First frost…

There was a frost last weekend. It was as if to say, ‘OK, Halloween is over- now comes Winter’. Although for me, specifically, it seemed to acknowledge something else. It spoke to a deep learning that was precipitated by a moment in which I froze in the headlights of needing to perform. I know, I know, this sounds quite cryptic, but bear with me.

As many of you might know, I am currently completing a Masters degree in Psychotherapy. As part of this degree, we are required to engage in practice triads (each person takes turns being the therapist, the client and the observer). Last weekend, we were given a scenario for role playing, and after a very long day of lectures, I volunteered to go first as therapist. My colleague started acting as client in a fabricated situation, and on invitation from the lecturer, my colleague gave me a hard time. Such a hard time that I froze. My heart was beating, everything felt tight and I could feel the sweat forming in my folded palms. I had no idea what to say or where to go. So I paused, apologized and simply said, ‘I don’t know what to say’.

This was my first frost. On my way home, I fretted and I fraughted over a fleeting thought of not good enough. What would my triad partners think? Who did I think I was training to be a psychotherapist? Maybe I was leaving my lane. My self-critic was in over drive and I was questioning everything.

Then I had a text from a friend- they didn’t try to fix it- they simply acknowledged how difficult it is to feel this way and reminded me of everything I had been through leading up to this year in college. They extended compassion towards me. More importantly, my friend’s kindness reminded me that there are things that I can do to help myself feel a bit more stabilised. I had simply lost my footing in the crossfire. Their compassion reminded me and helped me out of the space of making things worse through self-attack.

My first frost slowly started to thaw. Maybe things weren’t so bad. Maybe I can turn towards this important learning moment with kind eyes and a soft heart, just as my friend had shown me. This is what our mindfulness and compassion training is all about. Being present for whatever life is throwing at us with a tender sort of attention. I am smirking as I write these words, for just when I thought I knew what I was doing, once again, I was ‘schooled’ by life. 

Fight, flight, freeze and the more recently added fawn (or appeasing others to avoid conflict) are the survival mechanisms triggered by the brain’s fear response. They are absolutely necessary when being chased by a bear, however, they can become overactive and misguided, as I had just experienced in my triad. I wish that I could tell you that there was some magic trick to keep these mechanisms in place and behaving appropriately. However, both you and I will most likely have more than one frost over the coming months. Like me, this could be performance related, whether socially, in school or at work. Or, it could be sudden anger or snapping (fight), avoiding social situations or difficult conversations (flight), or feeling stuck, numb, or mentally paralyzed (freeze) when faced with stress, deadlines, or perceived threats.

While there is no magic trick to avoid triggering our fear response, there are ways of managing how we relate to it. This is where our mindfulness practice comes in. We need to be able to recognise when we start to feel the trigger. There are usually physiological signs of the fear response starting to mobilise: a racing heart, shortness of breath, sweating, or trembling. There are also psychological signs such as being on edge or irritable, experiencing a sense of dread, having difficulty concentrating, and avoiding situations that cause anxiety. Once we get to know our own signs, we can start to meet ourselves with kindness and care, like the compassion that my friend extended to me.

There are also a few ways that we can engage our soothing system as a means of taking us out of the fear response and to move us into what, Herbert Benson, a cardiologist who wrote the book, “The Relaxation Response”, calls rest and digest. Activities such as meditation, deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and yoga can help activate our parasympathetic nervous system. Also, there are some on the spot strategies that include humming, rocking, gentle massage and physical touch. You can read more about them here.

This week at the Sanctuary’s online Tuesday morning meditation session, I am going to deliver a nervous system reset. If this is something that you feel you might need, or would like to practice so that you can have it in your tool bag for when times get tough, why not join us?

-Jane

Click here to join me at the Sanctuary’s online community meditation this Tuesday at 10am.

Click below to listen to and do a nervous system reset through the technology of meditation and movement: