know, it's like an amazing, gentle relaxant across, like, all the

blood vessels.

And it's also very, like, soothing to kind of inflamed tissues.

But, yeah, that's why I always go on about how amazing, like, Rose petal glycerite is.

And that's why I include that herb specifically in the Prisoner Family blend or

like, the Prisoner Family care package is because it can help you access those feelings

of grief and pain that are often not possible to feel because you're in this functional

state of supporting someone and organizing visits and doing all the things and trying to

stay strong.

But, yeah, okay, that was a bit more emotional than I was expecting.

But that is, yeah, the kind of last one in the series.

I don't have one about safe and social,

but I think it's important to say a bit more about it.

And that is, you know, as a state that can help us feel safety and connection and joy

and, you know, it's not just parasympathetic in terms of rest and digest.

It's like often a little bit of sympathetic as well, you know, for example,

being sexually intimate or playing with someone or sport or whatever.

But yeah, when a nervous system is under a lot of stress or feelings of danger,

we are, you know, we have a goal of trying to move into a safer social state, which means we

can connect with other humans and be compassionate and,

you know, not feel like everything is threatening and we can,

you know, tend to a crying child.

We can be loving towards an animal.

We can,

you know, treat our loved ones well.

We can feel alive and feel connected to the

land and feel awe and inspiration and,

you know, like, it's such a beautiful ******* experience to be able to access that state.

Once you're aware of all these other states and what's going on for you to.

Then once you get these glimmers of what this safe and social feels like, you know, it

becomes much easier to kind of design a life where you can access that more.

Like, I know now I could pick up like other modalities or whatever, yoga or whatever.

But like, I know that going outside and foraging herbs or making medicine in my herb

shed, like, will almost instantaneously put me into a safe and social state where I feel like

Nicole again.

And that is what I think herbalism does.

And I find it much easier to sort of quote,

unquote, regulate by doing like herbal medicine things than I do.

For example, being around a friend or another human who I feel is threatening, if that makes

sense.

So anyway, if you're interested in all of this stuff and you feel any resonance with what

I've been saying.

The herbalism PTSD and traumatic stress course closes on Monday 13th October.

So, yeah, please join it if you're interested.

It's going to be available at the end of

March.

That's my plan, spring and autumn solstices.

But yeah, it's a really amazing opportunity to dive into this stuff in much more depth.

And I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I do think it can be life changing when you know

this stuff and when you embody it and when you practice it.

And yeah, I think.

Well, I don't think.

I know.

There's like shitloads of testimonials on the

page.

For people who've also had these experiences

of,

you know, really working through,

like, trauma and chronic stress and all sorts of stuff by accessing and connecting with

plant medicines.

So, yeah, please check it out if you're interested.

Okay.

Thanks for listening.

Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline

Herbalism Podcast.

You can find the transcript, the links, all

the resources from the show@solidarityapothecary.org podcast.