The Demand Solutions Blog

Break Through The Freeze To Get Your Voice Heard...Anywhere

by Rebecca Folsom | Sep 18, 2018 12:00:00 AM

Businesswoman standing on stage and reporting for audienceHave you ever tried to give a presentation or speak up in a meeting and felt your body freeze up and your mind start to  spin towards  panic? Many of our clients say this freeze response is a huge hindrance to sharing their ideas at the office. This is especially true for professional women, who tend to feel that their work needs to be polished and perfect before it can be shared and often experience the freeze response when trying to share something they feel less than 100 percent confident about. 

Logically, it’s easy to see that making connections and finding solutions happens the most when everyone’s ideas are on the table. We also tend to grow much more, both personally and professionally, when we are actively involved in sharing ideas and openly connecting with others to solve problems. However, our biological responses to fear can seriously impede the flow of ideas and prevent clear and honest communication. 

One of the major goals of our programs is to help you learn how to recognize and overcome your fear responses. Let’s take a more detailed look at the freeze, one of the most common fear responses in a professional setting. 

The biology of the freeze 

Your autonomic nervous system, which controls everything your body does without your conscious input, is divided into two systems, the sympathetic system and the parasympathetic system. These often work in opposition. When your parasympathetic system is active, your body is in a relaxed state. Your heart rate is low, your digestive system is active, and your brain is free to spend energy on making and strengthening connections between neurons, allowing you to learn, think creatively, and control where your attention is focused. Your sympathetic system takes over when your body needs to act. This often happens when your brain perceives danger. When this happens, your heart beats faster, your digestive system shuts down, your muscles tense up, and your brain spends all its energy focusing on the threat, resulting in  a physiological fear response that prevents you from thinking clearly and performing your best. 

The sympathetic nervous system is often referred to as the “fight or flight” system. However, when this system activates in a situation where you cannot fight or flee—as is usually the case when you’re at work—your body often freezes instead. If you feel you are getting passed over or your ideas are not being fully heard, your freeze response may be impacting the communication. The freeze response is highly instinctive; deer freeze in bright headlights because they do not know how to respond, and rabbits freeze when predators are around in hopes that their hunters will not notice them. When your body freezes during a stressful presentation, your brain is acting on millions of years of evolutionary priming, driven by a powerful internal system that impacts the activity of your brain and many other organs. 

Shifting the freeze 

How do we  master  this powerful, primal fear response? The first step is to recognize when the response is happening. This puts you in a position where you can make conscious choices instead of letting the fear response control your actions. The second step is to use a Body Intelligence tool called  Fear Melters®, which was originally developed by  Kathlyn  Hendricks, a mentor and colleague of mine. Fear Melters are ways to move your body to counteract the effects of the common fear responses. You can learn and practice these techniques on your own so that you will know how to use them the next time you experience the fear response. Here’s how to learn  one of  the Fear Melters for the freeze response, which we call the Wiggle.  

In a private spot, take a moment and recall the last time you experienced the freeze response. Try to recreate the response and feel what happens in your body when you freeze up. You may feel your muscles tightening, your breathing becoming shallow, your eyes dilating, and your whole body becoming stiff and motionless. 

Usually when this happens, often for social reasons we try to ignore it, which just causes the response to stay held in your body and compound over time. Now, instead of holding in this response, release it by moving your whole body. Shake out and swing your arms and legs; rotate your wrists, shoulders, ankles, and neck; wiggle your toes and fingers; twist and turn your torso. Take deep breaths and let your body do what feels right. Loosening your muscles like this and breathing deeply helps your body shift back to the parasympathetic system.   After a little while, stop and notice how your body feels. Do you feel more relaxed, loose, and connected with your body? If you don’t, try again, and don’t hold anything back!  

Of course, in a meeting, you can’t just start shaking your body around. However, if you practice embodying the fear response and then releasing it through a full-body Wiggle, noticing what happens in your body each time, you will find you are able to activate the effects of the Wiggle much more subtly just by breathing deeply and wiggling your fingers and toes, swaying your knees and hips, and/or taking a few steps when you feel the fear response beginning.  I do Fear Melters  before every presentation and performance  to activate my most relaxed and enlivened self. I recently was preparing to walk onstage to perform in front of 3000 people, and in that heightened "Here we go!" moment, I was in the wings doing Fear Melters. As I walked out to their cheers, my body relaxed and open, I received their attention, made a connection and gave a great performance. Body intelligence shifts are real-life tools to help you step into leadership and bring your best self forward.  Fear Melters like Freeze/Wiggle  help your body and mind relax and return to a state where you can focus on giving your best performance and communicating your ideas to your team,  your audience, your peers.  Try this exercise out and let us know how it works for you!  

Body Intelligence is about  understanding how your body functions and helping your body and mind align. Using BI to make conscious body-oriented choices dramatically affects your life. Our seminars will teach you and your team this and many other ways to understand and  master  the physical responses that can either hinder or greatly support your productivity, performance, and career satisfaction. 

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